David Byrne Has Too Much to Watch

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all the options out there in movie and television viewing? And do you ever feel like the weight of all those options might just make you go crazy and run around a room until you can't run anymore and you're left with no other option than to just walk away defeated? Of course you do. Well, you're not alone and you're certainly not the first. Talking Heads frontman David Byrne felt the same way all the way back in 1986. And he made this informational video to tell us about it. Well, actually, director Tom Bowes from New York art collective "The Kitchen" made the video, which tracks Byrne as he wonders a room at an increasingly frantic pace, reciting the names of all the movies he can't wait to see. It's an art piece that critic Stephen Holden called "an amusing sendup of a certain kind of media-mad New York jitters." Maybe so, but if it's so "amusing" then how come it leaves me feeling depressed about my own ever-growing insurmountable pile of things to watch? I guess that just like The Great Outdoors or Captain Ron this is a film document that is as true today as it was when it was made. And how is it we're just getting to this video now, more than twenty-five years after it was made? There have simply been too many other things to watch.