Dire black comedy helmed by rock star-turned-actor/co-writer/director David Byrne, who found early success in the new wave music scene of the mid 1970s with his band Talking Heads. Byrne is drawn to human eccentrics and freaks, life's colorful throwaways; in Virgil, Texas, he delights in putting the weirdest of the weird on display, doing so with either misplaced affection or perhaps mordant desire. John Goodman (pre-"Roseanne") is appealing and very natural playing a lovelorn cowboy, but the other characters are a too-bizarre collection. The intermittent music by Byrne and Talking Heads is frequently very good, but the film is more smug than amusing. *1/2 from ****
Review of True Stories
