9 ms·

“Stop Making Sense” is having a theatrical rerelease

124 points by fortran77 3y ago

AlbertCory 3y ago
https://archive.ph/1wr2W https://archive.ph/1wr2W
AlbertCory 3y ago
> One of the few directors to overcome these obstacles and create a concert movie artistically equal to his fiction features is the late Jonathan Demme—with “Stop Making Sense,” his 1984 film of the band Talking Heads in performance. Not mentioning The Lsst Waltz is pretty unpardonable. But this IS a great movie, and so is that. > The oversized boxy suit that Byrne wears for several numbers in the film has become iconic, but it’s also superfluous: he’s already expressing its essence in performance throughout the concert and what, one wonders, is the "essence" of the big suit?
- throwaway2562 3y ago
  He’s a little guy in a big suit. He doesn’t fit in this world https://putthison.com/making-sense-of-david-byrnes-big-suit-the-tom/ https://putthison.com/making-sense-of-david-byrnes-big-suit-...
  - venusenvy47 3y ago
    I like Byrne's summary of the movie. I never thought of a "plot". https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-09-20/talking-heads-stop-making-sense-rerelease https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-... From the article: David, you’ve said the film has a narrative. How would you describe it? Byrne: There’s a guy who is not that comfortable socially, very anxious and nervous, and he gradually finds community and a way to let go, through music and dancing. He finds a way to be more comfortable, and he finds joy.
    - mc32 3y ago
      It’s a reflection of his childhood. Due to his then noticeable accent he had some issues integrating with other kids in school and became somewhat introverted. That has pretty much defined his career trajectory.
      - bugglebeetle 3y ago
        Well, that and him having autism: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vtX6emk6U5k https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vtX6emk6U5k
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      He's written a lot and been on TV a lot. I suppose somewhere in all that verbiage, you can find an "answer." Or several.
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  One angle is that the big suit makes his head look small, which visually says "stop overthinking things", which is what "Stop Making Sense" means.
- InSteady 3y ago
  Virgil Cane's brother is rolling over in his grave. If I had to rank them then Stop Making Sense is number one, and it's not even that close. But the Last Waltz is definitely the second most iconic concert of all time. Although supposedly the other band members weren't too happy about how the band was presented, as though they were basically "the Robbie Robertson Group," with everyone else in the band being more of an afterthought.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    I wrote about Once Were Brothers here: https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/once-were-brothers https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/once-were-brothers He was definitely a Big Ego. No other Band members are even interviewed, if I recall. Maybe Levon.
- mtalantikite 3y ago
  > Not mentioning The Last Waltz is pretty unpardonable. But this IS a great movie, and so is that. It's probably been 20 years since I've seen it, but isn't The Last Waltz a pretty straightforward recording of a concert? Stop Making Sense might seem like just a concert film, but I think the author's point is that it's quite unlike pretty much everything else in the category. I saw David Byrne present Stop Making Sense at Metrograph here in NYC in 2017 and he gave a lot of insights on the making of it. One major one is that they filmed from a different camera angle on each of the three nights and put the concert together in post. So one night was from stage left, another night stage right, another straight on -- he didn't want you to see camera's in the background at all unless it was intentional (the article mentions it was filmed over three nights, but not this intentional framing). He mentioned something about wanting the audience to see how the Talking Heads put together the band and a show over time, which is why he chose to build it up from that solo guitar moment up through Bernie Worrell (!) and the rest of the musicians walking on stage. He said he always had anxiety performing and would collapse back stage once it was over at first, but finally got comfortable with that front man role as time went on. He also felt that Talking Heads were at the height of their powers (his words) and wanted to capture it, but couldn't get funding for a film and had to personally put up the money for it. As for the "big suit", he said no one in the band knew it was happening and everyone sort of lost it when he walked on stage in it the first night. Edit: One thing I forgot, Jonathan Demme gets mentioned all the time when talking about the film, but people forget that Jordan Cronenweth did the cinematography and had recently come off of doing Blade Runner.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    > isn't The Last Waltz a pretty straightforward recording of a concert? kind of like saying Woodstock is a pretty straightforward recording of a festival. They're both summaries on an era. Watch Once Were Brothers and see Scorcese explain how he planned out every shot ahead of time. And there are NO audience shots.
    - mtalantikite 3y ago
      Yeah, that's fair. I personally am not a fan of The Band and the only guest of theirs I listen to is Muddy Waters (and maybe Joni Mitchell), so I guess the historicity of it is lost to me. I do know people love the whole thing though -- a friend of mine MD'd a complete tribute show in SF years ago with a bunch of great musicians -- so maybe the whole thing hits different for fans of that sort of music.
robbiet480 3y ago
I saw it the other week for the first time ever (in my life) at the SF Metreon IMAX with a live Q&A moderated by Spike Lee afterward. Breathtaking film
