Pun Salad

As a kid, songs by the Four Seasons were in my soundtrack. Like most baby boomers, I suppose. I wasn't a major fan, but I can still rattle off (at least partial) lyrics from their hits.

So this was a natural choice for the Netflix queue. It is based on the hit Broadway musical, and directed by the immortal Clint Eastwood. It relates the story of how the group came together, their connections (mostly innocuous) to mobsters, inner frictions, family woes, and—well, I think it hits every cliché about celebrity rise and fall you could imagine. But I suppose sometimes things are clichés because they're based in fundamental truths. Millions of years of evolution did not prepare mere humans to deal with superstardom.

It's a pretty good yarn—I stayed awake for the whole thing, anyhow, which is increasingly rare these days. But it's way too long (134 minutes). I was surprised to learn that the songs were actually performed live on set by the actors, many of whom were from the Broadway cast. They're good!

Christopher Walken appears as a benevolent gangster, I kept wishing for him to drop a "more cowbell" line.

Rated R, entirely for bad language. (Except in New Jersey, where it's rated "G": a child is likely to hear far worse in the home.)