Rating: Summary: consider me UNSATISFIED Review: I loved "Stop Making Sense" when it hit the movie theaters back in the mid 80's. I was Very Disappointed with the DVD. It Was Not the movie !! It was all this bogus and unnecessary commentary laid over a classic piece of performing arts. The ceaseless drivel totally ruined this classic live music performance. I would Very Much like to get the Original Movie & not this dubbed nonsense. I am very unsatisfied.
Rating: Summary: The only live concert movie I've ever enjoyed Review: A fantastic way to see a fantastic movie. I still remember the first time I saw this film, and I was just glued to the screen. David Byrne's on-stage behaviour really makes the whole thing, and the big suit looks bigger than ever in widescreen. The live version of Psycho Killer has to be one of the best performances ever.
Rating: Summary: What a great, fun show!! And very well shot... Review: Unlike a lot of concert videos, this one was directed by a legitimate film director (Jonathan Demme - "Silence of the Lambs"), and is every bit as much of a visual experience as a musical one. The concert in the film violates all the traditions of concerts - - it IS the Talking Heads, after all - - and has a lot of fun doing so.Recorded late in the Talking Heads career (after "Speaking In Tongues"), it includes practically all the well-known songs. The songs are top-notch and so are the performances. Importantly, there is enough going on visually throughout (something different every song), that our 8 year old enjoyed it completely too.
Rating: Summary: The best musical film ever made Review: This film shows hands down why David Byrne may be one of the most underrated musical geniuses of our time. When most people think of the Talking Heads, immediately they are stuck with images of David Byrne's weird dancing from Once In A Lifetime, or superimposed faces from Burning Down The House. Stop Making Sense, a brilliantly arranged, and beautiful sounding recording (with one Dolby Stereo channel and two 5.1 soundtracks on the DVD), show how the bands' sound draws on everything from African rhythms, disco/electronic beats, funk, pop, and pretty much everything else imaginable. Watching a stage-full of musicians, especially as enthusiatic as these, makes this an enjoyable DVD to watch, or leave on as background music, all while giving you a great amount of respect for all the musicians involved. A must buy.
Rating: Summary: Simply stunning Review: This video is a must have for any Talking Heads fan. Its also a good well-rounded introduction to an often overlooked, but unmistakenably important, band. I'm not much on DVD extras, so I can't really talk about those. However, the main performance was extraordinary. Big kudos for giving me the option of 5.1 or pcm stereo. That allows viewers to enjoy audiophile sound through a set of expensive stereo speakers if they so choose. The visuals were clear. Once again, thumbs up for the widescreen format which allows people with 16:9 TV's to enjoy the full benefits. As far as the performance goes, well...I couldn't find a flaw anywhere. This is the best sounding live recording I have ever heard (and I have an extensive music collection of over 400 CD's). As a musician, I was in total awe. The show was built as an artistic piece. I love how the show starts with a solo Byrne. As each new song begins, a new bandmate steps out. The stage is in fact, being built DURING the performance. The first track, "Psycho Killer," is my favorite. With minimal banter Byrne starts out with a sample from his "boombox." He begins to pace about the stage and, perfectly timed in unison with the loop, starts falling around with the "skipping" beats. When the loop falls back into time, Byrne quickly snaps back to attention. Pure art. Simple, but effective. Then you have emotionally charged favorites such as "Burning down the house" and "Once in a Lifetime." This CD should be pure inspiration to musicians and pure fun to casual listners. Highly reccomended.
Rating: Summary: "I got a tape I wanna play for ya" Review: Let me put this straight. I did not knew Talking Heads when I bought this DVD - and I still don't know very much. But this is simply one of the best performances ever and you shouldn't miss it. I consider it superior to Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" (if it only had a better sound...) - and Bowie's my favourite artist. It's ten times better than most of the shows you'll get to see nowadays, and that was made back in the 80s.
Rating: Summary: Making Sense... Review: I saw the original movie in 1984. I loved it so much I saw it 2 more times with a different set of friends each time. When it became available on VHS I got it. Finally after adding my DVD theater system, I had to get this DVD for my collection. From the very start of the concert to the very end your are taken through a visual concert trip. You'll love the energy of David Byrne as well as the back up band. I cannot believe that David Byrne and the guitarist from the back up band were capable of moving and playing for as long as they did. I almost got exhausted watching it, however it was one of the made reason's I've watched this over and over. My favorite song is "Swamp", not as high-powered as "Burning Down the House", another personal favorite, but nonetheless a low-energy favorite (watch the lamp). Buy it, you'll enjoy from the unusual beginning to the moment they say "Good-Night!
Rating: Summary: Stop Making Sense Review: I loved Stop Making Sense when I saw it in the cinema many years ago. Unfortunately, the DVD cannot be played on our DVD player (Sony PlayStation 2) and I had to return it to the shop for a refund. The shopkeeper said dozens of copies had been returned because the DVD is incompatible with several different DVD players. Why make a DVD that cannot be viewed by all normal machines? The irony is that this DVD is distributed in Canada by Sony Music and cannot be played on a Sony PS2.
Rating: Summary: This One Rocks! Review: This was on of my first Concrt DVD's that I bought and still the best. The sound quality is great! Both audio formats sound great. I use this as my reference for comparisons. The only downside is it is not DTS. Ohterwise still on of the best out there. It even sounds good very loud. I mean 1500/ channel loud! Buy it.
Rating: Summary: Making Flippy Floppy Review: When I saw the Heads play in 1983, David Byrne came out during the second act in the big white suit, the one three times as large as the white suit he wore in the first act and which wiggled about his body like a flippy floppy clothing of Selfhood. I had never seen it before, nor had I heard about it. It was a shock and it was one of the funniest moments of my life. I was pleased a year later to see this concert film documenting a great tour, a great band, a great collection of tunes and the Big White Suit which Byrne would forever on be identified with. Of course, the joke grew dim over the years and the Big White Suit became another icon of rock history, like the Beatles Sgt. Pepper costumes or Madonna's underwear. The original soundtrack release to Stop Making Sense was short, about forty minutes, and only had eight songs on it. To hear the other tunes, you had to go back to the movie, but it was now out of the theaters and the video release was extremely hard to come by. In fifteen years I only found two video stores that stocked it, so I wound up only seeing the film twice in fifteen years. The re-release of the movie last year was a shock and a revelation and I immediately bought the DVD. I subsequently watched it ten times in one month. How did I do it? It was easy. The film is the greatest concert film ever made, not just in the quality of the music and the performances, but the sheer technical bravado of the filmmaking. Here is Johnathan Demme six years before Silence of the Lambs, already a master filmmaker with an eye for fluid motion that manages to impose a sense of narrative over a collection of disconnected songs. The narrative is the evolution of the band and the gradual shifting of the songs from one mood to another, from one costume change to another. The music is great, the lyrics are astonishing, the performances are the Heads at the peak of their greatness. Sadly, this would be their final masterpiece. Nothing they did after this, with the exception of a few songs on Naked, came close to what they had accomplished as a band at their greatest. One of the gems of this movie is "What A Day That Was," my favorite David Byrne song, originally from The Catherine Wheel solo album, but here reorchestrated in a way that brings to the fore certain driving rhythms of the original tune. It is tense, paranoid, savagely prophetic, mystical and full of Byrne's characteristic discordant poetry. Buy this DVD. Watch it ten times in one month. This was a great band.
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