Music Movies Part II

 This week on Pass, Pirate, Pay, Ken and Andy crank the volume for Music Movies Part II, diving into three very different tunes on film. First up, Better Man takes a bold swing at the life of Robbie Williams—but does its wild storytelling style hit the high notes or miss the chorus entirely? Then it’s The History of Sound, a quieter, more introspective journey through music, memory, and connection—does it resonate or fade out? And finally, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere brings Bruce Springsteen into focus during one of his most pivotal creative moments—but is it a Born to Run… or a Born to Skip? 

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Transcript

Intro and Better Man

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Hello, everybody. Welcome once again to Pass Pirate Pay, the movie discussion show. My name is Ken. I'm your host, alongside my co-host Andy. Andy, how are you today? I'm doing pretty good. How are you, Ken? I'm doing all right.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

So uh today we're gonna be uh going back to the well of music. We are, but first we have a few things to discuss. Oh, okay. Let's do that. What did you think of the Oscars? How'd they turn out?

SPEAKER_02 0:38

I actually really, really enjoyed it. I I I think this might be the best Oscars I have seen in many years. Just the program itself or how it turned out? Uh both, I think. I thought the show was good. I thought Conan O'Brien was really funny, uh, and some of the bits were really good, and the ones that weren't didn't drag on for too long. Um but like in any of the major categories, the winning film was not something I had a problem with. It was something I was either like, oh, that's all right, or something I was really excited about, you know? Like I was rooting for Leo to win Best Actor, but I was more than happy to see Michael B. Jordan take home the prize. Same thing with uh with Tiana Taylor and Amy Madigan. I was really happy to see her win best supporting actress. I thought it was really cool that uh Sinners won Best Cinematography, which is the first time a woman has ever won that award, which is psychotic. Isn't that crazy? Like Oscars, we've had 98 Academy Awards, and this is the first time a woman has won Best Cinematography. It kind of blows my mind whenever there's a first anymore. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Like, oh really?

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Yeah, it's really crazy. Yeah, I actually uh I see a thing because uh this year was the first year they had a best casting Oscar, and uh a woman won that award, so now it's just like, oh, well, never had a man win that award. Someone's gonna be the first man. We've had we've had a woman win best cinematographer, but now but now we've never had a man win. I think a lot of casting agents are women. I think so too. I th I I I can't say for sure because I wasn't paying too much attention, but I think it's possible that all five nominees this year were women. So I remember I watched a whole documentary about casting. Yeah. One battle after another was my favorite movie of the year. It took home the big prize. Paul Thomas Anderson went from zero Oscars in his life to now having three. That makes me very happy. Oh, wow. Yeah. Sanders also won some big stuff. I'm a big fan of that movie. So yeah, it turned out great, I think.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

So yeah, I was a big fan.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

All right. I just want to catch up on that.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Yeah, it's it's kind of weird now, you know. Uh I don't know if it says more about the academy getting better or me getting older that now it's just like all of the stuff that's getting nominated for all the big awards is like, oh, that's stuff I really like. Whereas when I was a kid, it's like, what is the shit that's being nominated?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

I was I was gonna say the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Like, I said I've never heard of any of these movies. Right. But now, yeah, so like, is it just because now we're the middle-aged, uh boring assholes and the and the academy is just reflecting our taste, or are are the things actually getting better? Because I know what it feels like to me, but that's just could be because I am that person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Yeah. Uh uh, yeah. When I was growing up, I called them Oscar movies. Yeah. You know, because they were boring and they were long and they were artsy. Yep. I didn't understand them. Yep. So I don't know, man. I I like I heard a thing about how movie reviews work, right? And like normal people go to the movies like three or four times a year. Right. You know? And they see the big giant blockbusters and they they entertain them and they like them. Yep. So the reason movie reviewers give such high reviews to these weird movies is because it's not the same bullshit they've seen a thousand times. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like it it makes them feel good about going to the movies again. Yep. And it's not sitting through another goddamn Transformer movie. Right. You know? Yep, for sure. So that's why those movies don't do well with reviewers, and the the singular ones do.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

