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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: 4 stars
Summary: Not the OK Computer of documentaries but pretty interesting
Review: First & foremost I'd like to say that in my humble opinion, documentaries bear no significance for people who aren't interested in the subject depicted in them, which means that if this film wasn't about Radiohead, arguably my favourite band, I probably wouldn't have watched it. Nevertheless, just 'cos I'm a Radiohead fan it doesn't mean that I would automatically decide that this film is perfect, 'cos well... It's not. Overall it succeeds in projecting the feeling it was meant to deliver:- That fame is vacant anyway, that it doesn't matter if you're considered the best band in the world or a vacuous teenpopstar 'cos @ the end of the day you still have to meet heaps of people you don't really feel like meeting (Journalists, A&R people, managers etcetera) & tolerate their idiocies (The film covers this field up quite nicely as director Grant Gee edited it so most of the questions answered by the press are left unanswered, @ least for the viewer) which is just where the title derives from:- Meeting people is easy indeed, but not always fun. The feeling of monotony which afflicted the band due to the nightafternight gigs comes thru the screen beautifully on several moments, for example when Thom is being shown directing his mic to the audience so they'll sing "Creep"'s verse, as if saying "This is what you want so take it but I don't endorse it" or when a moshpit in a Japanese gig is seen where everybody looks & moves the same way. The scene (If I could call it that) which impressed me the most however was Thom's picture being taken multiple times with the soundtrack sped up so that it almost felt as if he's being shot- Nice symbolism there. But despite all of that, there are also some redundant bits. First of all, the songs featured are abrupt & compulsory @ feel- Sure it's a band documentary but it's truly frustrating to hear unfinished songs. Secondly, I could've done without the behindthescenes of the "No Surprises" video- We all know that Gee directed this video also, therefore this inclusion was totally selfindulgent. I'm also left undecided about all of the shots portraying tubes & airports & such. I guess they add to the overall feeling aswell as remind us of OK Computer's artwork but not everything that works in a booklet works on a screen aswell. As a conclusion I'd say that Radiohead fans mite find the film interesting as I did, however it's neither a mustsee nor it elucidates Radiohead's music to an extent that makes the film an essential one. NonRadiohead fans, as mentioned in the beginning of the critique, wouldn't find the film interesting @ all.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Insight lacking
Review: The stress of the band is apperent all through out the documentry Fame does come at a price.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: You must like radiohead
Review: if you dont like radiohead at the most elevated level, you probably will not like this dvd. I like abstract art, but this is just repetitive recycled home video. this DVD has good parts, but dont waste the cash, convince a friend to buy it and then go watch it at his house...Just call him a chicken if he won't buy it...keep at it until he cracks and buys it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: TYPICALLY IRONIC AND VERY INTERESTING
Review: Whatever you think of the direction (personaly i think it's brilliant) this is a must for any fan of RH. This portrays a band on a whirlwind ride to the very top without time to sit back and wonder just where they are. 'I'm not here this isn't happening'. The the endless journalists 'useless' and 'good', 'follow them around' asking a seemlessly endless tirade of mundane and repetitive questions, personally my favourites where the guy who described their music as a dreamscape and the woman who asked JG 'what's the dummest question you have ever been asked by journalist'. I only wish that he had replied 'that one' if only to see the look upon her face. This video shows the band going through a 'complete headf**k' and also features some very cool live RH footage. I recommend if you are a fan and reading this i assume you are is to BUY IT!!! ENJOY IT!!! STUDY IT!!! and watch it over and over again. I have watched it about 10 times now and it just gets better and better.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Appropriate, but lacking.
Review: I love Radiohead. Never thought twice about getting this DVD. I enjoyed a lot of the banter and interviews as well as the 'new' material and studio footage. Unfortunately, after a few viewings, much of Thom Yorke's whining and complaining gets old and I find myself skipping ahead. In true Radiohead style, this film is strange. I really enjoy many of the scenes and cityscapes that are shown along with background music. The live footage is quite good and the videos are a nice touch too. Just wish there was more to sink my teeth into, and less rock star whining.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Nightmare Tour, or "Tortured Genius" Mythology?
Review: Nietzsche writes that "philosophers are the bad consciences of their times." Since the 1960s, songwriters have joined philosophers in this particular estate, and, since the mid-1990s, we've had Radiohead--and the spindly, thoughtful, desiccated Thom Yorke--to help us rage against the zeitgeist.

Well, here they are, in a frenetic, jittery, eloquent, absolutely splendid documentary, a very deliberately wrought, self-consciously band-commissioned document that poses to Radio-Heads a fundamental question that--depending on just what this band means to you--may or may not be of some significance.

