Rating: 
Summary: Offbeat, irreverant, and funny
Review: I found this film to be a somewhat dark and satirical view of Americans in general and Texans specifically. It manages to make fun without resorting to mean-spiritedness or cruelty. David Byrne comes off as something between an alien and an anthropologist observing the imaginary town of Virgil. John Goodman gives an outstanding performance as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable offbeat
Review: David Byrne's smart take on eigthies absurdity is at times poignant, and often very funny. The songs are good (especially "City of Dreams," which plays over the marvelous closing image of the girl wandering in the road), of course, and John Goodman gives one of his best performances, oddly enough!
Rating:
Summary: the most funny movie
Review: David Byrne showed in this movie all his talent.The music and the picture is excellent.I hope he does another movie just like this one.
Rating:
Summary: immensely quirky and enjoyable
Review: David Byrne dazzles in every form of media he takes on, and he takes just about all of them on in this fantastic, albeit surreal adventure in a small suburban/rural Texas town. Beautiful photography, an overall thorough aesthetic, and thoughtful silliness characterize this movie, as well as a fantastic cast and great music. All I've come to expect from David Byrne and his collaberators.
Rating:
Summary: Sometimes eerie, sometimes silly, but overall a pleasure
Review: This satire has a politcal edge to it, but is pleasantly restrained. There is a wide range of musical styles used, and it is awkward at times, but the whole film has a sort of awkwardness that perfectly reflects its subject matter. Despite the design oriented visuals, the film avoids being an art film that only gallery-goers can enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: A Celebration of Specialness
Review: Based on tabloid articles he collected while on tour with the Talking Heads in 1983, David Byrne's "True Stories" is a film revolving around the diverse citizens of Virgil, Texas, and the events leading up to their festival celebrating the state's 150th anniversary. This book features Byrne's complete screenplay with story boards, lyrics to all the songs in the movie, and tons of stills and on-set photos. He also includes the original clippings that inspired the different characters and storylines, most of them from the infamous "Weekly World News." The book's introduction explores the ideas that led up to the project, as well as the work of the photographers that influenced the look of both the film and the book (William Eggleston, Len Jenshel, Mark Lipson, and Byrne himself). For those who were intrigued by the movie but perhaps didn't quite understand the point of some of it, this will shed a little more light on just what he was getting at. It's an informative companion to the film, and a great introduction to David Byrne's non-music career in art and photography.
Rating:
Summary: What on earth?!
Review: This movie is amazing. The first 30 seconds of the film reminded me of Gummo---another really weird, more recent movie. Then I realized that Gummo was a big rip off of this movie--the similarities are unreal so if you liked Gummo, you'll like this, I think. This movie is the same type "train wreck" but with musical numbers and it isn't as disturbing as Gummo.
Rating:
Summary: A very funny Byrne-esque prophecy...
Review: What is this strange movie about? Shopping malls, easily (and shabbily) constructed suburban building projects, computer dating, lonliness and the pursuit of attention, mass media, metal buildings, computers, evangelist preachers, the disappearance of culture into the principles of the ledger sheet and the skyscraper. These and other topics pervade "True Stories'" disparate plot lines and imagery. David Byrne took on the entire emerging power establishment of the late 1980s in this film. Today the film views like a warning, like a bleak testament to the disappearance of a previous way of life. Most of us live in the culmination of what this film seemed to prophesize. "True Stories" is cultural criticism embedded in campy film.
Byrne had played with the theme of mainstream alienation before. "Don't Worry About the Government" (from "Talking Heads '77"), "The Big Country" (from "More Songs About Buildings and Food"), and "The Road to Nowhere" (from "Little Creatures") provide just three examples. These songs attempt to elevate peoples' perceptions about their immediate culture. So does "True Stores".
Not everyone will enjoy this movie. Sometimes the pace moves along like molasses. Some of it feels very dated. It has an intentionally stilted perspective as it plays with common expectations and perceptions. Some of the humor is corny. In short, it's an experimental movie. That said, it also contains moments of absolute brilliance, penetrates some then unknown depths of humor, and has the ability to open eyes to the bizarre aspects of the culture of 1986 that we have all inherited. It also invites comparisons (in theme) to Luis Buñuel's "The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie". That and the cinematography of the vast Texas landscape is stunning.
