It’s not quite high-stakes poker and we certainly can’t envisage Christopher Nolan devising a scene where 007 battles it out with a super villain over a game of bingo, but that isn’t to say that the game isn’t suited to the silver screen – emphasis on the silver…
This game which is readily associated with nursing homes and cramped community centres has actually been incorporated into a number of Hollywood movies throughout the decades, being used by directors as a narrative device to inject drama, comedy and moments of calm in all manner of films.
In this article we take a look at some of the most famous examples of bingo in movies.
Big Momma’s House 2
In the 2000s it felt as though Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence and Will Ferrell were coming out with a slapstick comedy every five minutes. One of the classics of that genre is...
This game which is readily associated with nursing homes and cramped community centres has actually been incorporated into a number of Hollywood movies throughout the decades, being used by directors as a narrative device to inject drama, comedy and moments of calm in all manner of films.
In this article we take a look at some of the most famous examples of bingo in movies.
Big Momma’s House 2
In the 2000s it felt as though Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence and Will Ferrell were coming out with a slapstick comedy every five minutes. One of the classics of that genre is...
- 11/18/2023
- by Movies Martin Cid Magazine
- Martin Cid Magazine - Movies
Despite the pandemic disruption of the film industry around the world, which impacted everything in film from production to simple moviegoing, the vibrancy of cinema culture throughout the year has felt as strong as ever, and fiercely resilient. In our small but passionate way we also have made a show of force. In 2021 alone, Notebook has published over 400 articles. Here are some highlights from the year—and we encourage you to use the "Explore" menu or dive into our archives to find even more excellent work published this year.ARTICLESTikTok meets silent cinema in Caroline Golum's witty essay. Cinematic technology used not for social celebrity but rather for criminal forensics was the focus of an article by Emerson Goo.The French New Wave's Luc Moullet, a guiding light for Notebook, was the subject of two pieces, one about the extraordinary TV show How to with John Wilson, the other...
- 12/31/2021
- MUBI
David Byrne, that firm believer in shows going on, completely transformed American Utopia on just a couple of days’ notice after several members of his backing band and crew tested positive for Covid-19.
On Monday, Dec. 28, Byrne debuted what he called, American Utopia: Unchained, a revamped version of the show that featured some new arrangements and new setlist additions, including a handful of songs he made with Brian Eno, and plenty of Talking Heads favorites.
Byrne announced and detailed the altered shows — which will continue through Jan. 2 — in a video message shared Tuesday.
On Monday, Dec. 28, Byrne debuted what he called, American Utopia: Unchained, a revamped version of the show that featured some new arrangements and new setlist additions, including a handful of songs he made with Brian Eno, and plenty of Talking Heads favorites.
Byrne announced and detailed the altered shows — which will continue through Jan. 2 — in a video message shared Tuesday.
- 12/29/2021
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
Paul may be one of the most formidable foes Gibbs has faced.
NCIS Season 19 Episode 3 took Gibbs, Parker, and Paul on a road trip with some disastrous results.
If you watch NCIS online, you know Paul has been killing people left, right, and center, and there was no way he was going to die when Gibbs shot him at the end of NCIS Season 19 Episode 2.
It would have been a strange move to end the character's life so soon, but what we got on "Road to Nowhere" from Paul was bizarre, to say the least.
Paul wanted to rattle Gibbs to the point that he'd kill him, but it seems there's a lot in common between these two men.
They both took very similar paths in life, aside from Gibbs becoming a cold-blooded serial killer. Gibbs has also killed people, but not on the same level as Paul.
Paul desperately...
NCIS Season 19 Episode 3 took Gibbs, Parker, and Paul on a road trip with some disastrous results.
If you watch NCIS online, you know Paul has been killing people left, right, and center, and there was no way he was going to die when Gibbs shot him at the end of NCIS Season 19 Episode 2.
It would have been a strange move to end the character's life so soon, but what we got on "Road to Nowhere" from Paul was bizarre, to say the least.
Paul wanted to rattle Gibbs to the point that he'd kill him, but it seems there's a lot in common between these two men.