Yep. Yeah. I have a very clear memory when I was uh when I was in college, uh the 1998 Oscars, and I was looking at the movies that were nominated, and I don't even remember what they are at this point, but I remember very clearly my three favorite movies of that year were the Big Lebowski, Rushmore, and Run Lola Run. And I was like, none of these movies have a single Oscar nomination. What the fuck is going on here? This is the worth, this is the most worthless thing that's ever happened. But it's really funny, right? Because now, you know, the Cohen brothers are multiple Academy Award winners. Yeah, you know, and uh and Wes Anderson has an Oscar and and a bunch of his movies get recognized. It's like, all right, so the you know, again, who knows if it's because the Academy's getting cooler or if it's because those guys are now part of the mainstream. Yeah, yeah, you know. But yeah, so yeah, I don't know. I still love the Oscars. I still uh it I did not get to exercise my outrage that I usually do, but I was okay with it. That's good. That's good. I had to work, so I just watched I just read who won. Yeah, it's a shame that it uh that it happens uh right in the middle of St. Patrick's Day season.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

I usually it happens at at the beginning of March. Yeah. Or I think it's usually the beginning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Like the first week. It's I mean, the uh award season is now just so so interminable. Like the the Golden Globes are like the second week of January, and the Oscars are not until the second week of March. It's just like two months worth of just like talking and thinking about that this shit. If you're the kind of person who's inclined to do that, and I am.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

So it's just like by the time the show happens, it's like, all right, let's let's let's finally just get this stuff over with. All right, cool. I just wanted to recap that since that was the last show. Right on, right on. All right, all right.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Yeah, let's dig back in. We're doing some movie, uh music movies, round two of music.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Music movies, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

So this week uh we will be doing Better Man, uh, the uh the history of sound, and Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere. Uh-huh. So yeah, let's uh let's start talking about these things. All right. All right, let's dive right in. Go to 2024, which is uh with the movie Better Man, directed by Michael Gracie. This is the story of Robbie Williams, who is a British pop star. Um he was in the boy band Take That and uh then later branched out on his own. I know almost nothing about Robbie Williams. I didn't either when I saw him. Yeah, going into this movie. Um I remember he had a stateside hit with Millennium. I remember that happening when I was or I'm I assume that was right around the millennium.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

