grudlian.

Since they announced releasing Swordfish this week, I've been kind of dreading it. I expect a bunch of people over analyzing it (maybe not here but twitter or reddit or wherever) like any reference they make to Cheadle will be "WOW! THIS is what Cheadle was offended by?!?!?!" or "They must have cut something!!!!!! This isn't bad at all!!!!!" People made a mountain out of a complete non-issue as if Swordfish is atop the bad movie pantheon.

Yeah. This is the leg of the tour I saw. She did a few songs from other albums before and after the straight run through of Masseduction. It might have been cool had I not already owned the album and listened to it many times. Tickets were relatively cheap as I recall but still kind of like why? This is the kind of show an artist should do leading up to an album release. Go to a few cities. Limit the phones so people can't record it. Then let people sell it through social media. Tickets went on sale before the album came out. So, everyone there is already a fan. Don't you think most of us would have at least listened to part of it? I'm kind of harping on about it but it wasn't a bad show. It just left me feeling disappointed since I was expecting something more interesting from St. Vincent. I saw Janelle Monet a few months later I think and her tickets were more expensive, but everyone got a free download of the album. Seems like a better option to me if you're just trying to get the word out.

I saw St. Vincent on the masseduction tour and thought it was kind of a lame show. It felt very stiff. She was on stage by herself the entire show with everything except her guitar and vocals prerecorded. She barely moved other than every few songs she went to a new pose and just stayed there. There was a screen showing some cool visuals but ehhh. I might as well have just listened to the album or watched a video.

I really love My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts with Brian Eno and David Byrne. Even after knowing all the Talking Heads albums and several Brian Eno albums, it was an album that felt really, really offputtingly weird the first time I heard it. St. Vincent is also really great without David Byrne if you haven't listen to her.

David Byrne is great but he gets too much credit in my mind. A lot of the songs on Fear Of Music and Remain In Light and Naked (and maybe others) came out of jams the band had. The music was organically a creation of the four of them together. Byrne might have pushed them in a direction occasionally but you could put that on Brian Eno as well. If Talking Heads broke up after More Songs About Buildings And Food, I think it could have been called Byrne's band. I don't think you could do that after Fear Of Music though. I think the True Stories soundtrack is easily Talking Heads worst album and I don't think it's a coincidence it's the one that is the most solo David Byrne. Basically, I think David Byrne is the Lennon and McCartney of Talking Heads. You can't have The Beatles without all four of their contributions. Same with Talking Heads.

There are some songs that didn't make the cut. This is mildly annoying tiome because I Zimbra is probably my favorite Talking Heads song. Part of me wonders why because having this movie is already under 90 minutes.

On Naked, the band wrote the music (and maybe even recorded it). David Byrne just sang words until he found the melody and lyrics he liked. I don't think they are necessarily nonsense but they certainly aren't telling stories.

The common thinking is great movie, bad soundtrack. The current version of the soundtrack follows the movie now. Apparently the soundtrack was also mixed differently. I can kind of understand a bit of shuffling to fit as many songs as possible into an LP but it seems so dumb to also make more changes than absolutely necessary.

One thing that I think is interesting is how big this concert seems. For the time, this was a pretty big stage show for the early 80s. Compared to a modern stage presentation for a commercially successful band, this is kind of quaint. It feels massive though. Maybe it's just the energy of the band and the close ups but this feels like a huge show.

I think it's a subconscious influence on this choice.

It's been on my Musical Mondays shortlist forever and then I'd always have some last minute other choice. I basically was mentally prepared to do it once then Cam Bert picked True Stories. It felt a bit too similar even if our picks were probably a month apart.

I have been working from home and barely left my house since March. So, technically true.

This is a movie that I think a lot of us have seen. I think it's come up a occasionally but a glance through Letterboxd does have a lot of checks for it. So, I feel the need to rectify that.

Feel free to post gifs until I get off work.

I will have one by the end of the day.

I wanted to roast them for not recognizing Thomas Jane but I didn't recognize Joey Lawrence. So, I guess I don't have any room to say anything. I did at least recognize Matthew Lawrence which is strange because I don't think I've seen anything he's done since Mrs. Doubtfire.

As far as rah rah nationalism, I'd say this movie is pretty far down on the list. There's a little bit of "American sure is great" but, given the plot of movie, it's excusable and understandable in my mind. What's the Canadian equivalent film to this? Is there a "national" film that is kind of widely seen and respected, public consciousness film of Canada? I ask that but admit the US doesn't have one in my mind.

I just scanned this list but a ton of these movies aren't even remotely related to back to school or coming of age. I'm not going to formally argue against Josie And The Pussycats being canonized in some way but this ain't the category for it. The correct answer is Hoop Dreams though. If they are looking at foreign films, might as well look at documentaries (which should have been included anyway). So, Hoop Dreams, Hoop Dreams and maybe Hoop Dreams.

I'm curious how all this plays to the non-Americans who might have watched this. I can't say I had some jingoistic tear in my eye as I watched history come alive, but there is some kind of "oh, this is kind of neat" feeling I wouldn't have from a movie about literally any other country declaring independence.

I suspect it's him as well and the full cast list just hasn't been revealed or uploaded yet that happens all the time with movies months away from release.

Yeah, but that doesn't look like a complete cast list since the are only 11 people. None of those people look like the guy in the trailer. I guess we'll have to wait to find out. Joe Manganiello's character is named Max Fist.

I also think you need to follow Adams because it's going to be hard to watch the movie from anyone's perspective who isn't staunchly pro-independence and anti-slavery. I have also seen the HBO miniseries John Adams. That's a bit boring for a student to watch compared to this but I appreciated it much more as an adult than this.

The version I watched seems to be a mix between the theatrical and the director's cut. What I watched was definitely three hours but imdb says it has a black and white scene which I don't remember. I appreciate this movie on a few levels. It is very well acted. I think the staging and costuming is all great. But this felt very long. I also thought many of the musical numbers would have been better served as dialogue. I do like that this does bring to life colonial America in a way that textbooks really don't though. If there was a version of this that was under two hours, I could see liking this a lot more and showing it to students.

This is just killing time until we can get an adaptation of 17776.

I like A League Of Their Own quite a bit but I'm not sure I'd put it in my top 100 American movies. For a Penny Marshall film, I'd probably put in Big or possibly maybe Awakenings. But I'd also like the list to ideally have women on screen not just behind the camera. So, having women direct make dominated stories is better than no representation, part of me thinks fuck it, put on A League Of Their Own over Big just because it's about women even if I may not like it aa much.