MY REVIEW OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN'S WRECKING BALL

By Barry Dutter

The arrival of a new Bruce Springsteen album is always something of an event for longtime fans, even if the Boss’ song-writing prowess is nowhere near what it once was.

“Wrecking Ball” is Bruce’s third album in the past five years. Sadly, it is just as uninspired as the last two. None of the three albums come close to approaching the greatness of his early work. In his last three albums, there has only been one song that stacks up with his stronger work from the past: “Radio Nowhere” from 2007’s  “Magic,” and even that song was accused of stealing the riff from a Tommy Tutone song called “867-5309 (Jenny).”
Having one decent song in three albums is a far cry from the Bruce of old, who could always be counted on half a dozen great songs or more on his albums in the 70s and 80s.
“Wrecking Ball,” has songs that were seemingly written by a guy trying to write like Bruce and sung by a guy trying to sound like Bruce. But ultimately he comes off as a lightweight version of his former self. There are no instant classics to be found here.
Bruce seems to have fallen victim to the same ailment that attacks all rockers as they get older: the songs they write in their 40s and 50s juts aren’t as good as the ones they wrote in their 20s  and 30s. There is something to be said for rock being a  young man’s game.
I commend Bruce for trying, but even he must be aware that his music doesn’t have the same impact that it once did.
My biggest complaint about Bruce’s songwriting these days is his tendency to write a  chorus that is just one word or phrase repeated over and over, as if he can’t even be bothered to come up with other words that rhyme with the tile of the song.
There are Bruce purists out there who insist that he only did three great albums, and those were back in the early 1970s. I actually came late to the Bruce party. Yes, I was one of those late-comers who jumped on the “Born in the USA” bandwagon.
There was a time in 1985 when Bruce was unquestionably the biggest rock star in the world, and it was pretty cool to see it happen. His  “Born in the USA” album spawned a  remarkable seven hit singles, and the only reason it didn’t have more was because Bruce decided not to release any more.
“Born in the USA” had been designed as a very accessible “arena rock” album, with big, bold, power-pop anthems. If Bruce had wanted to, he could have done two or three more albums that sounded just like it, and extended his reign as the King of Rock.
Instead, he went in a completely different direction. He fired his band, and released his first solo album, 1987's TUNNEL OF LOVE. The songs were softer and quieter, the exact opposite of those on “Born in the USA.” The album was a dark, introspective look at the collapse of a marriage. It came as a surprise to no one that Bruce got divorced shortly after its release.
After that came a four-year gap, followed by two more “soft-rock” albums that some disdainfully refer to as Bruce’s “Phil Collins period.”
It would be 15 years after “Born in the USA” that Bruce would finally reunite the E Street Band and release another straight-out rock album. That album, “The Rising,” was Bruce’s response to the Sept. 11th attacks.
The songs were meant as a salve to wounded Americans; intendedt to uplift our spirits and illuminate the mood of the nation.
Despite all the positive reviews from critics and the noble sentiment that went into its creation, The Rising never really caught on in a big way. There aren’t really any songs on there that Bruce fans would list as their favorites.
That pretty much sums up his career ever since.
There have been a handful of albums and singles, but nothing truly memorable. It’s admirable that he keeps trying, but I would say that Bruce currently occupies the same zone as artists like the Eagles, the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, and The Who: any time they attempt to make new music, it is never as good as the stuff they did in the early days.
It is significant to note that when Bruce played the halftime show of the Super Bowl in 2010, the songs that really resonated with the crowd were his hits from the 70s and 80s. He crammed one mediocre new song in there, “Working on a Dream,” but it felt like filler, taking up space until he got to “Born to Run.”
When Bruce releases a new album these days, it feels like he really is working on a dream -- the dream of still being relevant.
Those days are long gone. Bruce once wrote about a guy who was a great baseball player whose “glory days” were behind him. These days, he could sing a similar song about a  guy who used to be a great rock and roller, back in the 70s and 80s.
So what is the solution? Should Bruce just stop trying to write new material (as other 70s rockers like Billy Joel and Rod Stewart did a few years back)? Well, there are very few rock stars who produced any quality work late in their careers.
I can count on one hand the number of rockers who had second acts that equaled or surpassed the first. Paul Simon had “Graceland.” Steve Winwood had “Back in the High Life.” After that, the pickings get pretty slim.
But Bruce doesn‘t really need to make new music. He knows he can continue to entertain fans at live shows for years to come with the classic songs he wrote in his youth. If audiences have to put up with the occasional new tune mixed in with the classics, well, even Bruce’s new stuff is at least listenable. 