mikhailfranco 3y ago
Previous on HN for NYT article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37444113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37444113
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
anArbitraryOne 3y ago
[flagged]
alrs 3y ago
I'm old enough to think of that as boring-era Talking Heads, but it's great to know they've been in the same room together doing press after so many decades of shit-talk.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- helpfulContrib 3y ago
  I'm exactly the opposite, I think they jumped the shark after this album .. ;)
  - nobody9999 3y ago
    >I'm exactly the opposite, I think they jumped the shark after this album .. ;) I don't know about that, While Stop Making Sense was brilliant, Naked[0] is a pretty darn good album too. And their older stuff is somewhat hit or miss, e.g., More Songs About Buildings and Food[2] and Speaking in Tongues[3] had bright spots, but also some crappy songs too. But Fear of Music[1] is mostly spot on, IMHO. I'm pretty excited about the re-release, as it's a fabulous album and an excellent movie (right up there with The Last Waltz[4] and other concert movies) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_(Talking_Heads_album) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_(Talking_Heads_album) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_Music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_Music [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Songs_About_Buildings_and_Food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Songs_About_Buildings_and... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaking_in_Tongues_(Talking_Heads_album) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaking_in_Tongues_(Talking_H... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Waltz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Waltz
    - P_I_Staker 3y ago
      Aren't most of those before "the album" (Stop Making Sense)? Only Little Creatures, True Stories, and Naked really came after. All of these albums have their moments, but there's an argument that the quality is in the early years, and later on they didn't have "full album quality". > Speaking in Tongues[3] had bright spots, but also some crappy songs too I was shocked by this statement, and looked back at the track list. I only found one song that I didn't remember as top notch. Their early albums were known for being great from start to finish, but this is an insanely high bar for an album. Many talented artists never get one album like that. They certainly go for years and years, decades even, releasing albums with 1-3 good songs. I feel like there's quite a large number that only release one good song for album, and basically seem to know it.
SeanLuke 3y ago
> Blondie, Elvis Costello, Television, the B-52s, and the Ramones — were called New Wave The Ramones were New Wave? What?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- riffraff 3y ago
  It sounds odd to me, but I suppose "were called" is probably true in the sense that some did call them that, e.g. they are in the "new wave" compilation album. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wave_(compilation_album) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wave_(compilation_album)
- kouru225 3y ago
  Yea The Ramones were punk And don’t anyone tell me they were “proto-punk” that’s just ridiculous
  - alrs 3y ago
    The Ramones were "punk" because their primary songwriter Dee-Dee was a male prostitute, the very definition of "punk."
- jandrese 3y ago
  They are New Wave the same way Jethro Tull is Heavy Metal.
- vr46 3y ago
  1980, End of the Century, produced by Phil Spector, so un-punk rock it was safe to be given to children in Florida schools
- alrs 3y ago
  Yes, punk was called new-wave in the late '70s. It was a reference to French cinema of the 1950s. "New Wave" didn't mean skinny ties and pink Trapper Keepers until the '80s. What you think of as New Wave was probably from the movement called "New Romantic." Think Duran-Duran. Here's a radio ad for the Sex Pistols playing Dallas in January 1978. "The Sex Pistols bring the new wave to the Metroplex this Tuesday night at the Longhorn Ballroom." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBg-eKOO2E8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBg-eKOO2E8
SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
It's a great film. I have the DVD. The rerelease might have something to do with the actors and writer strikes causing a lack of new releases though.
- kranke155 3y ago
  Restoring a film will take a year or more. The size of this theatrical release might be related to the strikes (are we out of movies yet?) but the restoration was planned out years ago most likely.
- tapotatonumber9 3y ago
  Not sure about that. A teaser was released around 16/18 March which was two or so days before WGA and AMPTO negotiations started (according to Forbes). It’s fun!: https://youtu.be/BwuQtdb4guo https://youtu.be/BwuQtdb4guo
  - ascagnel_ 3y ago
    Additionally, the rerelease is being handled by A24[0], who signed on to the WGA/SAG-AFTRA back in July[1]. [0]: https://a24films.com/films/stop-making-sense https://a24films.com/films/stop-making-sense [1]: https://variety.com/2023/film/news/sag-aftra-independent-projects-waivers-1235673546/ https://variety.com/2023/film/news/sag-aftra-independent-pro...
    - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
      Yes, this gives A24 a gap into which to release. Don't get me wrong, A24 have made some great films lately. But having less competition at present surely helps them as well. We might have heard less about this re-release if there had been other movie hype / news going on at present. E.g. the big name stars of Dune Part 2 would be be gearing up for the launch trail now if they weren't on strike and the release date pushed back "because its stars cannot promote the movie whilst the Hollywood actors' strike was ongoing" ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66615759 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66615759)
