![]() ![]() I hadn’t seen the movie yet but they were telling me all about it as Kalra smoked. I ran into the two stars of this movie at CinemaCon. Other times, the song-and-dance routines were painfully embarrassing. Even comedic genius Rob Brydon, who plays a father to one of the classmates, joins in on vocals. ![]() It was enjoyable when they did one of my favorite songs, Thunder Road, at a Farmer’s Market. It just seemed the filmmaker had a bit of trouble trying to weave the iconic songs into the narrative. I had read that Springsteen was given the script and gave his okay to let them use any songs they wanted for their film, which is great. The racist teens made sense, but when a racist child pees in the mailbox slot of the door…you wonder why the parents don’t just throw the door open and knock the little jerk on his butt. The dad is always yelling about Javed getting into business or working at a car plant, when he yearns to be a writer or journalist. Perhaps they were just done a bit too over the top. Even in Bohemian Rhapsody, it was dumb to show the various countries they’ve played on the screen, in different colored fonts.Īs the story is being told, we get a bit tired of Javed’s overbearing parents and the racist folks in the neighborhood. There’s something so weird about that move. We get the goofy words of the songs appearing on the screen, as if we’re watching an episode of Sesame Street. When Javed hears these songs, he goes running outside and dancing in the dark…and rain. ![]() I always got my music back (I’ll never forget that when getting one of my Who albums back from David Salomon, it had a huge scratch in his favorite song yet he denied doing it). I wondered why his friend never asked for his cassettes back. In the cafeteria, Roops (Aaron Phagura) gives him Springsteen cassettes, one is Born in the USA, one of the biggest records of the year. Javed Khan (Viveik Kalra) plays the quiet kid that writes poems and songs for a local band his neighbor is in. And Springsteen’s words work wonderfully in his songs, but as bits of dialogue, not so much ( The Doors movie had the same problem). What’s disappointing is that writers Paul Mayeda Berges, Sarfraz Manzoor, and Chadha - doing a story about a Pakistani teen in Britain in the ‘80s, made this feel like a cheesy rebel movie from that time ( Footloose comes to mind). Especially since most people are only familiar with the song Blinded by the Light because of Manfred Mann’s terrific cover (Springsteen’s original is almost unlistenable). ![]() It’s based on the much better titled book - Greetings From Bury Park. And since it was from director Gurinder Chadha, he said “It reminded me a lot of ‘Bend it Like Beckham’.” The smile on his face sank, which told us everything. This is the most upbeat, positive critic around. I was worried about this movie when my wife and I ran into critic Scott Mantz, and asked him if he liked this. I remember being in 7th grade and giving $10 to Gina Barone for a Kinks and AC/DC album. I remember being in 5th grade when a guy let me borrow two Led Zeppelin albums. I remember the first time I got two Doors albums as a 6-year-old. And the scene where a classmate gives him Springsteen cassettes, should remind all of us music lovers of the first time we were given an album, tape, or CD that we ended up loving. The idea of a coming-of-age story, with a guy that is bullied and dealing with racism, from a working class family, that feels Springsteen’s lyrics are speaking to him…that could work. I mean, I own a couple Springsteen albums, but I don’t want to be doing ANYTHING for four hours. Yet she wanted to kill me when I complained that his almost four hour concert was a little too long. He never called, but she stayed a hardcore fan, even surprising me with tickets to see him in L.A. She’s such a fan that she once “broke” into his house in New Jersey and left her phone number in one of his coat pockets (her cousin was building the pool in his backyard). You see, she’s from New Jersey, where you’re required to be a Bruce Springsteen fan. And it’s the movie my wife was looking most forward to this year. After being disappointed by the musical route they took with Rocketman, another faux musical isn’t what I wanted with this story. I’m such a music lover, that a film about a musician can be corny and I still end up liking it. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. ![]()
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