Watching “Stop Making Sense” in 4K IMAX at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival was a transporting, immersive, joyous experience. Some of us also saw the 1983 Talking Heads concert tour promoting their fifth album, “Speaking in Tongues”; when Jonathan Demme saw the show, the director asked if he could document the concerts. The band, who admired Demme films such as “Caged Heat” and “Melvin and Howard,” loved the idea.
Demme shot the film over three performances in December 1983 at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles. Four months later, it was in theaters and grossed $5 million. Forty years later, the band holds the film rights. They worked with A24 to release the restored 4K version for its exclusive IMAX run on September 22 before heading to conventional theaters September 29 around the world.
At the Toronto world premiere, even the band rose up in their vertiginous IMAX seats and danced — who could resist “Road to Nowhere,...
Demme shot the film over three performances in December 1983 at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles. Four months later, it was in theaters and grossed $5 million. Forty years later, the band holds the film rights. They worked with A24 to release the restored 4K version for its exclusive IMAX run on September 22 before heading to conventional theaters September 29 around the world.
At the Toronto world premiere, even the band rose up in their vertiginous IMAX seats and danced — who could resist “Road to Nowhere,...
- 9/22/2023
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
At a Toronto International Film Festival that saw its wattage dimmed by a SAG-AFTRA strike, it took a Talking Heads reunion at the 40th Anniversary of Stop Making Sense to crank up the festival’s volume to an 11 in Spinal Tap-speak.
Talking Heads’ David Byrne in ‘Stop Making Sense,’ 1984
The new A24 re-release of the Jonathan Demme concert film, which moderator Spike Lee billed as “the greatest concert film ever,” is a 4K Imax restoration.
And the night literally lived up to the large format exhibitor’s slogan “Watch a movie, or be part of one” as Talking Heads bandmembers David Byrne, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz and Lee himself got up and danced during such numbers as “Burning Down the House” and “Once in a Lifetime” during the screening. Talk about a cinema-surround show.
Tina Weymouth, Everett Collection
Stop Making Sense played at Toronto’s Scotiabank auditorium No.
Talking Heads’ David Byrne in ‘Stop Making Sense,’ 1984
The new A24 re-release of the Jonathan Demme concert film, which moderator Spike Lee billed as “the greatest concert film ever,” is a 4K Imax restoration.
And the night literally lived up to the large format exhibitor’s slogan “Watch a movie, or be part of one” as Talking Heads bandmembers David Byrne, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz and Lee himself got up and danced during such numbers as “Burning Down the House” and “Once in a Lifetime” during the screening. Talk about a cinema-surround show.
Tina Weymouth, Everett Collection
Stop Making Sense played at Toronto’s Scotiabank auditorium No.
- 9/12/2023
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
It usually starts around “Burning Down the House.” That’s six numbers into Stop Making Sense, the 1984 Talking Heads concert film, and the first number to feature not just the central quartet — David Byrne, Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth, and Chris Frantz — but the whole expanded band they were using during that tour. People get up and start dancing in their seats, in the aisles, in the front, and in the back of the theater. I’ve been to screenings where it starts a little earlier, around “Thank You for Sending Me an Angel,...
- 9/12/2023
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Bette Gordon’s fascinating 1983 film about a woman working in an adult movie theatre has a script by Kathy Acker and parts for Nan Goldin and Spalding Gray
The 1983 indie-underground New York movie Variety, directed by Bette Gordon and scripted by Kathy Acker, is re-released for its 40-year anniversary. It is a flawed but fascinating critique of the male gaze, the porn gaze, and the luxurious ordeal of guilty voyeurism. Gordon casts a female lead, flipping gender assumptions and turning the tables on the underworld quest-torments of Paul Schrader’s male heroes in the likes of Taxi Driver and Hardcore. Perhaps she was inspired by the mysterious inner life of the listless young woman played by Diahnne Abbott in Taxi Driver, working behind the porn-cinema concessions counter, irritated by Travis Bickle’s inquiries about what candy she has: “What you see is what we got.”