wodenokoto 3y ago
Sure its had and not having a theatrical rerelase. It was in cinemas one or two weeks ago.
hrnnnnnn 3y ago
Thanks for the reminder, tomorrow is the last showing where I live and I just bought a ticket!
harywilke 3y ago
The Strong Songs Podcast had a really excellent dissection of this movie. https://strongsongspodcast.com/episode/talking-heads-stop-making-sense https://strongsongspodcast.com/episode/talking-heads-stop-ma...
softwaredoug 3y ago
I’m cautiously bullish on movie theaters actually. With WFH I’m pretty burned out on streaming but love getting out of the house for the movie theater. Part of it is being stuck at home. The other part is the ridiculous paradox of choice, never being able to pick anything out of a million choices. Not to mention distractions, kids screaming, bad lighting, etc... Everything feels like eating junk food. I like having a handful of movie choices and a place, ceremony, lack of distraction, good AV, etc around watching them. Lately I have enjoyed movie theaters doing rereleases. The Alamo near us has been rereleasing Kubrick and Christopher Nolan movies. The recent showings of Tenet and Dune I saw were nearly full. I may actually go watch this too even if I’m not the worlds biggest Talking Heads fan.
- cultureswitch 3y ago
  Interesting that you go to the movies for the quality. My home cinema setup is literately just a high end OLED TV from 2019 configured to my tastes. But even with just that as my basis of comparison, I can barely stand how bad the sound and image quality of the best movie theater is around my place. The blurryness of normal cinema is something I have a personal distaste for. I appreciated the Hobbit because they genuinely had an improvement there. But still, any action sequence in a movie is a blurry mess. Speed Racer also did something well in that regard. I play games at 170Hz, I dislike having my vision downgraded by 80 years of age just to enjoy a movie. Of course, this is largely not the fault of the movie theater. Movies also look blurry on my TV, just less so due to settings. I just have more choice of high quality content at home. But by far the worst offender is sound. It seems the only thing movie theaters are trying to achieve when it comes to sound is booming bass registering on sismographs on the opposite side of the planet. There's instant distortion whenever the scene is not quiet. Highs are just horrible in general. And movie composers and sound designers seem to know this as they use highs sparingly, resulting in often jarringly unrealistic sound. And everything sounding bombastic even when it doesn't make sense thematically.
- taylodl 3y ago
  You know, I just saw the new Hercule Poirot movie (hey, I'm a fan), and I had the same experience. I don't get out of the house much because I WFH, I have all these streaming services yet I spend most of my time just watching YouTube - I really enjoyed going to the theater and seeing a movie! Having a discussion with my wife - why do we have all these streaming services? We should just drop them all and go out to the movies a couple times a month. It looks like that's what we're going to do. So yeah, you should be cautiously bullish.
bookofjoe 3y ago
For me movie theaters are unendurable. Constant smartphone use and talking make the experience terrible. Not to mention barrage of pre-film ads/out of focus film/deafening audio/uncomfortable/dirty seats.
- dylan604 3y ago
  sounds to me like you should find a better theater chain if available in your area. i know the smartphone thing is a bad experience, but i haven't had to endure someone on their phone in a theater since i started going to places that care. to me, the phone thing is just a meme on the internet as it hasn't been a thing for me personally in over a decade
  - bookofjoe 3y ago
    >Why is everyone using their phones in movie theaters? https://mashable.com/article/using-phones-in-movie-theaters https://mashable.com/article/using-phones-in-movie-theaters .................................. >Movie-Theater Behavior Has Gone Off the Reels https://www.wsj.com/articles/movie-theater-behavior-has-gone-off-the-reels-8d3ba0b https://www.wsj.com/articles/movie-theater-behavior-has-gone... https://archive.ph/vadYb https://archive.ph/vadYb .................................. >Smartphones Are Killing the Cinema Experience https://celluloidjunkie.com/2014/11/20/smartphones-will-make-quit-cinemas-real/ https://celluloidjunkie.com/2014/11/20/smartphones-will-make...
    - dylan604 3y ago
      And what's your point? Did you misread something as I do not believe there is a problem? There's only a problem when you go to a theater that doesn't care about customer behavior. If you attend a theater that does, and removes people that misbehave, you do not have this experience. Not sure of your confusion
- softwaredoug 3y ago
  I think a lot depends on your home situation. If I sit down to watch a movie at home, I'm barraged by kids, a puppy, distractions, needing to pause a lot, people going in-and-out, other kinds of background noise, etc. Even if the theater isn't perfect (and luckily I live near several good ones) the simple lack of distraction at the movies is huge for me.
InSteady 3y ago
Not a big fan of Amazon in general, but it's worth noting Prime has a pretty great catalogue of concert performances and music documentaries. Including Stop Making Sense. If you haven't seen it (or haven't watched it recently) and can't make it to a theater, do yourself a favor and watch it at home. It's such a beautiful celebration of music, "from the bottom to the top."
mostthingsweb 3y ago
"Documentary Now!" did a great spoof of this called "Final Transmission". Give it a watch if you haven't: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5821512/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5821512/

