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Dom Robinson reviews

Talking Heads
Stop Making Sense

Digitally Re-mixed and Re-mastered

Distributed by
Palm Pictures

Cat.no: PALMDVD 3013-2
Cert: E
Running time: 89 minutes
Year: 1984
Pressing: 2000
Region(s): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (UK PAL)
Chapters: 19 plus extras
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo)
Languages: English
Subtitles: None
Widescreen: 16:9 (1.77:1)
16:9-enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: No
Disc Format: DVD 9
Price: £15.99
Extras : Scene index, Trailers, Montage, Bonus tracks, Storyboard-to-film comparison, "David Byrne Interviews...David Byrne" promotional clip, Biographies, Discography, Big Suit, DVD-ROM content, Audio commentary from the band and Jonathan Demme

Director:

Jonathan Demme

Beloved, Married to the Mob, Melvin and Howard, Philadelphia, The Silence of the Lambs, Something Wild

Producer:

Gary Goetzman

The Band:

David Byrne

Vocals and Guitar

Jerry Harrison

Guitar and Keyboards

Chris Frantz

Tina Weymouth

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense is a concert film for the revered 1984 album, the stage starting off very bare with lead singer David Byrne announcing that he has a tape to play for the audience... and so leads into Psycho Killer. Little by little, the background builds up, featuring weird pictures and messages and the band certainly seem to be enjoying themselves.

Not all of the tracks featured are to my taste, but my favourite ones from the film are Psycho Killer, Slippery People, Naive Melody (This Must Be The Place), Once in a Lifetime, Take Me To The River and a cover version The Tom Tom Club's Genius of Love, which provided the basis for Mariah Carey's Fantasy, but not my Mariah Carey fantasy :)

Never one to conform, or have that many hits, their UK singles chart history is as follows :


Feb 81	No.14	Once in a Lifetime
May 81	No.50	Houses in Motion
Jan 84	No.51	This Must Be The Place
Nov 84	No.68	Slippery People
Oct 85	No. 6	Road To Nowhere
Feb 86	No.17	And She Was
Sep 86	No.43	Wild Wild Life
May 87	No.52	Radio Head
Aug 88	No.59	Blind
Oct 92	No.50	Lifetime Piling Up
Nov 96	No.60	Don't Take My Kindness For Weakness
		(with Shaun Ryder, but minus David Byrne)

and in 1992 they released their greatest hits album, Popular Favourites: Sand in the Vaseline.

The film is presented in a remastered anamorphic 16:9 ratio - bar the two bonus tracks which are 4:3 - and is fine to watch, but the whole concert has a rather blurred look about it. I'm getting the impression that it's intentional as I can't think what caused it, but I'd prefer it if it didn't look that way. The average bitrate is a fine 6Mb/s.

The sound is spot-on perfect though, with plenty of loud, thumping bass coming out of the speakers. The soundtrack is available in three flavours: Feature Film Dolby Digital 5.1 which is best, Studio Dolby Digital 5.1 which is a rather more tinny alternative and a plain vanilla stereo mix.

Extras :

Chapters & Trailers :

There are 19 chapters on the disc, one per track, with the complete listing looking as follows :


1. Psycho Killer

2. Heaven

3. Thank You For Sending Me An Angel

4. Found A Job

5. Slippery People

6. Burning Down the House

7. Life During Wartime

8. Making Flippy Floppy

9. Swamp

10. What A Day That Was

11. Naive Melody (This Must Be The Place)

12. Once In A Lifetime

13. Genius Of Love

14. Girlfriend Is Better

15. Take Me To The River

16. Cross-Eyed And Painless

17. Cities

18/19. Big Business / I Zimbra

The trailers included are a theatrical trailer, a "montage" (3 mins of clips from the film), plus three trailers for other Palm Pictures DVDs - Dancehall Queen, Baaba Maal and Ghost in the Machine. There's also an "Anti-Drugs Trailer" if you're worried about your kids taking drugs in an American school...

Languages & Subtitles :

English songs, but no lyrics unfortunately.

And there's more... :

First up is a couple of Bonus Tracks, but I've listed them about as 17 and "18/19" as the back cover quotes them and for some reason are presented in 4:3 rather than 16:9 widescreen. The extensive Storyboard-to-film comparison allows you to see what was intended before watching the film and compare it with how it turned out, as well as read notes about it.

Brief Biographies are available for the band and director Jonathan Demme. There's also a one-page Discography and three on the famed Big Suit which makes an appearance in Girlfriend is Better.

The DVD-ROM content features music samples, info and rough-looking video clips of a range of Palm Pictures produce: Sly and Robbie, Baaba Maal, Mocean Worker, Ernest Ranglin and Kora Revolution.

The feature-length Audio commentary was recorded by all four members of the band and the director in August 1999. Each participant recorded his or her comments separately in their studio of choice. Finally, we have a bizarre promitional self-interviewing clip, "David Byrne Interviews...David Byrne", lasting four-and-a-half minutes.

Menu :

Most of the menus are static but have the opening music from Slippery People and Burning Down the House in the background and the extras menu features changing pictures of the event. The scene selection menus are silent, but contain animation of the track in question.

Well, you'll already have decided on whether to buy it or not. If you're a big fan, you will do and you certainly won't be disappointed given the amount of extras. For the rest, rent it first and see if you warm to their brand of music.

I quite enjoyed it, but I'd prefer a concert filmed now with more of their later music and solo offerings, such as Jerry Harrison's excellent Rev It Up which didn't do a light over here, as that's more of what I'm used to from them.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.

For more information, please visit PalmPictures.com

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