So I would have been I remember Rock DJ. Yeah, I don't I remember the video for that. The video for that was really cool.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Yeah, see, so that's that's take that, right? That's not Robbie Williams. No, that was Robbie Williams right after he split. Oh, okay. I don't remember I that song is certainly when it came on in the movie, it's certainly like, oh yeah, I know that song, but I don't remember it being a thing. Yeah, I do remember when Millennium came out, people were like, Oh, that's Robbie Williams. He's huge in the UK. And I was like, okay, never heard of this guy in my life. No idea. So yeah, it's uh it tells the story of starts with him as a kid and and how he joins this boy band, and then they break up and he becomes a solo sensation, and then you know, the highs and lows and peaks and valleys are pretty standard stuff, except the idea behind this, the the main conceit of this movie is that the part of Robbie Williams is played by a CGI monkey and voiced by Robbie Williams, and I think probably mo capped. Yeah, I think mocapped by him too. So even from when he's a small child, the entire time it's a small child monkey the whole time. We were always in uh monkey Robbie Williams mode. We should mention, I'm I'm if I'm not mistaken, when we did our best movies of 2024, you had this on your list, right? This was in your top 10. Yeah, yeah. So I I just because I didn't see it at the time because I remember thinking musical biopics they tend to be very similar, right? They tend to hit the same beats over and over again. So my thought when I saw the trailer for this movie was so what we're doing here is we're just gonna make the same musical biopic that everybody else makes, but in order to distract people from that fact, we're just gonna make the guy a monkey. Yeah, right? And um that's exactly what happened. Isn't exactly what happened. It it's like, okay, so we start off when he's a kid, and his dad is this attention whore who gets a small taste of like really low-level fame and decides to abandon the family. So now he's got to grow up on his own, and then he joins this boy band, and he gets a substance abuse problem, and he gets into a relationship with a woman, and the substance abuse and his quest for fame and outshining her leads to relationship problems, and then he has this massive reconciliation with his family at the end, and he eventually gets a self-star. It's the same fucking biopic that happens over and over again. It's Ray, it's walk the line, it's walk hard. I can't believe we're still making this movie after the Dewey Cox story just lampooned the shit out of this genre, and yet people are still just making the same ass movie over and over again. I oh man. Yeah, uh, I had a I had a lot I had a lot of problems with this movie. I had big, big problems with this movie. Like, I I think not just the CGI of the monkey, because I think the CGI monkey looks fine. I thought it was really good. Yeah. But like there is so much CGI all around this movie. Like, there's a talk about rock DJ. There is a massive dance sequence in this movie out on the streets of London set to rock DJ, but none of it is real people. It's all just CGI, and it just looks like shit. It's just like we can't even have a musical number in a movie about a pocket. I'm so annoyed, but I thought it looked so shitty. Uh and it's like, yeah, there's so much crap CGI in this movie, and like montages, like 80% of this movie is montages, nothing is shown directly, like we there are there's no time for any scene to breathe because we're just moving on to the next thing constantly. Like, there's a really crucial scene in this movie where Robbie Williams' girlfriend, fiance, whatever, she is another British pop star. I think she's in a girl group in but another British pop group that I've never heard of. And she gets pregnant, and they're very they're super psyched about it. And then the manager of her group is like, no, you can't be pregnant. And they then they the manager forces her, or the record label or whatever, forces her to get an abortion. And that entire sequence is told in the middle of a music montage. Like we're getting we have no time to actually pro like I'm I'm watching the movie holding my head. Like, are we actually squeezing pregnancy abortion aftermath into this song musical number montage? And yeah, that's exactly what we're doing. Like, this movie has no interest in doing anything other than just hitting the beats that everybody knows it's going to be hitting. I found it so irritating. And another thing, I get that they probably thought that the monkey thing was going to make this more interesting because it's different from everything else.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

But like, there is a lot of really heavy shit that happens in this movie. Like he's got this huge substance abuse problem, his grandmother dies, and he's like, and he's like all broken up about it. He has this massive reconciliation with his father, and and like he's going through all these big, huge emotional things. And Robbie Williams can't act for fucking shit. He is a terrible, terrible actor. So like maybe I I can't help feeling that if instead of doing your CGI monkey trick, you actually put an actor into the role, then maybe these scenes would actually have some kind of weight. But like as it is with just monkey Robbie Williams, I'm like, I'm just distracted by how terrible it is. So yeah, I yeah, I had I had all manner of problems with this movie.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

So they say that the reason they chose a monkey is because of the uh constant performance aspect, right? And and I have not had that level of fame at all. Yeah. But I have had I have been a performer since I was four.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

So I it kind of rang true with me.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Like everything's a performance, you have to be on all the time. Right. Things that aren't a performance for other people in their life is for you. Right. That that's just how you feel. You have to present yourself to the world.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

The monkey thing actually hit home with me really, really hard.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Yeah, I just it t I couldn't have missed more for me. It really couldn't have. Like, I was just so distracted by like, I don't know, Robbie Williams as an actor, even MoCap CGI version, like just seemed totally incapable of conveying the emotions that the movie needed him to convey. And I was it just took me out of it at every single turn.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

I saw this when it came out in theaters. Yeah. Me and Kristen are the only people in the theater. Yeah. It tanked bad. Here it got good reviews. It got good reviews. That's why I went and saw it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