They both took very similar paths in life, aside from Gibbs becoming a cold-blooded serial killer. Gibbs has also killed people, but not on the same level as Paul.
Paul desperately...
- 10/5/2021
- by Paul Dailly
- TVfanatic
Hey, "NCIS" fans. We hope you guys totally enjoyed episode 2 tonight. Now that it's officially in the can, we are back on here to let you guys know what to expect from the next, new episode 3 of NCIS' current season 19, which is due out next Monday night, October 4, 2021. We were able to gather up a couple of new, official teaser scoops for the new episode 3 from CBS' official episode 3 press release. So, that's what will be working with in this spoiler session. Let's take a look at it. To start, CBS' episode 3 press release revealed that episode 3 is officially called, "Road To Nowhere." It sounds like episode 3 will feature some very interesting, intense, dramatic, possible action-filled and suspenseful scenes as Gibbs and Parker try to track down a victim of a serial killer. Agent Knight goes on an undercover mission and more.
- 9/27/2021
- by Andre Braddox
- OnTheFlix
France’s Ministry of Culture gave a French toast to Variety’s Steven Gaydos on Thursday, naming him a chevalier/knight for his decades of work in entertainment.
Julie Duhaut-Bedos, consul general of France in Los Angeles, reminded the crowd that only a few such awards are handed out yearly, to “people who have distinguished themselves by their creations in the artistic or literary field or by the contribution they have made to the influence of arts and letters in France and in the world.”
In the ceremony at the French Residence in Beverly Hills, Duhaut-Bedos rattled off multiple accomplishments of Gaydos, who is Variety’s exec VP of global content. She praised his “open-mindedness and advocacy for world cinema, which allowed Variety to achieve a successful international expansion and become the worldwide reference for entertainment industry reviews. Your involvement has been key to Variety’s successful international development. We...
Julie Duhaut-Bedos, consul general of France in Los Angeles, reminded the crowd that only a few such awards are handed out yearly, to “people who have distinguished themselves by their creations in the artistic or literary field or by the contribution they have made to the influence of arts and letters in France and in the world.”
In the ceremony at the French Residence in Beverly Hills, Duhaut-Bedos rattled off multiple accomplishments of Gaydos, who is Variety’s exec VP of global content. She praised his “open-mindedness and advocacy for world cinema, which allowed Variety to achieve a successful international expansion and become the worldwide reference for entertainment industry reviews. Your involvement has been key to Variety’s successful international development. We...
- 9/10/2021
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
David Byrne’s “American Utopia” has lived many lives. First as a 2018 album, then as a tour. Then the tour became a Broadway production, which was filmed by director Spike Lee and released as a concert documentary of sorts on HBO last fall. Now, the show is vying in six categories at the 2021 Emmys, including Outstanding Variety Special.
“This whole idea of community and social issues, all the things that we deal with [in the show],” Byrne said of the project’s continued relevance during a panel for TheWrap’s Screening Series. “If anything, it’s more relevant now than when we were doing the show. The curtain has been parted and all those issues have really come to the surface during the pandemic.”
Lee filmed the show last spring, just weeks before Covid-19 shuttered every theater on Broadway. With a full audience and Byrne’s seemingly prescient greeting, “Thank you for leaving your homes,...
“This whole idea of community and social issues, all the things that we deal with [in the show],” Byrne said of the project’s continued relevance during a panel for TheWrap’s Screening Series. “If anything, it’s more relevant now than when we were doing the show. The curtain has been parted and all those issues have really come to the surface during the pandemic.”
Lee filmed the show last spring, just weeks before Covid-19 shuttered every theater on Broadway. With a full audience and Byrne’s seemingly prescient greeting, “Thank you for leaving your homes,...
- 8/20/2021
- by Reid Nakamura
- The Wrap
Ozzy Osbourne will commemorate the 30th anniversary of his mega-selling No More Tears album with a special vinyl reissue and by releasing nearly a dozen rare tracks to streaming services for the first time.
The upgraded digital release will come out on September 17th, the date of the original release. The LP edition, also due out on the same day, will be available as a two-disc set on black vinyl and as a Tower exclusive, now available for preorder, on heavyweight red and yellow vinyl with a special photo booklet.
