Swimming to Cambodia

As with his earlier masterwork Stop Making Sense, Demme doesn't view filming a performance as something that requires less of his craft, focus and ingenuity than any of his fiction works. It just requires those skills applied in a different way. He presses in at the right moments, uses smart, subtle editing techniques to heighten the moments when Gray's story shifts, and generally finds a way to make a man sitting and talking for nearly ninety minutes wonderfully cinematic.

A one-man show that works. It suggests that one man with wit, intelligence, erudition, and humanity is enough to remind us that H. sapiens might not completely suck after all

87.500

This, along with "My Dinner With Andre", are the only two raconteur flicks I can deal with. Unfortunate for SG's passsing.

An excellent movie, although I guess it doesn't really have much to offer for repeated viewings. It's a shame that Spalding Gray is no longer around to do more like this.

Spald keeps the attention of everyone for a good 90 or so minutes of just him talking, and that's all it is. No, really, that is everything that happens in this film

90.625

Jonathan Demme's film of Spalding Gray performing his best and most famous monologue is not talked about as much as "Stop Making Sense", but is another really great filmed performance. Demme knew how to not get in the way of a performer, but to still deliver something much richer than just pointing a camera at them.