Brian on 2012 Movies: January-April

So in 2010, I decided to structure my blog about the first four months differently than in previous years. Realizing I still hadn’t really posted the distinctions between why one film gets a certain grade over another, I decided to use my annual blog for January-April to do so. Unfortunately, I’ve missed a great deal of theatrical releases this year, so this breakdown of my system isn’t quite as filled-out with representative movies as I’d like, but there are still some pretty fascinating choices here. You’ll also find the movies I’m looking forward to most this summer afterwards. I hope you enjoy!

Brian’s Grading System
=A+ (4 Stars out of 4)- Craft, story & storytelling merge to the highest levels of the art form. It doesn’t have to be perfect- it just has to sweep one off their feet as they’re watching. The three films that were graded this high—“The Hunger Games”, “The Cabin in the Woods”, and the short film “Familiar”—are great examples of this level of filmmaking.

=A (3 1/2 Stars)- There’s not quite enough heft to stand up to the cream of the crop, but damn if films here don’t come awfully close. The eclectic group of films that made it to this level of excellence are: the powerful superpower teen film, “Chronicle”; the Studio Ghibli animated film, “The Secret World of Arrietty”; and Edgar Muniz’s drama, “From the Heart of the Crowd”.

=A- (3 Stars)- Artistic ambitions fall short here, but entertainment value is still high. If you find a film rated this on my favorites list, that shows how well it worked. I’m not sure whether any of the following films—“Jeff, Who Lives at Home”, “Her Heart Still Beats”, “Things I Don’t Understand”, “Bully”, “Get the Gringo”, “JT vs. the Good Guys”, “Wanderlust”, and “The Woman in Black”—will make it on that list when the year ends, but there are definitely a few that could sneak in there.

=B+ (3 Stars)- Still a lot of fun, which is very rarely enough to make my favorites’ list, but art this is not. Strictly entertainment. See the George Lucas-produced WWII action drama “Red Tails” and a couple of indie thrillers (“The Nocturnal Third” and “Dark of Winter”) I was sent for examples.

=B (2 1/2 Stars)- Has some entertainment value, but also a lot of flaws that you can’t really overlook. Still worth recommending, though. The “inspired by a true story” whale drama “Big Miracle” is the kind of just-above average movie this grade was created for.

=B- (2 1/2 Stars)- Slightly entertaining. Barely makes the grade. Almost not worth recommending. Almost. Tarsem’s opulent, sometimes engaging fantasy “Mirror Mirror” is the only film from 2012 that is this average so far.

=C+ (2 Stars)- Still has some intrigue, but overall too flawed to recommend. Case in point: the “found footage” comedy “Project X”. which has some insane laughs, but is overall, just too mediocre to recommend.

=C (2 Stars)- I have a soft spot for parts of it, but otherwise, not worth your time. The after-school special melodrama “October Baby” is a pretty clear-cut example of this sort of mediocrity.

=C- (2 Stars)- Still has some good left in it, but trust me, you can do better.

=D+ (1 1/2 Stars)- Barely below C- level; it might have something going for it, but still pretty bad. No movies here just yet.

=D (1 1/2 Stars)- Too bad to care that the soundtrack rocks it, or that T&A is ample. In the end, it’s just not worth thinking about. Unfortunately, I can’t stop thinking about the potential wasted in Steven Soderbergh’s “Haywire” since seeing it.

=D- (1 1/2 Stars)- Maybe one good thing here. The rest is dreadful. Thankfully, nothing has been this bad.

=F (1 Star)- The bottom of the barrel. The worst of the worst. Nothing but trash belongs here. So far, nothing I’ve seen rates this low. This summer might change that.

7 Movies to Watch This Summer
1. “Marvel’s The Avengers” (5/4)- Talk about swinging for the fences. For his first feature film as writer/director since the 2005 “Firefly” spin-off, “Serenity,” failed to take off in theaters, Joss Whedon is taking on the most ambitious project yet in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, as Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and The Incredible Hulk team up to try and stop Thor’s mischievous brother, Loki, and his attempts to destroy Earth. The ensemble cast is an ideal fit for the creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly,” and from the looks of the trailers, he hasn’t shied away from the technical challenges of this epic film. Can’t wait.

2. “The Dark Knight Rises” (7/20)- Just as Marvel begins a new phase of their comic book-turned-movie business, DC concludes one with the third and final film in Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy. And from the looks of it, an aging Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) will have his hands full with the seductive Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) and the brute force of Bane (Tom Hardy) bringing chaos to Gotham after years of peace. Will Nolan stick the landing, and maybe, finally be rewarded for long-elusive Oscar gold? We’ll see.