The upgraded digital release will come out on September 17th, the date of the original release. The LP edition, also due out on the same day, will be available as a two-disc set on black vinyl and as a Tower exclusive, now available for preorder, on heavyweight red and yellow vinyl with a special photo booklet.
- 7/29/2021
- by Kory Grow
- Rollingstone.com
Sharpened Iron Studios has acquired the original musical screenplay “Amarillo” and has enlisted European filmmaker Ate de Jong to direct the film.
“Amarillo,” written by Variety’s executive VP of global content Steven Gaydos, is set behind the scenes of a reality TV music competition series and tells the story of two young singer-songwriters who pretend to be lovers for the camera and end up becoming a real-life couple.
“Amarillo” will feature 16 original songs written by a team that includes singer-musician Rob Kolar, who most recently scored the TV comedy series “The Detour,” along with the Nashville-based Michael Kosser, Gregg Stewart and Terrance Dwyer.
Production is slated to begin in Amarillo, Texas, this fall and the project will be filmed on a sound stage at Sharpened Iron Studios.
“The team we’ve assembled to make this film knows and loves music and they are all dedicated to the spirit of truly independent cinema,...
“Amarillo,” written by Variety’s executive VP of global content Steven Gaydos, is set behind the scenes of a reality TV music competition series and tells the story of two young singer-songwriters who pretend to be lovers for the camera and end up becoming a real-life couple.
“Amarillo” will feature 16 original songs written by a team that includes singer-musician Rob Kolar, who most recently scored the TV comedy series “The Detour,” along with the Nashville-based Michael Kosser, Gregg Stewart and Terrance Dwyer.
Production is slated to begin in Amarillo, Texas, this fall and the project will be filmed on a sound stage at Sharpened Iron Studios.
“The team we’ve assembled to make this film knows and loves music and they are all dedicated to the spirit of truly independent cinema,...
- 7/27/2021
- by Rebecca Rubin
- Variety Film + TV
One Shot is a series that seeks to find an essence of cinema history in one single image of a movie. Monte Hellman's Road to Nowhere is exclusively showing on Mubi in the United States starting June 13, 2021.Road to Nowhere is both the title of Hellman’s final work and the film within the film. It’s first seen as a handwritten scrawl on a DVD-r popped into a laptop tray. The camera pushes into the computer screen, Max Renn-like, and the image of a woman doing her nails expands into the full frame. “Velma was always my window into the story” says the voice of Mitchell Haven (Tygh Runyan), the in-film director and surrogate obsessive (both Mh). Mitchell is driven to his own unraveling, like Hellman’s Willet Gashade and The Driver before him, by the single-minded pursuit of an obsession. Here, it’s the cinema itself and the...
- 6/15/2021
- MUBI
Mubi has unveiled their lineup for next month, featuring the exclusive streaming premiere of Frederick Wiseman’s masterful documentary City Hall, the late Monte Hellman’s final film Road to Nowhere, a trio of works by Stephen Cone, two films by Alain Resnais, the multi-month series Sex, Truth, and Videotape: French Feminist Activism, and Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant.
As a special addition in addition to the regular programming listed below, the new restoration of Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris will be available as a free presentation celebrating Juneteenth, from June 18-19. Timed with the release of his latest gem Undine, a Christian Petzold retrospective continues with his earlier, essential films Yella, Barbara, Ostwärts, and The Warm Money.
Check out the lineup below, with links to reviews where available, and get 30 days of Mubi for free here. One can also check back for our new streaming picks every Friday here.
As a special addition in addition to the regular programming listed below, the new restoration of Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris will be available as a free presentation celebrating Juneteenth, from June 18-19. Timed with the release of his latest gem Undine, a Christian Petzold retrospective continues with his earlier, essential films Yella, Barbara, Ostwärts, and The Warm Money.
Check out the lineup below, with links to reviews where available, and get 30 days of Mubi for free here. One can also check back for our new streaming picks every Friday here.