I I am I'm actually shocked that it got good reviews. Like I don't understand.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

I wasn't when I saw it.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

I loved it. I don't understand what I I don't understand what people saw in this movie that I didn't see. I thought it was like bad. I thought it was a very bad movie. I yeah, I I was I was I I could not have been less into it. I I it was really, really a miss for me. Like really, really a miss. Yeah. Like I d I didn't think it'd be that much of a miss for you. I was I was curious. I I I was actually looking forward to it because I know you liked it and it got really good reviews. I was like, I was like, okay, let's do it. I mean, I'm into I'm ready to see something different in this in this genre. Let's let's go. I'm like, I'm in, let's do it. But man, this was not it for me. This was not the thing that I was hoping that it would be. In fact, it was the thing that I was afraid it would be, and then worse. Oh shit.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Well, do we have to go through this? Yeah, we gotta do it. It's the brand. So can is better man a pass pirate pay for you? Absolute pass. Could not it's still a pay for me. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

I still liked it. I believe it. Yeah, this is definitely one of those times where I feel like I'm broken because I just don't understand what the world is seeing that I'm not. Right.

History Of Sound

SPEAKER_02 15:00

All right, our next movie is 2025's The History of Sound, directed by Oliver Hermanus. This is a story of it's uh two men. It starts just before World War I. Uh-huh. Two men played by uh it's uh the main character is Lionel, played by Paul Meskell, who uh we recently saw in Hamnet, who is on a major streak for me. Every I every time I see this guy, I love him. And then uh David, who's who is played by Josh O'Connor, also one of my favorites. We uh I mentioned him as actually both of these guys were my picks for the Oscar Snubs this year in supporting actor and actor. So I I love these guys. I was uh, you know, I'm totally on board.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Did you know about this movie?

SPEAKER_02 15:43

I I'd never heard of it.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

I I heard about it a while ago. Yeah. And I'd been meaning to watch it, and and so I kind of built this around that.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Yeah, I had never heard of it. Um I and I I don't know how I missed it. I was talking to Mark about it, and when when I he was asking what we're doing on the show, and when I told him we're doing the history of sound, he's like, Oh, the history of sound, that's great. And I was like, shit, how do you hear about this? And nobody told me. Like, this is crazy. Um, yeah, so the so the story is these two guys um they go to the Boston Conservatory of Music, and um they're they're both there. Um Lionel is a singer, so he's there to learn how to you know be a more effective vocalist, and uh David is a uh composer. And so these guys meet up and they form an they form a connection and they fall in love. And they spend all their time in Boston together, and they are you know, they're living a happy life. I'm guessing, most I'm guessing has to be in secret because it's uh 1915 or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, and then uh then World War I happens, David goes off to war, and then he comes back, and the two guys go on a journey with like an Edison wax cylinder phonograph machine. Yeah, the very first thing. Yeah. Uh and they just go on a trip walking through the forests of Maine, finding all of these people in these really isolated communities, and like asking them to sing their folk songs, and they're just recording all of these really old folk songs to try to like keep make a record of these songs that nobody else in the world has ever heard because you know, a century ago the world was a much less connected place, and it's possible to just have these enclaves of people where uh you know you're doing these things and nobody else may ever hear about it. Right. So that they're that's what they're trying to combat. So yeah, they do that, they record all these songs, and then uh yeah, and then they go their separate ways. So this movie was I I guess I'm not breaking any ground by saying this is this movie is very much giving Brokeback Mountain feel. Yeah. Where it's like these two guys, they have this love, and eventually they're both in they both get involved in romantic relationships with women. That's so they have to like put these feelings they have uh for each other aside. But you know, they're they're they have this moment where they're away from everybody else in the world, and when they're when they're able to do that, they're able to be with each other and be totally happy and content in that situation. And then when the world forces them not to be together, you know, things don't go so well for them. Yeah. And I don't think the the derivativeness, I guess, uh factor of of being like Bro Kaka Mountain, I don't think it's a minus for this movie. I think this movie, the characters of uh Lionel and David are so strong individually, and the performances between the with those two guys are so good that I just I I didn't mind it. I was totally just swept up in in what was going on with these guys.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Yeah. Um and they did do a lot of they did focus a lot on the musical aspect of it, too. Yeah. So I'm sure, sure, you love the music in this movie, right? Oh, I did. I play uh like m a lot of it. Yeah, like a lot of it I play in the bluegrass act.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Yeah. Um I I love the music in this movie. I really did. Like I was struck by how just really and so much of the movie is like of the music in the movie is like one instrument, you know, a piano or whatever, and then one or two voices, and just it's just stripped down to the very basic essentials, and it's the melodies are so pure and like it just sounds so beautiful. I I I'm s I loved it so much. Um in the second half of the movie, after they've the the the two guys break up, Lionel goes to Europe and he's doing all this like uh orchestral uh choral chamber music. Yeah. And the difference between the way that music sounds and the way the music in the earlier part of the movie sounds is so stark to me, where it's just like I have no use for any of this music that he is teaching in this in in Rome, you know, where it's just like, yeah, okay, it sounds great. Yeah, it sounds beautiful. You have ten dudes singing five-part harmonies, but fuck it. Get me get me out of here, get me back to the backwoods where we're where we're doing the thing, you know what I mean? I just I just I I I couldn't get enough. Yeah, you're right. The the the music is is such a driving force in this mu in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

