Review: Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams - Documentary

Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams: 

Two and a half stars out of five

It’s unpredictable, fiery and completely random. Creativity can reduce the bravest, most decorated left-brained soldier into a puddle of nervous mush. For singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks, this seems to be a natural state — a lacy palace of romantic thoughts and swirling melodies that complements her actual abode, a sprawling mansion with a mega-rotunda in suburban Los Angeles. The house and Nicks’s ephemeral creative muse are essentially the two stars of In Your Dreams, a new documentary from multi-hyphenate producer Dave Stewart. Part video diary of the production process, and part artist portrait, In Your Dreams chronicles the conception, gestation and eventual birth of Nicks’s latest studio offering, which shares the same title as the movie. It conjures a feeling somewhere between nutty cat-collector and esteemed oddball artist, and we hear Nicks tell us about her life and her creative work with an unmistakable hint of Norma Desmond lurking in the folds of her black cloaks. Special features unavailable.

by Katherine Monk
Postmedia News

PRE-ORDER "In Your Dreams"

29/11 - NEW ZEALAND: - Mighty Ape

03/12 - USA: - Amazon | Barnes & Noble 

03/12 - CANADA: - Amazon Canada 

06/12 - AUSTRALIA: - JB Hi-Fi | EZY DVD | WOW HD
09/12 - UK: - Amazon

Also Available via Warner Bros. Warner Bros. version is a "Region 0" DVD meaning unrestricted international usage. So for those outside North America, this DVD will work in your DVD players.

UK REVIEW | PHOTOS: Stevie Nicks had reason for a London fanfare of her own

STEVIE NICKS: IN YOUR DREAMS UK PREMIERE

Review and Photo by Imelda Michalczyk

Fleetwood Mac may be the very definition of rock royalty and astounding longevity. Just prior to the band embarking on a UK arena tour this month (a full 46 years into their career), front woman Stevie Nicks had reason for a London fanfare of her own.

In Your Dreams, a documentary about the making of Nicks’s last album (of the same name) was given its UK premiere at Curzon Mayfair cinema on 16 September. The album was co-written and co-produced by Dave Stewart, who also largely filmed and directed the documentary. Stewart, donning a hat and dark glasses, was in attendance at the premiere, alongside Mick Fleetwood (who appears in the film) and former bandmate Christine McVie.

The album was recorded at Nicks’s own house, Tara, in California, giving the viewer a peek into her home as well as the recording of the music. The film breaks down the album song by song, showing the inspiration, the trials and tribulations of writing and recording and clips of elaborate music videos for some of the tracks.

The heavier topics of inspiration such as the devastation wrecked on New Orleans by hurricane Katrina are balanced with lighter musical anecdotes. One such being Nicks’s admission that she once stole a tune from Mike Campbell (of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) from a demo cassette she heard. She added lyrics, recorded it with Fleetwood Mac – claiming to have written the whole thing – and then presented it to Petty as a finished work. Understandably, he flew into a rage and demanded she confess to Fleetwood Mac and scrap it. Petty later turned the tune into Runaway Trains.

In a Q&A session with Nicks and Stewart after the screening, she spoke of how this album was her first experience of writing with someone who was in the same room at the same time. She also highlighted how important she felt documentaries are in both revealing the process of artistic creation but also as a tribute, citing the documentary of The Travelling Willburys and how poignant and precious that was when two of the band members passed away.

On a lighter note she joked that it was good for people to finally see her “doing something” in a studio setting. In the film, she’s depicted as fully involved with all aspects of the musical process, explaining ideas, directing musicians and arguing for rearrangements of songs. In contrast, footage of her in the studio with Fleetwood Mac over the years, tends to show her drawing or writing in her journal whilst she hangs around waiting for her turn to sing!

She clearly found the entire project refreshing and deeply enjoyable and advocated that everyone make their own documentary footage of their lives in whatever way they could.

As the event drew to a close, the audience got to their feet to applaud and Nicks waved goodbye to her fans, disappearing back into her ethereal world of dreams.

Review via RockShot

UK REVIEW: Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams "The film is enchanting but at the same time is entirely real"

"For fans of Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks, this film is an enjoyable voyage through a life that is usually kept quite guarded outside of the lyrics of her songs."

By Emma O'Brien 

The Reel Thing Rises

Last night I sat in a room with Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood and Dave Stewart. I had to pinch myself several times because if you had told me 18 months ago when I was sat playing Fleetwood Mac and Eurythmics songs on student radio that I would be sitting less than 3 metres from some of my musical heroes, I would have probably thought you were on crack.

Being my first experience of a premiere you can well imagine my excitement at finally being one of the people walking up the red carpet, not just one of the mere mortals standing on the wrong side of a metal barrier clamouring for the chance to meet their idols. Once inside and safely installed in my front row seat, I cracked open the goodie bag which included a much appreciated cocktail and bag of popcorn and awaited the start of proceedings. When Stevie, Dave and Mick entered the room the audience went wild, demonstrating that this was not an ordinary premiere full of slightly indifferent industry moguls just there for the free night out, this was a room full of fans much like little old me who just lucked into the chance to spend the evening with Stevie and Dave.