“Wrecking Ball” does not hit with the force that you hope it would. If anything, it makes you want to put on an earlier Bruce album. So I guess it does serve a  purpose, even if I’m sure it’s not the one that Bruce had intended it to.

GET LOST, JOHN CARTER! AND TAKE TINTIN WITH YOU!

By Barry Dutter

The past few months saw the release of two movies that I knew were going to flop in America before they ever came out: TINTIN and JOHN CARTER. Why? Because no one in this country cares about either of those two characters and never will.
Tintin is one of those characters that you used to occasionally come across as a kid and no matter how many times you tried to read his strip, you never understood what was supposed to be entertaining about it.
And John Carter was, let’s face it, never seen as anything more than the poor man’s Tarzan. These characters may have enjoyed great success decades ago, but as far as most Americans are concerned, their time has passed.
John Carter was created exactly 100 years ago. Although he has appeared in books and comics over the years, interest in the character seemed to fade out by the 1970s. Over the past 40 years, Carter has been largely forgotten by the general public.
Many actors and directors tried to get a JC movie off the ground in the past few decades, but none succeeded until now. The new film failed to drum up much interest in the weeks and months before its release, and looks like it will go down as the biggest-budgeted flop in Disney history.
Which brings us to my point: John Carter was a hero from the pulp era. He had his greatest success in the 1920s and 1930s.
Is it logical to think that a character who peaked 80 years ago would still appeal to audiences today?
There seems to be a general feeling in Hollywood that all heroes are timeless, that every character can be brought back and redefined for a new generation.
Look at Sherlock Holmes, for example -- according to Guinness, the “most portrayed movie character” of all time.  Holmes was created in 1887, about 125 years ago. He has appeared in books and films (starting in 1900!) ever since.
The two most recent Sherlock Holmes films starring Robert Downey Jr. were the most successful Holmes entries in cinema history. A new Sherlock Holmes TV series airs on the BBC and has just been renewed for a third season, and the books continue unabated. 
Clearly the public appetite all things Sherlock is insatiable. It seems the character will be around for centuries to come.
So why has the great detective prevailed while John Carter seems destined to head back to oblivion?
For starters, Sherlock has been around almost continually since his creation, only lying dormant for brief periods of time. John Carter has faded out of the public eye for decades at a  time -- clearly far too long for a  fictional character to be off the scene.
Secondly, most people regard JC as being second fiddle to Tarzan, that other character created by the late Edgar Rice Burroughs. In the eyes of the American public, Tarzan is an iconic hero who deserves to be immortalized, brought back every now and then for new adventures. And John Carter is just “that guy in a loin cloth who’s not Tarzan.”
The second most popular movie character of all time is Dracula. The Lord of the Undead was created in 1897, ten years after Holmes, and has enchanted audiences for generations. Dracula seems to be another character that, while you can drive a stake through his heart, you can never really kill him.
John Carter was a pulp hero, and very few pulp heroes live on today in any kind of meaningful way. Over the past few decades, Hollywood has shown an obsessive need to revive seemingly every hero who has ever existed, and, when it comes to the pulp heroes, met with dismal results. Comic strip and radio heroes who peaked in the 1930s have fared equally poorly.
The Shadow, The Phantom, Dick Tracy, the Green Hornet, and the Spirit are all characters who have underperformed at the box office in recent years.
It seems that filmgoers just don’t care about these dusty old heroes that were big during the Depression. No matter how many times Hollywood attempts to bring back Doc Savage, the effort is met with a  collective yawn from film-goers.
The one exception to the pulp heroes rule is Conan the Barbarian. Since his revival in the late 60s/early 70s, Conan has been a staple of comics, film and TV.  (Red Sonja has enjoyed similar success, but she was hardly a popular pulp hero, appearing only as a supporting character in one short story.)
Conan-creator Robert E. Howard also sired Conan’s cousin in combat, Kull the Destroyer. But Kull has always been seen by most as a copy of Conan, and has never enjoyed the Cimmerian’s success.
It seems John Carter is destined to suffer the same fate of Kull -- to be regarded as a bastard stepchild, the “other” creation from an eccentric genius. Carter and Kull just seem to lack the essence of an iconic character, that certain element that gets people excited about them and want to see more of them.
