This is a good film about neuroscience and music, father and son relationships, and commitment, based on Oliver Sachs' book.

The plot is based on the true story of Gabriel Sawyer, who has a tumor that destroys his hippocampus meaning that new memories are impossible. However, when music plays he remembers his life 20 years before.

This is evocative, nostalgic, and has a warmth and charm to it that you would be hard-pressed not to like. It is a simple, small, film that carries its message well - and for those who love 60s music you do get a chance to sing along to some great song, even Desolation Row...

The relationships are at the core of this and JK Simmonds is great as the father who is struggling to understand, and Lou Taylor Pucci seems to enjoy the challenge and conviction his part demands.

All in all, this is an interesting film, and the soundtrack is awesome....

I was a child of the 60s, grew up in the 70s, made most of my life's mistakes in the 80s, but also learned an awful lot about life those three decades. That time period made me who I am today. I don't take much for granted. I played a LOT outside as a child, my mind was not desensitized by video games. My growing years were filled with music about the reason for war and the wrongs of war. Popular songs about love were poetic, meanings often hidden, and not in your face expletives.

Having said all that, this movie reached me deep inside. Music was always a part of my life... from day one. My father liked Glenn Miller and my mother loved Elvis. To this day I love that music too, as well as my own preferences with which I grew up. Despite my father never liking the Beatles, they are my favorite band of all time to this day. I think he objected to their hair. My father had a 30 year career in the U.S. Army. He served at the end of WWII, the Korean conflict and Vietnam. My love of the anti-war songs were not in rebellion to what he was doing, but instead reassured everyone that we found our American soldiers more valuable than whatever it was we were fighting for in Vietnam. Now my stepson is at the end of his tour of Afghanistan. I love him dearly, and support what he does and support our troops mission, but they need to come home now. What songs today speak of our missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Libyan conflict? It's just not the same.

In the 70s, besides never setting the Beatles aside, I loved CSN, CCR, Joni Mitchell and most of the artists who took part in Woodstock back in 1969, as well as all the great bands and singer/songwriters that followed. Songs of peace, love and understanding.

I became a DJ at age 16 and after disco unfortunately changed everything and college was over, I worked a couple of years as a roadie and eventually became a musician as well.

I put my guitar down around 1990 and didn't pick it up again in seriousness until 2007. That period includes probably the darkest period in my life. I will never set music aside again.

Should I, God forbid, suffer the plight of the main character in this movie, my wife knows what music to play.

I didn't feel the need to review this film as a critic, because my experience with this film was more emotional than intellectual. If you don't have instant recollection of a moment in your past whenever you hear a certain song, this movie is not for you. However, if you do have a solid connection between music and a memory, don't miss this film.

Julia Ormond was good in this film as the doctor that finds the connection. However, the real stars are the lesser known J.K. Simmons and Lou Taylor Pucci who did an incredible job of showing the differences in generations and how the tables can turn when your ears and your heart open up to something new or something you hated because of lack of understanding. I think in all of life's steps on the road through life, denial is the most destructive.

Don't view this movie technically, you'll miss the point. Open your heart and your soul, and you'll get it. Enjoy.

The Music Never Stopped is about a father's struggles to reconnect with his son, who's unable to form new memories owing to a brain tumor. Sounds like movie-of-the-week fluff, but the movie is never manipulative. It's a terrific, old-school sentimental film that tears your heart out without stooping to clichés. In fact, it absolutely brilliant not only in spinning its main theme but in how it sets that father-son connection against a wholly accurate musical background. The music, that is, ain't there just to showcase a period.

We meet our leads right away. It's 1986, and father Henry (J.K. Simmons) and mother Helen (Cara Seymour) Sawyer have just discovered that their long-estranged son Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci) is in a hospital, diagnosed with a large brain tumor. The tumor is operable and benign, but the doctor tells the stricken parents that Gabriel - whom they haven't seen in about twenty years - can no longer form new memories. What he does remember ends at about 1970.

After trying all sorts of medicines and other therapies, Henry finds an article written by a musical therapist, Dianne Daley (Julia Ormond); Daley tries to use music to bring Gabriel back to the present, as he still believes it's 1970 or so. And she quickly learns - no spoiler here - that although Gabriel is musically inclined, he reacts positively only to music from the late 1960s and thereabouts, especially that of the Grateful Dead.

Now, confession time. Those of you who know me well know that I am a Deadhead. Have been on the bus for a long time now. So I had high expectations for this movie, perhaps expectations that even differed from other viewers. And I can confidently say that the movie far exceeded those expectations.

Here's why. The movie doesn't just use the music as a prop to move the plot forward. Why does Gabriel react positively only to this music? What happened in 1970? We do find out, and it is very important. But the impetus for Gabriel's leaving home as a teenager is closely tied to the connection each of us feels with our own favorite music. Everyone has some song they love, the movie tells us, and when we hear that song we are taken back to a time and place that is unique to our memories. Others may hear the same song and are affected differently by it. In Gabriel's case, the songs from that era represent the last time he was truly all right. When his parents hear the same songs in 1986, their memories are colored by what they've experienced since then.

Gabriel is never depicted as a simple, brain-dead hippie. He's just some kid who's in a band, like so many long-haired youths were back then, emulating groups like The Beatles, the Stones, and yes, the Dead. Playing covers. Enjoying themselves, falling in love. Gabriel not only knows all of the current (for the time) bands, he knows the meanings behind songs such as Dylan's "Desolation Row." Gabriel, for a high-school kid, is a pretty deep thinker.

He shares his love of music with his father, who grew up with more staid orchestral arrangements - some Count Basie, some Bing Crosby, and so on. Completely different music, and yet each uses his favorite songs to relate to favorite memories.

Henry eventually does realize that the best way to communicate with his son is to learn every Grateful Dead song and then play the records for him when he visits Gabriel in his hospice-like home. Anything, you see, to try to get his son back to him.

It doesn't matter if you like the Dead's music. It really doesn't. As any tour veteran would tell you, the experience of a show is one you'll never get anywhere else. Often imitated, never duplicated. There's a lot going on, and event is a culture unto itself. In this movie, director Jim Kohlberg uses some of the songs and a (staged) concert in order to depict this experience, and truthfully it's as accurate as it could possibly be - well, for a movie that uses no authentic concert footage.

This is not a movie that will make you laugh very often. Gabriel gets off some bon mots, some of which are unintentional, what with the memory loss thing. Simmons gets great lines, too. But essentially, this is a sad movie that never wallows in melodrama, a feat that most movies simply can't pull off. The movie engages us with the characters, makes us love them and regard them as actual people.

But it's not all the doing of Kohlberg. Were the Oscars coming up, I could see Simmons garnering a nomination for Best Actor. It's easily the best work he's done, and he's been in scads of things. Those of you with HBO will recognize him from Oz; you might also remember him from Juno and the Spider-Man films. The man is a gifted supporting actor. Here, he turns in an astounding, honest, and brave performance that won't leave your tear ducts dry for very long. This isn't just a three-hankie movie, it's an entire gross of Kleenex boxes. But like I alluded earlier, it's also not a soap opera that simply toys with your emotions. It's sincere and real and just magnificent.