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Radiohead - Meeting People Is Easy

Radiohead - Meeting People Is Easy

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $17.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Seriously nothing special...
Review: I have been a Radiohead fan for about 2 and a half years now and I finally bought my first Radiohead DVD. I was expecting some weird, trippy stuff with some really good live and studio footage.

The DVD is trippy alright, almost as scary as the Ring. But the live performances don't seem to sparkle or shine, and the band looks bored most of the time. I've tried to watch this DVD three different times now, and I've had to get up and stop the movie in the middle every time, because I just got bored with it. I even tried watching the second half. I just couldn't. It was too long and tiring.

I would not recommend this DVD unless you can get it used for a really cheap price like I did. It's pointless, senseless, and just plain dumb. Thank you for your time.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star?
Review: The first time I saw this it was the begining of my lifelong (probably) obsession with Radiohead (when the film was first released). It was frustrating to hear fragments of their song, aggrivating to have aburpt cuts from loud concert footage to them sitting backstage(or wherever) and quietly staring off into the distance, and painful to watch some idiot say Radiohead...D**khead to Thom Yorke.This along with countless other things of that ilk is what comprises this film.(Just as a side note and also from a somewhat absurdist point of view one of my favorite shots is that of two people making out next to an ATM machine, that is just for lack of a better word...priceless.
Anyway, about halfway through the film, I'm getting real fed up with this crap and I'm only watching it because it's about Radiohead, the suddenly it all clicks; this is what it's like being on tour. It's the flashbulbs assalting you. It's playing the same song over and over. It's falling asleep while giving countless interviews, and the interviews are about regurgatated subject matter or trivial concerns. It's dealing with petty Barney Fife-type people. It's having idiots that don't understand your art look down on it( when the morning show-type people are watching the video for No Surprises). It's all this and so much more.I'm sure that their are good experiences that go along with being on tour in a rock band apart from the normal cliches, but it only takes one thing to turn your good day into a bad one. If you have to constantly interact with strangers that don't really know anything about your personal life, the chances of those good days turning into bad ones increase.
This is not a film that should be repeatedly viewed over a short period of time. It is hard to watch, especially when the people you are watching you have some admiration or respect for. Now, if you are not a fan of Radiohead you might find some scenes in this film hilarious(as some Non-Radioheads have told me) but, if you're not a Radiohead fan and you are watching this then you're probably a pretty emotionally bankrupt person and don't have too many friends, so laugh it up buddy I'm sure there are plenty of people doing the same about you. On the other hand, if you are a Radiohead fan this should still be required viewing(if you have ever wondered why Thom Yorke sometimes comes across as distant this should answer your question).As a work of art, this film is one of the best "rockumentries" ever made. Also, if you intrested in a rockumentry in the same vien as this, I would say to check out Some Kind Of Monster it's more watchable, but then again that film ends when Metallica start their world tour...Meeting People Is Easy takes up where Some Kind Of Monster leaves off

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: excellent excellent documentary
Review: radiohead might be my favorite band, but this review is not biased in the least. grant gee has put in front of us an amazing documentary. the video summarizes the band's 1997-98 tour for their third album, OK COMPUTER (one of the best albums ever released, trust me and buy it because your outlook of music will be altered), including the stressful interviews which would constantly be set forth for the band between gigs and the little free time they had. the documentary, although clearly shot with a very unproffesional camera, takes on a very artsy feel and tremendously adds to the documentary while watching. the live footage is the best part of the album. "how to disappear..." soundchech is great, "pearly" live is amazing, and the footage of thom shooting the "no surprises" video is hilarious. all in all, watching this documentary will increase your respect for mainstream bands in the business who don't have much free time, as well as heighten your knowledge of radiohead. great documentary and cheers to grant gee for creating it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Frustrating!
Review: It is unfortunate that Grant Gee refuses to let the music and words come through in this film. The few short moments of actual playing reveal a band that plays beautifully together. The oh-so-few words that are intelligible reveal intelligent men with something to say. Gee is bent on impressing us with his hipness rather than letting the musicians' vision carry the day. If you are lucky enough to work with subjects as interesting as Radiohead, just cut it straight, give us some good clean sound and get the f*@#k out of the way!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great view into a long tour
Review: Grant Gee's "Meeting People Is Easy" shows the side of Radiohead you didn't see during their 1997-1998 "OK Computer" Tour. I went to the very last show of the tour (at Madison Square Garden in New York) and thought it odd that after every song or two, Thom would remark about it being the last show. Now I know what sort of mind-numbing crap these guys went through to get to the end of that tour.

