Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

October 26, 2025

200 YEARS AGO, THE ERIE CANAL OPENED AND AMERICA WAS NEVER THE SAME: “The Erie Canal not only transformed America, but, by allowing for the export of massive amounts of Midwestern farm products to Europe, American farmers drove a large number of small farmers in Europe out of business. Many of them made their way to America…In two decades, more freight was moving down the Erie Canal than was being floated down the Mississippi River from the Midwest to New Orleans. It would be an exaggeration to say that the Erie Canal created modern America, but it’s hard to imagine America today without it.”

Posted at 1:44 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 26th, 2025

WRECK ON THE HIGHWAY: Disney’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere Bombs in the U.S.A.

As great as I found director Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, nothing about its box office failure is surprising. And it is not only a failure; it is a shocking failure for box office analysts who projected an opening as high as $25 million with a $15 million worst case.

Well, as of this morning, the groomers at the Disney Grooming Syndicate are wishing that worst-case scenario had come about, because Deliver Me from Nowhere is staring into the abyss of a pathetic $9 million weekend debut and a humiliating fourth-place finish.

According to various reports, Nowhere cost $60 million to produce, at least another $50 million to promote, which means Disney will need to gross at least $200 million worldwide just to break even

That ain’t happening.

So, what did happen? How did a biopic about Freddie Mercury gross almost $1 billion worldwide? Bob Dylan’s biopic grossed $140 million. Elton John hit $195 million. Springsteen will be lucky to gross half of Dylan’s $140 million worldwide.

Well, as I said, the failure isn’t surprising.

To begin with, Deliver Me From Nowhere is not a jukebox musical. People know this is not a greatest hits biopic, and people want to hear the greatest hits. What’s more, the one album Nowhere does cover, 1982’s Nebraska, doesn’t have any hits. It’s a stripped-down, dark, and dreary folk album. Springsteen fans love Nebraska, which brings me to the next problem… The major one…

Bruce Springsteen has not been Bruce Springsteen for a long, long time. A massive part of his fan base was made up of the working class. The men who raced in the streets, worked in the factories, lived on the margins, counted the days till Friday and payday, and kept our world turning with their dirty hands and broken dreams…

As “Miami” Steve Van Zandt told the London Times last year, “‘When Bruce got vocal behind the Democrats, we probably lost half the audience. There’s nowhere we can’t do business.’ But some places feel like enemy territory now? ‘A little bit, yeah. We’re ten times bigger in Europe. We might play six stadiums in America and sixty in Europe.’”

Fortunately, Miami Steve is doing all that he can to repair the rift between the Boss and Trump supporters: Steven Van Zandt Is Bruce Springsteen’s Guitarist. He Hates You. He Wants You Dead.

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 26th, 2025

HELL FROZE OVER: WaPo Defends Ballroom in Editorial.

Now, it would be no surprise to find an opinion piece by a moderate or conservative defending the ballroom addition, even if the Editorial Board were the same as before. Publishing an occasional piece by a Republican to present the image of balance is standard practice.

But this piece is an Editorial, presented as the official position of the Editors. And it is a slap in the face to liberals, both by endorsing the ballroom itself and by slamming how hard it is to do anything in America anymore.

The teardown of the White House’s East Wing this week is a Rorschach test. Many see the rubble as a metaphor for President Donald Trump’s reckless disregard of norms and the rule of law, a reflection of his willingness to bulldoze history and a temple to a second Gilded Age, paid for by corporate donors. Others see what they love about Trump: A lifelong builder boldly pursuing a grand vision, a change agent unafraid to decisively take on the status quo and a developer slashing through red tape that would stymie any normal politician.

In classic Trump fashion, the president is pursuing a reasonable idea in the most jarring manner possible. Privately, many alumni of the Biden and Obama White Houses acknowledge the long-overdue need for an event space like what Trump is creating. It is absurd that tents need to be erected on the South Lawn for state dinners, and VIPs are forced to use porta-potties.

Everybody who is not Trump-deranged knows that if any other president had done the same thing, the reaction would be entirely different. The issue is Trump, not the ballroom. Nobody has any special feelings about the East Wing–it’s likely that many people who are blowing their tops didn’t even know that it existed. They probably thought the East Wing was just the eastern half of the Executive Mansion, which is really a different building entirely.