Actor and film-maker Sandy McLeod plays Christine,...
The 1983 indie-underground New York movie Variety, directed by Bette Gordon and scripted by Kathy Acker, is re-released for its 40-year anniversary. It is a flawed but fascinating critique of the male gaze, the porn gaze, and the luxurious ordeal of guilty voyeurism. Gordon casts a female lead, flipping gender assumptions and turning the tables on the underworld quest-torments of Paul Schrader’s male heroes in the likes of Taxi Driver and Hardcore. Perhaps she was inspired by the mysterious inner life of the listless young woman played by Diahnne Abbott in Taxi Driver, working behind the porn-cinema concessions counter, irritated by Travis Bickle’s inquiries about what candy she has: “What you see is what we got.”
Actor and film-maker Sandy McLeod plays Christine,...
- 8/8/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The 1983 underground hit follows a woman who works at a pornographic cinema.
UK distributor Other Parties has acquired UK and Ireland rights to the 2k restoration of Bette Gordon’s 1983 underground hit Variety.
The film will have a theatrical release in August this year, followed by a Blu-ray release.
Variety centres around a young woman whose job at a pornographic cinema near Times Square awakens her sexuality. It originally premiered at Toronto and Cannes back in 1983.
Sandy McLeod leads the cast with Will Patton, Richard Davidson, Luis Guzman and the photographer, and subject of recent documentary All The Beauty And The Bloodshed,...
UK distributor Other Parties has acquired UK and Ireland rights to the 2k restoration of Bette Gordon’s 1983 underground hit Variety.
The film will have a theatrical release in August this year, followed by a Blu-ray release.
Variety centres around a young woman whose job at a pornographic cinema near Times Square awakens her sexuality. It originally premiered at Toronto and Cannes back in 1983.
Sandy McLeod leads the cast with Will Patton, Richard Davidson, Luis Guzman and the photographer, and subject of recent documentary All The Beauty And The Bloodshed,...
- 6/15/2023
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
It’s rarely ideal to find yourself held behind a pane of glass. Consider police lineups, artefacts in airless museum cabinets, and trapped specimens awaiting examination. But to catch your own reflection while in that state of vulnerability is something particularly miserable, as if being assessed by a wiser version of yourself. A newly waxed Cadillac hood, a makeup compact, or the surface of a sunlit puddle can all do the trick—revealing your strained face and unkempt hair as you rush to the supermarket or run across a wild intersection. You don’t have to be confined by something bulletproof to appreciate the demeaning function of the mirrors that surround us. Being forced to meet your own gaze is often punishment enough.But what is the difference between feeling watched and feeling seen? First released in 1983, Bette Gordon’s gorgeous neo-noir Variety is awash in all those fraught surfaces...
- 10/23/2019
- MUBI
Smooth Talk. Courtesy of Janus Films/PhotofestThe new retrospective at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Bam), "Punks, Poets, and Valley Girls" offers such an abundance of stylistic and narrative through-lines that it’s hard to distill them. This is partly the point of the Bam programmer Jesse Trussell: that if you forego focusing on commonly consecrated auteurs, suddenly the 1980s yield not a dearth or a trickle but rather a flood of films by women. If there’s one thing to be said about these films it’s that their sexual and identity politics are as rich as you’d expect them to be—from L.A Rebellion films, by filmmakers such as Monona Wali, that address communal demands for justice, to the feminist films of Lizzie Borden and Donna Deitch, to the quieter, more ambiguous works, such as Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk (1985), an assured debut, and a lean,...
- 8/7/2019
- MUBI
Distribution deal covers docs and select classics from Kino Lorber’s catalogue.
French documentary producer-distributor Zed has closed an agreement with Us independent theatrical distributor and DVD publisher, Kino Lorber.
Under the terms of the deal, Zed will handle distribution in Europe of select documentaries and classic films in the Kino Lorber catalogue.
