#Frantz movie.

[naiiswinterr]

OMG il est tellement beau<3

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[iamtryingtobelieve]

"Desire huh? What the fuck does that mean? Does that mean you're into dudes with fucking long hair, smell like beer, have shitty tattoos; maybe they hang out at the bowling alley! Maybe, just maybe you'll go out back and rub their sick crotch; he'll stick his hands down your pants. Meanwhile, your boyfriend's sitting at home jerking off to fucking gay porn" Haggard (2003) Dir: Bam Margera

[bizarreauhavre]

The foot eater, 1949, surrealist movie.

[thenameofthismanisjerryharrison]

[moviemosaics]

Stop Making Sense

directed by Jonathan Demme, 1984

[jerrywhoreison]

Thought I’d do something fun and scan my Stop Making Sense CD! Hope you guys find it fun☺️ I’ll be posting more from the booklet tomorrow.

[denizeyuruyen]

🎬 Frantz (Yön: Francois Ozon, 2016)

"Acı, umut ve hayal kırıklığıyla bezeli bir aşk öyküsünün zarafetle anlatıldığı “Frantz”, sakin ve kendi halinde. Ozon’un filmografisinde çığır açmıyor, ama burukluğu geniz yakan cinsten." (Selin Gürel)

[rickchung]

Stop Making Sense (dir. Jonathan Demme) x TIFF 2023.

Demme perfectly captures everything appealing about Talking Heads as a band and musical experience. [It's] never not completely engrossing as a rock and roll ride translated through the screen. This enhanced version only further brings the past into the future in a way that makes the music all the more propulsive. Its overall fidelity has aged and held up incredibly well thanks in part to the pioneering use of early digital audio techniques.

[kulturado]

The Story: Nothing Is Better Than This: The Oral History of ‘Stop Making Sense’

The Writer: Alan Siegel

(illustration: Michael Iver Jacobsen)

[remembertheplunge]

Busy Bee Journal entries

Monday 3/13 2017   6:46pm Tea Cups 

Bob  took the “ The 9”  movie ticket!. I walked it down to the State Theater, but, the door was locked. On the way back to Brendan, I encountered  Bob—or, the altered Bob (he’s had a lot to drink). He was happy to get it.

There’s a blonde homeless guy next to Tresetie’s— I gave him a TJSK bag—asked if he wanted to see a movie. H had a lot of stuff “maybe after dark”. 

So, I bought him a ticket for the 7:30pm “Logan” movie.

He turned it down again, citing his tendency to revolt as the reason. I smelled alcohol on him

------------------------------------------

Razors

Deodorant

Blister cream (DJ’s feet)

DJ—Last night: Slaveway  (Safeway Store) “I haven’t been in a grocery store in about 4 years.”

----------------------------------------

“You have a body builder’s way of thinking--mind.” Angelo,my personal trainer said  yesterday re: I hit 3 gyms in one day N: 3/15/17 Wed. 9:12am

----------------------------------------------------------

____After a month out on the street—including thru February’s howling storms—

DJ sleeps in his pillow bed in “the spare bed room”

Listening to country music.

3/16/17Thursday

7:40pm

S0…texted DJ that I need the house back to myself.

He texted before “I do love you”.

I texted “I think that you are a great guy.”

_____________

Bone crushing hard—it went so deep in 4 days

_______—

Drove my “new” table home—round—a pattern antique 

He , too, helps the drug—homeless. He said his home is his sanctuary. He lives alone. Few visitors.

He said “don’t cut off the connection…” (from DJ)

He went to Chico State. (As did I) In Breaking Bad fashion, as a pharmacy student, he manufactured 100s of thousands of dollars in Meth. Got 10 years prison. he was the  guy that sold me the table.

------------------------------

DJ doesn’t want to come in—“so depressed. “Not hungry”.

——

Ouch-----

5:25pm I’m sitting out in front of my house.

Greg  sleeps.

He showed me Mother Mary in one  tree and a woman’s face in another. They were on Brigsmore Ave near Starbucks.

I met him at the gas station on 9th across from the Adult Book Store around noon.

Last night he slept on the cement. He hadn’t eaten in two days. 

I bought cigarettes for Mike. I drove to Salvation Army to meet him at 11am. He was a no show.

I went to Preservation Coffee where a friend asked “What’s this (TJSK) project about? You could be murdered."

Then I drove to the gas station and met Greg. 

He had blue paint on his fingers . He paints house numbers on curbs for a living.