“CBS now has Bari Weiss. The Washington Post agreed with Donald Trump. Hell may indeed be freezing over.”

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 26th, 2025

SUSPECTS ARRESTED OVER THE THEFT OF CROWN JEWELS FROM PARIS’ LOUVRE MUSEUM:

Suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, the Paris prosecutor said on Sunday, a week after the heist that stunned the world.

The prosecutor said that investigators made the arrests on Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether any jewels had been recovered.

Thieves took less than eight minutes last Sunday morning to steal jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) from the world’s most-visited museum. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”

Hercule Poirot always gets his man!

Related: Is DEI to blame for the Louvre heist?

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 26th, 2025

October 25, 2025

NORM MACDONALD, CALL YOUR OFFICE!

Related: Will Schumer endorse?

UPDATE:

Posted at 6:50 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 25th, 2025

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Posted at 6:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 25th, 2025

BOOB BAIT FOR THE BOBOS: MSNBC’S Morning Joe: ‘Everybody’ Outside DC Finds Trump’s Ballroom Plans ‘Infuriating.’

Morning Joe‘s whine-a-thon over President Trump’s ballroom project has entered its second day.

Yesterday, we caught Jon Meacham emoting that Trump’s decision to proceed with the project “is in some ways a definition of why we had the American Revolution.” Don’t fire until you see the whites of their tablecloths, Jon!

In the same episode, Meacham disingenuously suggested that before starting, Trump should have brought in the White House Historical Association and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. But as Mika had already revealed earlier in the show, the National Trust has already gone on record opposing the project!

If Trump had submitted to the groups’ tender mercies, and their endless demands for redesigns, site reviews, hearings, solicitation of public commentary, etc., what are the odds the ballroom would have been completed before the end of Trump’s term — if ever?

Today, Katty Kay called the project “a let-them-eat-cake moment” given that it was happening during a government shutdown in which some food welfare benefits are on hold.

Meanwhile, let’s see what the Washington Post has to say about the remodeling:

Gosh, what terrible demons could have sponsored Drumpf’s fascistic vandalism? Oh wait, the company that owns MSNBC, and the company whose CEO owns the WaPo: Guess Who Donated to the White House Ballroom Project? The Left Is Gonna Flip!

UPDATE:

President Harding, hardest hit!

(Classical allusions in headline.)

Posted at 4:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 25th, 2025

RIDE THE COMCAST RECURSION: Guess Who Donated to the White House Ballroom Project? The Left Is Gonna Flip!

The donor list the White House released is packed with names you’d never expect to see supporting a Trump initiative: Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and—wait for it—Comcast. Yes, that Comcast. The parent company of MSNBC, NBCNews, and CNBC—the same outlets currently panicking about “Trump’s destructive vanity project”—is literally helping fund the thing they’re denouncing on air. You can’t make this up. The same talking heads wailing that Trump is “desecrating history” are doing it under the financial umbrella of one of his donors.

Other contributors include Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar, Coinbase, Palantir, and a handful of individual donors. Big Tech companies, which are typically anti-Trump bastions of leftist virtue, are suddenly writing checks for his ballroom. Maybe those boardroom politics aren’t quite as ideological as they claim.

In the end, this ballroom isn’t about vanity; it’s about practicality. Trump is reshaping the White House the way he’s reshaped Washington—unapologetically, efficiently, and to the absolute horror of his critics. And the funniest part? His loudest detractors are, quite literally, paying for the walls that will echo with the next round of state dinner applause.

Why, it’s as if: No One Is Tearing Down the Trump Ballroom. “Spoiler alert: It will stand. Indeed, the next Democratic president will make extensive use of the ballroom without apology, if only because it is of immense and objective practical utility.”

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 25th, 2025

MEDIA OUTLETS THAT REJECTED TRUMP PENTAGON GUIDELINES ACCEDED TO OBAMA-ERA CENSORSHIP AT GITMO:

Dozens of media outlets refused to sign new Trump Pentagon press guidelines, arguing that the rules were too onerous, but many of the very same outlets previously signed Obama-Biden era media policies that were far more restrictive and censorious in order to cover the war court at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Many large outlets such as The Washington Post, the Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times, Fox News, NBC News, and CBS News were among those which refused to sign the Pentagon’s new media guidelines. At the same time, these outlets agreed to far more restrictive policies — including censorship — in order to cover Guantánamo Bay.

