Episode #60 - Tim Grierson (Stop Making Sense)

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"This idea that has always stayed with me is that movies are an art form for everyone."

After first watching Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, Peter went through a phase of going through the albums of Public Enemy. They were loud, rambunctious, and meant something in the same way the films he watched. But what happened to them after the summer of 1989? Tim Grierson's new biography of the group examines that question of perhaps the most important hip hop artists of all time, tracking both their meteoric rise and through their much-more-interesting-than-you've-been-told years that followed. Since Tim also works as a film critic, he sits down to trace his origins as a Midwestern boy coming to Los Angeles, his mindset for writing, and of course his book (along with his struggle with understanding a group so different from his own identity). The two then close out the conversation with another music-movie: Joanthan Demme's concert movie of the Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense, a film of ebullient surprise and joy, while also one of the most meticulously constructed documentaries ever put on screen.

0:00-2:44 Opening

3:02-10:03  Establishing Shots - Results and Pitch Perfect 2
10:48-1:30:04 Deep Focus - Tim Grierson

1:30:55-1:32:55 Mubi Sponsorship
1:33:50-1:58:10 Double Exposure - Stop Making Sense (Jonathan Demme)

1:58:14-1:59:57 Close / Outtake

Read Tim Grierson's Public Enemy: Inside The Terrordome, which available online and at most local retailers.
Read Tim's other writing at Deadspin, Rolling Stone, Paste Magazine, Vulture, and at his blog. Follow him on Twitter.
Stop Making Sense is available on Blu-Ray and multiple streaming platforms.

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival (With Victor Morton)

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"If it had been seen, we would all know this film backwards and forwards."

Peter may not have been able to attend the Cannes Film Festival this year, but a five hour drive to San Francisco resulted in discovering some of the most amazing and groundbreaking works of cinema...all made 80 years ago, and in a few cases, over a 100! Former podcast guest Victor Morton joins the podcast to discuss the 20th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival, a five day event at the Castro Theatre, premiering new restorations and discoveries from an era of movies in which new artifacts are constantly being found and challenging the history of moving image aesthetics as we know it. From a silent version of a sound classic, to the Rube Goldberg of silent comedy, to gangs of women and quarreling children—Victor and Peter stand in awe of the work of filmmakers they had never even heard of before, and go in depth to films that with some time and effort could become part of the new canon of silent cinema.

0:00-13:37 Opening / All Quiet on The Western Front (1930)

13:54-23:39  A Trip Down Market Street (1906)
23:55-37:33 Visages D'Enfants (1925)

37:55-39:49 Mubi Sponsorship
40:07-51:50 Shorts by Charley Bowers (1926-1928)
52:14-1:00:20 Norrtullsligan (1923)

1:04:46 -1:17:37 The Swallow and the Titmouse (1920)

1:17:40-1:19:34 Close / Outtake

Read Victor Morton on his blog and check him out on Twitter.