But first...The ironically entitled Meeting People is Easy is, above all, the very best of rock "road" pictures--the endless transportation terminals, hustle in, hustle out, adoring crowds, interviews interviews interviews (in which not only the same inane questions are asked over and over but in which genuinely, brilliantly insightful questions, struck on by very clever journalists, are discovered--yet again!--by similarly very clever journalists and require the lads to repeat "candid" "thoughtful" responses that, the fifth time around, can only be "canned"), photo sessions, backstage ennui, hundreds of "Airbags", thousands of "Creeps"...and on and on--showing, with a myriad of pointillistic dabs, the numbing grind of the long tour.

One surmises the "tour legend": Radiohead was not at that point in its career where it might collectively decide to simply say "No mas!" to admiring journalists, disc jockeys, industry people, and devoted fans, all of whom--after vaulting OK Computer to the very top in 1997--demanded a slice of the lads in tour stop after tour stop.

And yet, and yet... The missing partner here is any portion of the Radiohead management team. Remember Hard Days Night, with "Norm" and "Shake" directing traffic in and around the Fab Four, hustling them off to interviews, performances, etc.? Here, the handlers are invisible but, off camera, are either NOT doing their job--part of which is, after all, to protect the boys, their creativity, and their stamina for the duration of a grueling, debilitating tour--or they are PRECISELY doing their job--in putting the tragically hip Yorke and his "suffering/alienated genius" persona on the fullest, most brightly lit, display, against the game counterpoint of the smiling, accessible "Jonny," "Colin," and "Ed," (the bald, inscrutable "Phil" lurks somewhere in the wings), with the net result of hauling in, into permanent fan-dom, every alienated undergraduate on five continents. The film creates, perhaps inadvertently, a cumulative sense of "the Presented Band" that, I don't think, you can really obtain as a mere fan, from simply following YOUR local, linear, Radiohead coverage (where there's a limit to what any market will bear), even if you're simultaneously following Radiohead through the industry press, websites, multimedia, and traditional press. And never forget that Grant Gee is the band's hired hand, and the camera changes everything--the observer invariably alters the observed.

So: Fished in? Would it matter if you were?

Memo to Thom: Just say "No!" Spare us the "bollocks," the indifferent interviews (you don't have to if you don't want to), the hip irony (which wears thin--and, to give credit, hasn't been all that apparent in recent [adulatory] pieces in, say The New Yorker). Celebrity *is* the American disease. Get over it. You've got everything (short of killer good looks and average height): sufficiently nondescript to melt into any background, an idol of the masses, respected by those whose respect you'd credit, deferred to by your mates (who, recognizing which of them actually butters the bread, tiptoe around Yorke as though in the lair of the sleeping Smaug). And of course we understand--rock stars (and poets, and barely published short story writers, and experimental filmmakers) are entitled to suffer, taking on, as they do, the sins of the world.

In between the harrowing and the curious and the querulous is the music. This is a great, great live band, with an absolutely brilliant set list. And this despite the crowding sense of "what are we doing here????" that pervades the final third of the film. It would be very nice indeed if Grant Gee would collect for release a chubby collection of performances from the tour. A very--perhaps even loathsome--commercial idea, I know, but a great gift to fans shut out of the rare (or, here in DC, cancelled and never rescheduled) Radiohead performance.

So five stars and a fat recommendation, with the injunction to each fan that you'll really need to make up your minds about this band, won't you? Even at this late date.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Making terrible documentaries is easy
Review: Let's make a list:

1. The video is achingly jittery, about as saturated as a mental ward, and just a terrible montage of meaningless things.

2. The audio is absolutely worthless. Most of the time there is such an obnoxious room echo that words become completely lost in the noise, and anyone interested in what band members say will be quite pissed to say the least.

3. Because of the previous two things, there is no sense to the documentary. It is simply a jumble, and it's as if Grant wants to make the viewer just as sickly and depressed as Thom himself.

My verdict? Radiohead is awesome; MPIE isn't good enough to act as a paperweight. If you aren't a rabid fan, don't bother even renting this. If you ARE a rabid fan, you will most likely be even less impressed with this video than I was.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good Documentary.
Review: Well done, but it can be a bit annoying at times. Nevertheless, a fine DVD.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: For fans interested in the music and the band members....
Review: I, like many other radiohead fans, loved this documentary to death. Every time I watch it, I find something new..so, it's fun for me. I only give it three stars keeping in mind that though I believe it's very interesting, chances are it wont be that impressive to non-radiohead fans. But I highly recommend it for fans. It's got some tongue-in-cheek humor about the band, as well as some mildly frustrating things they had to put up with on tour. It's pretty interesting.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: almost all good
Review: radiohead puts on a good show in this video . I would heave liked to see some music videos but other than that if you love radiohead buy this movie


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