3. “Brave” (6/22)- A lesser studio would have been left for dead after a needless sequel like “Cars 2,” but honestly, you can’t keep Pixar down for long, and their next film looks like a beautiful Scottish epic following the maturation of a young princess, Pixar’s first female lead character. Yes, Pixar is going into parent company Disney’s turf, but hopefully, we’ll be getting something special along the lines of such original films “Wall-E” and “Up.”

4. “Prometheus” (6/8)- Ridley Scott has had a rough decade since his Oscar-winning epic, “Gladiator.” With the exception of his brilliant war film, “Black Hawk Down,” Scott hasn’t really reached that level of artistic success, although “Matchstick Men” and his 2005 movie, “Kingdom of Heaven,” were criminally underrated if you ask me. Still, between “Robin Hood,” “Body of Lies,” and “A Good Year,” you can understand why the director would agree to direct a prequel to his 1979 landmark, “Alien.” But “Prometheus” became something much grander, and if you have seen any of the trailers, you can feel the visionary excitement Scott is bringing to the material. Whether it’s successful or not, however, rests solely on Scott’s ability to channel the bold imagination he brought to “Alien” and “Blade Runner.”

5. “The Amazing Spider-Man” (7/3)- Yes, five years after Sam Raimi’s woefully underrated “Spider-Man 3,” Sony is rebooting their web-slinging superhero by taking Peter Parker back to the beginning, with ”(500) Days of Summer” director Marc Webb filming in 3D. Still, everything we’ve seen from the trailers promises the same sense of fun and dramatic weight Raimi delivered, especially with a new cast featuring Andrew Garfield (“The Social Network”), Emma Stone (“Easy A”), and Rhys Ifans (“Notting Hill”) that brings a different energy to the material. I can’t wait to see it.

6. “Dark Shadows” (5/11)- On first glance, it’s easy for one to sigh at the potential of yet ANOTHER Tim Burton-Johnny Depp collaboration for production designed silliness, especially after the 2010 smash, but critical disaster, “Alice in Wonderland.” I still think Burton and Depp need some time apart, but the trailers for this goofy dark comedy, based on the cult soap opera from the ‘70s, promises some of the most subversive fun these two have had together since their 1994 classic, “Ed Wood.”

7. “The Bourne Legacy” (8/3)- With no Matt Damon starring and no Paul Greengrass directing, the idea of a fourth film in this spy franchise is kind of troubling. Still, with series stalwart Tony Gilroy, who wrote or co-wrote all three of the previous films, directing Jeremy Renner as another government-trained assassin who is having trouble escaping his past, I’m definitely curious to see where this franchise of Robert Ludlum’s best-selling series has to go.

Also on my radar: A lot of movies, as usual, but if it’s like the past couple of summers, I won’t have enough time to get to them all. Ones I’m definitely looking to get to, however, are: “Men in Black III” (5/25), a second sequel to the 1997 comic smash that no one was really asking for, but looks kind of fun with the same crew back; “The Dictator” (5/16), the latest bit of performance art comedy from the “Borat” team of Sascha Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles—hopefully, it’ll be better than “Bruno” was; “Moonrise Kingdom” (5/25), the newest live-action offering from indie quirkmaster Wes Anderson, with a cast that promises bold laughs that catch in the throat; “Snow White and the Huntsman” (6/1), the second revisionist take on the Snow White fairy tale of the year, this time with Kristen Stewart as Snow White, and Charlize Theron as the evil queen; “Rock of Ages” (6/15), a new musical adaptation from “Hairspray” director Adam Shankman, with a cast including Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, and Catherine Zeta-Jones in the decade of hair metal; “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” (6/29), a sequel to the 2009 hit, “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” with an energized cast including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Bruce Willis joining Channing Tatum and Ray Park, who are among the only people from “Cobra” coming back; “Seeking a Friend at the End of the World” (6/22), a promising drama-comedy starring Steve Carell and Kiera Knightley; “Savages” (7/6), a gritty piece of B-movie thriller filmmaking from director Oliver Stone, who will hopefully find his provocative energy again after a few less-than-compelling projects; and “Paranorman” (8/17), a stylized stop-motion animated film from the company responsible for 2009’s superb “Coraline” that looks to end the summer on a note of dark comedy and fun.

Viva La Resistance!

Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
www.myspace.com/brianskutle
www.myspace.com/cinemanouveau

A Movie a Week: "Batman Returns"

Three years in, my “Movie a Week” series has solidified itself in terms of form. Some weeks, I’ll link my movies with an upcoming release. The weeks before and after Dragon*Con, it’s all about genre. In October, it’s all about horror movies. The week of Christmas, it’ll be a film I identify with that particular holiday. And other times, I’ll just wing it, sometimes even switching up the selected film.

This year, you’ll find a lot of the same, with one twist—this year, many of the films I’ll be reviewing are suggestions by friends and fans. Some of the choices are pretty out there, making my choice for this year’s “bookend director” being the infamously bad Edward D. Wood Jr. even more fitting. Expect equally “outside the box” selections in the years to come.

I was a bit late with this week’s entry, but seeing as though it was Tim Burton’s much-maligned “Batman Returns”, it was definitely worth the wait. For me, at least. I hope you enjoy!

Brian Skutle
http://www.sonic-cinema.com

“Batman Returns”- A-
Gee, I can’t imagine why audiences were relatively turned off by Tim Burton’s 1992 sequel to his ridiculously successful 1989 blockbuster, “Batman.” The film only starts with a wealthy husband and wife have a child so grotesque that even the doctors run in terror; so hideous that it’s is kept in a darkened cage, although that doesn’t prevent it from getting its hands on the family cat; and so unbearable that, in the dead of winter, they take its carriage to the river, and they throw him over the bridge. Yes, this is exactly the sort of thing people want to see in a summer movie.

Of course, Tim Burton has never really marched to the beat of the Hollywood drummer anyway, and when he has, it’s never really been good for his unique style. (Just ask anyone who watched his “Planet of the Apes” and “Alice in Wonderland.”) That’s part of why his “Batman” films work as well as they do: by taking the vigilante crime fighter and his Rogues Gallery of villains to their most extreme, surreal form, Burton finds a way to comment on each character in a way few filmmakers are able to do. For all their flaws, Burton’s “Batman” films are just as bold and revolutionary as Christopher Nolan’s current standard-bearers.

When I first watched “Batman Returns” 20 years ago, I was so mesmerized by Michelle Pfeiffer’s powerfully sexual Catwoman that the rest of the film almost felt like filler, and pretty depressing filler at that. But the more I’ve watched it over the years, the story of The Penguin, whose birth and abandonment we see at the start of the film, has come into clearer view. In many ways, The Penguin’s origins are not dissimilar to Bruce Wayne’s early life: parental tragedy struck early for both Wayne and Oswald Cobblepot (Penguin’s actual name), and shaped their life thereafter. The poignancy of Oswald’s life grows with multiple viewings, and through Danny DeVito’s tremendous performance, we feel genuine sympathy for Cobblepot, even though it’s impossible to hide the sociopath he’s become over his 33 years in exile in the sewers, especially when you see him scheming with Max Schreck (Christopher Walken), a Gotham businessman who is every bit as corrupt as the outcast he’s now supporting for a mayoral run.

That being said, however, the film’s primary source of entertainment comes from the brilliant chemistry between Michael Keaton’s Wayne and Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle, a mousy secretary to Schreck who is thrown out the window by her boss, leading to her transformation into Catwoman. Their scenes together, whether in costume as their alter egos, or on a dinner date as themselves, have a heat and energy that was missing from his scenes with Kim Basinger’s Vicki Vale in the first film. Keaton was always the best Bruce Wayne in the films before Nolan’s trilogy with Christian Bale, as we not only believe him as the playboy billionaire, but also as the haunted soul who would turn to vigilante justice after watching his parents murdered. And Pfeiffer? The always-luminous actress gave herself over completely to Burton’s vision of the role, and she imbued it with dark humor and painful humanity, not to mention an animal magnetism that makes her Catwoman purr with erotic desire. That coupled with Burton’s perverse version of The Penguin, and it’s honestly quite difficult to see how the film ended with with a PG-13 rating; had it not been a Warner Bros.-produced blockbuster, this would have been an R-rated film all the way.

Regardless of rating, “Batman Returns” is anything but your typical Hollywood product—this is the work of a singular artist with every resource at his disposal to make the movie he wanted to make. It’s a bold, provocative work of mainstream moviemaking, and an example of what Burton is capable of when he’s given the chance to do a franchise film his way. Hopefully, he can get back to that way of making movies sooner rather than later.