124 points by fortran77 3y ago

https://archive.ph/1wr2W https://archive.ph/1wr2W

> One of the few directors to overcome these obstacles and create a concert movie artistically equal to his fiction features is the late Jonathan Demme—with “Stop Making Sense,” his 1984 film of the band Talking Heads in performance. Not mentioning The Lsst Waltz is pretty unpardonable. But this IS a great movie, and so is that. > The oversized boxy suit that Byrne wears for several numbers in the film has become iconic, but it’s also superfluous: he’s already expressing its essence in performance throughout the concert and what, one wonders, is the "essence" of the big suit?

throwaway2562 3y ago
He’s a little guy in a big suit. He doesn’t fit in this world https://putthison.com/making-sense-of-david-byrnes-big-suit-the-tom/ https://putthison.com/making-sense-of-david-byrnes-big-suit-...
- venusenvy47 3y ago
  I like Byrne's summary of the movie. I never thought of a "plot". https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-09-20/talking-heads-stop-making-sense-rerelease https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-... From the article: David, you’ve said the film has a narrative. How would you describe it? Byrne: There’s a guy who is not that comfortable socially, very anxious and nervous, and he gradually finds community and a way to let go, through music and dancing. He finds a way to be more comfortable, and he finds joy.
  - mc32 3y ago
    It’s a reflection of his childhood. Due to his then noticeable accent he had some issues integrating with other kids in school and became somewhat introverted. That has pretty much defined his career trajectory.
    - bugglebeetle 3y ago
      Well, that and him having autism: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vtX6emk6U5k https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vtX6emk6U5k
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    He's written a lot and been on TV a lot. I suppose somewhere in all that verbiage, you can find an "answer." Or several.
BurningFrog 3y ago
One angle is that the big suit makes his head look small, which visually says "stop overthinking things", which is what "Stop Making Sense" means.
InSteady 3y ago
Virgil Cane's brother is rolling over in his grave. If I had to rank them then Stop Making Sense is number one, and it's not even that close. But the Last Waltz is definitely the second most iconic concert of all time. Although supposedly the other band members weren't too happy about how the band was presented, as though they were basically "the Robbie Robertson Group," with everyone else in the band being more of an afterthought.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  I wrote about Once Were Brothers here: https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/once-were-brothers https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/once-were-brothers He was definitely a Big Ego. No other Band members are even interviewed, if I recall. Maybe Levon.
mtalantikite 3y ago
> Not mentioning The Last Waltz is pretty unpardonable. But this IS a great movie, and so is that. It's probably been 20 years since I've seen it, but isn't The Last Waltz a pretty straightforward recording of a concert? Stop Making Sense might seem like just a concert film, but I think the author's point is that it's quite unlike pretty much everything else in the category. I saw David Byrne present Stop Making Sense at Metrograph here in NYC in 2017 and he gave a lot of insights on the making of it. One major one is that they filmed from a different camera angle on each of the three nights and put the concert together in post. So one night was from stage left, another night stage right, another straight on -- he didn't want you to see camera's in the background at all unless it was intentional (the article mentions it was filmed over three nights, but not this intentional framing). He mentioned something about wanting the audience to see how the Talking Heads put together the band and a show over time, which is why he chose to build it up from that solo guitar moment up through Bernie Worrell (!) and the rest of the musicians walking on stage. He said he always had anxiety performing and would collapse back stage once it was over at first, but finally got comfortable with that front man role as time went on. He also felt that Talking Heads were at the height of their powers (his words) and wanted to capture it, but couldn't get funding for a film and had to personally put up the money for it. As for the "big suit", he said no one in the band knew it was happening and everyone sort of lost it when he walked on stage in it the first night. Edit: One thing I forgot, Jonathan Demme gets mentioned all the time when talking about the film, but people forget that Jordan Cronenweth did the cinematography and had recently come off of doing Blade Runner.