-------------------------------------------

I just tried to wake him. He’s really softly asleep.

Now what?

We encountered Strawberry Sterling outside Hamburger Habit.

Greg offered to go to re- hab with Sterling. Later, Greg threw his last dollar at Sterling….

Sterling is way down. 

Heroin sick.

Bad skin disorder.

Greg asked if Sterling had seen Greg’s girl friend Brook. No. 

Greg’s hunting for her.

I told him that I hunt for Jim

And, of everyone’s hunt for Frantz in last night’s movie.

(Frantz: 2016 movie)

Greg asked several times why I appeared today. 

Greg “What does it mean?”

“What do you want?”

Me “nothing” 

He’s healing to be with. Warm feel to him

End of this part of the entries from my  Busy Bee journal2017 journal

Notes: 6/22/2024

In mid March 2017 I began an intense involvement with the homeless that lasted until the end of that year. This included passing out bags, usually bags I bought at Trader Joes. I called them Trader Joe Survival Kits (TJSK). The bags included food, socks and toiletries. 

”The 9” movie was a movie about the homeless in Modesto. It was terrible and I walked out of the State Theater in Modesto mid movie .

 I had given my lawyer friend Bob (not his real name) a ticket to see the movie.

The Brendan is a movie theater in Modesto. Tea Cup was a restaurant adjoining the theater. Treseties is a restaurant about a block away. The blonde homeless man that I met there was named Mike. He was a handsome muscular blonde musician. He practiced his music like I practice my law he would later tell me. When he turned the movie ticket, I gave it to DJ who I spotted charging his phone outside of Tea Cup. We saw “Logan “ together. I then offered let him stay at may house that night. He turned me down, but, I did take him to the house, about a mile away, to give him a coat. It was cold that night. The next day, I found DJ asleep on a downtown side walk. I asked him again if he wanted to stay in my house. This time he said yes. He stayed a few nights, but, my “homed” friends feared I would be hurt or killed, so, I asked him to leave.

But, the seed was planted and I would go on to have several other  homeless men spend a few nights or a few weeks with me at my house. Including DJ until the end of October 2017.. 

Greg  was one of them. He came from a good family in New York. He was married and had children. And, he had severe mental illness issues. He was a magic man who would show me images in murals he had painted around town and tell me why they were significant. With one of the murals , I had to view it by holding a mirror and studying the mural in the mirror as he explained it.

]

He was searching for his x girl fried Brook. I was searching for my deceased partner Jim. And the characters in the movie Frantz were searching for him (his memory). He was a German soldier who had been  been killed by a French soldier in WWI. The soldier who killed him was  among those" searching for" Frantz. 

Breaking Bad was a TV show about a an all American family who get heavily involved in Meth production.

I'm giving these entries to you in a raw version. Pretty much as I wrote it. I think it better catches the feel of the experience than a polished version.

[mansnooziesmoosmutzel]

And the BAFTA 2023 for cinematography, director, sound, score, adapted screenplay, not english language movie and best movie goes to ... ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

[danielacarryon]

Frantz (2016) Directed by François Ozon

[bizarreauhavre]

Lovely sweet, 1960, (surrealist movie).

[bkenber]

A24 to Re-Release 'Stop Making Sense' in Remastered 4K, and I Cannot Wait

Like any other year, 2023 has brought with it a lot of exciting news about the many movies coming our way very soon. But news of one movie really piqued my interest, and that was of A24 acquiring the worldwide rights to the classic 1984 concert film “Stop Making Sense.” directed by the late, great Jonathan Demme, it is set to be remastered in 4K and will be released in theaters sometime before…

[greensparty]

Movie Review: Stop Making Sense & Album Review: Talking Heads "Stop Making Sense" Expanded Edition Remaster and TIFF Q&A Coverage

In Dec. 1983, NYC art rockers Talking Heads did four concerts at Hollywood's Pantages Theater. Those shows were filmed for the concert documentary film Stop Making Sense that was directed by one of my all-time heroes Jonathan Demme. After some 1984 film festivals, it was released theatrically in October 1984. Today it is considered to be one of the greatest concert films of all time. For music geeks and film geeks it always comes down to this and The Last Waltz. This month, A24 is celebrating the 40th anniversary of those legendary concerts with a re-release in 4K and IMAX. Last month, Rhino re-released the companion live album originally released in 1984. I got to cover both of these releases this week as well as the Talking Heads reunion that occurred at the Toronto International Film Festival following the IMAX screening with a Q&A moderated by Spike Lee.