The front lady of Fleetwood Mac comes alive yet again with her "Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams"

There isn’t anyone on the planet that hasn’t heard a Fleetwood Mac song, right? Dreams? Rumours? Yes? Well the front lady of one of the greatest bands of the last century comes alive yet again with her " Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams " let’s call it ’reality’ movie. In the vein of showing the behind-the-scenes, everything including guts and gore, the fans of aging rock stars want to either read their grotesque memoirs or see a rockumentary where their heroes reveal everything about their creative process.... and some more.

And the latest Stevie Nicks album, on which this film is based, with hits like "Secret Love" with its soft groans and "Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream)" acting as a the zeitgeist’s trance and a hopeful "You May Be The One" feels just right for this older, stronger so-called white-winged dove.

As the cameras follow the gypsy-like singer around her home with documentarian Dave Stewart (from Eurythmics fame) and crew, you realize just how talented and beautiful this Phoenix-born singer truly is. Forget the awards especially the eight Grammy nominations (holding the record for most nominations for Best Female Rock Vocal without a win), the various hit singles, the fact that she slept with practically the whole band, the hysterical witchcraft allegations, the signature shawls and capes - the genius comes in the quieter moments where she wants to get her artistry just right. And she does that like a tight ropewalker above the clouds.

Purchase, then download or stream: "Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams" $9.99

http://inyourdreamsmovie.com/

by Daniel Scheffler
EDGE Contributor

REVIEW: "After all of these years, it’s only right that Stevie Nicks should play it the way she feels it.

Stevie Nicks – In Your Dreams (2013)
by Nick DeRiso
Something Else Reviews

Looking back, it seemed preordained. Stevie Nicks met Dave Stewart years ago, and had a good feeling about him. “Maybe,” Stevie Nicks says toward the end of the film In Your Dreams, “this played out for a reason.”

That, of course, hadn't always been so clear.

The rock-umentary (arriving exclusively today on iTunes) begins, as these often things do, with a quick-cut series of gushing fans — but even here, there is something more complex happening. As each, one after another, professes their undying fealty to Nicks and every witchy-woman scarf she ever twirled, there is this sense of disconnect — like something of great portent is just around the bend.

Perhaps that’s because it has always been thus. Nicks’ career path has been marked by precipitous highs and just as dizzying lows, and that very history is probably to blame for the weird dissonance that greets her seeming so, well, happy.

Instead, what happens as In Your Dreams unfolds is the maybe the most surprising, most light-filled, most anthematically inspirational thing of all: Stevie Nicks, right before your eyes, becomes Stevie Nicks again.

"After all of these years, it’s only right that Stevie Nicks should play it the way she feels it. And she is, finally, again."

REVIEW: Stevie Nicks 'In Your Dreams' "this isn't a portrait of the artist, it’s a diary of the art"

Movie review: In Your Dreams
by Jay Stone
O.Canada.com

In Your Dreams
2½ stars out of 5
Starring: Stevie Nicks, Dave Stewart
Directed by: Dave Stewart and Stevie Nicks
Running time: 100 minutes
Parental guidance: No problems

Fans of the singer Stevie Nicks — none of whom could possibly be bigger fans than Stevie Nicks herself, it appears — will be in heaven with In Your Dreams, a documentary about the yearlong project to record her 2011 solo album. It’s all there: the inspirations, the moments of musical serendipity, the day Reese Witherspoon dropped by and gave her a title for one of the tunes, the many, many scenes of Nicks writing or singing or talking or just hanging out in her lush California home, being artistic.

Other, lesser fans will have to make do with serendipitous moments of our own: the voice-over when Nicks

expresses the wish that In Your Dreams will inspire younger audiences “to go back to the old ways and start over. This is our prayer.” Or the magical moment when, after writing the lyrics to Italian Summer at a hotel in Italy, she gives the hand-written manuscript to the front desk clerk and tells him, “Some day this is going to be very important.”

In fact, Italian Summer is a good song, one of many we get to enjoy in excerpts from the music videos that also festoon this vanity project. The film, like the album, is produced by Nicks and Dave Stewart, the Eurythmics guitarist, who joins Nicks and several other top-notch musicians. These include Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac, the alma mater for Nicks, plus her longtime backup singers, in whom, she speculates, the public finds “comfort in that love that we have as three very strong women.”

And maybe they do. In Your Dreams features endorsements from members of the public, including an American sailor whose life was altered by Soldier’s Angel. Nicks wrote that song after touring Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and seeing the wounded warriors, one of a few genuine moments of emotion in the film. In Your Dreams would be impossible if it wasn’t for the fact that Nicks — whose throaty growl hasn’t lost much of its power — is a talented rock singer and Stewart is, as she informs us, “one of the greatest and grandest guitar players.”

