Western Stars is an emotional and intimate collection of songs. The songs are all excellent and performed beautifully by Bruce Springsteen himself. It's well paced and Bruce Springsteen and Thom Zimny's direction is incredible as the film is extremely well filmed and visually stunning in parts. Bruce is also an excellent storyteller.

I saw "Western Stars", starring Bruce Springsteen. This is a documentary-actually, a promotional commercial-of Bruce Springsteen's new album called 'Western Stars'. First of all, let me say that I am not a Bruce Springsteen fan. He has a few songs that I like but the majority of his music is just not my type. However, my wife really likes him and that was the main reason I went to see it. But, I think she was under the impression that Bruce would be doing a greatest hits concert or something-boy, was she disappointed. He does do a cover song near the end but it is a country song by Glen Campbell. In between each song, Bruce talks about how he came to write the songs. He performs them in a barn that he owns on a ranch-he said that it has good acoustics-where he is living the cowboy life. He even walks around wearing a cowboy hat and riding horses, so he must be a real cowboy. There is also some old footage of Bruce's life growing up-before he became a cowboy-that is sometimes shown between the songs. I guess if you are a big fan of Bruce's music, you might like it more than I did, but even my wife-I mentioned that she is a big fan-did not enjoy it that much. She thought it was boring and there were only a few songs that she liked-one was the Glen Campbell one. It's rated "PG" for use of alcohol, smoking and language and has a running time of 1 hour & 23 minutes. It's not one that I would buy on DVD. I wouldn't rent it either. Unless you are a dedicated fan, I would wait until it hits cable.

Bruce Springsteen now has behind him over half a century of career, but he looks fantastic, he is in full physical and vocal form - the fact that he has always played in low tones and a little rough, helps him at this age. His 19th album, 'Western Stars' is accompanied by a concert filmed in a former barn on one of his farms, but Springsteen (who is also a co-director) intended more than just to produce a filmed concert. Each song is prefaced by an explanation or story that clarifies the music and the text, and presents the context of what we are about to hear. In addition, he inserts between songs filmed sequences, some archive clips documenting Springsteen's life, others landscapes of the agricultural or wild American nature, a little bit in the style of the Marlboro commercials from 40-50 years ago (including many horses). Springsteen talks about his life, about his loves and separations, about cars and horses, about America's plains and metropolises, and especially about the people who populate them.

His music is closer today to folk than to rock. For this record and for the filmed concert, Springsteen brought his orchestra with string instruments to his usual musicians (first of all guitarist and singer Patti Scialfa, his close collaborator and since 1991 his wife). I do not like the combination of folk and violins, nor does it work very well here, in my opinion, except for 2-3 songs, with a touch closer to pop-rock. But there are many others viewers, I suspect, that will be delighted. The concert is very well filmed, the spoken part adds, but without containing too many deep sayings, the filmed interludes seemed commercial and looking for easy aesthetics. I can bet that many of Bruce Springsteen's fans will enjoy this movie and overwhelm it with superlatives. We, the others, can enjoy a well-filmed concert, and we can also find out a few more things about a singer who still remains after this movie, outside of my list of favorite musicians.