The agreement was negotiated between Larris Dubois-Flavien, Zed’s Head of International Acquisitions, and Elizabeth Sheldon, Svp of Kino Lorber.
The distribution agreement includes recent documentaries such as Seeds of Time (2014) directed by Sandy McLeod, and the 1970 Oscar-nominated doc King: A Filmed Record… Montgomery to Memphis, along with restored classics including The Birth of a Nation (1915) directed by D. W. Griffith, and Scarlet Street (1931) directed by Fritz Lang.
The collaboration marks the move by Zed to grow its distribution activities, driven over the past five years by the company’s founder and president Manuel Catteau.
French documentary producer-distributor Zed has closed an agreement with Us independent theatrical distributor and DVD publisher, Kino Lorber.
Under the terms of the deal, Zed will handle distribution in Europe of select documentaries and classic films in the Kino Lorber catalogue.
The agreement was negotiated between Larris Dubois-Flavien, Zed’s Head of International Acquisitions, and Elizabeth Sheldon, Svp of Kino Lorber.
The distribution agreement includes recent documentaries such as Seeds of Time (2014) directed by Sandy McLeod, and the 1970 Oscar-nominated doc King: A Filmed Record… Montgomery to Memphis, along with restored classics including The Birth of a Nation (1915) directed by D. W. Griffith, and Scarlet Street (1931) directed by Fritz Lang.
The collaboration marks the move by Zed to grow its distribution activities, driven over the past five years by the company’s founder and president Manuel Catteau.
- 10/23/2015
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
When it comes to various topics that raise a great deal of existential angst, seeds aren’t usually on that list. Very few people think of seeds when they think of ways our world may forever be altered. However, with climate change forever altering our planet, harvesting crops and having the ability to grow food if something negative were to hit this planet on a grand scale could very well save the human race.
This is the subject for director/producer Sandy McLeod’s latest film, entitled Seeds Of Time.
A hit at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, the film tells the story of conservationist Cary Fowler, who for 30 years has stood for not only the conservation of crops and seeds, but also the conservation of a diverse selection of seeds. Touching on things ranging from the dissolution of gene banks around the globe to the ever increasing failures...
This is the subject for director/producer Sandy McLeod’s latest film, entitled Seeds Of Time.
A hit at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, the film tells the story of conservationist Cary Fowler, who for 30 years has stood for not only the conservation of crops and seeds, but also the conservation of a diverse selection of seeds. Touching on things ranging from the dissolution of gene banks around the globe to the ever increasing failures...
- 5/22/2015
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
"We didn't want any of the bullshit," former Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz says about Stop Making Sense, the band's influential 1984 concert film. "We didn't want the clichés. We didn't want close-ups of people's fingers while they're doing a guitar solo. We wanted the camera to linger, so you could get to know the musicians a little bit."
It was December 1983 when the group filmed three shows at Hollywood's Pantages Theater, while on a tour for Speaking in Tongues that found them playing in an extended lineup with extra percussion,...
It was December 1983 when the group filmed three shows at Hollywood's Pantages Theater, while on a tour for Speaking in Tongues that found them playing in an extended lineup with extra percussion,...
- 8/1/2014
- Rollingstone.com
Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with the director and producer of Seeds of Time, Sandy McLeod. The film screens Sunday morning in Documentary Spotlight. Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? McLeod: I thought that I was relatively well informed on the subject of food and agriculture, but as I delved into the material I quickly realized that agriculture was up against tremendous pressures in […]...
- 3/10/2014
- by Danielle Lurie
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with the director and producer of Seeds of Time, Sandy McLeod. The film screens Sunday morning in Documentary Spotlight. Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? McLeod: I thought that I was relatively well informed on the subject of food and agriculture, but as I delved into the material I quickly realized that agriculture was up against tremendous pressures in […]...