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  > isn't The Last Waltz a pretty straightforward recording of a concert? kind of like saying Woodstock is a pretty straightforward recording of a festival. They're both summaries on an era. Watch Once Were Brothers and see Scorcese explain how he planned out every shot ahead of time. And there are NO audience shots.
  - mtalantikite 3y ago
    Yeah, that's fair. I personally am not a fan of The Band and the only guest of theirs I listen to is Muddy Waters (and maybe Joni Mitchell), so I guess the historicity of it is lost to me. I do know people love the whole thing though -- a friend of mine MD'd a complete tribute show in SF years ago with a bunch of great musicians -- so maybe the whole thing hits different for fans of that sort of music.

robbiet480 3y ago

I saw it the other week for the first time ever (in my life) at the SF Metreon IMAX with a live Q&A moderated by Spike Lee afterward. Breathtaking film

mikhailfranco 3y ago

Previous on HN for NYT article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37444113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37444113

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

anArbitraryOne 3y ago

[flagged]

alrs 3y ago

I'm old enough to think of that as boring-era Talking Heads, but it's great to know they've been in the same room together doing press after so many decades of shit-talk.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
helpfulContrib 3y ago
I'm exactly the opposite, I think they jumped the shark after this album .. ;)
- nobody9999 3y ago
  >I'm exactly the opposite, I think they jumped the shark after this album .. ;) I don't know about that, While Stop Making Sense was brilliant, Naked[0] is a pretty darn good album too. And their older stuff is somewhat hit or miss, e.g., More Songs About Buildings and Food[2] and Speaking in Tongues[3] had bright spots, but also some crappy songs too. But Fear of Music[1] is mostly spot on, IMHO. I'm pretty excited about the re-release, as it's a fabulous album and an excellent movie (right up there with The Last Waltz[4] and other concert movies) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_(Talking_Heads_album) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_(Talking_Heads_album) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_Music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_Music [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Songs_About_Buildings_and_Food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Songs_About_Buildings_and... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaking_in_Tongues_(Talking_Heads_album) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaking_in_Tongues_(Talking_H... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Waltz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Waltz
  - P_I_Staker 3y ago
    Aren't most of those before "the album" (Stop Making Sense)? Only Little Creatures, True Stories, and Naked really came after. All of these albums have their moments, but there's an argument that the quality is in the early years, and later on they didn't have "full album quality". > Speaking in Tongues[3] had bright spots, but also some crappy songs too I was shocked by this statement, and looked back at the track list. I only found one song that I didn't remember as top notch. Their early albums were known for being great from start to finish, but this is an insanely high bar for an album. Many talented artists never get one album like that. They certainly go for years and years, decades even, releasing albums with 1-3 good songs. I feel like there's quite a large number that only release one good song for album, and basically seem to know it.

