the police Tagged Articles at Cinematical

This will no doubt be an illegal movie forever. After seeing it at the UC Theater in the summer of '82, I recently found a copy on a bootleg VHS for $1 at a Friends of the Library sale, still burned with the Sundance Channel bug. In today's cinema, much is made of the nostalgia value of the 1980s soundtrack: a famous example being Tears for Fears' "Head Over Heels" during Donnie Darko's opening. You can have your MTV, though, since URGH! A Music War was the soundtrack to my 1980s. Hey, what a surprise, no Duran Duran, no INXS, no Soft Cell covering a Gloria Jones soul classic and convincing a history-impaired generation that they wrote it. And yet it's clear why this film failed.

As a business scheme URGH seems, in 2008 hindsight, a uniquely quick way to burn a fortune. The film documents second-wave punk and New Wave bands playing from LA to London, editing them together without any particular zeitgeisty event like a music festival. So: play it a little under a real kiss-of-death title, and then wait to be deafened by the wails of bands, managers and lawyers zooming in to fight over the non-existant money. The Police were the headliners, opening and closing the film. They wrap up the film, too; you can see drummer Miles Copeland wearing an URGH! T-shirt. Is this perhaps all he was paid for this film? There are mostly cinematic performances here, and we see how much was lost by the fact that the Industry couldn't figure out a way to use their talents in the movies. Here's a key to the best of the show, omitting slurs of forgotten bands who perished long years ago.

I have to admit ... while I am a fan of certain Police songs -- and I definitely had a moment in the 7th grade when I actually owned a Police record and listened to it regularly -- I think Sting is really pretty annoying. And I'm not excited at all about a Police reunion. In fact I feel taken advantage of. Sting is just weird ... in a 'South Park' way. He's weird to me the way Yanni or Fabio are weird. And I resent (a little) having to sit through his awful performance.

Generally, I think band reunions just suck. They shouldn't be allowed; they (reunions) are wrong, and in so many ways just not fair. Once a band breaks up, for whatever reason ... they should stay that way. The problem is that we (the public) allow this to happen. And we allow it in a way that we wouldn't allow for any other artist. I mean, what if Leonardo Da Vinci decided, 15 years after he painted the original, to repaint the Mona Lisa? The public would cry, "Haven't you got anything new?" Or what if a designer decided suddenly to just put out one of his old collections again, because it was popular the first time. We would cry: "BULLSHIT!"

But the worst part about the Police reunion to me is the message it sends to other bands of the same ilk. That maybe it's OK for them to get back together. Holy crap ... can you imagine? What if some of the Police's contemporaries from back in the day suddenly appeared together? Ha!! Huey Lewis and the News, Dexys Midnight Runners, The J. Geils band, Toto. What a mess we would have on our hands, you know? I say, if you want to be around in 15 years then you have to stay in the game for 15 years. You have to stay together, and relevant, and touring and proliferating. Playing only in Vegas doesn't count. You have to stay IN THE GAME. Like the Red Hot Chili Peppers for instance ...

The good folks at the SIFF Press Office sent out a memo today announcing that Stewart Copeland will not be attending the event "A Conversation With Stewart Copeland" or the screening of his film Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out, due to the death of his brother, Ian Copeland. Ian Copeland, a well-known agent and promotor who worked with bands such as R.E.M, Squeeze, and younger brother Stewart's band The Police, died last Tuesday of melanoma at the age of 57.

SIFF will go ahead with tonight's event, "A Conversation With Stewart Copeland", even though the event will no longer include Copeland. Instead: "Ben London, Executive Director of the Northwest Chapter of the Recording Academy, will talk about Copeland's life and career, with clips and trailers, and read a statement from Mr. Copeland. The screening of Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out will follow."

SIFF will give vouchers good for a free regular screening to anyone attending the event.  Refunds will be given at the box office to those who request it.

• Keira Knightly Online really must like the spiffy red coat Keira's wearing around Sundance (right), because they have a whole gallery of pics of her wearing it.
• Our friends over at GreenCine Daily have a great comprehensive list up of all the Sundance film reviews out there.
• Flavorpill Sundance scored a video interview with Destricted director Larry Clark. Wonder if he waxed eloquent on that whole sex with a bulldozer thing that had people walking out of his film?
• Perez Hilton has the scoop on how N'syncer Lance Bass caught his coat on fire because he got all excited about getting a glass sex toy at the Booty Parlor gifting suite. Sounds like a Sundance urban legend to me, but Perez swears it happened.
• Stella Daily, one of the crossword geeks featured in Wordplay, has a blog entry up about an up-close-and-personal meeting with Glenn Close at a screening of the film.
• U2s The Edge looks, well, very Edgy; the Police reunite at Sundance, but Stewart and Andy fail to get Sting drunk enough to agree to a real reunion of the band; and Chicago Tribune's Mark Caro gets screwed out of an exclusive interview with Jennifer Aniston and Catherine Keener and takes the high road, passing on the "5 reporters on 2 celebs" backup offer. Way to go, Mark!
• Latina Lista has an excellent run-down of the numerous films at Sundance and Slamdance dealing with illegal immigrants and border crossings.

Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out, is a documentary about the punk/pop band derived from Super8 films shot by drummer Stewart Copeland. Sounds promising based on the level of access the director has to his subjects and the fact that the band broke up at the top of their game. After the break up fans were left with only their memories of a hard rocking Sting, who traded a kick-ass band for a life of Jazzy interludes on Light FM and sellout Jaguar commercials. In fact, sell out would be a kind assessment of Sting in the minds of most Police fans.

The film starts as the Police head out on their first US tour in the late seventies. This consists of long shots driving down the road and people cavorting in hotel rooms--nothing we haven't seen before. The voiceover from Copeland reveals little, and 40 minutes into the film I'm left wondering if anything will ever happen.

During all this time we're subjected to grainy, shaky video with horrible sound. It would be easy to forgive the poor quality of the video if it captured some rocking early performances, but the director/cameraman was too busy playing the drums at too many performance,s I guess.

Predictably the crowds develop from single digits to six figures, but the characters don't develop at all. The Police haven't said more than 20 lines to the camera 45 minutes into the film, and most surprisingly no one is taking drugs, fighting, or running around naked with groupies. Sting--who you would think would be an interesting person--has nothing to say.