Carol Rosenberg of the Times, in particular, reported at the Cuban war court for many years — and all the reporters who traveled to Gitmo were required to sign severely restrictive agreements with the military before they were allowed onto the base.

Despite the opposition from news outlets to the new press guidelines instituted by the Department of Defense (now also called the Department of War), the media guidelines at Guantánamo Bay that have been in place for many years — and that have been signed by dozens of reporters — include promises by these news outlets to not publish certain sensitive information, to not interview certain subjects, to stay out of certain areas, and to allow military handlers to censor what photos and videos reporters are allowed to publish.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 25th, 2025

THE CRITICAL DRINKER: Disney Killed The Kylo Ren Movie (And That’s A Good Thing).

In his video, the Drinker mentions a recent Forbes article on the economics of Disney’s Star Wars: Revealed: The Star Wars Movie With The Highest Profits:

2019’s The Rise Of Skywalker only had a 9.9% ROI as its costs came to an eyewatering $593.7 million (£450.2 million) as this report recently revealed.

It was the second most-expensive of Disney’s Star Wars movies after 2015’s The Force Awakens, the first in its new trilogy of films. The Force Awakens teamed up rising stars Daisy Ridley and John Boyega with Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and the late Carrie Fisher who headlined the original movies more than 30 years earlier.

With costs of $638.9 million (£452 million), The Force Awakens is comfortably Disney’s most expensive Star Wars movie and one of the most expensive films in history. Remarkably it is also one of the most profitable. This is no mean feat.

I saw Sam Mendes’ 1917 and The Rise of Skywalker on Christmas and Box Day respectively during a holiday stay in Dallas in 2019. My review of the latter at the time is much more positive in retrospect than I actually remember the movie being nearly six years on, these days I think of the movie as basically and extended Industrial Light & Magic demo reel. But in any case, like everybody else at the time, I had no idea that what I took for granted — going to the movie theater on a regular basis to see the latest zillion dollar blockbusters from Hollywood — would cease to exist for two years. In June of 2022, I was glad Top Gun: Maverick was just good enough to make it a fun afternoon at the movie theater. Today, I wonder how many more of those there will be.

Posted at 10:45 am by Ed Driscoll on Oct 25th, 2025

NELLIE BOWLES: My Little Totenkopf.

Graham Platner, the Maine Democrat challenging Susan Collins for her Senate seat, found himself in some trouble this week because of an old tattoo. A tramp stamp? An ex’s name on his bicep? No, it was a large totenkopf on his chest, the Nazi skull symbol worn by guards at concentration camps. Platner claims that he picked the symbol at random from the tattoo parlor’s wall with his Marine buddies (I hate when that happens!) and had no idea that there were any Nazi implications. Which is funny because according to an old acquaintance of his, there was nothing random or secret about it at all, and he would call it his totenkopf: “He said, ‘Oh, this is my totenkopf,’ ” the acquaintance told Jewish Insider. “He said it in a cutesy little way.” Platner, who described himself as “a communist” and an “antifa supersoldier” back in his old Reddit posting days, also apparently spent time in “a socialist paramilitary group.”

The best part is that the left has now painted itself into a corner with Nazi iconography, because they can no longer quite articulate why it’s bad, since killing Jews is neutral to admirable. Here’s a popular leftist commentator trying to explain why Platner’s Nazi symbol is bad:

“This isn’t just a Nazi tattoo, this is the symbol of the concentration camp guards, the guys who ran the death camps. The men who murdered socialists, communists, and liberals. They mass-murdered all black men in the French army. This is on par with a swastika.” (The commentator deleted it so I won’t name and shame. But isn’t it interesting?)

Perhaps that explains why at least one poll believes the severity of Platner’s “My Little Totenkopf” can by dismissed away as merely an “anti-Israel tattoo:”

An anti-Israel tattoo? The majority of the left in 2025 would see that phrase and think: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Posted at 10:14 am by Ed Driscoll on Oct 25th, 2025

DISPATCHES FROM THE ICE FLOE: Police Report Reveals Democrat DC Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton Has “Early Stages of Dementia.”

A new police report reveals Democrat DC Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton has “early stages of dementia.”

