Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9786301464833 Format: NTSC ISBN: 6301464834 Label: Fries Home Video Manufacturer: Fries Home Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Fries Home Video Release Date: 1990-08-22 Studio: Fries Home Video
Customer Rating: Summary: Tom Waits Big Time on DVD Comment: This is out on DVD although very hard to find i got mine from Ebay Germany as i think it was only released there, not sure. The dvd is released by Island Visual Arts. (it says on the cover manufactured and sold and distributed in the UK by Polygram video Ltd) but still impossible to find here.
Hope this helps - GOOD LUCK
Customer Rating: Summary: Most Underrated movie on earth! Comment: I couldn't agree more. The artistry of the movie equals if not surpasses the music. The whole thing is riviting, imaginative, and utterly unique.
Why someone won't offer it in DVD is puzzling. It's a must for ecclectic collectors of all things wierd and brillant.
Customer Rating: Summary: Saw it on IFC Comment: I nearly killed myself making sure I recorded off of IFC. I have it and will share it with all fans....only got to see Tom once in Chicago and it was the best concert I ever saw....email me and lets rap about how I can get you a tape of my tape.....G Customer Rating: Summary: "Of course, the soldier's a little pissed off.) Comment: [...] Best 35 bucks I'll spend in my entire life. If you consider yourself a Tom Waits fan, you owe it to yourself to find this. Even if it means divorcing your wife, abandoning your family, quitting your job, climbing into the belly of whale to fight a posse of enchanted ninjas with nothing but a can of clam chowder (I'm emblishing a bit here, but you get my point), do it, do it, do it, do it. Best concert film ever recorded, I tell you! I find myself watching it just as frequently as I would listen to a CD, which has ended up being once or twice a day, with a few hiatuses, but the past two years. Creepy? Maybe. But still a damn good flick. Customer Rating: Summary: One of the greatest concert films ever... Comment: There are 3 concert films in the 80s which come to mind as being "great": "Stop Making Sense"(Talking Heads), "Home of the Brave"(Laurie Anderson) and "Big Time".
There have been different eras in Tom's career, the folk troubadour, the "barfly" jazz lounge singer, and later on a oft-namedropped singer-songwriter who plays "weird" instruments, at this time (1988) he was wrapping up a "trilogy" of Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs, and Frank's Wild Years, which was a play in Chicago by Gary Sinese's Steppenwolf theater group. However, this isn't "Frank's Wild Years", even though it's divided into different parts. It's "Big Time", an entity unto itself..
Like "Stop Making Sense", the director has you up close to Tom and the band, keeping the viewer's attention fixed on Tom and his actions. You know the audience is there, but you don't see much of them. A lot of times, you are moving out of the live footage into different scenarios used mostly in between the songs (the doorman, the ticket taker, etc), making you realize that this is a movie more than a concert film at times.
I haven't watched the film in a while (less than a year), but I remember the CD has different songs than the film does, and have gotten confused about what wound up in the film. But I do remember "Ruby's Arms" and "Red Shoes" being the only "old" songs on either.
Disappointments are only that a DVD hasn't been released of the film, although there have been film showings of "Big Time" in the San Fran area. The CD has a clean, crisp, sharp sound to it, and the VHS is (from what I can tell) mono and hissy, and the VHS cover (the movie poster and CD cover are better) is very 80s and garish. If they make a DVD, hopefully there's some home movie footage of how they put it together. It definitely warrants a commentary by the director and Tom. It should also include the Island-era music videos as an "extra" (there's about 8-10, at most) and hopefully there are more live clips to sate the appetite of Raindogs everywhere. It was a great era for Tom to reinvent himself as a true original, and one that should be available to people who are just beginning to discover him, as long as those who have been long time fans. It's an essential for new and old Waits fans.
It's "time" is long overdue for a proper DVD release (hopefully they can do a limited screening in theaters through the country)... It's been "way down in the hole" for too long. Don't let "strange weather" hold you back from
picking up the CD, either.
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