- 5/19/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
On the sad occasion of Monte Hellman’s passing, we’re republishing this interview of the director that originally ran here in March, 2011, by Nick Dawson. Focused on his “comeback” film, Road to Nowhere, the interview also deals with Hellman’s career in general, his philosophy towards filmmaking, and mentions a tantalizing unmade project based on Alain Robbe-Grillet’s La Maison de Rendezvous. — Editor There’s little better at restoring one’s faith in cinema then when a great director returns from the wilderness. Terrence Malick was Mia for 20 years between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, but Monte Hellman’s time […]
The post “I’ve Just Made Two-Lane Blacktop as a Film about a Filmmaker — It’s the Same Story”: Director Monte Hellman on Road to Nowhere first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “I’ve Just Made Two-Lane Blacktop as a Film about a Filmmaker — It’s the Same Story”: Director Monte Hellman on Road to Nowhere first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 4/21/2021
- by Nick Dawson
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
On the sad occasion of Monte Hellman’s passing, we’re republishing this interview of the director that originally ran here in March, 2011, by Nick Dawson. Focused on his “comeback” film, Road to Nowhere, the interview also deals with Hellman’s career in general, his philosophy towards filmmaking, and mentions a tantalizing unmade project based on Alain Robbe-Grillet’s La Maison de Rendezvous. — Editor There’s little better at restoring one’s faith in cinema then when a great director returns from the wilderness. Terrence Malick was Mia for 20 years between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, but Monte Hellman’s time […]
The post “I’ve Just Made Two-Lane Blacktop as a Film about a Filmmaker — It’s the Same Story”: Director Monte Hellman on Road to Nowhere first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “I’ve Just Made Two-Lane Blacktop as a Film about a Filmmaker — It’s the Same Story”: Director Monte Hellman on Road to Nowhere first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 4/21/2021
- by Nick Dawson
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Influential instead of famous, brilliant in a way for which his medium has little remaining use, Monte Hellman died yesterday at 91. It was heartening, if not a bit surprising all the same, to see my Twitter feed instantly and unanimously alight with praise for the director, whose filmography is often distilled to one sui generis classic and considered an object of intense interest for true believers otherwise.
Whatever that implies, it’s hard to recommend a filmography with less reservation—Hellman’s cinema is immediately identifiable for its vision of rugged, roughshod masculinity, accessible with its use of iconic figures, and (at the risk of underlining this point too sharply) always invigorates in its sense of discovering some well-kept secret.
Some cursory searches reveal a good number readily streaming. So long as you don’t mind the occasional ad break, your first step is Tubi, which hosts his Jack Nicholson...
Whatever that implies, it’s hard to recommend a filmography with less reservation—Hellman’s cinema is immediately identifiable for its vision of rugged, roughshod masculinity, accessible with its use of iconic figures, and (at the risk of underlining this point too sharply) always invigorates in its sense of discovering some well-kept secret.
Some cursory searches reveal a good number readily streaming. So long as you don’t mind the occasional ad break, your first step is Tubi, which hosts his Jack Nicholson...
- 4/21/2021
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Monte Hellman and his dog Kona. Monte Hellman, cult director of The Shooting (1966), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) and Road to Nowhere (2010) has died. Hellman spoke with Notebook on several occasions about his films, decrying the committee-designed quality of new films while staying true to his own long-held principles: "I am aware of continually breaking rules." Léos Carax's first English-language film, the musical Annette, will be opening the 74th Cannes Film Festival on July 6th. The film will simultaneously be released in French cinemas. Two other Cannes titles have also been announced, having been selected for last year's postponed edition of the festival: Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch and Paul Verhoeven's Benedetta. Steven Soderbergh is undertaking the overwhelming creative task of staging this year's Oscars ceremony. As Soderbergh says, the project is "the walking...
- 4/21/2021
- MUBI
Director of cult classics Two-Lane Blacktop and Cockfighter also directed Jack Nicholson and helped Quentin Tarantino with his feature debut
Monte Hellman, the director behind 1970s cult classics Two Lane Blacktop and Cockfighter, as well as being instrumental in getting Quentin Tarantino’s directorial debut Reservoir Dogs off the ground, has died aged 91. His daughter Melissa, who produced his 2010 film Road to Nowhere, confirmed the news to the Hollywood Reporter, saying Hellman had died in hospital after a fall at his home.
