“Blinded by the Light” is an obscure true story from 1987, about a Pakistani teenager from a small town near London England who becomes obsessed with the songs and lyrics of Bruce Springsteen. Amazingly, through the music of Springsteen, Javed, played by newcomer Viveik Kalra is able to escape from his depressing life in a poor family who live in a depressing and typical apartment complex, constantly harassed by racists in his high school and neighborhood.

Despite his unemployed father’s wishes, Javed wants to be a writer and as I seen in so many movies, “Fences” being the best example, Javed’s father stands in the way of son’s dreams and ambitions because of jealousy and anger over his own life failures. Through the brilliance of Springsteen’s music and the lyrics of his great songs, Javed is able to escape from his life that seems to have nowhere to go but down. What this film shows, better than most I have seen like it, is the importance of great artists in the world, who can inspire others to never give up on the dreams, and to just for a little while, escape from their depressing reality and live one more day.

I agree with the high Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Blinded by the Light of 91%. This movie was very well written and well acted. While slow in some parts, the overall message was a good one, and I do recommend this movie. 

Every once in a while as a movie blogger, I read a review or see a high score on Rotten Tomatoes and then see a movie that has no business having a high score, in the case of “Scary Movies t Tell in the Dark” at 80%. There is nothing special about this film. Nothing that scary, nothing we have all not seen many times before. Parts of this film were very slow and boring in too many places. There was also nothing special about the ending that did not rescue this run of the mill horror movie or the special effects that were at best, average.

The correct rating for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is about 45%. This one should definitely be skipped.

For the latest Dog movie, “The Art of Racing in the Rain” – everybody knows going in that the formula will be the same as just about all the recent Dog movies that have been released. The Dog will slowly get old and eventually die. There will be scenes of extreme happiness and joy, followed by overwhelming depression.  The problem is, we have all seen movies like this too many times. Critics correctly call movies like this “tear jerkers”, and when the story is manipulative, like this one is, it can cause resentment from the audience.

The reason for the low reviews for this film is because there is nothing new in this story, other than the fact that the Dog is fan of the sport of Car Racing and the main character, played by Milo Ventimiglia races cars for a living. He gets married, his wife played by Amanda Seyfried and has a daughter – nothing new here. As with most of the recent Dog movies, the audience hears the Dog’s thoughts through the narration of an actor; for this film the narration is performed by Kevin Costner. I was surprised that Costner accepted this role, because in my opinion, the screenplay was not strong enough for someone of his caliber. All of this is a retread of so many Dog movies we have seen too many times already.

In the interest of trying a new idea for a Dog or a Cat movie, why not write a story where no Pet or human being dies for a change.  Formula movies can be enjoyable and work much of the time, but due to the flood of recent Dog movies like this one, this is all getting old very quickly. Its time to create something new.

I agree with the low 49% ratings for The Art of Racing in the Rain and I do not recommend this film.