Review of Stop Making Sense (1984) by Todd J — 05 Jun 2007

Stop Making Sense: It's been a couple weeks since I watched this, and, seriously, I still find myself playing a handful of excerpts on youtube. I was only mildly familiar with the Talking Heads before seeing this, but now, I'm getting close to being an addict.

If I don't hear "Life During Wartime," "Girlfriend is Better," and "Once in a Lifetime" at least once a week, I go nuts and start demanding people to dance. Concert flicks are generally subject to a whole host of problems.

Maybe the cutting is horrendous and ends up making the thing look like a Tony Scott movie (metal concert DVDs end up this way a lot). Maybe the sound quality is kinda nixed a bit (too much bass happens often).

But by far the biggest common problem with these things is that because the band knows that they're being recorded, they go out of their way to play their parts perfectly but end up playing a boring-ass show with little energy (this happens a lot on live albums as well for the same reasons).

This is one of those rare exceptions where everything comes together. You take Jonathon Demme's well-paced editing and shot selections, add to it a fabulous on-stage production that starts with Byrne alone singing "Psycho Killer" with a boombox and a curtainless stage, then top it off with an energetic, exciting, and completely entertaining hour and a half set that never lets down for a second.

Even the inclusions of footage from different shows doesn't annoy. In the age of MTV, it's hard to keep anybody's attention for more than a few seconds at a time, but this movie not only kept my attention with music that I was only vaguely familiar with but it also kept my feet tapping and made me a big fan of a band who I might never otherwise have explored further.

**** out've *****.