Thought the movie handled the fun parts better than it did the more serious material. Still I enjoyed it. I think the movie does require you to at least like Bruce's music though.


One moment that did take me out of the movie is when he was in the dance club listening to Bruce's studio version of Because the Night...which while it was recorded during the Darkness on the Edge of Town sessions it didn't get released on an album until 2010.

Yeah, I did really like it. It is formulaic but it still works, and has some sweet parts to it. I found several parts very touching.
That said I totally HATED the "Thunder Road" bit in the outdoor shopping area. It's like they totally forgot what sort of a movie they were making and went full on musical for a moment. Took me right out of it and I was honestly a little embarrassed for them.
That said, the "Jungleland" scene was pretty harrowing and exceptionally well done.

BTW : I know it the album has its detractors, but seriously what die-hard Bruce Springsteen fan in 1987 didn't even listen to Tunnel of Love? That release date was like a HUGE day for me in the Fall of 1987. I thought that was a really weird omission.

It has its "detractors" because fans at the time realized it was the first miss of his career.
Getting happily married and dumping the E Street Band ended the Magic.
Born in the USA was the last great album he ever did.
However, it WAS a good run...we got 7 classic albums to enjoy for the ages.
I did...and couldn't believe my ears.
Not really.
Listen to the Sirius XM Springsteen Channel...they hardly play anything after the 7th album.

This movie has stuck with me for the last week. My wife and daughters and I watched Bend it like Beckham on Saturday night. It hadnt seen it in ages.

Blinded by the Light has had me listening to lots of Springsteen. I wasnt really a fan before, except for some of the hits, but my buddy is a huge fan. I finally found the greatness in songs like Promised Land, Badlands and Thunder Road thanks to this movie.

The latest remasters of his first 7 are top-notch.
Simply amazing how good they sound.

I was checking out the soundtrack on Spotify. It's a little weird. Most Springsteen songs in the movie are the same versions, which is fine (though I already have the studio version of Born To Run at least seven times in my library). Thunder Road is a live version, which is okay since that song was (awkwardly and embarrassingly) sung by the characters in the movie. The weird choice was Promised Land. You could make an argument that it was the most important Springsteen song in the course of the movie (I think we see the "Boy" and "Man" lyrics on screen like three different times),it's a powerful, impactful song. But for the soundtrack they include a much more subdued and less emphatic acoustic live version.

They also have that new Springsteen song at the end. Guess he's gunning for a second Oscar maybe. I did quite like it. Apparently it was written for a Harry Potter movie but got rejected. It's called "I'll Stand By You", but it's not the Pretenders version.
That re-purposing of a movie song instantly reminded me of a wonderful gag Ben Stiller did on an MTV Awards show many years ago that revealed that his theme for Dead Man Walking was actually originally written for Weekend At Bernie's as "Dead Man Partying". Unfortunately, looks like that clip is gone from the internet.

I caught a 3:30pm matinee of this today and I really enjoyed it. It's probably my third favorite movie of the year behind Once Upon A Time in Hollywood and Endgame. I'm sad that it's bombing at the box office. I was the only one in the theater watching it.

I hate to be a detractor but I didn't care for it. Maybe I was expecting something different from it. I found it mostly boring and preachy. I stopped caring about the main character after awhile. I liked Yesterday a ton more than this one.

Bruce is, as always, an amazing artist.

I liked the film even though I don’t consider myself a Springsteen fan (I do like the “hits”) so that part of it didn’t strike a personal chord with me. The dad stuff was tough to watch but gave the film a real emotional weight. Interesting that as a period piece it drew heavily on the immigrant experience while Yesterday didn’t touch the racial angle at all, even though the audience likely noticed it at least.