Steven Rubio's Online Life

bruce springsteen #37

It had been so long since we'd seen Bruce that he was only 66 years old at the time. We didn't miss any tours ... this was his first tour since we saw him in '16. But there was COVID, and then he did his Broadway show, which played off an on between 2017 and 2021. He stayed busy. There were three studio albums, one of which, Western Stars, later was released in theaters as a full performance of the album. He released an album of soul covers. The Broadway shows were released as an album, as were his performances at the No Nukes concerts in 1979. He also continued his release of live concerts from the archives, almost 100 of them since that last show we saw in 2016. These are properly mastered, and basically replace all those decades where we collected bootlegs. Four of those were of shows we attended. So yeah, the old geezer kept busy.

It's impossible to attend a Bruce Springsteen show in 2024 without bringing your past along. I couldn't help but compare what I was seeing to what I had seen in the past. Sure, nothing is likely to match the shows from 1978, but he's put on so many great shows since ... the 1999 E Street Reunion return was tremendous, and I was especially taken by a couple of 2008 shows from the Magic Tour. But now it's 2024 ... the E Streeters who have died were replaced more than a decade ago, what you see now is what you get. The musicianship remains top notch, and Bruce's voice is still powerful. If you'd never seen him before, you might not have noticed how little he moved around, but really, he didn't look all that different from other acts, it's just that when we were all young, Bruce would run around and climb on stuff and go into the crowd, and that's in the past. The band had fun with it ... during "Rosalita", always one of the most physically active songs in the show, Bruce and buddies danced in little circles. It was charming.

In the old days, it was always fun to see what new songs Bruce would perform, and that's not as true now, but then, he's got 50+ years of tunes to get through. He played a song each from the two albums he released in 1973, he played four songs from 2020's Letter to You, he played a song from the 2022 album of soul covers. With someone whose back catalog is so huge, there are always going to be songs people in the audience missed (I'm still waiting to hear "Back in Your Arms" for the first time). But, as I said at one point to my wife, he has a lot of songs, and while his peak was, what 1975-1988?, his output since then has not been insubstantial.

On to the setlist junkie info ... he opened with "Something in the Night" from 1978 ... it was the tour debut for this one. Another tour debut was "Atlantic City", which was inspired by a sign in the crowd. Finally, there was a tour debut for "Land of Hope and Dreams". They played five songs we'd never seen live (because they were recorded after 2016). He played seven songs that he had played at our first show in 1975. "Born to Run" is "our song" (us and every other Bruce fan ... some day girl, I don't know when, we're gonna get to that place where we really want to go and we'll walk in the sun ... has meant something different from when we were 22 to now when we're 70). "Rosalita" has always been my favorite Bruce song, and I'm glad to hear it, but it really was better in the olden days. "Backstreets" probably hits closest to home for me ... I choke up the second the piano starts up.

Here are a few videos, not necessarily the best songs of the night, but the best videos ... a tip of the cap to some of these people who do such a great thing under tough conditions. This is so far the best video I have seen:

And the timeless "Backstreets":

Over the course of 50 years, some songs rise to the top of your personal pantheon, others slip away only to return down the road. But of all the words Bruce Springsteen has written, these resonate the most for me to this day:

Remember all the movies, Terry, we’d go see
Trying to learn how to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be
And after all this time to find we’re just like all the rest
Stranded in the park and forced to confess
To hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets
We swore forever friends on the backstreets until the end
Hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets

Here we are at the show:

black girl (ousmane sembène, 1966)

This is the twenty-eighth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2023-24", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 9th annual challenge, and my fifth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", and "2022-23"). Week 28 is called "World Cinema Project Week":

Martin Scorsese founded the World Cinema project in 2007 with the goal of preserving and restoring films from around the globe that otherwise would become neglected. They focus on films that do not get a lot of exposure in the West and that are at risk of becoming lost because of the lack of resources some countries have to preserve their own films. They continue to work on this endeavor to this day, so far ensuring that 54 films from 30 different countries have been preserved and accessible to a global audience through screenings, Criterion boxsets with 24 of the films on DVD and Blu-ray, and through streaming on the Criterion Channel.