Previous “Movie a Week” Reviews
“Night of the Ghouls” (1958)
“Killer Klowns from Outer Space” (1988)
“Young Frankenstein” (1974)
“Hedwig and the Angry Inch” (2001)
“Frenzy” (1972)
“Star Wars: Episode VI- Return of the Jedi” (1983)
“Tucker & Dale vs. Evil” (2011)
“Sunset Blvd.” (1950)
“M*A*S*H” (1970)
“A Trip to the Moon” (1902)
“American Graffiti” (1973)
“The Running Man” (1987)
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937)
“Before Sunrise” (1995)
“Alien: Resurrection” (1997)
“City Lights” (1931)
“The Cameraman” (1928)
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1992)
“Batman Returns” (1992)

See Brian’s list of 2009 “Movies a Week” here.
See Brian’s list of 2010 “Movies a Week” here.
See Brian’s list of 2011 “Movies a Week” here.

Brian on "The Boss," and his first concert on E Street

Just as much as film music, the music of Bruce Springsteen, whether it’s one of his solo albums or with his legendary backing band, the E Street Band, has had a profound impact on me for over two decades now. My first album I ever received that was my own was his iconic 1984 smash, “Born in the U.S.A.,” and though my father would borrow it from time to time for his own, that stuck with me when I really got full-bore into music in the early ‘90s.

When I was 13, I had been playing trombone for a couple of years, but I hadn’t yet gotten into classical music and, especially, film music in any meaningful way. (That would be a couple of years down the road when I started at Lassiter High School.) Still, it was during 7th and 8th grade when my passion began to grow for music—Guns N’ Roses, M.C. Hammer, Paula Abdul, and Def Leppard were early favorites before I really delved into the classic rock bands that would really influence me. It was during that time of discovery that I reunited with Springsteen, first with his twin albums, “Human Touch” and “Lucky Town,” and then, through a family friend, the real heart of his discography: the acoustic soul of “Nebraska”; the rollicking joys of “The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle” and “Born to Run”; and the epic storytelling of “The River” and “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” From that point on, The Boss had me for life.

What is it about Springsteen’s music that resonates with me? Well, as the years have gone on, it’s more than just the driving beats of Max Weinberg’s drums or Clarence Clemons’s sax; the infectious pleasure of Roy Bittan’s piano or the heartache in the vocals of Springsteen and his wife, Patti Scialfa. For 40 years now (at least, going by the release of Springsteen’s first album, “Welcome to Asbury Park, NJ”), Springsteen has followed in the tradition of some of the greatest of all songwriters—Woody Guthrie, Roy Orbison, and Bob Dylan—in telling the stories that matter most to blue-collar folks like myself and my parents, whether it’s the pain and pleasure of being young (“Thunder Road”); the hardships that come with rough living (“Atlantic City”); or the story of reliving the good old days (“Glory Days”). Of course, these are but three of the best examples from Springsteen’s 17 albums, not to mention box sets and B-sides that have made their way into fan’s hands over the years. Still, those three make a damn good entry into the world of Springsteen and his travels along E Street.

Earlier this month, Springsteen released album #17 with “Wrecking Ball,” and The Boss’s musical and narrative gifts remain in peak form. Though members of the E Street band play on the album, Bruce brings some outside help (namely, from the band he put together for his Americana album, “We Shall Overcome: The Seegers Sessions”) to tell the story of an America on the ropes after eight years of bad economic policies that led to the near-collapse of the financial system. The hope that was felt after Obama’s election in 2008, which was musically expressed on his 2009 album, “Working on a Dream,” has turned into a deep-seeded anger with a status quo that puts the rich above the rest; though largely written before the Occupy movement took hold in late 2011, their rage is given a musical voice from the early strains of the album’s first track, “We Take Care of Our Own,” building from there into a bold symphony of sound, fury, and multicultural rhythms that makes for a perfect soundtrack in this time of the 1% against the 99%. Bruce is mad as Hell, and he’s not gonna take it anymore, as he makes abundantly clear in tracks like “Easy Money,” “Shackled & Drawn,” and “Death to My Hometown,” with their Irish-folk rhythms; less chaotic, more elegiac songs such as “Jack of All Trades,” “This Depression” and the soulful “Rocky Ground”; and the grit and power of classic rock tracks like “We Take Care of Our Own” and the titular track (which was written and debuted when Giants Stadium in Jersey was torn down in ‘09). Ever the romantic, however, by the end, Springsteen digs deep down, and finds a light at the end of the tunnel, and although the expanded album ends with a couple of old-school Americana rock tracks, “Wrecking Ball” finds its real emotional conclusion in the back-to-back pairing of “Land of Hope and Dreams” (which he debuted on the E Street’s reunion tour in 2000) and “We Are Alive.” As he sings in “Hope and Dreams,” “Leave behind your sorrows, let this day be the last. Tomorrow there’ll be sunshine, and all this darkness past.” With Bruce, dreams will not be thwarted, and most importantly, faith will be rewarded. You finish listening to “Wrecking Ball” believing that our best days are still ahead of us.

