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Also I got super distracted about trying to read the one club basement's walls Now if you looks close at about 1 o'clock coming out of Jett's head, it says "THE GLOVE". I couldn't get a full picture of that part, but someone had written "SMELL THE GLOVE" there. Which if you don't know is Michael McKean's other band's album:

The weirdest thing about this is that I thought "Michael Mckean is absolutely not convincing as a bassist in a rock band" but Spinal Tap had already come out.

He was born to run! I think he was definitely the Joan part, they have a lot of similarities... though I wonder when the kid came in to the story then? That storyline would have been odd for a man.

Personally, I think The Barbusters is a terrible name for a band. They're never getting anywhere with that. That being said, I will say a lot of the band dynamics felt really true to life. Especially in that, "big enough to be kind of well-known locally" locally way. Shit like embarrassing each other on stage and playing bits of songs and then stopping, was very much a part of my band experience. Even that dismissive attitude toward bands that are little too polished felt real to me.

Is the name of the band on Friday "Numbers Band 15 60 75"? Or possibly Numbers Band 15-60 =75"?

I thought that was interesting until I looked up how old Born In The USA is. Born In The USA, the song, was recorded in 1982 (written in 1981, but who knows if the title was a part of the song in 1981) This movie came out in 1987. Paul Schrader had this kicking around for five years and this is the best he got? That kind of makes sense though. I could see Schrader having a good script, then tinkering with it once Springsteen leaves. Then tinkering with some new ideas that cause some other things to need cut out. Then you just get this thing that doesn't quite do anything interesting. For sure. I went from "They're brother and sister" to "oh jeez, I can't believe I thought they were brother and sister" to "ewww...they're brother and sister?!?" I was making lunch while watching the first half hour and chalked part of my confusion up to that, but then it kind of maintained that weird level of way too close family stuff.

Yea, I liked the music too, the main song was good and some of the other rock stuff sounded cool. (Though that brief clip of Jett auditioning by singing "Sweet Emotion" was TERRIBLE. Unsure if that was the point? But she got the gig based off of it so I don't know.)

I don't have a sister, but this is weird right? Who slow dances with their sister like they're about to make out?

Here's Trent Reznor (in the background)

I thought Joan Jett was the best part tbh. It seems she got ripped a lot for her casting/performance, but I enjoyed her here. Should she be carrying a big movie? Nah, but I liked her. Everyone else was too mundane.

On paper, this is a great movie. Written by Paul Schrader. Original music but Bruce Springsteen. Examination of a blue collar family torn apart and healed at the end of Reagan's America. Gena Rowlands. Michael J. Fox at the peak of his fame. This could easily have been a miniseries for television that people still talked about today. This is just flat throughout. Every big reveal doesn't get much out of me. The acting is just okay. I don't think the casting is bad but everyone feels unconvincing in most scenes. I don't buy Michael J. Fox ever in this band. Joan Jett never quite pulls off the biggest emotional scenes (but I do think she's decent in this). The movie looks cheap. There are some good scenes but most of this feels 75% there. Like every person in this production said "yeah, I think we got it that time," but they didn't get it.

Take a really famous rocker, an actor known for being a somewhat nice guy, make him swear and them both clash with each other and their parents. We watched I'm glad Joan Jett was relegated to third billing. She hogged the spotlight, away from the real star.

Yeah, I think a lot of changes would have to be made to replace Springsteen with Fox. Like, I can see where they kind of tried to keep in that steel mill kind of vibe thing, but they're just so different, I doubt you can just easily sub one for the other. Also, if Springsteen had been cast, I kind of doubt Jett would have been the co-lead. I'm guessing his part was given to her, and Fox's character was added as an afterthought. It would be weird to have the Boss in a band in a movie and be like, "He's the guy who doesn't want to be here." Now that I write that, isn't that kind of what happened in that Brittney Spears' movie Crossroads?

I can't think of one legit possible explanation for that

It looks like you all did your research too Did any of you see that this was originally supposed to be a starring vehicle for Springsteen called “Born in the USA.” Bruce liked the title, wrote his song, dropped out of this, but because he’s stolen the song for himself, wrote “Light of Day.” That’s a weird ouroboros of creativity there.

Yeah, I kept thinking to myself that this felt more like a Lifetime movie rather than something made for the big screen. The music was decent though. I couldn’t find much by way of a soundtrack, but “This Means War” is on Jett’s Good Music LP, and Springsteen performs the title track on his In Concert/MTV Plugged album. According to IMDB, he used to close his shows with it — an obscure song from an even more obscure movie.

Dude, there was some super weird energy going on between them. It took me a bit to realize they were brother and sister...

I was compelled to take a bunch of screen shots though! First, I'd like a movie about a band called Watermelons

I am not looking forward to this movie. There is nothing more I hate than these movies that are trying to be bad on purpose. I think the reason a lot of us like so bad they are good movies is that they are earnest and honest with their schlock. There is a big difference between the first Sharknado and the third one. It went from doing something silly and fun to being way too in on the joke and taking the humor away by not even trying or trying to be funny when it is just lazy. That's why I think Black Dynamite is one of the best comedies of the last 20 years or so. It understood what made blaxplotation films fun and bad and recreated that in an honest way for laughs. To the point where there are subtle things like booms dipping into shots and purposeful "bad" acting that sell those jokes. It comes off as a bad movie, but you know everything was done for a reason and thought out to be a reference or callback to these movies its making fun of. Most of the time these film makers think that you just slap something together and call it intentional you call all laugh at it even though it's just an excuse for them to actually craft jokes or film something with style.

With Patty Hearst and The Comfort of Strangers having just been rescued from oblivion by being put out on Blu-ray, this now leaves Light of Day as the only film from Paul Schrader not to see a DVD/Blu-ray release here in the US. I can't imagine if the music rights had anything to do with that.

There was a lot of odd product placement in the movie too. Here's Joan Jett being a savage rock star (ie. playing a video game by herself in the corner).

Shiver me timbers, that was quite an orgasm!

Dag nabbit

Shut your dumb logical face! My sharing a birthdate with Sarah Paulson MEANS SOMETHING!!