Hellman was born Monte Himmelman in 1929, and after studying theatre at Stanford University set up a theatre company in Los Angeles. Like many directors of his generation, Hellman gained early experience working for Roger Corman’s low-budget exploitation-movie factory. Corman hired him to make Beast from Haunted Cave, shot simultaneously with the same cast and crew as another Corman film, Ski Troop Attack. Along with contemporaries such as...
Monte Hellman, the director behind 1970s cult classics Two Lane Blacktop and Cockfighter, as well as being instrumental in getting Quentin Tarantino’s directorial debut Reservoir Dogs off the ground, has died aged 91. His daughter Melissa, who produced his 2010 film Road to Nowhere, confirmed the news to the Hollywood Reporter, saying Hellman had died in hospital after a fall at his home.
Hellman was born Monte Himmelman in 1929, and after studying theatre at Stanford University set up a theatre company in Los Angeles. Like many directors of his generation, Hellman gained early experience working for Roger Corman’s low-budget exploitation-movie factory. Corman hired him to make Beast from Haunted Cave, shot simultaneously with the same cast and crew as another Corman film, Ski Troop Attack. Along with contemporaries such as...
- 4/21/2021
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Monte Hellman, the film director who earned a cult following with movies like Two-Lane Blacktop and Ride in the Whirlwind, died Tuesday at Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Springs, California, after a fall in his home. His daughter, Melissa Hellman, confirmed his death to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 91.
Hellman was well regarded for his genre films, such as his 1964 war drama Back Door to Hell, 1966’s pair of Westerns The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind (both starring Jack Nicholson), and the acclaimed road movie Two-Lane Blacktop starring James Taylor and Dennis Wilson.
Hellman was well regarded for his genre films, such as his 1964 war drama Back Door to Hell, 1966’s pair of Westerns The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind (both starring Jack Nicholson), and the acclaimed road movie Two-Lane Blacktop starring James Taylor and Dennis Wilson.
- 4/21/2021
- by Claire Shaffer
- Rollingstone.com
Monte Hellman, the maverick director of such films as “Two-Lane Blacktop,” “The Shooting” and “Road to Nowhere,” died April 20 at Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Desert, Calif., following a fall in his home on April 19. He was 91.
Hellman was a cult director who was widely admired within the industry, earning such fans as Quentin Tarantino; they liked his down-and-dirty storytelling, which featured poetic flourishes amid his genre films.
After working as an editor’s apprentice at ABC, he made his directing debut with the 1959 “Beast From Haunted Cave,” produced by Roger Corman. He became part of the Corman stable of veterans who learned how to get maximum impact on minimum budget. Other Corman alumni include Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard.
Hellman worked with Jack Nicholson in the 1960s, including two films shot back-to-back in the Philippines, “Back Door to Hell” and “Flight to Fury.” Hellman and Nicholson reteamed on two Westerns,...
Hellman was a cult director who was widely admired within the industry, earning such fans as Quentin Tarantino; they liked his down-and-dirty storytelling, which featured poetic flourishes amid his genre films.
After working as an editor’s apprentice at ABC, he made his directing debut with the 1959 “Beast From Haunted Cave,” produced by Roger Corman. He became part of the Corman stable of veterans who learned how to get maximum impact on minimum budget. Other Corman alumni include Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard.
Hellman worked with Jack Nicholson in the 1960s, including two films shot back-to-back in the Philippines, “Back Door to Hell” and “Flight to Fury.” Hellman and Nicholson reteamed on two Westerns,...
- 4/20/2021
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
Soleil Moon Frye became the ultimate Eighties child star on Punky Brewster, at the age of seven. She played America’s favorite wise-cracking moppet, wearing mismatched high-tops and extolling the virtues of Punky Power. The show was eventually cancelled in 1988 — and that’s when Frye started toting a video camera around, filming her other child-star friends, just in time for their awkward teen years. Kid 90, a new documentary that begins streaming on Hulu today, turns her home-movie footage into a time capsule of show-biz kids growing up in Nineties Hollywood.