SeanLuke 3y ago

> Blondie, Elvis Costello, Television, the B-52s, and the Ramones — were called New Wave The Ramones were New Wave? What?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
riffraff 3y ago
It sounds odd to me, but I suppose "were called" is probably true in the sense that some did call them that, e.g. they are in the "new wave" compilation album. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wave_(compilation_album) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wave_(compilation_album)
kouru225 3y ago
Yea The Ramones were punk And don’t anyone tell me they were “proto-punk” that’s just ridiculous
- alrs 3y ago
  The Ramones were "punk" because their primary songwriter Dee-Dee was a male prostitute, the very definition of "punk."
jandrese 3y ago
They are New Wave the same way Jethro Tull is Heavy Metal.
vr46 3y ago
1980, End of the Century, produced by Phil Spector, so un-punk rock it was safe to be given to children in Florida schools
alrs 3y ago
Yes, punk was called new-wave in the late '70s. It was a reference to French cinema of the 1950s. "New Wave" didn't mean skinny ties and pink Trapper Keepers until the '80s. What you think of as New Wave was probably from the movement called "New Romantic." Think Duran-Duran. Here's a radio ad for the Sex Pistols playing Dallas in January 1978. "The Sex Pistols bring the new wave to the Metroplex this Tuesday night at the Longhorn Ballroom." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBg-eKOO2E8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBg-eKOO2E8

SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago

It's a great film. I have the DVD. The rerelease might have something to do with the actors and writer strikes causing a lack of new releases though.

kranke155 3y ago
Restoring a film will take a year or more. The size of this theatrical release might be related to the strikes (are we out of movies yet?) but the restoration was planned out years ago most likely.
tapotatonumber9 3y ago
Not sure about that. A teaser was released around 16/18 March which was two or so days before WGA and AMPTO negotiations started (according to Forbes). It’s fun!: https://youtu.be/BwuQtdb4guo https://youtu.be/BwuQtdb4guo
- ascagnel_ 3y ago
  Additionally, the rerelease is being handled by A24[0], who signed on to the WGA/SAG-AFTRA back in July[1]. [0]: https://a24films.com/films/stop-making-sense https://a24films.com/films/stop-making-sense [1]: https://variety.com/2023/film/news/sag-aftra-independent-projects-waivers-1235673546/ https://variety.com/2023/film/news/sag-aftra-independent-pro...
  - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
    Yes, this gives A24 a gap into which to release. Don't get me wrong, A24 have made some great films lately. But having less competition at present surely helps them as well. We might have heard less about this re-release if there had been other movie hype / news going on at present. E.g. the big name stars of Dune Part 2 would be be gearing up for the launch trail now if they weren't on strike and the release date pushed back "because its stars cannot promote the movie whilst the Hollywood actors' strike was ongoing" ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66615759 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66615759)

wodenokoto 3y ago

Sure its had and not having a theatrical rerelase. It was in cinemas one or two weeks ago.

hrnnnnnn 3y ago

Thanks for the reminder, tomorrow is the last showing where I live and I just bought a ticket!

harywilke 3y ago

The Strong Songs Podcast had a really excellent dissection of this movie. https://strongsongspodcast.com/episode/talking-heads-stop-making-sense https://strongsongspodcast.com/episode/talking-heads-stop-ma...

softwaredoug 3y ago

I’m cautiously bullish on movie theaters actually. With WFH I’m pretty burned out on streaming but love getting out of the house for the movie theater. Part of it is being stuck at home. The other part is the ridiculous paradox of choice, never being able to pick anything out of a million choices. Not to mention distractions, kids screaming, bad lighting, etc... Everything feels like eating junk food. I like having a handful of movie choices and a place, ceremony, lack of distraction, good AV, etc around watching them. Lately I have enjoyed movie theaters doing rereleases. The Alamo near us has been rereleasing Kubrick and Christopher Nolan movies. The recent showings of Tenet and Dune I saw were nearly full. I may actually go watch this too even if I’m not the worlds biggest Talking Heads fan.