I it that was my only complaint about this movie. And it wasn't a complaint about the movie, it's just what I would have rather seen. Uh-huh. I would have rather it focused more on the music and less on the relationship, but that's not what the movie was. Right. Yeah, the movie was about the relationship. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

My one complaint with the movie, I guess people who listen to this show may be getting tired of me saying these kind of things. Um so Lionel as an old man.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Oh no. I loved all the Chris Cooper.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

It's played by Chris Cooper. This may be, it has to be the only time in the history of movies where I wish Chris Cooper wasn't in it. Really? I don't think he's bad. Obviously, Chris Cooper.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

I thought the ending wrapped up the movie really, really well.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

So the s the the the stuff that I'm talking about, where uh about the purity of the music that they found in the first part of the movie. Like I think all that stuff is there already, and I I just feel like you don't need you're it's too much hand holding. Like I already knew the thing that the movie was trying to say. The movie already said it. I just felt like the movie was not giving me enough. I just didn't, I just didn't it he was saying the things that were already going through my mind, and I'm just like, uh, just don't why are we saying this? Just let it sit there. The music itself and the experience of these two guys messages. Making and experien and listening to the music is so beautiful. I I just wish it had uh been allowed to sit there by itself. Yeah. I just wish it had sometimes things are so much better go uh going unsaid. It was just a little bit though. Just a little bit. Just a little bit at the beginning. Believe me, this is just a tiny nitpick. Uh like I am not saying this ruined the movie for me in any way. Yeah. Uh I'm just saying, like, it it's possible, like, with 20 minutes left in this movie. I was like, this is one of the best movies I've ever seen in my life. Oh, really? Yeah. And then and then the ending happened and I was like, okay. And it's still really good. I thought the ending was great. But yeah. I thought the ending made the movie way better for me. Yeah, see, it was the opposite for me. It just it just killed it for me. And it's so weird because I love Chris Cooper, and he's always good, and I think he was great in the role, but it's just, I just wish it wasn't there. I really do, you know. I I don't know. Yeah. I I know I say this every time, but it's just like sometimes a movie just needs to shut the fuck up. Just shut up. Just let your images, let your, let your characters, let the things you're showing speak for themselves, and don't feel like you need to say, hey, you know that thing you just saw? Let me explain it to you just in case you missed it. Because that kind of thing, it's it more often than not is just it it's unnecessary and and kind of a a killer for me, you know what I mean? But that's like that being said, I mean, this movie is is dynamite. It's just a really good movie. I was really into the story of the two guys, and uh like the character of David, the Josh O'Connor character, he disappears halfway through the movie, and then there's a scene near the end where Lionel goes and meets uh David's wife or widow, uh, because we learn that more than just the experience of losing the relationship with Lionel, but also his experiences in World War One and his like he's just unable to deal with the harsh realities of the world. So we learn that he committed suicide, and it's just like he he was he was shown as such like a a really brilliant kind of poetic kind of guy, you know what I mean? And one of the things that the movie does is shows that sometimes the world is is too hard for people like that, you know? Sometimes the real the really poetic people just can't hang with the awful, awful nature of this world that we live in. And I thought the movie described that in a really poetic way. And by and when I say describe it, I mean not like verbally, but by interactions between the characters, like interactions between Lionel and David's widow were were just like illustrating the fact that man, sometimes the beauty of art isn't enough, even though it feels like it should be, you know. And I thought that was I thought that was a really cool thing about this movie.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Yeah, I I I thought it was really good too. Yeah, I was really into it. And I thought like this this could have for me, it could have teetered off into artsy fartsy horseshit that I don't like. Yeah. And it didn't rode that line really perfectly.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