- 3/12/2021
- by Rob Sheffield
- Rollingstone.com
Is journalism the best training ground for screenwriting? Two-thirds of the writers of Pixar’s “Soul” have backgrounds as reporters: Mike Jones and Kemp Powers.
They wrote “Soul” with director Pete Docter; Powers is also co-director of the film, which debuts Dec. 25 on Disney Plus and seems a likely contender for Oscars and other film awards.
Jones and Powers join a stellar list of newsmen who became screenwriters. Many went on to win Oscars, including Mark Boal (“The Hurt Locker”), Cameron Crowe (“Almost Famous”), William Monahan (“The Departed”), Emeric Pressburger (“The Invaders”) and, of course, Herman Mankiewicz, Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, Ring Lardner Jr. and Billy Wilder.
Jones has been with Pixar since 2013; in 2016, he had a meeting with Docter, who was fascinated that his son was born with a personality that seemed completely his own. “Pete wanted to set a movie in a place beyond place and time, where souls are given their personalities,...
They wrote “Soul” with director Pete Docter; Powers is also co-director of the film, which debuts Dec. 25 on Disney Plus and seems a likely contender for Oscars and other film awards.
Jones and Powers join a stellar list of newsmen who became screenwriters. Many went on to win Oscars, including Mark Boal (“The Hurt Locker”), Cameron Crowe (“Almost Famous”), William Monahan (“The Departed”), Emeric Pressburger (“The Invaders”) and, of course, Herman Mankiewicz, Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, Ring Lardner Jr. and Billy Wilder.
Jones has been with Pixar since 2013; in 2016, he had a meeting with Docter, who was fascinated that his son was born with a personality that seemed completely his own. “Pete wanted to set a movie in a place beyond place and time, where souls are given their personalities,...
- 12/25/2020
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
Talking Heads frontman David Byrne has always had a slight air of detachment that has worked for him down the decades. Emerging from the punk scene but never quite of it, because he never danced to a particular rock tune, his unusual performance style has aged well with him and is fully in evidence in this stripped back but effective Broadway show, filmed with the skill you would expect, by Spike Lee.
Based around his recent album of the same name, Byrne also smartly remembers his long-term fans with the inclusion of hits like Road To Nowhere and Burning Down The House, alongside some of his notable collaborations, including Lazy, which he co-wrote with X-Press 2. There's a beautifully balletic quality to the choreography from Annie-b Parson - providing continuity with Jonathan Demme's 1984 Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, which she also choreographed - which uses strong lighting.
Based around his recent album of the same name, Byrne also smartly remembers his long-term fans with the inclusion of hits like Road To Nowhere and Burning Down The House, alongside some of his notable collaborations, including Lazy, which he co-wrote with X-Press 2. There's a beautifully balletic quality to the choreography from Annie-b Parson - providing continuity with Jonathan Demme's 1984 Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, which she also choreographed - which uses strong lighting.
- 12/11/2020
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
“David Byrne’s American Utopia” is the third music-oriented film in the last 10 years to serve as the opening-night attraction at the Toronto International Film Festival, after “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band” last year and U2’s “From the Sky Down” in 2011. But it’s the first that you could say is just a concert movie.
Then again, the word just really has no part in any discussion of the work of Byrne or of director Spike Lee, who turned the former Talking Heads front man’s Broadway show into a film that premiered at the slimmed-down TIFF on Thursday, and will come to HBO in October. In the strictest sense, “American Utopia” is just a filmed performance, but so was “Hamilton” and “Springsteen on Broadway” and “Stop Making Sense,” the 1984 Talking Heads film by Jonathan Demme that is widely considered one of the great concert films,...
Then again, the word just really has no part in any discussion of the work of Byrne or of director Spike Lee, who turned the former Talking Heads front man’s Broadway show into a film that premiered at the slimmed-down TIFF on Thursday, and will come to HBO in October. In the strictest sense, “American Utopia” is just a filmed performance, but so was “Hamilton” and “Springsteen on Broadway” and “Stop Making Sense,” the 1984 Talking Heads film by Jonathan Demme that is widely considered one of the great concert films,...