"Meeting People Is Easy" shows how Radiohead deal with fans, awards, corporate drones from the label and even getting stopped by security backstage (even though Michael Stipe is with them... yep, they're THAT unassuming). They seem to go out of their way to behave nicely to all the reporters who ask them the stupidest questions imaginable (who ask ridiculous questions like "What is music to you?" and "There's no song called 'OK Computer' on the album...why?").

Gee seems to take to the Radiohead way of thinking right away; the camera angles and grainy picture add to the general weary, claustrophobic feeling the band must have been feeling. Touring the world, everybody in every city wants a piece of them and nobody's thinking about how sick and tired of the whole thing the band must be.

In typical Radiohead fashion, "Meeting People Is Easy" is a bit dreary, but with good reason; you'd feel wiped out, too, if you had to deal with all the ridiculousness of touring like they did. Now I know why, at the end of that show at Madison Square Garden, Thom remarked that they were "going home now".

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not your typical band DVD (and that's a good thing)
Review: For those expecting tons of live concert footage or unreleased songs, you may be disappointed. There is some interesting footage that shows the origins of Kid A/Amnesiac, such as the early stages of "Life in a Glasshouse" being written, and Thom Yorke soundchecking "How to Disappear Completely" alone with an acoustic guitar (an amazing scene). I think "Big Ideas" is in there somewhere too. But that being said, this film/documentary focuses more on the band than on their music. And that is what makes it so damn interesting.

I think this film can best be explained by describing one scene: the movie fades from live footage of the band (playing "Lucky", my favorite song) into a bunch of press clippings about "OK Computer", most of them claiming to know exactly what the band was thinking behind each song. The pre-eminent (and least pretentious) one says something like this: You're a band. You release your third album, which you quite like. No big deal, that's what bands do. All of the sudden, you're being hailed as the saviors of rock n' roll. That is what this film is about. Almost overnight, Radiohead went from cult favorite to some and "that band that wrote "Creep"" to many, to rock n' roll gods. (Love the scene where they're playing "Creep" in Philly and Thom looks incredibly disinterested as he limply holds the mic to the crowd.) This film documents that journey via following them on their "OK Computer" tour.

The best scenes are those of the band being interviewed. Again, and again, and again, and again. At one point they play about 5 different clips of people asking "What does music mean to you?" back to back without playing the response. The point is not to give you some kind of insight into the band persay, but to show the effects of stardom on otherwise ordinary people who are not consumed with being stars.

Question after question starts to crack some members of the band. They are all very uncomfortable with their new found celebrity status, and it shows. One interviewer continually badgers Thom Yorke about all the celebrities attending their shows. "So you're not impressed when, say, Tom Cruise is at your concert?" Thom does not look (nor act) impressed and he then explains that in England they do not quite comprehend the god-like status given to celebrities here in America. In the end, celebrities are people like everybody else, just as fallible as you and me. (For some reason that scene reminded me of the Charles Barkely commercial where he said "I am not a role model.")

This film is about so much more than music, and that is what makes it amazing. It is about fame and celebrity, about the loss of privacy, about having to live up to unrealistic expectations from people who know next to nothing about you, yet they feel they understand where you're music is coming from completely. The title itself speaks volumes. Meeting people might be "easier" for the members of Radiohead now that they are famous, but what good is it if the people they are meeting are insincere phonies (for lack of a better term) who only want to meet them because they're Radiohead? Are you really meeting anybody worth your time? This DVD was not what I expected but I was more than pleasantly surprised. It seems fairly obvious why "Kid A" sounds as claustrophobic as it does after watching this documentary. If you're a band that went through this, you would make claustrophobic sounding music too.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: It figures ....
Review: If you're looking to learn something new about Radiohead, don't buy this DVD. If you're looking for some great previously un-released footage or recordings, don't buy this DVD. In fact, save yourself the trouble; just don't buy this DVD.

It would figure that someone would feel the need to be artsy when making a documentary of a band like Radiohead. And that's the way it comes off too -- contrived and artsy. It's as boring as any documentary I've ever seen, and I've sat through one about the migratory patterns of birds. I came away not knowing anything that hasn't been timelessly covered in articles about the band, not to mention thoroughly irritated. The numerous clips of live shows are each time quickly interrupted in order to return to the pretensiousness that abounds throughout this movie.

I've got to hand it to the director. Given the caliber of Radiohead's music, I thought a worthless documentary wouldn't be possible. You learn something new every day I guess.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: ...
Review: This DVD is a great documentary of one of Radiohead's tour. In it you really get an in depth look at the band and how they operate on tour. You get to see they way they are treated by the press and the crowd alike. It is truly something that needs to be seen to be understood. If you're a Radiohead you'll love it. If, however, you're not really into them, i can see it being a big disappointment.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Good Documentary
Review: I'm keeping this short. This is a very good documentary on perhaps the best band in music history, Radiohead. That's it, I'm done.


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