Look at Peter Pan, or any of the classic fairy tale characters like Snow White, Cinderella, or Red Riding Hood. These are characters whose adventures are constantly being reinterpreted for new audiences to enjoy.
As for some more modern examples: James Bond turns 60 in 2013, and film-goers never seem to tire of his exploits.
Superman is nearing his 75th year of continuous publication, and his siblings Batman and Wonder Woman are not far behind. Captain Marvel was once more popular than  Superman, but the “Big Red Cheese,” aka “Shazam,” has never recovered from the lawsuit that temporarily ended his comic book run in 1953.
Golden Age Marvel heroes like Captain America and the Sub-Mariner have been around for over 70 years, though Marvel has struggled since the 1970s to keep Namor “afloat.” Even the Silver Age Marvel heroes like the Amazing Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four are now entering their sixth decade of publication, showing that the public never seems to tire of true originals.
Robin Hood seems a Hollywood perennial, as does King Arthur. These are epic heroes who have been around for centuries. The Three Musketeers attempt a cinematic comeback every decade or two, but they never seem to resonate with audiences the way Robin Hood and King Arthur do.
And then there are the Greek, Roman and Norse Gods, the likes of whom are seen in movies like Hercules, Clash of the Titans, The Immortals, and Percy Jackson.
These are characters that have been around for untold eons, and audiences are still intrigued by them.
Ultimately it comes down to the fact that there are some characters that are beloved and timeless and some that are not.
No matter how many times Hollywood brings back certain characters, it seems that modern audiences will never warm up to Kull, or the Shadow, or John Carter.
There was a time and place for all of these characters. They all had a chance to shine.
The truly great characters live beyond their one moment of greatness. The also-rans, the inferior characters, never quite live up to their potential.
Not all characters are meant to stay in the public eye forever. Sometimes it’s ok to let go. We already have Conan and Tarzan., We don’t need Kull and John Carter too.
Maybe it’s time for Hollywood to stop trying so hard to resurrect the past. Not every hero is meant to be brought back ad infinitum. Let the pulp heroes stay in the pulps. They had their era and it’s over.
We’ll keep Tarzan and Conan, and forget the rest. Likewise, the golden era of Sunday newspaper strips and radio shows is long gone, too. (Sorry, Yellow Kid, but it‘s true!)
Currently there is yet another Lone Ranger film in the works, but this is another character that has struggled to find an audience since the 1950s.
Zorro had a hit movie in the 1990s, with another in the works. For some reason, modern audiences have accepted Zorro while rejecting the Lone Ranger. I don't know why. Maybe whips are cooler than silver bullets?
But Zorro is definitely the exception to the rule.
Come on, Hollywood. It’s not 1930 any more. People don’t listen to serialized radio shows any more. They don’t read the Sunday Funnies like they used to. Pulp magazines are long gone. It’s not realistic for Hollywood to expect all movie-lovers to be entertained by the same heroes that our great grandparents enjoyed.
I mean, you don’t see people lining up to see Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers any more. Those space jockies have been replaced by more modern heroes found in the STAR WARS and STAR TREK series.
It is worth noting that Harry Potter, the most successful cinematic character of all time, was created in 1997. Clearly audiences are hungry for new heroes.
Every new generation creates its own mythologies. There is no need to be so dependent on ideas that worked generations ago. 
Not every hero is meant to last forever. John Carter is proof of that. I would be surprised if he ever showed up in a movie again.
But as for his brother Tarzan? I can  just picture cinema-goers lining up now to check out this iconic character in his next cinematic adventure, watching him swing through the trees and give that famous yell… proving my point, that great heroes live forever, and second-rate ones exist as  barely-remembered answers to trivia questions.
One can argue that the recent Tintin movie was such a huge hit overseas that it didn’t even need to be released in this country. And that would have been fine with us.
Americans are a stubborn lot, especially when it comes to who we worship as heroes. We have demonstrated time and again that we don’t care how things are done in Europe. We rejected the metric system, we refuse to accept David Hasselhoff as a pop singer, and we know that soccer doesn't count as a real sport.
We don’t care if Tintin is hugely popular in Europe. We don’t care that his adventures ran for nearly 50 years overseas. No one in this country will ever care about him.
Because we’re Americans, dammit. And we choose our heroes very carefully!