original 1984 movie poster

I guess you could say I’ve written a great deal about Stop Making Sense (for proof, read here). In 2015, my documentary was screening at Noise Pop in San Francisco and the night before my screening I caught an anniversary screening they had of Stop Making Sense at The Independent. It was an amazing sound system and the packed audience was dancing and singing along throughout. I later read an interview with Jonathan Demme and he said when Stop Making Sense first opened, people were getting up and dancing in the movie theater during the movie and that was exactly what we wanted from the film. In 2020 when I interviewed Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz he said “ That’s what we wanted. We were going for a live concert experience. Without a lot of superfluous stuff like interviews between the songs. The thing about Stop Making Sense was the entire crew, the band, the camera crew - everyone was at the top of their game. The cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth had recently shot Blade Runner! It was a top notch operation. And the people who recorded the live album from The Record Plant Mobile, they did an excellent job too. So hat’s off to everyone involved.” As I said at the time of the Noise Pop festival, I was truly honored to know my film was at the same festival as this legendary film! 

Movie Review: Stop Making Sense

2023 movie poster

By 1984, Jonathan Demme had graduated from the Roger Corman school of exploitation films into more offbeat character driven work like Handle with Care and Melvin and Howard. By the early 80s he had attended some Talking Heads concerts and was blown away by the visual elements of their music. At the very moment Demme was directing these Talking Heads concerts in late 1983, he had been in the middle of one of his worst filmmaking experiences on Swing Shift, a film where star/producer Goldie Hawn had final cut. So the creative solace he was finding at the time was in this concert film, which marked Demme's first documentary and first concert film, two genres he would return to quite often over his career.

Demme and Byrne circa 1984

Unlike other concert films, each band member comes out a little at time. First - singer David Byrne comes out with a boombox and plays along to "Psycho Killer", then he is joined by bassist Tina Weymouth, then drummer Chris Frantz, and then guitarist Jerry Harrison. They then are joined by guests for these shows including keyboardist Bernie Worrell, percussionist Steve Scales, and more. Each song is like it's own iconic moment: Byrne singing to the lamp during "This Must Be the Place", the legendary big oversized suit and so many more. Every musician here is tight and they all look like they are having fun. There was also time for brief interludes like Frantz and Weymouth's side project Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love" (yes we all know, later sampled by Mariah Carey, but the original is superior), and some solo Bryne soundtrack songs.

I am by no means an expert on Talking Heads or their biggest fan, but this concert film is legendary! You actually see the sweat on the forehead of the performers, the scratches on the instruments and the incredible lighting even more so on the big screen than you do on the small screen. I have to acknowledge this: I saw this IMAX screening at a unnamed movie theater and there were some projection issues. A colleague of mine actually walked out as he was disgusted with the aspect ratio cutting off the heads during some shots. I am not going to give this a bad review based on the one specific projection at this one particular theater I was at, as I am judging a movie itself. Over the last few years several movie theaters in the area such as the Coolidge Corner Theatre and the Somerville Theatre have done revival screenings of Stop Making Sense and it's always an event. Any excuse to see this movie on the big screen is worth cancelling your plans and going!!! The 2023 cut also had an incredible music mix too. It's kind of impossible to watch this movie and not tap along to the music. Very little can possibly compete with my experience of seeing it at Noise Pop in 2015 when fans were getting up and dancing along to each scene (not possible in stadium seating unfortunately), but this movie shows both Demme and Talking Heads in their prime, a meeting of the mind that still stands up today!

IMAX release is on 9/22 and standard 2D release is 9/29: https://tickets.stopmakingsense.movie/

5 out of 5 stars (I rarely give 5 stars BTW)

Album Review: Talking Heads Stop Making Sense Expanded Edition Remaster

2023 album from Rhino

Talking Heads were co-founded by Chris Frantz with his college girlfriend bassist Tina Weymouth and studious singer David Byrne. They soon moved to NYC and became a big part of the Downtown NYC scene. They were hip and cool enough to get played on MTV and college radio, but artsy and edgy enough to be a non-punk band accepted by the CBGB’s crowd. Just as the band was taking off, Frantz and Weymouth formed a side group Tom Tom Club. For me, I always dug the Talking Heads, but I never got heavy into them. Probably because by the time I was getting into music, it was towards the end of the band. But I always liked their sound and had great respect for them being early music video pioneers, i.e. “Once in a Lifetime”, “Burning Down the House” and “Road to Nowhere”. In the last few years I've actually gotten way more into them and have picked up a number of their albums.