Whether you’re Marching Around the World this month or not, let’s all enjoy one of the films preserved by the World Cinema Project and remember how inaccessible the voices and perspective of people around the world can be for even the most avid moviegoer. Michael Hutchins maintains an up-to-date list here.

Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project is one of the great gifts the celebrated director has given the film world. I've seen a handful of the films on the above list and most of them have been very good, with one classic-to-me, Buñuel's Los Olvidados. Black Girl is a perfect example of the treasures to be uncovered in the project. Ousmane Sembène was an esteemed writer from Senegal who wanted to expand his audience by making films. After two shorts, he wrote and directed Black Girl, which became known as the first Sub-Saharan African film to get attention worldwide. It tells the story of a Senegalese woman, Diouana, who gets a job with a white French couple, who later take her with them to France. Sembène uses a complex narrative structure that bounces between the present and Diouana's past life back in Senegal.

The essential examination in Black Girl is of colonialism and race, but Sembène draws a sensitive performance from first-time actor Mbissine Thérèse Diop as Diouana that personalizes the story even as it points to how colonialism affects its victims. The film is short, but the story of Diouana feels extensive, and ultimately heartbreaking. Sembène pulls no punches. #272 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of all time.

music friday: 1985

I'm typing this on Thursday afternoon, but by the time it posts, I will have seen Bruce Springsteen for the 37th time, and the first time since 2016 (this 8-year break is by far the longest of our life since the first time we saw him in 1975). This is Music Friday 1985, and Bruce didn't release any albums that year ... he was still touring behind the previous year's Born in the USA. We saw him once on that tour ... here is the setlist from that show:

Born In The USA / Badlands / Out In The Street / Johnny 99 / Seeds / Atlantic City / The River / Working On The Highway / Trapped / I'm Going Down / Glory Days / Promised Land / My Hometown / Thunder Road / Cover Me / Dancing In The Dark / Hungry Heart / Cadillac Ranch / Downbound Train / Stolen Car / I'm On Fire / Pink Cadillac / Bobby Jean / This Land Is Your Land / Born To Run / Ramrod / Twist And Shout-Do You Love Me / Stand On It / Travelin' Band

Here is a low-fi video of "Stolen Car" from that show:

Now I'm driving a stolen car on a pitch-black night
And I'm doing my best to make it through
Well I'm just sitting down here at the Stanton light
I wanna get caught but I never do

 

And here is a Creedence song recorded 9 days later, this time with no video but much better sound ... this closed the set for us in Oakland:

geezer cinema: the train (john frankenheimer, 1964)

John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, but also The Island of Dr. Moreau) had a long and varied career, with a few real highlights. The Train, like Seven Days in May, is very entertaining, with enough subtext to add depth without distracting too much from the basic intention to offer an intelligent action picture. I looked forward to seeing this movie, which seemed to have a decent reputation but which isn't talked about as much as Seven Days in May (much less Manchurian Candidate). And that reputation is deserved .... The Train isn't special, yet that gives it a retrograde enjoyment, as in the cliche of "they don't make them like that any more". Of course, they do still make big action movies, but in line with the retrograde feel, The Train is in black-and-white (reputedly the last big B&W movie), and Burt Lancaster is always good for the nostalgic angle.

Frankenheimer makes excellent use of Lancaster, who does all of his own stunts (on an off-day, Lancaster injured a leg playing golf, so Frankenheimer wrote a scene where Burt's character gets shot in the leg to explain his limp). They also used real trains throughout, no models ... when you see big trains crashing, often into each other, it's the real thing. It's perhaps especially impressive in the CGI era, when such extravagances are unnecessary.

