Billy Joel may look like a mob lawyer these days, but his voice still rings and his backside rarely touches the piano bench during "Last Play at Shea," a feel-good account of Joel's two-night stand at that bygone home of New York sports heroics. Chronicling the histories of Joel, the Mets and Shea Stadium itself, helmer Paul Crowder jams the proverbial 90 pounds of film into a five-pound bag, giving it as many structural infirmities as the old ballpark. Still, the film's sentiments are so warm, no one will care; its music and feeling should lend it wide appeal, probably via cable.

Joel occupies an almost singular position among popular songwriters of the last half-century; Paul Simon is probably his closest American counterpart, and Simon wouldn't have been the man for Shea Stadium. No, you needed a Lawn Guyland guy (though Queens, where Simon hails from, is officially on Long Island), which made Joel the natural choice for those last concerts in the park on July 16th, 2008 and July 18th, 2008. (The Mets would play their last home game that September.)

It wasn't just about geography, however: Overwrought, theatrical and stadium-friendly, Joel's songs provided just the right sloppily emotional goodbye that made for tears and smiling among the Nassau-Suffolk audience, many of whom can be seen, children in tow, waving their longneck Budweisers at the stage while being serenaded with "Captain Jack," "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)" or "New York State of Mind." It was the perfect music for the end of an era, even if an entire song isn't quite heard throughout the film.

But Crowder has a lot on his plate. "The Last Play at Shea" isn't just about Joel, but also Shea, and it provides an evolutionary recap of how baseball-deprived Queens was ripe for the Mets when the then-hapless, 2 year-old team limped into the new stadium in 1964.

Taking us back to Gotham "master builder" Robert Moses and his creation of the modern suburb (without noting anything about Moses the neighborhood destroyer), Crowder lays out the subsequent development of Long Island as a blue-collar bastion; Joel's place in it; his history as an artist; and the way the stadium etched itself in the pop-cultural imagination, mostly through some terrific footage of The Beatles' legendary 1965 concert at Shea, with commentary by Paul McCartney (who recalls once again that the band couldn't hear anything but the screaming). Complicated as the movie's structure is, somehow, it works.

Joel, clearly not afraid to sweat in public, hosted a number of colleagues onstage during the two nights rendered here, including some who'd actually played there in the past, such as Roger Daltrey of The Who, and some who just fit, like Tony Bennett - who, it must be said, upstages Joel grandly on "New York State of Mind."

But Joel loves it, and comes across throughout as a supremely down-to-earth, gimlet-eyed, charismatic everyman, even when the film addresses his personal foibles; at one point, ex-wife Christine Brinkley recalls, among other things, how Joel was massively swindled by an ex-manager he had refused to fire. (In one truly hilarious sequence, ex-CBS Record topper Walter Yetnikoff recalls how he retrieved Joel's early copyrights from an unscrupulous ex-manager; it's like something out of "The Godfather.") But the film's portrait of Joel is one of enormous sincerity and genuine amazement at his good fortune in having the opportunity to perform the last shows at Shea Stadium (before a two-night crowd of 110,000).

From the shooting to the soundtrack, production values are extraordinary.

Billy Joel has himself a new pop hit on the British charts, a success that was completely unplanned.

New York's Long Island is usually visited for Brooklyn and Queens (at its western tip) or the fancy beach resorts at the Hamptons (out east). But what about the middle, in those neither-here-nor-there towns off the Long Island Expressway? The best way to find out what's there is using the area's best guidebook: the songs of Billy Joel.

Recently I staged a "Billy Joel Roadtrip" contest and Sherry Wasserman, Andrew Hickey ("The Brooklyn Nomad") and Matt Watt joined me to dig up a few Billy sites worth steering to. Here's a handful of the stand-outs:

Christiano's, Syosset

Without a doubt, the top "Joelky" attraction in these parts - and a suitable stop-off for a bite if you're driving between Manhatttan and the Hamptons - is this little Italian restaurant that claims to be the restaurant from Billy Joel's 1977 saga classic, "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant." It's been around for decades - and now under new ownership from Joel's former sprinkler-installer Michael Elardo. It's quite a scene inside, with karaoke, a "Wall of Joel" including a local article, and bottles of red and white lining the walls of the restaurant.

But is it really the one? David Fricke, in the liner notes of the 30th Anniversary Edition of "The Stranger," says Billy Joel claims it's actually the now-closed Fontana di Trevi in Manhattan. I'm not sure. On the second CD of the same album, recorded in June 1977 at Carnegie Hall (near that restaurant's former site), Billy Joel himself dedicates the song to Christiano's! Who knows? Who cares? But if you stop off, you'll never hear that song the same way again.

20 Meeting Lane, Hicksville

Practically lost in the back lanes between Hicksville High (where Billy finally got his diploma in 1992) and Holy Trinity (the Catholic school that likely inspired "Only The Good Die Young"), an impressionable Billy Joel grew up in this house, learned to play piano, watched The Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show," and rehearsed for a gig at the 1964 World's Fair. If you stop to take a photo, look across the street - his former neighbor Bob Hess is probably on his way out to photograph you. He's a nice guy. He pointed out the house used to be red. I asked if many visitors come by. "Here? No, very, very few."

West Village Green, Hicksville

Brenda & Eddie, those enduring characters of Billy Joel's "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant," strut these grounds as the "king and queen of the prom," then tried to return after their divorce and life's realities set in. But, as Billy Joel sings, "you can never go back there again." He's right. (Particularly since it's now called "Neighborhood Park").

Backed to the green, the Shoppe (4 West Village Green) - previously known as "Curiosity Shoppe" - is a place Billy used to drink at early on in his career. "Johnny A" is renovating it - the new version (with Billy Joel's fake "first piano") should open in June 2010. I will go back there again.

Nunley's Carousel, Garden City

Billy Joel rode this 1912 carousel as a tot, and chipped in money (and a song) for its restoration. After several years of silence, it reopened to the public in 2009 in its new location at the historic Mitchell Field of the so-called "Cradle of Aviation." It’s $2 a ride. But note this, Billy Joel's horse "Penny" doesn't go up/down. One staffer guessed, "maybe Billy Joel was scared of it moving when he was little."

"Miracle Mile," Manhasset

Billy pokes fun at posturing by asking, in his 1980 song "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me," "should I cruise the Miracle Mile?" It's actually Northern Boulevard in Manhasset, north of the Long Island Expressway - lined with high-end boutiques. One local told me, "It always was a shopping area, but it's much more uppity now than it used to be."

Cold Spring Harbor

Before "The Boss" touted uncool New Jersey - with his 1973 debut "Asbury Park" - Billy Joel already was giving nods to Long Island. The cover of his 1971 debut, "Cold Spring Harbor," was shot on the now demolished Eagle Dock overlooking the pretty bay. If you want to pick up the CD locally, SoundTraks is the closest option - a few miles east in Huntington Village (ask Anthony to sign your copy as he did for me). As far as Billy Joel spotting around here, Anthony suggested, "if you see a dumpy, old, bald guy, drunk as hell, getting into a fancy car…it's probably him."

Actually Billy Joel's home is on nearby Centre Island, a gated community north of Oyster Bay, where he onced dredged for oysters as a lad. And he's trying to sell his place. Anyone have $50 million to spare?