Talking Heads with their additional Stop Making Sense musicians

Which brings us to the Stop Making Sense live soundtrack album. By 1984, Talking Heads had released five solid studio albums, notably Remain in Light (got my copy on vinyl!). The band was mostly big in the college radio scene, but they bubbled up to the mainstream with some Top 40 hits like "Take Me to the River" and "Burning Down the House". Their groundbreaking music videos that were popular on MTV definitely introduced them to a whole new audience too. When the concert film was about to be released, Sire released the companion live album in September 1984, but it only featured 9 songs clocking in at under 40 minutes, hence not the whole concert. In 1999, there was a special edition released to coincide with the 15th anniversary, this one featuring 16 tracks. For the 40th anniversary Jerry Harrison oversaw the full concert which includes some tracks that were actually cut from the film itself.

Something very noteworthy about both the film and the album is that it was one of the very early uses of digital audio. The sound is incredible...even as I listened to a digital download. It also serves as a great example of what a good soundtrack should do, which is being both a companion piece to the film and a souvenir of sorts for the excitement of what that film did for you upon seeing it. For big fans who already have the previous editions, this does mark the first time the entire concert is on vinyl and it includes a reproduction of the original booklet as well as notes from the band members [NOTE: the edition I reviewed did not include that booklet] and it might be worth trading in the old one for the new one.

For info on Rhino's 2023 re-release: https://store.rhino.com/en/rhino-store/artists/talking-heads/stop-making-sense-2lp/603497832835.html

4.5 out of 5 stars

TIFF Q&A on 9/11/2023

In the years that followed Stop Making Sense, Demme worked the members of Talking Heads a few more times: Byrne and Harrison contributed music to Something Wild, Byrne did the score for Married to the Mob, and Byrne acted in Demme's episode of Trying Times. But sadly Demme didn't do another Talking Heads concert film. The band broke up in 1991. Bryne announced the band was over, but the other three recorded and toured as the Shrunken Heads and later as The Heads. While there was some bad blood between them, they did reunite in 1999 for the 15th anniversary of Stop Making Sense. One of those Q&As was featured on the blu-ray. In 2002, they reunited and actually performed music together when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But the closest we came to a Stop Making Sense sequel was in 2020 when Spike Lee directed one of Byrne's broadway shows David Byrne's American Utopia for the HBO concert film. I named it my #1 Documentary of 2020 and in my review I wrote "Byrne and Lee have come together with something to say in 2020. I just hope we don’t need to wait another 36 years for Byrne’s next epic concert doc!"

Byrne, Harrison, Frantz, Weymouth and Lee at TIFF

At the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival screening, all four Talking Heads reunited for the screening and Q&A moderated by Lee, which was simulcast at the IMAX screening I attended. Here were a few of the highpoints:

Spike Lee said "Give it up for the late great Jonathan Demme! The great director Jonathan Demme" Amen! Chris Frantz said "I miss Jonathan Demme! He would have been so happy to see this tonight and hear it".

David Byrne said "When I was watching this just now I was thinking, this is why we come to the movie theaters! This is different than watching on my laptop." Big applause!

Spike Lee declared this the "greatest concert film ever"! Hard to disagree with that!

They discussed working with Demme. Frantz even mentioned Caged Heat (impressed they saw that early film Demme did for Roger Corman). Byrne said after he saw an early cut Demme did with editor Lisa Day, "I realized that he was looking at it as an ensemble film. Like you get a bunch of characters in a location and you get to know them each one by one, get familiar with them, and then you watch how they all interact with one another. I thought, I'm in my own world, but he saw that and he saw what was going on there."

Frantz went on to say that Demme really made everyone involved feel "what we were doing was worthy of being a movie and worthy of being remembered".

Jerry Harrison said that as someone who had been in a band before this one with The Modern Lovers, he felt there was "nothing going on like this. I don't know how big an audience we will have but I think we're treading new ground. I think we did and that's why it's timeless".

Bryne went on to say about Demme that there wasn't a lot visually in his previous films that was similar, but he was very aware of how people relate and "he brought that to a concert movie, and you don't see that in a lot of concert movies"

Me seeing Stop Making Sense on the big screen!

I am incredibly jealous of anyone in L.A. attending the American Cinematheque screening with Talking Heads doing a Q&A moderated by Paul Thomas Anderson on Tues. 9/19/23!