‘American Utopia’: Spike Lee & David Byrne Create An Exhilarating & Joyful New Concert Film Classic [TIFF Review]

Nellie Andreeva Co-Editor-in-Chief, TVEXCLUSIVE: Chelsea Field, who has recurred as Rita Devereaux on NCIS: New Orleans for the past four seasons, has been promoted to series regular for CBS drama’s upcoming seventh season.After a successful career as an attorney with the Department of Justice, Field’s Rita returned to her hometown of New Orleans to pursue a relationship with Dwayne Pride, her one-time boyfriend, portrayed by her real-life husband, NCIS: Nee Orleans star Scott Bakula.

HBO is teaming up with Rock the Vote— and enlisting talent including Spike Lee, Samantha Bee and Jay Ellis— to encourage Americans to share why they're voting in the 2020 fall elections.

Spike Lee’s concert film adaptation of David Byrne’s American Utopia has been released.Lee’s movie, which is set to premiere on HBO on October 17, was filmed during Byrne’s Broadway residency that ran from October 2019 to February 2020.Byrne’s American Utopia featured the musician speaking with the audience about the state of America and also included performances of songs from throughout his career, going back to his first Talking Heads record through to his 2018 ‘American Utopia’ solo

The movie that opened the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month just got a new trailer.

Tom Grater International Film ReporterEXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures Content Group is set to land international rights to Spike Lee’s David Byrne’s American Utopia following the film playing opening night at this year’s TIFF.HBO has domestic rights to the project, which is a filmed version of the acclaimed Broadway show, and is set to release stateside on October 17.Universal PCG is now tying up a deal for all international rights and is eyeing a roll out from November.

The world needs something to lift its spirits. 2020 has been rough, to say the least, with a global pandemic leaving so many people tragically dead, political turmoil in governments around the world, and civil unrest as systemic racism becomes headline news.

David Oyelowo’s directorial feature debut, “The Water Man,” plays like a kid-friendly throwback to Steven Spielberg’s ’80s movies. It’s a coming-of-age story filled with adventure, friendship, and some serious topics that don’t overshadow its young protagonist’s hopes.

columnist for the Village Voice and the New York Daily News, a guest on NPR and Charlie Rose’s show, a jazz drummer, a founder of what became Jazz at Lincoln Center and mentor to Wynton Marsalis and many younger writers and musicians, an aficionado of baseball and American folklore and scourge of Toni Morrison, Spike Lee and Amira Baraka among others.At home, he read, wrote and listened to music.

Despite the countless technological innovations in the 36 years since the release of Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, that iconoclastic time capsule of a 1983 Talking Heads show is still considered by many to be the greatest rock concert film ever made.

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.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticWhen 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 Spike Lee’s playful and entrancing big-screen version of David Byrne’s “American Utopia” is better than the next best thing — it feels more like a whole new thing.Byrne’s spiky and exuberant 21st-century rock-concert-on-Broadway jamboree, which opened at New York’s Hudson Theatre on Oct.

If there ever was a year for the Toronto Film Festival to open with a musical pep talk for Americans, surely 2020 is it. American Utopia, the concert film of David Byrne’s 2019 Broadway show, directed by Spike Lee, provides a spark of optimism in the era of COVID-19 and civil unrest.

The 64th edition of the BFI London Film Festival — rejigged due to the COVID-19 crisis and largely shifted online for 2020 — has unveiled its full program. Chloe Zhao's buzzy Nomadland — bowing in Venice before heading to Toronto and New York — is set to screen, together with Pixar feature Soul, directed by Pete Doctor.

coronavirus pandemic, with a programme of 58 films from around the world — 50 of which will be premiering online.Steve McQueen’s Mangrove will be opening the festival, and the new film from God’s Own Country director Francis Lee Ammonite will be the closing night gala.Further films that are set to premiere include Spike Lee’s filmed take on David Byrne‘s smash-hit Broadway show American Utopia, as well as Miranda July’s new film Kajillionaire and Josephine Decker’s Shirley Jackson

The further we get into 2020, the more we hope that Muse’s ‘Simulation Theory’ is actually non-fiction. The idea that Earth is an extremely advanced computer simulation and we’re all simply avatars in a corrupted game called something like Maximum Drake and that this entire year could be reset from a save file from December 2019 becomes increasingly attractive by the month.So Muse – Simulation Theory couldn’t come too soon.

David Byrne is acknowledging it was a mistake doing a Blackface bit in a performance in 1984.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticIn a 1984 promotional video for the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, David Byrne appeared as both himself and a variety of interviewers, including men of color.

Regardless of your thoughts about Michael Jackson’s legacy in light of the accusations of sexual abuse and assault with underage children, it appears his music is still striking a chord with a generation that is finding themselves surrounded by racism and violence, seemingly on a daily basis. And one of Jackson’s music videos is being re-edited to reflect the modern times by the original director, Spike Lee.