True Stories (1986)

True Stories: Directed by David Byrne. With John Goodman, Annie McEnroe, Jo Harvey Allen, Spalding Gray. A small but growing Texas town, filled with strange and musical characters, celebrates its sesquicentennial and converge on a local parade and talent show.

“Hereu0026#39;s an everyday scenario: popular musician tries to make a movie, the movie either sucks or is about one of their various tours. Justin Bieber, Vanilla Ice, and the list goes on. The point is, musicians, as talented as they may be in the fields of music, donu0026#39;t typically make for good filmmakers, actors, or camera material in general. Now enter David Byrne. A good majority of strange 80su0026#39; pop can be considered to be by David Byrne or inspired by his works in some ways. Talking Heads may be not for everyone, but thereu0026#39;s no denying their music often has a strange and upbeat charm to it. This leads me to Byrneu0026#39;s feature film, True Stories.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWords cannot truly describe this film. I donu0026#39;t know if I can really call it a film because it has no real plot structure to it, but whatever it is, it sure is something. If I had one word to truly describe what this movie is in a nutshell, itu0026#39;s surreal. Not a whole lot makes sense, the monologues are beautiful in just how nonsensical they can get, and yet thereu0026#39;s no denying that itu0026#39;s well done. The performances, for as absurd as they can get, do great at portraying the types of wacky characters that inhabit this piece. The cinematography, itself, is not awful nor is it amazing. For a film made by someone who has had their main career in music, Byrneu0026#39;s directorial debut is fairly solid.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAs with the music by Talking Heads, True Stories is a light, but enjoyable, experience. Thereu0026#39;s nothing too pretentious here (although I typically hate that term and every dudebro that uses it to exhaustion), and itu0026#39;s charming in just how unusual it is. I mean this in the most sincere of ways, True Stories is definitely up there with some of the more absurd films Iu0026#39;ve ever seen. Although it wonu0026#39;t be everyoneu0026#39;s slice of pie, itu0026#39;s worth seeing just to see how far theyu0026#39;ll go. In other words, itu0026#39;s brilliant.”