The plot, based on a true story, is about French art treasures the Nazis have stolen. They are trying to get the masterpieces to Germany. Lancaster is a French railway inspector and Resistance fighter (as evidence of his star status, Lancaster does not use a French accent ... he's pretty much the only person in the movie who sounds like an American). The film is a combination of clever manipulations by the French to forestall the transfer of the art works and occasional action set pieces that usually involve one or more trains blowing up. The entire film is a bit long, but it holds its entertainment value throughout. The brutality of the Nazis is there but as a supplement, not the core of the film, and the general question of whether art matters more than the lives of humans is at least deep enough to make The Train a bit better than the standard war picture. Lancaster is at his action best, Paul Scofield as the main Nazi antagonist has a German accent, and Jeanne Moreau is wasted (her part is apparently Woman with a Few Scenes So We Can Say There's a Woman in the Film). #9 on my Letterboxd list of the best movies of 1964.

film fatales #202: trouble every day (claire denis, 2001)

Claire Denis (Beau Travail, 35 Shots of Rum) is a favorite director of mine, and I looked forward to Trouble Every Day, but I was aware that it is not as acclaimed as her other movies (it has the lowest Metascore, 40, of any film she has directed). I think that low Metascore is understandable, and Trouble Every Day isn't up to her best. But it's an interesting attempt to make an arty erotic horror movie ... I'm thinking of Park Chan-wook's Thirst, which is a better movie than Trouble Every Day but has a similar blend of sex and gore shown with arty excellence.

Trouble Every Day seems like it is going to be a vampire movie, but it turns into something different, which allows for subtexts that don't necessarily match those of vampire pictures. Denis shows a connection between erotic attraction and cannibalism that is unexpected. It's thought-provoking, but I'm not convinced it goes deeper than the basic connection. Once you get what Denis is doing, there's not much else to say about that connection, leaving an arty horror movie that isn't all that great.

The acting is variable. Béatrice Dalle (Betty Blue) brings her idiosyncratic presence to her scenes, but Vincent Gallo is too low-key ... he struggles with what he has become, but his struggle isn't moving because Gallo is inert. There is also a big plot hole at the beginning (not that horror doesn't often have plot holes): Gallo plays a recently-married man who, we assume, has become intimate with his new wife, but given what we learn of him in the movie, it's impossible for his wife not to have noticed long before. It's hard to suspend disbelief in this case.

Despite that Metascore, the film is #793 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of all time, #103 on the 21st century list.

ride lonesome (budd boetticher, 1959)

Low-key B-Western, one of a series Budd Boetticher made with Randolph Scott in the 50s. You can read a lot into Scott's character and how he plays him ... like a precursor to The Man With No Name only he has a conscience. Boetticher is concise ... there aren't a lot of frills in Ride Lonesome. I understand why it is highly regarded by some, but compared to Rio Bravo, which came out the same year, this is just a bottom half of a double bill. With Karen Steele, Pernell Roberts, Lee Van Cleef, and in his film debut, James Coburn.

music friday: 1984

George Michael, "Careless Whisper". I'm crediting Michael here, but it's a bit more complicated than that. It was written by Michael and his Wham! bandmate Andrew Ridgeley, and originally appeared on a Wham! album. But when it was released as a single, it was attributed to Wham! featuring George Michael in some countries, and just George Michael in others.

Stevie Wonder, "I Just Called to Say I Love You". From the soundtrack to a forgotten movie, The Woman in Red. Wonder won an Oscar for the song.

Cyndi Lauper, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun". A bit of a cheat, since it came out in 1983, but it had its biggest impact in '84. The video stars Captain Lou Albano, leading to the odd "Rock 'n' Wrestling" angle that lasted longer than you might think.

You thought I was kidding about Rock 'n' Wrestling? On the very first Wrestlemania, Women's Champion Leilani Kai put her title on the line against challenger Wendy Richter. Richter's manager was none other than Cyndi Lauper.

geezer cinema/film fatales #201: love lies bleeding (rose glass, 2024)

Love Lies Bleeding isn't exactly different ... it happily borrows from several genres. But things get a bit loony ... the genres aren't ones you think will match. The hype promises sex, violence, action, and lesbians, and the movie delivers. Writer/director Rose Glass (Saint Maud, which was the 100th Geezer Movie) and co-writer Weronika Tofilska don't play it safe, and the movie is the better for it.