It's never overly sentimental. It's it's never like, yeah, it it doesn't get too up its own ass. It's just it's just right. And like it's it's like the the music itself, right? It's very simplistic and it's and it just allows the message to shine through because of the simplistic nature of the way they tell it. Yeah. You know? And man, just I just love those two guys, man. Those are just really good actors. And and like I can't wait, you know, to see what they do next. It's yeah, it's great.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

The next generation of actors. All right. So history of sound can pass pirate or pay. It's it's definitely a pay. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Pay for me too.

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

SPEAKER_02 26:05

All right, our final movie today is 2025's Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere, directed by Scott Cooper. This is the story of Bruce Springsteen. What year? It's like 1982 takes place, somewhere around there.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

That feels right.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

Yeah, it's uh it's right before the recording of his Nebraska album, which is the one he came out with before Born in the USA. So he's and after Way after Born to Run, yeah. What Born to Run is like 75, I want to say. Yeah. So he's already super famous at this uh when the movie starts, uh, but he's not like the super duper famous that he would become after Born in the USA and Courtney Cox videos and things like that. Yeah. It takes place in a very small period of time. It seems like what he's trying to do is he's trying not to become a pop star, right? Like he he wants to I'm I uh let me just get into it. I'm not a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Um I'm not a huge fan, but I am a fan.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Yeah. Uh there, I don't, I don't love very many Bruce Springsteen songs. Uh uh like I think Born to Run obviously rules, like it's really great. Um, but some of I don't know. So he's just not he's just not my guy, you know what I mean? But it's funny because one of the Bruce Springsteen songs I really like is Hungry Hearts. Oh, yeah. And this movie will not stop taking shots at Hungry Hearts. It does shit all over Hungry Hearts. Like Hungry Hearts is taking catching strays at every possible opportunity. And it's just like I'm watching them like, hey, what's wrong with Hungry Hearts? Um so yeah, uh, so basically the sound. If you know, if you know the Bruce Springsteen catalog, and you've heard the song Hungry Hearts, he's trying to make stuff that doesn't sound like that. He's trying to get back to more of the born to run kind of sound, uh-huh, where it's just like, you know, like more the working class guy that he's trying to be, you know what I mean? Yeah. So it's yeah, it's his struggle to not become the thing that his record label wants him to be, but try to be a thing that is authentic to himself. Yeah. Right. Yeah, this movie stars Jeremy Allen White as Bruce. Thanks for tuning in. And so let me, I gotta tell you, I was really not looking forward to this movie. Yeah. I mean, as you know, music biopics, probably my least favorite genre of mu of movie of all time. Yeah, like I like. I like him, but I'm a little biased. Yeah, it might well be my least favorite. Bruce Springsteen, again, not a big fan. Jeremy Allen White, I love the bear, but like, I I don't know. I started to get the feeling that like maybe I don't like Jeremy Allen White. Like, I was what when I watched this the last season of The Bear, I was like, boy, Jeremy Allen White is the worst part of this show now. I'm just so I'm starting to think maybe uh maybe I just don't like this guy, you know what I mean? I I love him. Yeah, I've loved him since Shameless. So I never watched, I'm not a fan of Shameless. I watched one episode, I was like, this is not my thing. So I loved him since I watched every episode of Shameless. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

