Re: [Police] My (long) review of Everyone Stares

As always, good to hear from you, Mag. I am most happy this is coming out. As I mentioned a few times last year, I had assisted on what has now become the release of the Synchronicity concert on dvd. One of the early incarnations of that project, which took FOREVER to come out due to one complication after another, was this: it was my thought to include some of Stewart's Super 8 footage on the "project" as bonus material. One thing lead to another and...here is the end result! Rich --- Maggie White <maggie3661@yahoo.com> wrote:

Here’s my review of Everyone Stares from the Santa Barbara Film Festival on Saturday night.

First, the highlights. Stewart and Andy were both there! Stewart did a Q&A after the movie as it was the last one of the night. Both guys were very approachable after the movie and talked with fans, signed autographs, posed for pics, etc. I had my picture taken between both of them by a nice bystander. I have to email said bystander this morning to see if the pic came out (it was outside and fairly dark.)

There were about 500 people in the cool, old Art Deco theatre. I’d say the room was about ¾ full. It seemed like most of the people attending chose the film at random (there are dozens of films playing every day) and weren’t psycho fans. I talked to people in line, and many were like “Oh, I read the description and recognized the name ‘Police’ so I thought it would be interesting.” Some were fans of the Police, but haven’t really followed the guys since the breakup. I heard several comments like “What have the other two guys been doing?” Those comments set my teeth on edge! I talked to the people around me in line about the movie and what the guys HAVE been doing without Sting.

I knew Stewart was there because I walked to the front of the line looking for some friends who had my ticket. I saw him being interviewed by TV. The movie was supposed to start at 9, but they didn’t start letting people in until about 9:20 p.m. While sitting in my seat, I noticed Andy about four rows ahead of me when he stood up. I was so excited they were both there!

Stewart came out before the movie and said a few words. Why he decided to make the movie, etc. It’s all a blur. The film started about 9:35 and is about 75 minutes long.

The movie is fun, fun, fun. It is so cool to see the old footage that no one has seen before. And the music….hearing it surround me made me remember (not that I’ve forgotten) why I love this band so much. There aren’t as many Derangements as I expected. Most of the songs are straight versions. I asked the first question of the night (of course) and I asked about the Derangements being released. Stewart said that he’d love to, but he had to get the other guys to agree. Then he said, “We’ve got one of the guys right here tonight, let’s ask him” and pointed to Andy. Andy stood up and gave a thumbs up or something (I couldn’t tell as his back was to me), but everyone was clapping and happy, so I took that to mean YES. Then SC said “So, we’ve got 2/3 approval…”

The style of some of the filming is very fast – time is sped up. The music fits perfectly. I always thought that some Police songs have kind of a frantic, frenetic pace to them.

SC and AS got long applause each time they spoke. The movie itself got really good applause at the end.

The movie is very funny. I didn’t expect that. People who didn’t know much about the Police still found it funny, so that’s a good thing. Andy steals the movie. He’s goofing around or cracking jokes in many scenes. There are several scenes that are VERY similar to scenes in Almost Famous. Stewart clearly saw the similarities as he specifically references the “Golden God” jumping into the swimming pool at one point. Sting comes off as kind of petulant, or maybe faux petulant, I don’t know. He seems to always be sticking his tongue out, crossing his arms in a huff, saying “f*** you,” etc. Honestly, he comes across as sort of crabby. Maybe he was. Maybe that’s just the moments the camera captured. Maybe Sting thought he was cool at the time. Maybe those are just the moments SC selected. You don’t see much of SC unless he’s playing drums.

The studio footage is amazing. So cool to see. During the Q&A session someone asked why there’s not much (any) footage from 83-84. SC noted that he got tired of looking at everything through the camera. He was missing the REAL life as it was happening. He also explained that he’d give the camera to people to film concerts, but they would only get snippets of songs, hardly any whole songs. He said that he has 10 different versions of Next to You (including two played by the techs), but only a few minutes of Message and no live version of EBYT at all. There’s some interesting behind the scenes at concerts and video shoots. Some good snippets of Ian and Kim Turner. Lots of fun footage of fans mobbing their cars.

SC narrates some throughout the movie and also there’s words “typed” on the screen. You’ll know what I mean when you see it. I found some of the old audio to be very hard to hear. Anyone who has ever filmed people knows that everyone talks at once, some people mumble, some people have their back to the camera, etc. Maybe I’ve been to one concert too many, but I found it hard to decipher some of the conversations. That would be my only complaint (other than it’s not long enough), but maybe it’s just me.

The other Q&A questions touched on SC growing up in Lebanon, why he made the film, what camera he used, etc. I can’t remember everything. Pretty normal stuff. Stewart’s answers were often funny and interesting. Of course, someone asked the “reunion” question and he just said “No.” Then he paused for a few seconds and said something like “I’d love it to happen, but I don’t really think it ever will.”

He mentioned that originally, Sting said he loved the movie, blah, blah, and then later Sting admitted to SC that he didn’t watch it. Sting showed it to his kids and they loved it, but he doesn’t watch footage of himself. SC chalked it up to Sting being superstitious. I don’t know if Sting would LOVE it. I’m sure he’d find it fun/funny, but he doesn’t come out of it smelling like a rose. I mean, SC is honest, and it’s all stuff we already know. But your average person doesn’t know what was going on around the time of Ghost. Stewart notes that Sting started bringing in totally finished songs and didn’t like it when SC or Andy tried to change them. He says that the band wasn’t supporting each other any more. It didn’t sound fun at all, it sounded like pressure. Sting comes off as a bit of a control freak. The last line before the fade out of the movie is Sting jokingly saying something like “If anything goes wrong, I’ll blame it all on the person who is holding the camera” i.e.: SC. There has to be a reason SC chose to end the movie with that.

During one of his answers, SC said that some people have complained there's not enough drugs and sex in the movie. He said that the Police were never a druggy band because they'd seen drug problems in the bands that came before them. He said the Police were "Boy Scouts." Now, they obviously weren't Led Zep, but I doubt they were truly Boy Scouts. He didn't touch on the sex part.

Our own Giovanni gets mentioned in the credits with some other folks under “Spiritual Advice” or “Spiritual Inspiration” or something like that.

After the movie, I talked with both SC and AS. I thanked SC for putting the movie together and said that fans really want early (and any) Police footage on DVD. He said that the plan is to release ES on DVD. Yipee! I’d say probably 20 fans waited for SC and AS each for conversation or autographs. I spoke with AS briefly about something lame (the fact that my parents never let me see the Police b/c they thought the Police were satanic.) Andy said “Yeah, we used to get that” and made a funny face and put his fingers put like devil horns beside his head.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll think of more. I should have written this when I got home, but it was 1:30 a.m. and I was pooped. And yesterday was too busy around my house.

I should say that the movie is really FOR THE FANS. There are lots of things that only we would appreciate. But it is accessible to people not familiar with the band. They won't be hanging on every word like we will, but they will enjoy it.

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