Eleanor Holmes Norton, 88, is a nonvoting congressional representative for DC. She has represented DC since 1991.

According to two police reports obtained by NBC Washington, Eleanor Holmes Norton was scammed by people claiming to be duct and fireplace cleaners.

The thieves posing as HVAC workers entered Holmes Norton’s home, accessed her credit cards and charged her $4,400 for work they did not do.

The police report described Eleanor Holmes Norton as having dementia. It also revealed that her caretaker has power of attorney.

“Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC) 88 years old, Black Woman, suffers early stages of dementia,” the police report said.

A spokeswoman for Eleanor Holmes Norton pushed back on the claims in the police report.

Flashback: The Democratic Party’s Ice Floe Politics. “The next time a Democratic politician makes an anonymous observation about the age or vigor of a colleague with whom they disagree, be skeptical. The remarks are made to reporters as if in sorrow, but the message is about as subtle as a shiv in the prison yard.”

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll on Oct 25th, 2025

UNEXPECTEDLY! Maine Democrat With Nazi Tattoo Also Made Homophobic Social Media Posts, Report Finds.

“The unearthed posts show a pattern of homophobic language and rhetoric that mocked or demeaned LGBTQ+ people,” the Advocate reported Wednesday. “In some cases, Platner appeared to use slurs casually in discussions unrelated to sexuality; in others, he explicitly framed gay people as the punch line.”

In 2021, Platner posted, “I like how our gay antics make him so uncomfortable he hates us. I’m doubling down on gay chicken next time in honor of this Air Force pussy.” A year earlier, he wrote, “This was the gayest (not in the fun dick sucking way) thing I’ve ever seen. This dude is literally everything I hate all rolled into one.” In other posts, he taunted users to “back it up with facts, fags,” and mocked military officers as “gay.”

Platner confirmed and apologized to the Advocate for what he now calls his “indefensible” anti-gay remarks, which he posted between 2016 and 2021. “I made a lot of comments over the years and talked a lot of shit on the internet,” Platner told the LGBT news site in an interview. “I stopped using that specific kind of language a while ago … and today I find that stuff abhorrent. And I am sorry that I ever used it.”

At Hot Air, John Sexton, quoting from Jewish Insider and CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski goes out on a limb: Platner Knew About the Nazi Tattoo.

I don’t think he’s a secret Nazi. I do think he’s a liar who made up a story about not knowing what this was because it was easier than trying to explain himself to a bunch of left-wing partisans who were already headed for the fainting couch over his previous comments.

Even MSNBC is having a hard time supporting him.

Bottom line: Even if one accepts Platner’s apologies for his past behavior, believes his account of when he learned about the meaning of his tattoo, and thinks that he may have evolved from his past errors, it’s clear that he has a questionable track record. There are legitimate reasons to be suspicious of how deeply held his current progressive beliefs are, and how disciplined he would be as a politician.

He’s a confirmed liar as of this week, not four years ago. I guess we’ll see if that matters to Maine voters.

MSNBC may be distancing themselves from Platner, but Vox founder Matt Yglesias is “ride or die” for the man with the Totenkopf:

At least, he says he is:

Perhaps Yglesias wants “a fiesty left-populist outsider” after the way the WaPo profiled him a couple of years ago as a boring old establishment leftist: “The boring journey of Matt Yglesias:”

“I don’t always agree with Matt, but he always makes you think with his unique and sharp insights,” says Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff, via email. Klain has liked and shared multiple Yglesias tweets, usually ones that praise White House actions in defiance of wailing liberals or henpecking conservatives. Yglesias, Klain adds, “offers ‘unconventional wisdom:’ He’s not afraid to break with others and put his views out there — a perspective that is hard to find in a dialogue dominated by conventional wisdom.”

* * * * * * * *

But enough serious people take Yglesias seriously to negate the many people who don’t. His Substack was tied for most-followed newsletter by members of the Biden transition team, according to digital strategist Rob Blackie, and Yglesias himself was No. 4 on the list of most-followed journalists. Some of Yglesias’s posts on policy — particularly one on Build Back Better negotiations in February — have reportedly circulated among White House staff.

“There’s a broad sense that he’s a public intellectual, and they take his ideas like they’ll take other ideas,” says a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss outside influences on the administration. “He’s not super influential, but he’s a prominent normie liberal, just like Joe Biden is a normie liberal.”