So, how is it that it took me so long to go see Springsteen, who is more or less my musical spiritual adviser, in concert? Honestly, I don’t know, but I DO know that when Clarence Clemons died in 2011 (the second of the E Street lineup to pass after organist Danny Federici died in 2008), I knew that I had to go at the first chance I got, and what better time to do so that with The Boss beginning his “Wrecking Ball” tour in Atlanta?

The band’s live show is the stuff of legend, and although live albums and compilations—in particular, the multi-disc “Live: ‘75-’85” box and 2001’s “Live in New York City”—offer great glimpses at the energy and emotion the band brings to their concerts, there’s nothing quite like experiencing it in concert, which I was fortunate to do this past Sunday at Philips Arena. As with his albums, Springsteen uses the stage to tell a story, and on Sunday, the powerful narrative of current hardships he laid down on “Wrecking Ball” was continued in front of thousands of people from every age group. While I do wish I had been able to see the full band during its recent creative renaissance, Springsteen and co. haven’t missed a beat as they’ve continued their journey without Clemons and Federici: Charlie Giordano lacks the personal kinship that Federici had with The Boss, but he doesn’t lack the chops necessary to keep up with him; and Clemons’s nephew Jake, and the addition of the “E Street Horns,” has some mighty big shoes to fill, but listening to Jake wail on his uncle’s iconic solos during “Born to Run,” “Thunder Road,” and “Dancing in the Dark” made me a firm believer that he’s up to the task.

Naturally, the show featured primarily tracks off of the new album, beginning with roaring renditions of “We Take Care of Our Own” and “Wrecking Ball” before going back to earlier tales of rough living such as “Badlands,” but this wasn’t just a matter of listening to new material. The energy the band brings to the music lets the audience absorb it, and really let it become a part of them. It’s still too early to tell whether any of the newer songs will become classics like “10th Avenue Freeze Out” or “The Promised Land,” where audience participation has become an expected, and almost telepathic, form of affection between the crowd and the band, but I Springsteen made the album to last. It doesn’t capture a particular moment like “Born in the U.S.A.” did, and stay there (and as much as I still love that album, it is, very much, a reflection of the time in which it was made), but it embraces universal truths that may be of their moment, but will no doubt remain relevant in the years to come. At the end of the 2 1/2 hour show on Sunday night, not only did I feel closer to the artist, but I felt one with his music in a way that, until that night, I’d only dreamt about.

Thank you, Bruce, for the kick in the ass I needed. I can’t wait for the next time.

Before I go, I wanted to do a couple of lists of my own, personal favorites from The Boss: my five favorite albums, and my ten favorite songs. I hope you enjoy, and I hope I inspire you to check them out yourselves.

Brian’s Five Favorite Albums—Bruce Springsteen
1. “Born in the U.S.A.” (1984)- Because of it’s anthemic drive and rocking melodies, it feels more jingoistic than it really is. Still, I defy you to find one song on this album that doesn’t kick ass. You can’t say that about a lot of albums.
2. “Wrecking Ball” (2012)- The Boss’s latest is one of my favorites. Like “U.S.A.,” and Springsteen’s other, great albums, it’s hard to find a track that isn’t great. But even more than on #3 of this list, it’s Springsteen’s instincts as a rock storyteller that give the album it’s power.
3. “The Rising” (2002)- Springsteen’s response to 9/11. Written and recorded after someone stopped him on the street and said, simply, “We need you now,” Bruce’s first album with the E Street Band since “Born in the U.S.A.” is mournful, hopeful, and unforgettable from the first track (“Lonesome Day”) to the last (“My City of Ruins”). The band played a lot of these tracks Sunday night, and they really intertwined beautifully with the songs from “Wrecking Ball.”
4. “Born to Run” (1975)- In many ways, Springsteen’s best album. Only eight tracks long, but when those eight tracks include classics such as “Thunder Road,” “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out,” “Jungleland,” and the title track, it’s impossible to argue with those that put this as The Boss’s artistic peak.
5. “Live: 1975-85” (1986)- Okay, it’s kind of unfair to put this three-CD box set of highlights from the band’s classic live shows through the “Born in the U.S.A.” tour, since it includes so many of their best songs, but it has to make my top 5 simply by having so many of my favorite versions of their songs, including “The River,” “Thunder Road,” “No Surrender,” “Growin’ Up,” and “Reason to Believe,” among so many others.