- 9/10/2020
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
When you watch the filmed version of a show like “Hamilton” or “Springsteen on Broadway,” it can feel like the next best thing to being there. But
Byrne’s spiky and exuberant 21st-century rock-concert-on-Broadway jamboree, which opened at New York’s Hudson Theatre on Oct. 20, 2019, consisted of the former Talking Head and 10 fellow musicians, all barefoot and dressed in silver-blue suits, dancing and marching and prancing and bopping around a bare stage as they performed 21 songs. A handful of the numbers came from Byrne’s 2018 album “American Utopia,” but close to half of them were Talking Heads songs, most of which were featured 30 years ago in “Stop Making Sense,” Jonathan Demme’s epochal Heads concert movie.
In “American Utopia,” the singer-musicians aren’t tethered to amplifiers or drum sets or big chunky keyboards. Most of them carry wirelessly amplified instruments, so they can stroll around the stage in a technologically liberated state of frictionless freedom.
Byrne’s spiky and exuberant 21st-century rock-concert-on-Broadway jamboree, which opened at New York’s Hudson Theatre on Oct. 20, 2019, consisted of the former Talking Head and 10 fellow musicians, all barefoot and dressed in silver-blue suits, dancing and marching and prancing and bopping around a bare stage as they performed 21 songs. A handful of the numbers came from Byrne’s 2018 album “American Utopia,” but close to half of them were Talking Heads songs, most of which were featured 30 years ago in “Stop Making Sense,” Jonathan Demme’s epochal Heads concert movie.
In “American Utopia,” the singer-musicians aren’t tethered to amplifiers or drum sets or big chunky keyboards. Most of them carry wirelessly amplified instruments, so they can stroll around the stage in a technologically liberated state of frictionless freedom.
- 9/10/2020
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
David Byrne returned to Saturday Night Live for the first time in 31 years to present songs from his American Utopia stage show as well as reunite with Sack Lunch Bunch cast mate John Mulaney for a Broadway pastiche about airport sushi.
Byrne opened his SNL musical guest spot — his first since 1989 — with the American Utopia rendition of Talking Heads’ classic “Once in a Lifetime,” with the singer and his barefoot troupe delivered a joyous take on the Remain in Light single.
For his second performance, Byrne and company once again...
Byrne opened his SNL musical guest spot — his first since 1989 — with the American Utopia rendition of Talking Heads’ classic “Once in a Lifetime,” with the singer and his barefoot troupe delivered a joyous take on the Remain in Light single.
For his second performance, Byrne and company once again...
- 3/1/2020
- by Daniel Kreps
- Rollingstone.com
Some things just go together: peanut butter and jelly, wine and cheese, and John Mulaney and Saturday Night Live. While noting in the monologue that he means “a lot to a small group of people,” those people are all huge SNL fans. A host can’t automatically make a show good, but he or she can certainly raise the ceiling on the possibility of a good episode.
Luckily, the third time was the charm for Mulaney, whose evolution hosting the show matches that of his stand-up career. If you watch early footage of both,...
Luckily, the third time was the charm for Mulaney, whose evolution hosting the show matches that of his stand-up career. If you watch early footage of both,...
- 3/1/2020
- by Ryan McGee
- Rollingstone.com
System of a Down drummer John Dolmayan unveiled a hard-rock reworking of Radiohead’s “Street Spirit” — featuring a searing guitar solo from Tom Morello — that will appear on his upcoming solo debut, These Grey Men, out February 28th.
“This song in particular is a really touching and moving song,” Dolmayan tells Rolling Stone about why he chose to cover the standout track from The Bends. “I love the morose, in-your-room-and-it’s-raining-outside, it’s cold, and your girlfriend dumped you feeling that this song always gave me.… But when I listened to it,...
“This song in particular is a really touching and moving song,” Dolmayan tells Rolling Stone about why he chose to cover the standout track from The Bends. “I love the morose, in-your-room-and-it’s-raining-outside, it’s cold, and your girlfriend dumped you feeling that this song always gave me.… But when I listened to it,...
- 1/23/2020
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
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