And it was a lot, a lot of episodes.

unknown 29:07

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

So yeah, I was just I I was really not looking forward to it. I really did not I was like, I know exactly what this movie's gonna be, and I'm just not ready for it. I just don't want to see it, it's not gonna be good. And I gotta tell you, in all of the time that we've been doing this show, this, I think, with a possible exception of K-pop Demon Hunters, is as surprised as I have been by my own reaction to it. That is correct. I really enjoyed this movie. Oh, wow. I really did. I think the reason that I really liked it is that it doesn't do the thing that musical biopics tend to do.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

No, it's a snapshot.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

It's a snapshot, exactly. We're not seeing his rise to fame. Like, so the movie starts out with a flashback to him as a kid, and he's got to retrieve his drunk ass father from bar, and then the dad is like like borderline abusing him, and it's just like, all right, here we go again. We're doing this same old shit, it's always going on. But like, every time it seems like the movie is about to do that same thing that it that every movie does, it just resists it. It doesn't do that thing. Uh-huh. Like, there's a tendency in these movies where it's just like you take songs that everybody knows, and you show moments in the in the artist's life, and the the what the movie is doing is saying, Oh, you see, you see, this is how that song happened. Yeah. All this stuff that's happening in his life, this is why that song is that thing. Right. But the movie doesn't do that. Like, it's not taking the pieces of Bruce's life and saying, This explains the Nebraska album. It's like it's just showing how he is an interesting and flawed person, and the purity of the music that he wants to create is like the one thing in his life that makes sense. Rather than being like, like there is still a moment which made me think that I kind of started to understand the appeal for people of music by opic. The moment where they're recording Born in the USA in the in the studio, and everybody in the studio is like, oh, oh, this is the most amazing thing I've ever heard. It's just like, I I guess the appeal of this kind of movie is that you get to be present at the creation of something magical. Yeah. And it's just like, oh, you know, like I'm a part of this thing. I get to see, I'm a fly on the wall as this amazing thing is happening, you know? Right. But there's really not a whole lot of that going on in this movie. It's it doesn't do that very much. It's really just a story of a guy. And and like the and the Jeremy Allen White part of it, he's really good.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Really good as well. Like, I thought even in the musical stuff, he sang that too. Yeah. And it was it was not as bad as I thought it was gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

There's an opening scene, there's a scene very early on where he's in a club in in New Jersey and they're singing Born to Run, and he is just absolutely going for it. Yes, neck muscles are doing the Bruce Springsteen neck vein thing. And I was like, wow, Jeremy Allen White, he's he is really he's doing some good Bruce. Like, I am I am totally buying this whole thing. This would be so much more interesting than I thought it would be, because it doesn't just do the same thing that every other movie is doing.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Yeah, like I think it was a real interesting tactic to go, what is Bruce's least popular album? Like, not necessarily bad, right? But no hits. Yep. Like just let's do that. Yep.

unknown 32:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

So that was a smart move.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Yeah, yeah, it was really interesting. And and I'm not familiar with this album. It's um I am. Yeah, it's it's just you know what song is on that album? It's Atlantic City. Atlantic City.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

