Meeting People Is Easy (1998)

Meeting People Is Easy is an interesting rockumentary but leaves a little to be desired.It shows how the tribulations of touring, interviews, promotions can wear on you. Constant repetition, unintentionally trite questions by interviewers, or the feeling you're being interrogated or psycho analyzed by a stranger would wear on anyone's patience.It's a bit hard to understand at times due to the English accents, off camera speaking and music playing over top of the voices so closed captioning would be useful.alternapop.comFilm Track List:00:18 Fitter Happier 04:00 Paranoid Android 06:15 Lucky 10:23 Creep 13:26 Climbing Up the Walls (Zero 7 Mix) 15:52 How to Disappear Completely 17:11 Karma Police 19:06 Meeting in the Aisle 21:42 On Your Own Again (song by Scott Walker) 23:48 Airbag 25:47 A Reminder 28:59 Airbag 29:42 Creep 31:37 Paranoid Android 33:32 & 36:30 Life in a Glasshouse 37:16 Exit Music (For a Film) 42:41 Paranoid Android 43:58 Climbing Up the Walls (Fila Brazillia Mix) 44:40 No Surprises 48:42 Unknown song / random jamming 50:08 Climbing Up the Walls 51:09 Street Spirit 53:03 Palo Alto 58:19 Electioneering 1:01:10 Pearly* 1:06:55 Climbing Up the Walls 1:07:06 Paranoid Android 1:07:18 Planet Telex 1:07:52 Follow Me Around 1:13:33 I Will 1:15:48 The Tourist 1:18:16 Sit Down. Stand Up. 1:20:06 Big Boots 1:25:37 Nude 1:29:16 Exit Music (For a Film)

the first time i saw meeting people, i felt it was horribly pretentious and far too short on musical content... the opening seemed to take forever and i felt like screaming "i get it! you guys do lots of interviews!"...since i'd bought a copy and there were some great live performances (and i was trying to get everyone i knew to watch it), i saw it a few more times and the importance of it all sunk in... this documentary is meant to watched with a very clear link in your mind to the album they were promoting at the time (namely OK computer)... the themes and style of the video mesh very well with the music, creating a sort of visual accompaniment...it's actually a pretty honest take on a band that has a very difficult lead singer/songwriter, it shows how touring can affect a group (especially one that probably craved fame but cannot handle it, that have tasted it and would like to retreat back into making music without pressure)...and it's got some great live footage with a fabulous soundtrack...one thing that got annoying were the repeated plays of "creep", although i suppose that was to make a point... the reactions to the band from various producers, journalists, stage technicians and the public were hilarious...see the modern world in a new way, see men lost in a chrome sea, read the underlying messages about the music industry, feel the frustration of the creative process... this is a seemingly random and meaningless documentary that shapes up in strange ways, and imparts far more than you would think at first glance...

I don't think that this movie should be regarded as a typical glamors-celebrity-cult-documentary. It was obvious for me from the very first shot that this was gonna be an art movie. Althoug the subtitle of the movie says "A film about Radiohead", it is quite obvious that the band's history (together with the other typical kind of stuff usually presented in music documentaries, such as a verbal narration, clear outline of a presented material, chronological approach, etc.) is not the main subject of the film. Even the film's title is quite telling - I mean, why would a film about a music band be called "Meeting people is easy", especially in case of a band like Radiohead, whose members - as the film itself indicates - have rather "antisocial" approach and quite a deal of a distance towards music journalists and sometimes even fans (as anybody who has ever heard Tom Yorke's not-always-encouraging remarks at Radiohead's live performances will probably confirm). Personally, I loved the film. I watched it for the first time while being abroad alone for a long time. I felt pretty low and alone, the awareness of my being cut off from my Home, familiar objects and caring people, was painful to me at times. And one of the reasons that I loved "Meeting people..." so much is that while watching it I felt truly understood. The movie conveys a great deal of emotions, the way it is told (through music and pictures, not through words, and that's what's great in it) and edited really captures our (yes, OUR) everyday world - "this mess we're in" - huge and overcrowded cities (where you're still so alone), often ignorant interlocutors (who wouldn't "get you" even if you were speaking for hours), misunderstandings, unwanted responsibilities, constant movement, things that you start but then they go their own ways (you can't even control them anymore)... I think anyone expecting "Meeting people..." to familiarize them with the band's history, discography, brief and concrete verbal presentation backed up by a series of band's pictures and fragments of songs, is bound to be disappointed. But for everyone willing to "get wound-up" by this movie, just go with it without judging its "competence" and "fact-reliability" it is going to be a true masterpiece. To me, this film is about emotions, loneliness, our civilization, OURSELVES, OUR TODAY's WORLD, not about the band's story. Even so, I definitely don't agree with one of the comments saying that "Radiohead fans have nothing to look here for" - on the contrary, I think the film presents a great opportunity to see the band the way it's rarely presented in media - here the band members can get angry, they can laugh at the journalist they're on the phone with, or they can simply sit quiet for a while. Do whatever they like. Be whoever they are. Not always, however - and this is also what the film is about. All that makes "Meeting people..." a remarkable masterpiece, for all those feel-and-think-types out there, not only to Radiohead fans at all.

How ironic that some so-called Radiohead "fans" refer to this stunning documentary with a description like, "how lame." How narrow-minded, more like it.You'll like love] this doc if you like love] what Radiohead has created with OK Computer (and since then). The ones who refer to it as "lame" are the the same as those in the audience, no doubt, in that memorable snippet where Thom is bored out of his skull, performing Creep for the umpteenth time to an oh-so predictable crowd response.This documentary is less like the Hollywood-polished concert movie, or fluff-piece, that those same fans desire, and much more a fascinating collage of what could be the cutting-room floor bits from a more predicable piece for the masses. It really drops you into a different perspective and shows you things more like a free-form poem. It ain't MTV, pre-chewed for teen consumption.In other words, don't believe the words of a disgruntled mass-consumer, who listens to Radiohead 'cause it's cool at a certain moment. This is an underrated piece that will definitely be more fascinating as time goes on.And, oh yeah, something else the disgruntled mass-consumers fail to mention: the Sound Design in this film is AMAZING. Watch with good headphones.