Brian’s Ten Favorite Songs—Bruce Springsteen
1. “No Surrender” (from “Born in the U.S.A.”)- My personal anthem. “We made a promise, we swore we’d always remember. No retreat, no surrender. Blood brothers in the night, with a vow to defend. No retreat, baby, no surrender.”
2. “Thunder Road” (from “Born to Run”)- I’ll admit, this has made a run for #1 on this list, both in listening to live versions (including Sunday night), and the original, studio recording. But it’ll just have to live with 2nd place…for now. “It’s a town full of losers, and I’m pullin’ out of here to win!”
3. “Land of Hope and Dreams” (from “Wrecking Ball”)- First heard on the band’s “Live in New York City” album from 2001, this driving, spiritual track made an inspired choice for the tail end of Springsteen’s latest album. “Darlin’ if you’re weary, lay your head upon my chest. We’ll take what we can carry, and we’ll leave the rest.”
4. “Atlantic City” (from “Nebraska”)- The first of Springsteen’s unofficial “trilogy” of acoustic albums of despair and tragedy (he later returned to this sparse approach on “The Ghost of Tom Joad” and “Devils and Dust”), “Nebraska” remains his masterpiece of the form, although when he plays this stunning centerpiece live, the tempo and volume go up to 11, and get to the real power of the song. “Everything dies, baby that’s a fact. But maybe everything that dies, someday comes back. Put your makeup on. Put your hair up pretty. And meet me tonight in Atlantic City.”
5. “Prove It All Night” (from “Darkness on the Edge of Town”)- This song really made my top five a few years ago after “Working on a Dream” came out, and I started playing some of Bruce’s older albums again. Like the rest of the songs in this top five, it’s great rock that also doubles as a call to rebellion against the forces that keep us down. “You hear the voices telling you not to go. They made their choices, and they’ll never know. What it means to steal, to cheat, to lie. What it’s like to live and die.”
6. “Tougher Than the Rest” (from “Tunnel of Love”)- There aren’t really a lot of songs from this 1987 album that have stuck with me over the years, but this muscular ballad has dug itself deep into my psyche over the years, even if I haven’t always been able to live up to it. “Some girls they want a handsome Dan. Or a good lookin’ Joe. Some girls like a sweet-talkin’ Romeo. Well ‘round here baby. I learned you get what you can get. So if you’re rough enough for love. Honey I’m tougher than the rest.”
7. “My City of Ruins” (from “The Rising”)- He wrote this song as an elegy to his beloved Asbury Park, New Jersey, but when September 11 happened, The Boss invested it with a more profound meaning by playing it on the 9/11 Relief telethon a few days after, and later making it the emotional, spiritual climax of his album that addressed the feelings that day brought up. “Come on, rise up! Come on, rise up!”
8. “I Wish I Were Blind” (from “Human Touch”)- It’s true that he early ‘90s efforts without the E Street Band lack the urgency and strength of his previous albums, but they aren’t without their gems. This aching song of the pain of seeing your soulmate with another man remains one of my favorites of his. “We struggle here but all our love’s in vein. Oh these eyes that once filled me with your beauty, now fill me with pain.”
9. “Streets of Philadelphia” (from “Greatest Hits”)- Of course, the film music buff in me couldn’t go without mentioning at least one of his great songs for films, and while his title track from “The Wrestler” has been the recent favorite of mine, his Oscar-winning song for Jonathan Demme’s AIDS drama has real staying power all its own. “Ain’t no angel gonna greet me here. It’s just you and I my friend.”
10. “Bobby Jean” (from “Born in the U.S.A.”)- In many ways, it’s fitting that I close this list with another song from my favorite album of Springsteen’s, which is, by the way, my favorite non-soundtrack album of all-time. Like the rest of the album, it’s pure rock n’ roll, but it’s heart is poignant as the singer is doing what is sometimes the hardest thing we can do as individuals…moving on. “I miss you, baby. Good luck, goodbye…Bobby Jean.”

Thanks for listening,

Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com