- 3/10/2014
- by Danielle Lurie
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Sundance just ended, and we are already preparing for the next big film festival, South By Southwest. Not too long ago, the festival announced a few of the films premiering this year, but now they’ve announced the main slate. The midnight selections and some inevitable late-breaking additions are still to be announced, but this should be more than enough to get you excited. Along with many World Premieres, and Sundance favorites like Richard Linklater’s Boyhood and Gareth Evans’ The Raid 2, the line up also includes an anniversary screening of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and an extended Q&A screening of The Grand Budapest Hotel with Wes Anderson. SXSW 2014 runs March 7 through 15 in Austin, Texas. Check out the line up after the jump.
****
Narrative Feature Competition
Eight world premieres, eight unique ways to celebrate the art of storytelling. Selected from 1,324 films submitted to SXSW 2014. Films screening in Narrative...
****
Narrative Feature Competition
Eight world premieres, eight unique ways to celebrate the art of storytelling. Selected from 1,324 films submitted to SXSW 2014. Films screening in Narrative...
- 1/31/2014
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
Today the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival announced a diverse features lineup for this year’s Festival, the 21st edition and running March 7 – 15, 2014 in Austin, Texas. The 2014 program expands on SXSW tradition of embracing a range of genres and span of budgets, featuring a wealth of vision from experienced and developing filmmakers alike.
For more information visit http://sxsw.com/film.
Listed in the announcement are 115 of the features that will screen over the course of nine days at SXSW 2014. The lineup below includes 68 films from first-time filmmakers, and consists of 76 World Premieres, 10 North American Premieres and 7 U.S. Premieres. These films were selected from a record 2,215 feature-length film submissions composed of 1,540 U.S. and 675 international feature-length films. With a record number of 6,482 submissions total, the overall increase was 14% over 2013. The Midnighters feature section and the Short Film program will be announced on February 5, with the complete...
For more information visit http://sxsw.com/film.
Listed in the announcement are 115 of the features that will screen over the course of nine days at SXSW 2014. The lineup below includes 68 films from first-time filmmakers, and consists of 76 World Premieres, 10 North American Premieres and 7 U.S. Premieres. These films were selected from a record 2,215 feature-length film submissions composed of 1,540 U.S. and 675 international feature-length films. With a record number of 6,482 submissions total, the overall increase was 14% over 2013. The Midnighters feature section and the Short Film program will be announced on February 5, with the complete...
- 1/31/2014
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
After announcing earlier this month that Jon Favreau’s Chef and the Veronica Mars movie will be making their world debuts at SXSW this year, the festival has revealed its full line-up, including further very promising world premieres, alongside appearances from some of the year’s most high-profile films.
The Midnight programme will be announced early next month, along with the Shorts line-up, and the complete Conference slate a little later as well.
Led by Seth Rogen and Zac Efron, Nicholas Stoller’s anticipated R-rated comedy, Neighbors, will be making its world debut at the festival, notably marked out as a ‘work-in-progress’ ahead of its theatrical release in May.
David Gordon Green’s acclaimed Joe will make its Us premiere, having bowed at Venice and then Toronto last year. Early reviews have Nicolas Cage giving one of the finest performances of his career, with Tye Sheridan (Mud) excellent alongside him.
The Midnight programme will be announced early next month, along with the Shorts line-up, and the complete Conference slate a little later as well.
Led by Seth Rogen and Zac Efron, Nicholas Stoller’s anticipated R-rated comedy, Neighbors, will be making its world debut at the festival, notably marked out as a ‘work-in-progress’ ahead of its theatrical release in May.
David Gordon Green’s acclaimed Joe will make its Us premiere, having bowed at Venice and then Toronto last year. Early reviews have Nicolas Cage giving one of the finest performances of his career, with Tye Sheridan (Mud) excellent alongside him.
