'True Stories': Dud or David Byrne's Death Sentence

Baltimore /= suburban

papa legba was my alltime favourite :)

awesome movie. awesome soundtrack.

Since when did rock/pop bands ever make (i.e. produce) good films?

a hard day's night? i guess they didn't own and distribute the film themselves, if that's what you mean.

Byrne = hated by noobs for doing stuff noobs think other bands is cool for doing.

"That's some fancy driving"

True Stories is totally fantastic, u r all gay

Didn't really like this movie, but I am incapable of hating John Goodman.

I don't really like it, but I have a huge soft spot for it.

When I first lived on my own, there was a good two week period where I would watch True Stories and invariably fall asleep without seeing the ending until I finally finished it.

Also, I always think about Byrne's stuff coming from a character invented by a character invented by David Byrne, so I can't get pissy about the "Ain't Middle America Weird" vibe.

(also I was pretty stoned at the time)

Album, though, I'm all about.

And there is the fancy driving. Shit, do I like this movie? I'm all confused now.

Abbott otm

David Byrne is inextricably tied up w/Windows Media Player in my mind.

I heard about his Power Point art thingding he was doing a few years ago. Cliche to say, but you know I could do that. I could do that AWESOME. It's one of those things you have to be famous to do (and get anyone interested, anyway).

I gave my uncle the book of that PP stuff for Christmas. He was not as interested as he should have been.

I'd totally have the WMP connection if it weren't for one of my friends playing Look Into The Eyeball a whole lot in my car.

Fudge, they published a BOOK of it?

Someday my prints will come.

The hate here is way outta line. No, it's not a great movie. The music stinks by Talking Heads standards, and the music video bits, apart from "Wild Wild Life," are usually godawful. ("Love for Sale" is nigh unwatchable.) I wish the movie hadn't have bothered with any of that. But what's left over has moments of total brilliance. Like Byrne's Cliff's Notes history of Texas at the beginning. Or the cinematography, which often wouldn't be out of place in an episode of Twin Peaks.

http://tittysprinkles.net/images/true-stories1.jpg http://tittysprinkles.net/images/true-stories2.jpg

Byrne in his ridiculous rented red ragtop

http://tittysprinkles.net/images/true-stories3.jpg

The fashion show

and of course Spalding Grey: "Economics has become a spiritual thing."

last two pics there:

http://tittysprinkles.net/images/true-stories4.jpg

http://tittysprinkles.net/images/true-stories5.jpg

Fashion show was great, it's like the "Girl for All Seasons" sequence in Grease 2.

Or the "Beautiful Girl" number in Singin' in the Rain. Only with the outfits getting *way* more ridiculous.

i've never seen this. it sorta amazes me that talking heads were ever big enough in the '80s that byrne could make a film - seems like something that would never happen nowadays.

...it's a suburbanite affecting as a New Yorker affecting at observant of middle-American culture that's 'alien' to them...

Baltimore /= suburban

-- nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, March 11, 2004 12:55 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

Arbutus /= Baltimore

I got a coupla girlfriends from Arbutus who'd claw yer eyes out for that, hon.

If Arbutus wasn't situated adjacent to Baltimore, it would be much less like a suburb and more like the sort of rural small town portrayed in the movie.

I think I'd watch it again to get the good quotes out of it and to see "Papa Legba" as sung by Pops Staples, which is so much better than on the album.

I like the picture quite a lot. Best moment: Byrne driving down the highway identifying types of driver, and saying disbelievingly - 'and ... the *weaver !!*'

also I like the non-sequitur in the same scene when he cries - 'some folk round here - eaten dinner already!!'

I am fond of the soundtrack also, but mainly for side 2 which I used to think was side 1, and is to my mind much the best.

this rules

"There's a lady who just stays in bed all day. She's not sick, shes just rich enough to do that - wouldn't you?"

Always had it in the back of my mind that I'd see this someday--I believe Kael gave it a generally good review--but never have. I went to talk on Nashville tonight, and the guy who was giving it devoted the last half-hour to True Stories as a mostly apolitical extension of Nashville into the Reagan years. Problem was, 20 minutes of that consisted of excerpts. So I've now seen almost a quarter of the film, not exactly something I wanted.

It's a pretty good movie from what I remember. I like the scene when the dad is at the dinner table describing some boring business thing or whatever and he's using food to do it and the way everything is lit and shot is just magical. Also the crazy fashion show.

But yeah it does feel like a movie an art school drop out would make about small town America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e854KvduZAg

There's somehting about this film that reminds me of DFW's The Pale King quite a lot.