Or perhaps he just likes the look of Platner in a Hugo Boss suit:

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll on Oct 25th, 2025

October 24, 2025

AWS OUTAGE REMINDS US WHY $2,449 INTERNET-DEPENDENT BEDS ARE A BAD IDEA:

[T]he AWS outage caused smart mattress covers from Eight Sleep to malfunction. These “Pod” mattress covers connect to a physical hub, and users can set the covers to temperatures between 55° and 110° Fahrenheit via a companion app. Eight Sleep also sells smart mattress bases that let people control their bed’s elevation with the app. As of this writing, the Pods’ MSRPs range from $2,449 to $3,249, and the base has a $1,950 MSRP. Eight Sleep also sells its Autopilot feature through an annual subscription that starts at $199. Autopilot is supposed to help automatically set Eight Sleep devices to users’ optimal sleeping conditions. Pod purchases require a one-year subscription to Autopilot.

Pods have on-device buttons for controlling the temperature without a phone, but the devices require an Internet connection for the adjustments to work. That limitation led to disturbing wake-up calls during the AWS outage as Eight Sleep smart beds became uncontrollable.

As one user on Reddit said:

I woke up too hot in the middle of the night last night and kept double-tapping like a maniac to adjust the temp[erature] down since I wasn’t getting any haptic feedback. I only found out why after I got up in the morning.

It would be somewhat understandable that Autopilot stops working because Eight Sleep’s backend is down but not being able to even adjust the temperature locally is ridiculous and completely unacceptable for such a high-end (and expensive) product.

A person on X wrote: “Would be great if my bed wasn’t stuck in an inclined position due to an AWS outage. Cmon now.”

I do not trust the Internet of things, to coin an Instaphrase.

(Via James Lileks, who asks, “Is it Hot in Here, Or is the Internet Down?”)

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 24th, 2025

VDH: Media Terrified of JD Vance; “I Think They Should Be:”

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 24th, 2025

HOW IT STARTED: Rivals Attack Dean for Wooing ‘Guys With Confederate Flags.’

Howard Dean’s rivals for the Democratic nomination roundly attacked him on Saturday for telling an Iowa newspaper he wanted ”to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks” in defending his opposition to some gun control legislation.

—The New York Times, November 2nd, 2003.

How it’s going: How ‘Big Tent’ Are Democrats Willing to Go? Many in the party say it needs a wider range of candidates to run. Does that include people with Nazi tattoos?

—The Atlantic, today.

Platner has received extensive criticism for the revelations. The podcaster and writer Wajahat Ali wrote, “It’s time to drop Platner.” The Wall Street Journal published an editorial with the headline, “Oops, I’ve Had a Nazi Tattoo for 18 Years.” Zach Schwartz, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, denounced Platner’s tattoo, along with his refusal to take donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which Schwartz said “plays into familiar, harmful tropes that Jews or organizations like AIPAC control the government.” Jordan Wood, another candidate in the Maine race, said, “Graham Platner’s Reddit comments and Nazi SS Totenkopf tattoo are disqualifying and not who we are as Mainers or as Democrats.” Republican incumbent Susan Collins, said last week that she was “appalled” by what he had written online. “These were not comments that he made when he was in high school,” she said. “These are comments that he has made quite recently.”

But for now, at least, the Democratic party is not calling on Platner to step down. Ken Martin, the head of the DNC, said that Platner’s online comments were “hurtful” but not “disqualifying,” and that the choice is up to primary voters. Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who is neutral in the race, said, “Everyone has a right to grow and grow out of their stupidity.” Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said, “Graham has made a lot of mistakes in his life. He’s had a very long journey to the place where he is today, but he’s owned those mistakes, owned up to them, and he’s evolved.” Khanna called the tattoo “horrendous,” but said: “Do we want our political governing class to be like the classmates I had at Yale Law School, some of them who dreamed of being president of the United States from the age of twelve?” He continued, “Or do we want normal people also having a chance at these offices?”

Wait, do Democrats actually believe that “normal people” get Nazi skull tattoos? Has Mitchell and Webb’s viral “Are we the baddies?” sketch not crossed over to the other side of the aisle, yet?