The movie is a mess ... a likable mess, but a mess. I expected wall-to-wall action, which isn't Glass's fault ... my expectations were based on the trailer and word of mouth. I thought it took its time getting to cranked-up speed, and there's nothing wrong with that, once I adjusted to it. It delivered on the hype from the start, it's just that the lesbians and sex came first. Once the action begins, though ... whoa! The IMDB Parent's Guide puts it all on the table, with notes like "People are shot with bloody detail, grotesque wounds and disturbing sound effects" and "A woman beats a man and slams his head repeatedly against a tabletop". That latter doesn't even get it, but I'm avoiding spoilers. I'll just say that the make-up people and/or the CGI folks did some impressive work.

The relationship between Lou (Kristen Stewart), who works in a gym, and Jackie (Katy O'Brian), a bodybuilder, is intense and honest. Glass and the actors take that relationship in complex directions ... Lou's past stifles her, and Jackie turns into something scary when she begins shooting up steroids. The entire movie plays like a twisted blend of Thelma and Louise and the Wachowskis' Bound . Even when Lou and Jackie hit a rough spot, we root for them. It helps that Stewart and O'Brian have great chemistry. The supporting cast is also eclectic ... Ed Harris is the bad guy with a ridiculous long-hair wig, and there's Jena Malone (who is in everything, it seems) and Baryshnikov's daughter Anna (shoutout again to the make-up crew ... Anna's teeth must be seen to be believed, even though once you see them, you never want to see them again).

I never got the feeling Glass was out of control ... what makes Love Lies Bleeding a mess is partly the ambition Glass shows. She takes us to surprising places, and what happens to Jackie at the end is a perfect visual representation of female empowerment. (And Glass prepares us for that final scenario, even though we aren't aware of it at the time.)

Reading the above, I feel like the person who wrote it loved the movie, while I actually liked-not-loved it. I prefer Saint Maud for people wanting to check out Rose Glass. At the least, my words here tell me I liked it a lot.

the scar (krzysztof kieślowski, 1976)

This is the twenty-seventh film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2023-24", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 9th annual challenge, and my fifth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", and "2022-23"). Week 27 is called "Morally Anxious Week":

The Cinema of Moral Anxiety Movement was a brief period in Polish film history. Films from this movement portrayed the moral anxiety felt during the Communist regime in Poland. It was abruptly stopped by the introduction of martial law in 1981, although bans and censorship delayed the release of some films made during the period, like Blind Chance or Interrogation, until the late '80s.

This week's challenge is to watch a film from the Cinema of Moral Anxiety Movement. This list is a helpful reference.

Another example of the joys of the Challenge, which exposes you to things you would never have seen otherwise. Before this, I hadn't watched a single movie from the Cinema of Moral Anxiety Movement. Let's be honest, I never heard of the Movement. I had seen films by Krzysztof Kieślowski (this was my fifth ... I usually like them, but haven't found any to be classics). The Scar was Kieślowski's first "theatrical" feature, which means he had directed a feature for television, and had also created numerous documentaries.

The Scar has the look of a documentary, and its subject matter is realist. The Communist Party has decided to build a chemical factory. Conflict arises because the townspeople feel left out of the decision-making process, and while long-term progress seems possible, the people suffer from relocation and other problems associated with "progress". The personal angle comes with a focus on Stefan Bednarz, a former resident who is put in charge of the work. He has something of a conscience, and he has a wife who refuses to return to the town. It's all interesting in a low-key way. Once again, watching a Kieślowski film, I like it but I don't love it.

film fatales #200: bergman island (marie nyreröd, 2006)

A bit of an oddity, and a real pleasure for Bergman fans, Bergman Island is an edit of three television interviews Marie Nyreröd conducted with Ingmar Bergman at his home on the isolated island of Fårö. Bergman was in his 80s, and Nyreröd is a congenial and astute interviewers. The film is good for what it is, as we watch and listen to one of cinema's greats. Nonetheless, it's not overwhelming as a film ... Nyreröd has cut the original three interviews down by approximately half, and while the two walk around the island and inside Bergman's house, essentially this is two talking heads. Interesting because of the subject matter, worth a look, but otherwise nothing special.