My friends and I went through a phase where we'd get stoned and watch this once a week or so. I was so disappointed that the soundtrack had David Byrne singing instead of the actors from the film.

They talked about releasing a "Actors singing the songs" album, but that was probably one album too many at least (after the TH one *and* the soundtrack one)

WOW @ the packaging of the CC edition: http://criterionforum.org/DVD-packaging/true-stories-blu-ray/the-criterion-collection/2045

I love Pops Staples in this

I love Pops Staples in anything

but this movie doesn't really work

Yeah, I was sleepy and lazy (Davey Byrne shoutout.) and the remote was on the other side of the room. I was watching John Carpenter's The Thing (Mark S shoutout.) right before it, and I kept hoping David Byrne's head would turn into an alien spider and crawl offscreen where I couldn't hear it talking in that goddamned retarded nine year old boy scout voice, it was like the end of Mork and Mindy where Mork describes our crazy earth ways the his doubting elders. What I really hate is the air of bemusement/sarcasm/wonder towards 'real' America, I'd be forgiveable if it was from an actual New Yorker because then it'd just be fish-outta-water Big Apple attitude, but instead it's a suburbanite affecting as a New Yorker affecting at observant of middle-American culture that's 'alien' to them (my ass). I much preferred the flyover attitude of "The Big Country", it was honest. This was crap. The cover of Time magazine for this.

― James Blount (James Blount), Saturday, October 5, 2002 1

booming post imo

http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1986/1101861027_400.jpg

Swell Reagan cameo.

I remember that issue v well

it was p unusual for Time to go that hard for a pop culture guy

this movie doesn't really work true but it's so fun and the songs are so much better than they are on the album

totally agree. I haven’t seen it in a million years but whether it works or not is inconsequential to me at least.

John Goodman was revelatory i thought

I'm closer to Sparkle Motion's judgment: an inconsequential project that I convinced myself I loved during the peak of my Heads mania. I tend to forget that "Wild Wild Life" was much bigger than its middling chart position suggests.

Goodman is v good in this. He seems weirdly under-used/undervalued as an actor to me. It's like outside of the Coen Bros no directors really take advantage of how great he is.

so many dumb family/kids movies on his CV. maybe that's just what he wanted to do, idk

David Byrne's death sentence? i'll vote for that please

Goodman is v good in this. He seems weirdly under-used/undervalued as an actor to me. It's like outside of the Coen Bros no directors really take advantage of how great he is.

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, December 4, 2018 11:41 AM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he's really wonderful in speed racer so i'm guessing the wachowskis knew too

...

an actor has to pay da bills

as evinced Tuesdays at 7pm on ABC

dan connor is one of the greatest tv characters/performances of our time tho

agreed but he seems to be sleepwalking through this incarnation

...

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, December 4, 2018 11:59 AM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

an actor has to pay da bills

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, December 4, 2018 12:00 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh so you've both seen it

my post was aimed at the 'bad kids movies' comment

also one heavy guy per generation makes a bad Babe Ruth movie

sorry morbs i figured you weren't addressing me directly there but only after the fact <3

you couldn't pay me to watch any more of the wachowskis garbage

ok!

but yeah i am not going to watch serious cinemaaaah adaps of Speed Racer or Miami Vice while there are still Ford movies i haven't seen

Yeah, Six Days Seven Nights was a classic

the Miami Vice movie isn't even that good, I also recently learned a lot of that has to do with Jamie Foxx (and Mann):

Several crew members criticized Mann's decisions during production, which featured sudden script changes, filming in unsafe weather conditions, and choosing locations that "even the police avoid, drafting gang members to work as security".

Foxx was also characterized as unpleasant to work with. He refused to fly commercially, forcing Universal to give him a private jet. He also wouldn't participate in scenes on boats or planes. After gunshots were fired on set in the Dominican Republic on October 24, 2005, Foxx packed up and refused to return; this forced Mann to re-write the film's ending, which some crew members characterized as less dramatic than the original. Foxx, who won an Academy Award after signing to do Miami Vice, was also reputed to complain about co-star Farrell's larger salary, which Foxx felt didn't reflect his new status as an Oscar winner; consequently, reports Slate: "Foxx got a big raise while Farrell took a bit of a cut." Slate also reported that Foxx demanded top billing after winning an Oscar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Vice_(film)#Filming

Miami Vice movie is fine. I disliked it in 2006 because I walked out of the theater and I was still in Miami.

lmao

lol

is it standard for big hollywood directors to fly commercial?