All roads.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

Yep. But I think that's the only song on the album I know. I think that it might be, you know. I was actually just kind of fascinated. And that there's a there's a whole thing, he has this relationship with this woman, Faye, and I don't know what the real life story is with their relationship, but the the way the when the movie ends, it seems like they don't really have a relationship. It just seems like she was a blip in his life uh as part of this thing. And I was and I thought that was totally fascinating. I thought the the movie was gearing up to a point where it's just like because she she has a young kid, and it's like the movie is gearing up to show that Bruce is going to get out of his own head and get himself together enough that he can be the husband-father figure that this single mother family needs, right? But it just never does that. Well, the by the time the movie ends, it's just like he realizes that Faye isn't is not a he's not in a spot where he can be the person that he needs her to be, and so he just doesn't, and she's just has to they just have to deal with that. It's just it's messy and it's not all night neatly tied up, which is the exact opposite of the jigsaw puzzle nature of these kind of movies that these kind of movies usually have, you know. So I just thought it was really refreshing, and uh yeah, and I just like I thought the acting was really good. Jeremy Strong comes in as uh as Bruce's manager, and he's really good. Again, like what what I was expecting was obviously the studio is is pushing him not to make this kind of album, but the because the movie and I guess Bruce's real life uh it in the i is the way it is, but the movie is set in a spot where Bruce Springsteen is already famous and and beloved enough that if the record label is saying we don't want you to do this, he can be like, I don't care. I'll just take it somewhere else. Right. And so it's just like uh I there's this there's a line where where Jeremy Strong as the manager is like, I don't really care what you have to say, but in this office, we support whatever Bruce Springsteen wants us to do. Yeah. And it's just like, okay, that's that seems like it would be the reality of what's going on at this point in in the history of music, you know what I mean? So yeah, um again, yeah. I shocked. I was shocked by how much I enjoyed this movie. I was actively trying not to like it. I I I mean that's unfair, but I was really like I kept waiting for the thing that I thought was going to happen to happen. You know, and it and every time the thing didn't happen, I was like, oh, huh.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Well, that's cool. Yeah. It was a little mid for me. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Yeah, it was a little mid for me. I like I found myself getting bored.

SPEAKER_02 35:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

But I didn't hate it. I liked it for a lot of the same reasons you did. I think it's just the the the benefit of low expectations for me.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

Um were probably I was I yeah, I don't know. If I had expected to love this movie, then maybe maybe I wouldn't have uh wouldn't have liked it as much as I did. Yeah. But the surprise of how how different it was from what I want, what I was expecting, made it so that I was like, huh.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

Well, right on. So can what are you gonna give Springsteam? Springsteam delivered me from nowhere. What are you gonna give it? Shocking. It's a pay. A pay. I got it as a pay. I'm gonna give it a pirate. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

No one who could have ever seen this. No, nobody. I would I would like this movie more than nobody.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

I have I have tried to get you and all the rest of you guys to get into Springsteen for ages. Yep. Insane. How could I like this movie more than you?

SPEAKER_02 36:38

If you had told me this two weeks ago, my head would have exploded.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

Yeah. I still liked it. I just I just didn't love it. Yeah, I like Better Man more.

SPEAKER_02 36:47

So weird. So weird. That's why we watch them. That's why we watch these movies. You never know what you're gonna get. I don't know what we're doing next week, so we'll figure it out. Yeah. All right. Well, uh, we'll see you next time doing mystery movies. Mystery movies next week. Take care, buddy. Bye-bye. Thanks for tuning in to Pass Pirate Pay. This episode was produced by the one and only Andy Morris. If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. We'd hate for you to miss out on all the fun. Curious about where to stream the movies we talked about? Head on over to PastPiratePay.com. We've got everything listed with handy links on where to watch. You can also join the conversation on our Facebook page or stalk our cinematic musings on Letterboxd. Links are on the site. Got a movie or TV show you think we should review? Fill out the contact form or this is cool. You can even text us right through the episode player on our website's front page. Thanks again for hanging out with us. Until next time, keep watching, keep rating, and keep it past pirate pay.