- 1/30/2014
- by Kenji Lloyd
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Not sure if there is a Short Term 12 equivalent in this year’s Narrative Feature Comp, but on paper SXSW programmers are serving up a mean (and the usual lean group of 8 out of a whopping 1,324 film entries) for the upcoming competitiuon of eight which includes notable entries (that we’ve been tracking for a good time now) such as Zachary Wigon’s The Heart Machine, John Magary’s The Mend, Leah Meyerhoff’s I Believe in Unicorns and Lawrence Michael Levine’s Wild Canaries. Undoubtedly one of the most anticipated docs of the year, on the non-fiction side we find Margaret Brown’s The Great Invisible. Below you’ll find a breakdown of the other sections (notable world preems in We’ll Never Have Paris and Faults (see Mary Elizabeth Winstead above), some Sundance items with Texan connections and other nuggets.
Narrative Feature Competition
Eight world premieres, eight...
Narrative Feature Competition
Eight world premieres, eight...
- 1/30/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Bette Gordon's Variety is a fascinating document of seedy, pre-Guiliani New York from the 1980s. Gordon has been an important figure in downtown New York (as documented in another Festival film, Celine Danhier's documentary Blank City), and Variety is something that can be looked at as emblematic of those times. [Note: All the stills on the site, for example, from the film, were taken by major photographer Nan Goldin, and the film's lurid neon look certainly has links and is reminscent of the world of Goldin's classic The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.] It was a reunion after Variety's screening during the Festival, and Gordon, star Sandy McLeod, and producer Renee Shafrans looked back on that time with nostalgia and fondness: 'it was a very Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney let's put on a show' experience, said the producer. When the film was chosen for Cannes' Un Certain Regard program, in order to get ...
- 5/2/2009
- TribecaFilm.com
And here's the rest, including the Midnight Section, all after the break.
Encounters
This collection of engaging and entertaining narrative features and documentaries, a mixture of dark comedies and lighter fare, offers work from returning filmmakers, established talent, and popular subjects, and includes 10 World Premieres. Included in Encounters are performances from Academy Award®-nominated actors Thomas Haden Church, Melissa Leo, Elisabeth Shue; directorial debuts from both Eric Bana and Cheryl Hines (from a screenplay by Adrienne Shelly); stories ranging from an ill-fated man's discovery of inspiration and happiness, dysfunctional families, and unrequited high school crushes to a doc on the emergence of New York’s independent film scene.
• Blank City, directed by Celine Danhier. (USA) - World Premiere, Documentary. Celine Danhier’s kinetic doc mirrors the urgent, anything-goes energy of her subject: the Diy independent film movement that emerged in tandem with punk rock in late ‘70s downtown New York.
Encounters
This collection of engaging and entertaining narrative features and documentaries, a mixture of dark comedies and lighter fare, offers work from returning filmmakers, established talent, and popular subjects, and includes 10 World Premieres. Included in Encounters are performances from Academy Award®-nominated actors Thomas Haden Church, Melissa Leo, Elisabeth Shue; directorial debuts from both Eric Bana and Cheryl Hines (from a screenplay by Adrienne Shelly); stories ranging from an ill-fated man's discovery of inspiration and happiness, dysfunctional families, and unrequited high school crushes to a doc on the emergence of New York’s independent film scene.
• Blank City, directed by Celine Danhier. (USA) - World Premiere, Documentary. Celine Danhier’s kinetic doc mirrors the urgent, anything-goes energy of her subject: the Diy independent film movement that emerged in tandem with punk rock in late ‘70s downtown New York.
- 3/11/2009
- QuietEarth.us
We now take a look at the indie film "Pray the Devil Back to Hell." The documentary is helmed by Gini Reticker, 2004 Academy Award® short nominee for "Asylum" which she shared with Sandy McLeod. This is also the winner of the Sundance Film Festival Short Filmmaking Award. Additionally, the film was honored with the Best Documentary Feature Award at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. An important film detailing the struggle for peace in a nation devastated by a seemingly neverending civil war. Balcony Releasing distributes the Fork Films production on November 7th this year in limited areas.