I would assume choosing to run for the Senate isn’t a spur of the moment decision; it’s something carefully appraised and planned before the initial public announcement is made. “Readers, I just want you to ask yourself, if you realized you had accidentally gotten a tattoo that was the symbol of the Nazi SS… how many speed limit laws would you break on the way to the tattoo removal service, and/or a tattoo artist to cover it up? How long would you want a mark of the Nazis on your skin? Would getting that tattoo removed be something you’d jot on your to-do list, and get around to doing at your leisure? Or would it be something you’d want to take care of immediately? You know, when you’re running for a U.S. Senate seat?”

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 24th, 2025

ALL IN: After a lengthy wait, Jeffries to endorse Mamdani.

It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for him:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 24th, 2025

GREAT MOMENTS IN WHIPLASH: Saturday: No Kings!

Yesterday? Democrats Attempt To Dunk On Trump’s White House Ballroom Construction With Photo Of Buckingham Palace.

Many Democrats, left-wing activists and corporate news outlets are reportedly extremely upset over the temporary East Wing demolition. DNC Chairman Ken Martin wrote Thursday in an Instagram post “RIP to the East Wing- you were elegant, inviting, and didn’t deserve to be bulldozed for a gaudy ballroom.”

Additionally, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in an X post on Tuesday that “It’s not his [Trump’s] house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it.” Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in a Monday post to X that Trump is “ripping apart the White House just like he’s ripping apart the Constitution.”

It’s your house – so remember to count the silverware after the Clintons leave:

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, Trump’s staff are having lots of fun with their Website trolling pearl-clutching leftists over recent events at the White House:

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 24th, 2025

ARMOND WHITE: Springsteen’s Self-Mythologizing Home Movie.

As portrayed by perpetual sad sack Jeremy Allen White, curly-haired Bruce labors at a small-town bar, mostly appreciated by lumpenprole clientele and pathetic, clingy, single-mother Fay (Odessa Young). That’s the “Nowhere” from which Bruce longs to be delivered. Escapism drives his professional pursuit that turns uncommercial and derivative. A reckless road trip suggests that he wanted to imitate both Bob Dylan’s storied motorcycle accident and his John Wesley Harding neo-folk album.

Hollywood hack Scott Cooper buys into this myth, undeniably using the shame and dissatisfaction perpetuated by Democrat Party figures Springsteen and Obama. Cooper’s direction and script foolishly erect this myth based on fatuous press-release fiction that Nebraska was inspired by Bruce accidentally catching a TV broadcast of Terrence Malick’s Badlands (a high-art digression from historic tabloid tragedy). We’re meant to accept Bruce’s idiotic approach heroizing serial killer Charles Starkweather as his protagonist — as if Bruce found the secret to all-American failure and misery.

Aiming at our credulousness, Deliver Me repeats the familiar legend that Nebraska was created when Bruce broke away from his E Street Band to compose and perform alone, in his bedroom, to a simple 4-track recorder (lyrics scratched on a notebook next to well-worn pages of Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”).

What’s left out is the music industry’s manufacturing of Springsteen’s image. His manager Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong) gets the film’s big scene telling off a Columbia Records executive: “In this office, in my office, we believe in Bruce Springsteen!” This BS shamelessly begs for applause.

Do they obey the laws of thermodynamics as well?

Related: Christian Toto speculates: Boss Bomb? Deliver Me from Nowhere’s Sad Tracking.

Springsteen’s hard-left politics have been chipping away at his brand in recent years. His shocking defense of sky-high ticket prices shredded his blue-collar image. And his chronic attacks on President Donald Trump, while ignoring the serial miscues of his predecessor, likely chased some potential movie goers away.

Springsteen exists in the rarefied air of rock gods. Plus, Hollywood loves cranking out music biopics, witness potential films based on Debbie Harry and Joni Mitchell.

A Springsteen movie should be a must-see event, even one that doesn’t rock the Oscar conversation.

Instead, the film could be out of theaters by Thanksgiving based on current tracking models.

The jury is still out on that, but as “Miami” Steve Van Zandt told the London Times last year, “‘When Bruce got vocal behind the Democrats, we probably lost half the audience. There’s nowhere we can’t do business.’ But some places feel like enemy territory now? ‘A little bit, yeah. We’re ten times bigger in Europe. We might play six stadiums in America and sixty in Europe.’”

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 24th, 2025
« Previous Entries
Next Entries »