cultureswitch 3y ago
Interesting that you go to the movies for the quality. My home cinema setup is literately just a high end OLED TV from 2019 configured to my tastes. But even with just that as my basis of comparison, I can barely stand how bad the sound and image quality of the best movie theater is around my place. The blurryness of normal cinema is something I have a personal distaste for. I appreciated the Hobbit because they genuinely had an improvement there. But still, any action sequence in a movie is a blurry mess. Speed Racer also did something well in that regard. I play games at 170Hz, I dislike having my vision downgraded by 80 years of age just to enjoy a movie. Of course, this is largely not the fault of the movie theater. Movies also look blurry on my TV, just less so due to settings. I just have more choice of high quality content at home. But by far the worst offender is sound. It seems the only thing movie theaters are trying to achieve when it comes to sound is booming bass registering on sismographs on the opposite side of the planet. There's instant distortion whenever the scene is not quiet. Highs are just horrible in general. And movie composers and sound designers seem to know this as they use highs sparingly, resulting in often jarringly unrealistic sound. And everything sounding bombastic even when it doesn't make sense thematically.
taylodl 3y ago
You know, I just saw the new Hercule Poirot movie (hey, I'm a fan), and I had the same experience. I don't get out of the house much because I WFH, I have all these streaming services yet I spend most of my time just watching YouTube - I really enjoyed going to the theater and seeing a movie! Having a discussion with my wife - why do we have all these streaming services? We should just drop them all and go out to the movies a couple times a month. It looks like that's what we're going to do. So yeah, you should be cautiously bullish.

bookofjoe 3y ago

For me movie theaters are unendurable. Constant smartphone use and talking make the experience terrible. Not to mention barrage of pre-film ads/out of focus film/deafening audio/uncomfortable/dirty seats.

dylan604 3y ago
sounds to me like you should find a better theater chain if available in your area. i know the smartphone thing is a bad experience, but i haven't had to endure someone on their phone in a theater since i started going to places that care. to me, the phone thing is just a meme on the internet as it hasn't been a thing for me personally in over a decade
- bookofjoe 3y ago
  >Why is everyone using their phones in movie theaters? https://mashable.com/article/using-phones-in-movie-theaters https://mashable.com/article/using-phones-in-movie-theaters .................................. >Movie-Theater Behavior Has Gone Off the Reels https://www.wsj.com/articles/movie-theater-behavior-has-gone-off-the-reels-8d3ba0b https://www.wsj.com/articles/movie-theater-behavior-has-gone... https://archive.ph/vadYb https://archive.ph/vadYb .................................. >Smartphones Are Killing the Cinema Experience https://celluloidjunkie.com/2014/11/20/smartphones-will-make-quit-cinemas-real/ https://celluloidjunkie.com/2014/11/20/smartphones-will-make...
  - dylan604 3y ago
    And what's your point? Did you misread something as I do not believe there is a problem? There's only a problem when you go to a theater that doesn't care about customer behavior. If you attend a theater that does, and removes people that misbehave, you do not have this experience. Not sure of your confusion
softwaredoug 3y ago
I think a lot depends on your home situation. If I sit down to watch a movie at home, I'm barraged by kids, a puppy, distractions, needing to pause a lot, people going in-and-out, other kinds of background noise, etc. Even if the theater isn't perfect (and luckily I live near several good ones) the simple lack of distraction at the movies is huge for me.

InSteady 3y ago

Not a big fan of Amazon in general, but it's worth noting Prime has a pretty great catalogue of concert performances and music documentaries. Including Stop Making Sense. If you haven't seen it (or haven't watched it recently) and can't make it to a theater, do yourself a favor and watch it at home. It's such a beautiful celebration of music, "from the bottom to the top."

mostthingsweb 3y ago

"Documentary Now!" did a great spoof of this called "Final Transmission". Give it a watch if you haven't: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5821512/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5821512/