David Byrne and John Goodman hit the mall in True Stories.
Happy Super Tuesday. Hope you’re all out voting today. Once you’ve made that decision, it’s time to go to the movies.
Tomorrow night, Wednesday, March 3rd, Indie Memphis’ film series presents Zombi Child. Bertrand Bonello’s film takes the zombie myth back to its Caribbean roots. Before Night of the Living Dead, zombies were always associated with Hatian Vodou. Practitioners would prepare a powder containing pufferfish toxin that would paralyze the victim and make them appear dead. Then, once the funeral was over, they would revive the victim and enslave them. How often, or, even if, this ever happened is the source of much dispute, but Bonello uses the legend as a jumping-off point to tell a story of high school intrigue and body horror. This film has a look that reminds me of the hugely underrated Raw. The show starts at 7 p.m. at Malco Powerhouse.
True Stories, Zombi Child, and Teen Wolf This Week at The Movies
On a completely different note, Malco’s Throwback Thursday at Studio on the Square brings us a horror-comedy from the 80s with some higher-than-average star power. Michael J. Fox cashed in on his newfound Back To The Future stardom with Teen Wolf. The not-really remake of I Was A Teenage Werewolf has its moments, but it’s no I Was A Zombie For The FBI.
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Over at Crosstown Theater on Thursday, the Arthouse series serves up a cult classic. David Byrne burned down 30 Rock last weekend with his performance on Saturday Night Live. Let’s just take a moment to watch before proceeding.
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Wow.
Anyway, in 1986, Byrne wrote and directed his only feature film, True Stories. It’s an unconventional and difficult movie to describe — kind of a set of interlocking character sketches of people Byrne read about in supermarket tabloids, kind of a travelogue of the middle America the consummate New York art-punk discovered while on tour, and kind of a cross between a music video and traditional musical based on the underrated (there’s that word again) Talking Heads album of the same name.
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Byrne, who appears in the film as the narrator but doesn’t sing, elevated a little-known character actor named John Goodman to what passes for a leading role in this meandering mini-masterpiece.
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See you at the movies!
