the groundhog day project

"Love on the Rocks" is an interesting case. Jess sings it like its his love that's on the rocks, like his life is so bad. But, he's the one putting his relationships in danger. He leaves his wife behind to go play with the Four Brothers (he does invite her to come along but it feels like something he always does knowing that she will never go, like they are already on the verge of some separation). He leaves his wife to go to California. And, later, he leaves his new wife to wander the country and grow a beard. Which is too bad, because "Love on the Rocks" is probably the only really good song he's got in The Jazz Singer . Not that I haven't known all these songs since I was a kid and we might watch the movie or listen the soundtrack regularly. Hell, I even knew well enough to sing along the lyrics to "Kol Nidre" (the thing Jess sings when he returns to the synagogue). I also knew "Hava Nagila" but we performed that in music cl...

I imagine a different version of The Jazz Singer : Jess is younger (even though, apparently, Al Jolson was actually older in the original than Neil Diamond is here); if he must have the Jewish wife that he abandons (because he can't just abandon one wife), she needs to be a lot younger, too; their marriage needs to be something born out of youth, out of an urge toward tradition, and she needs to be more of an albatross like Pop than a footnote; if he is going to run away from his new life after his father disowns him, maybe we see some of Jess' grief and pain beyond him being a dick to everyone in the recording studio... Or, better yet, Jess' story is not just about him bucking Jewish and family tradition but him doing so because he and his father (and his wife) have just moved to America, or Jess was brought as a child or was born here, and marrying Rivka was something he did for his family; maybe to get them off his back about an inkling to not just be a cantor. Jess...

There is no Jazz in The Jazz Singer , and Neil Diamond is far too old for this. This up-and-coming musician story should 1) be about someone younger or 2) take a notably different angle on the usual story, because certainly, older musicians can break into the business but that experience has got to be significantly different--either because of the years of struggling in obscurity, or the dropping out of their usual job a la Johnny Baxter or Jerry Maguire to try something new. <-- that is a different story than La Bamba or The Buddy Holly Story or even Straight Outta Compton . The Jazz Singer at least has its own angle with Jess' (Diamond) relationship with his father (Laurence Olivier), his expectations as a Jewish Cantor; these are different concerns than, say, Ritchie Valens' young love in La Bamba , Johnny Cash's drug problems in Walk the Line , race in Straight Outta Compton . The opening sequence of various types of people walking the city streets, Diamond...