Top 5 Tuesday – Happy Birthday Bruce Springsteen!

Everyone loves lists. Top Tens, Billboard Top 200, Bottom Ten, Top 100, etc. It is inherent and ingrained in our human nature to take the chaos around us and put it in some sort of orderly fashion. Every Tuesday, Josh lists his Top 5 movies based on an actor, genre, director, theme, holiday, sandwich or general whimsy and posts it for your consumption and discussion. If you want to submit your own list you can email Josh at J.A.Crabb22@gmail.com with the subject line, “RWT Top 5 Tuesday”, give a short 50-100 word description of the theme and your choices, you could end up seeing your list right here!

Happy Birthday to the Boss, Bruce Springsteen!

This week’s Top 5 Tuesday gives a tip of the cap to the one, the only, Bruce Springsteen, who celebrates a birthday on September 23rd. To honor the E Street Band frontman’s 64th birthday, let’s countdown the top 5 movies that have the privilege of his brand of heartland rock gracing the back liner of their soundtracks! If you were born to run or on the streets of philadelphia, take the thunder road to the glory days of Springsteen’s finest cinema songs!

5) Philadelphia – Streets of Philadelphia – We kick this off with one of his more accomplished songs, Streets of Philadelphia, from the 1993 movie Philadelphia starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. Springsteen won an Oscar for this original song off the soundtrack and Hanks won best actor in a leading role. The Boss beat out Neil Young for the Oscar, which was also from the Philadelphia soundtrack. A statement of a movie about the stigma of AIDS and a worthy Oscar for Springsteen as well as Hanks; the latter would go on to win the same award the next year for Forrest Gump.

4) Jerry Maguire – Secret Garden – Springsteen’s song, “Secret Garden”, is in the same vein as “Streets of Philadelphia”. It has soft-synth keys over Bruce’s smooth vocals and tugs at the heart strings. This song is typically over-laid with one of the most iconic scenes from Jerry Maguire, the “You-had-me-at-hello” scene that every lady loves. You don’t hear about a lot of romantic comedies having won an Oscar (Cuba Gooding Jr. for his supporting actor role as Rod Tidwell) and this movie rose above the typical Rom-Com fare of the mid-90’s and was a movie about love, hope, and redemption. I really enjoy this movie and I am not ashamed to say that. Plus, the Boss highly recommends it.

3) Dead Man Walking – Dead Man Walking – Springsteen was back at the Oscars two years later performing “Dead Man Walking” for his Oscar-nominated song, “Dead Man Walkin’”. He would lose out to “Colors of the Wind’ from the Disney animated movie, Pocahontas (no shame in losing to that song). A movie that nabbed Susan Sarandon an Academy Award for Best Supporting Acctress and Sean Penn a nominating for Best Actor, Dead Man Walking is a gripping exploration of murder, death, friendship, and faith that still holds up after 20+ years. The Boss adds his down-to-earth and spiritual touch to a beautiful film.

2) High Fidelity – The River – High Fidelity has the Springsteen song, “The River”, on its soundtrack, which is a great tune. However, the reason this shoots towards the top is Springsteen has a fantastic one-minute cameo in the movie giving relationship advice to John Cusack’s character (see the picture at the top of the post). He puts on his best “Dear Abby” as he plays some blues progressions and moves Cusack to put his Top 5 ex-girlfriend list to rest and feel better about the past. It ends with the great line from Cusack, “Good luck. Goodbye. Thanks Boss.” Who knew that the Boss had it in him to give such great advice? A Springsteen cameo has him so excited he’s unbuttoning half his shirt!

1) Warm Bodies – Hungry Heart – A Reel World favorite and an incredibly great movie with deeper meanings than the premise of the movie leads on, Warm Bodies is much better movie than people give it credit for. Also, Springsteen’s classic track, Hungry Heart, seems so apt to go with a zombie love story, it was like Bruce prophesied the making of this movie! The Boss-o-meter gives it one vest fully unbuttoned and a bleeding heart of poetic, undead romance!

Redeeming Culture

Top 5 Tuesday – Happy Birthday Bruce Springsteen!

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