People always pose the same questions waging manufactured battles between pop cultural entities: Beatles or Stones? "Star Wars" or "Star Trek"? The false premise here is that you have to choose. But you can have it both ways; if you prefer one, it is permissible to enjoy the other. "Star Trek" may indeed trump "Star Wars," but that doesn’t mean there’s not plenty to admire and even love about George Lucas’ generation-rallying epic. Being entertained should not be a competition.
Why then do I get the urge, whenever someone brings up Martin Scorsese's 1978 rockumentary "The Last Waltz," to interject, "'Stop Making Sense' is the far superior concert film!" Probably because, by strict definition, it is. Jonathan Demme’s 1984 concert doc of the Talking Heads does not aim for any sort of soggy insight into the people behind the songs. There are no interviews or other extraneous footage. The film is pure performance: 16 songs with such a masterful blend of choreography and improvisation that the seams are invisible. It is not only the better concert film, it is the best. These competitions are OK when you’re backing the winner, if we do say so ourselves.