One scene that really brings out the film's themes is "The Parade of Specialness" in Virgil, Texas (with the Shriners in cars and the 'lawnmower brigade'). This scene is more about the disappearance of small town culture and pride and less about the freakishness of small town parades. As the painfully brief parade passes, the crowd stares at the tail end of the festivities as it slowly fades away into an empty distance. Where are they going? Away, seemingly forever, to nowhere. And quickly.
Some of the other brilliant scenes include: the fashion show with wildly ostentatious and meaningless fashions paraded past gaping mall goers; the dinner with the Culvers ("pass this to our guest"); the "Puzzlin' Evidence" and "Love For Sale" montages; the film's climax "The Big Show". Byrne's intro "The History of Texas" is one of the biggest highlights. John Goodman, in one of his earliest roles, plays Louis with sincerity and sometimes over the top humor. And Spaulding Gray displays only absolute mastery when he appears on the screen. His almost surreal introduction to "The Big Show" would stand up to infinite viewings.
Lastly, calling "True Stories" a "Talking Heads Movie" must be one of the greatest misnomers of that band's career. This was Byrne's movie (the other 3 members only appear in very brief glimpses and in the re-edited cut of the "Wild Wild Life" video). In 1986 the band stood on a pinnacle of popularity following 1985's "Little Creatures". People with money in their eyes likely thought to capitalize on the band's success (or perhaps that's how the film received funding?). Unfortunately, the band also found itself breaking apart at the seams. In an issue of Rolling Stone at the time, the other band members (most notably Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz) openly attacked Byrne. They depicted this movie as Byrne's attempt to put himself above the band. Weymouth even compared Byrne to a five year old. Nastiness ensued, and the film "True Stories" remains one of the pieces in the puzzle of the band's demise. They released one more album in 1988, "Naked". That was it, apart from a few very cursory "reunions". The DVD re-release pretty much removes the "Talking Heads" tie-in that created so much tension during the film's original release. This is good. "True Stories" stands up better as a "David Byrne" film than as a "Talking Heads" film.
Rating:
Summary: Funny absurdist view of American life
Review: I saw this movie in the theater while living in Germany in 1986-87, and recall it as a sort of pseudo-documentary of life in America mixed with some Salvador Dali-esque fantasy scenes. The funny thing was, the Germans couldn't tell the fantasy from the reality. They thought the Shriners riding their little motorbikes around in a parade was something out of David Byrne's imagination! It recalled to me a line from Allen Ginsberg to the effect of "America, I love you like I love my crazy uncle who sits in the corner, drooling and eating flies." If you appreciate bonafide American craziness, such as the First Church of Elvis, Mount Rushmore, or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, you will get a kick out of this movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting scenes, but difficult taken as a whole.
Review: When I received this DVD as a gift, I tried very hard to watch, after seeing the glowing reviews written by some of the people here. Unfortunately, while I found certain scenes extremely funny, I just could not get into the movie *as a whole*, and I finally just lost patience halfway through and had to turn it off. The trouble was, I felt like there were far too many extraneous shots, or lines that just came out of nowhere. And, if I may be blunt, I didn't care for some of the renditions of the Talking Heads' songs. I like this band, I really do--the trouble is, I don't like the way the songs came off *in this movie*. I also admit I'd hoped to hear some from Remain in Light and Speaking in Tongues, which are my two favorite albums of theirs by far. As I said, there were good points. David Byrne himself is definitely the most prominent one...as others have said, his commentary is quite funny to listen to, and I get a kick out of the intent expression on his face as he delivers these strange remarks. Also, certain scenes were very funny--the one that makes fun of all those 80s music videos was spot on, and just about had me rolling on the floor laughing! The woman who never got out of bed also had me laughing hysterically. And, you have to admit there's a certain truth to the dating-by-computer mishaps...it's just amazing that even so far back it would occur to David Byrne to portray this. Unfortunately, half of the movie (such as that ridiculous fashion show) simply had me raising an eyebrow and returning a stare as blank as Byrne's could be sometimes. I simply could not enjoy this experience as a whole, and while I cannot give it a 1-star review due to its good points, this is something I will definitely not be seeing again...better to sell it back and get myself something else.
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