Lyrical Genius
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Lyrical Genius
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By Ben Elliott
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Is there a more impactful form of writing than pop music? Where books take thousands of words and movies unspool over hours, pop songs are tasked with telling their stories in just a few minutes. It doesn’t hurt that they’re catchy, too — very few can recite a full Shakespeare text, but almost everyone can sing along to Born in the USA.
The hard work of bringing a song to life — and the toll it takes on its authors — fuels two films coming to The Triplex this week: Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere and Blue Moon (a third, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, takes a slightly sillier look at the process).
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, 2025Scott Cooper’s Springsteen follows its titular rock star (played by The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White) as he processes the lingering trauma of his childhood through the creation of his Nebraska album; Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon centers on lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke), the legendary writer behind songs like My Funny Valentine and The Lady is a Tramp, as he quips his way through the night his former collaborator Richard Rodgers premieres Oklahoma!, marking the end of their 20-year partnership.
Blue Moon, 2025
Both films celebrate the painstaking craft of writing the perfect lyric — assembling just the right combination of syllables to elicit emotion. But they also make it clear that the act of creation alone can’t cure their protagonists of what haunts them: Springsteen battles a depression he can’t sing away, while Hart wrestles with the alcoholism that cost him his career — and later, his life.
Early in Blue Moon, Hart bemoans the inevitable success and longevity of Oklahoma!, asking his sympathetic bartender (Bobby Cannavale), “Who wants inoffensive art?” Both films are realistic enough to know that plenty of people do, yet they stand as rallying cries for music that challenges the listener, immersing us into all of the life — the pain, the love, the loss — that goes into a perfect three-minute song.
Showtimes
Showtimes Blue Moon | 2:00PM, 8:30PM Bugonia | 2:15PM, 5:15PM, 8:00PM Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere | 2:30PM, 5:30PM, 8:15PM Klute | 5:00PM
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