- 10/7/2008
- Upcoming-Movies.com
We now take a look at the indie film "Pray the Devil Back to Hell." The documentary is helmed by Gini Reticker, 2004 Academy Award® short nominee for "Asylum" which she shared with Sandy McLeod. This is also the winner of the Sundance Film Festival Short Filmmaking Award. Additionally, the film was honored with the Best Documentary Feature Award at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. An important film detailing the struggle for peace in a nation devastated by a seemingly neverending civil war. Balcony Releasing distributes the Fork Films production on November 7th this year in limited areas.
- 10/7/2008
- Upcoming-Movies.com
We now take a look at the indie film "Pray the Devil Back to Hell." The documentary is helmed by Gini Reticker, 2004 Academy Award® short nominee for "Asylum" which she shared with Sandy McLeod. This is also the winner of the Sundance Film Festival Short Filmmaking Award. Additionally, the film was honored with the Best Documentary Feature Award at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. An important film detailing the struggle for peace in a nation devastated by a seemingly neverending civil war. Balcony Releasing distributes the Fork Films production on November 7th this year in limited areas. We recommend you check out the official site here. What's the all about? Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the gripping account of a group of brave women who demanded peace for Liberia, a nation torn to shreds by a decades-long civil war. The women's historic achievement finds its voice in a narrative that intersperses interviews,...
- 10/7/2008
- Upcoming-Movies.com
We now take a look at the indie film "Pray the Devil Back to Hell." The documentary is helmed by Gini Reticker, 2004 Academy Award® short nominee for "Asylum" which she shared with Sandy McLeod. This is also the winner of the Sundance Film Festival Short Filmmaking Award. Additionally, the film was honored with the Best Documentary Feature Award at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. An important film detailing the struggle for peace in a nation devastated by a seemingly neverending civil war. Balcony Releasing distributes the Fork Films production on November 7th this year in limited areas.
- 10/7/2008
- Upcoming-Movies.com
By Michael Atkinson
One of the pioneering wagon-train movies of the inaugural, New York-based independent film movement, predating Jarmusch's "Stranger than Paradise," Bette Gordon's "Variety" (1983) comes off in retrospect as a veritable time capsule of post-punk downtown coolness. Just read the credits: screenwriter Kathy Acker (experimental novelist), star/photog Nan Goldin (famed shutterbug and model for the Ally Sheedy role in "High Art" 15 years later), soundtrack composer John Lurie (of Jarmusch movies and The Lounge Lizards), cinematographer Tom Dicillo (director of "Living in Oblivion," etc.), producer Renee Shafransky (Spalding Gray's longtime girlfriend), co-star Luiz Guzman, bit players Spalding Gray and Cookie Mueller (veteran of John Waters's universe), production assistant Christine Vachon, and so on. Where is Cindy Sherman? The grungy vibe of "Variety" is itself a window on the past . only at the nascent launch of a Diy indie wave in the post-'60s period could you,...
One of the pioneering wagon-train movies of the inaugural, New York-based independent film movement, predating Jarmusch's "Stranger than Paradise," Bette Gordon's "Variety" (1983) comes off in retrospect as a veritable time capsule of post-punk downtown coolness. Just read the credits: screenwriter Kathy Acker (experimental novelist), star/photog Nan Goldin (famed shutterbug and model for the Ally Sheedy role in "High Art" 15 years later), soundtrack composer John Lurie (of Jarmusch movies and The Lounge Lizards), cinematographer Tom Dicillo (director of "Living in Oblivion," etc.), producer Renee Shafransky (Spalding Gray's longtime girlfriend), co-star Luiz Guzman, bit players Spalding Gray and Cookie Mueller (veteran of John Waters's universe), production assistant Christine Vachon, and so on. Where is Cindy Sherman? The grungy vibe of "Variety" is itself a window on the past . only at the nascent launch of a Diy indie wave in the post-'60s period could you,...
- 6/3/2008
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
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