Song Sung Blue

My first Hot Doc of the festival was a real barn burner. Song Sung Blue tells the story of a Milwaukee couple who call themselves Thunder and Lightning. They eke out a modest living as a Neil Diamond cover group.

The incredibly likable filmmaker -- who makes a living as a commercial director -- spent eight years documenting the story. And what a story it is!

There's laughter, tears, applause, car crashes, teen pregnancies, amputations and even Eddie Vedder!

It's the story of never giving up on your dream -- no matter how crazy or unrealistic it might seem to everyone else. Even though the screening started at 9 -- which is dangerously close to my Friday night crash and burn time -- it was absolutely riveting.

Part of the joy, of course, is the love that Thunder and Lightning have for the music of Neil Diamond.

Neil Diamond is right up there with ABBA and Barry Manilow for "Music they play in Heaven." Really. It's impossible to be unhappy while listening to tunes from any of these artists.

Back when I started out in agency life, I shared an office with another writer. My lapsed Catholic guilt and his Jewish neuroses made us fast friends. We're still friends.

Whenever one of us did something that could be vaguely construed as disappointing, he would re-enact the scene from Neil Diamond's The Jazz Singer, where Dad, Laurence Olivier, discovers that Yusell (played by Neil) refuses to take over the family Cantoring business.

Bucky would reach for his lapel, pretend to rip, and say in his best melodramatic, Yiddish-inflected voice: "I...don't...have a son!"

Good times.