The film only touches on her childhood and early career: this isn’t a portrait of the artist, it’s a diary of the art, including the volumes of her writings that she gave to Stewart as possible lyrics (at one point she compares herself to Bob Dylan). There’s a touching reminiscence surrounding the song New Orleans, written six days after Hurricane Katrina and inspired by TV clips of a young boy who looks at the camera and — with shocking and moving frankness — says, “We just need some help sent here. And it’s just pitiful.”

The Witherspoon song comes when the actress tells Stewart he can stay at her condo in Nashville. “It’s cheaper than free,” she says, and the next thing you know, Stewart and Nicks have turned that idea into a love song. Another factoid: Lady From the Mountain was inspired by the Twilight movie New Moon, in particular the part where Bella is abandoned by the love of her life, which also happened to Nicks. Hopefully, she says, someone will hear that song and think, “The same thing happened to Stevie Nicks and she’s still alive.”

In your dreams. OK, OK. But she started it.

In Toronto on April 15th at The Toronto International Film Festival Lightbox Theatre Screening - Stevie screened the film and appeared after each screening for a live discussion and Q&A.  Here's one of those sessions captured and generously shared by Tmakworld.com Thanks for filming the Q&A!

REVIEW: Stevie Nicks’ dream state - Nicks turns her poetry into lyrics 4/5 Stars

Stevie Nicks' sweet Dreams

4/5 Stars - Toronto Star

By Jane Stevenson, QMI Agency
Toronto Sun
4/5 STARS

TORONTO - In the feature film about her life, Stevie Nicks wants Reese Witherspoon to play her.

This is one of many revelations found in In Your Dreams, the documentary about the making of Nicks’ 2011 solo album of the same name, co-directed by Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, who also helmed the record with Glen Ballard.

On and off, over the course of a year, Stewart shot 50 hours of footage of the now 64-year-old Nicks, most intimately at her mansion high in the hills above Los Angeles. The resulting film features cameos by Witherspoon, Fleetwood Mac members Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham, Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and, of course, Stewart, who is a bit of a character himself.

When he’s not belting back the occasional martini, he’s got either an acoustic or electric guitar or camera in his hand.

During one funny moment, Stewart is filming Nicks and she looks up and says: “Oh, that was you the whole time. I’m going like, ‘Who’s the chick in the white outfit that’s filming us?’”

One genuine surprise? That until writing with Stewart, Nicks had never ever written a song with another person in the same room before.

“I don’t like to be told what to do,” she says at one point.

In another scene, she is seen arguing with Buckingham over tense changes in her lyrics. “Would you say that to Bob Dylan?” Nicks asks him.

And when Stewart tries to insert some “too siren-y, too weird” guitar effects into a song, Nicks says bluntly: “Don’t quit your day job.”

No pushover is Nicks. And she’s honest too.

She admits to ending up with a demo reel of 23 Campbell tracks in the ’80s after visiting Tom Petty and stealing one - Runaway Trains - for a Fleetwood Mac song until Petty got wind of it.

“All I could hear was Tom screaming,” she says to the camera. “I was so busted.”

The movie is certain to appeal to fans of Nicks, whose gypsy persona, fashion style and throaty voice made her an icon. And for those who aren't devotees, the behind-the-scenes music-making with some of rock’s top musicians will fascinate.

FILM | Stevie Nicks "In Your Dreams"

by Jason Steidman
BlogTO

Singer/songwriter Steve Nicks, known from her association with the group Fleetwood Mac, will be present tonight at a special screening of the film, In Your Dreams, a documentary about the making of her 2011 album of the same name. This album was her first effort in ten years. A top notch cast of LA production and musical talent was enlisted to make it happen, led by Dave Stewart, a well-known producer whose career was launched back in the early '80s as part of the group The Eurythmics. The film follows the project from the writing process onwards, and also features biographical passages, and footage from Nick's childhood and career.

In Your Dreams: Stevie Nicks is at the TIFF Bell Lightbox tonight at 7 and 7:30, with Nicks conducting a Q&A afterward.

Sweet dreams — musically anyway — are made of this.

by Jane Stevens
Ottawa Sun

Two rock icons, Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks and Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics, worked together on Nicks’ first solo album in a decade, 2011’s In Your Dreams.

But their creative collaboration didn't end there.

There’s also a Stewart-directed 2013 behind- the-scenes documentary of the same name about making the record, co-produced by Glen Ballard, that will debut in Toronto Monday night. The film then moves across Canada over the next several weeks.

“It’s a movie that Stevie Nicks’ fans love,” says Stewart, 60, from Los Angeles.

“Obviously, she’s been a bit of an enigma and very sort of mysterious and there’s an insight not only into her world and her home and how she works but inside her mind as well. How she works creatively and how she thinks. What’s good is that if you’re not a Stevie Nicks fan in particular and you watch it, you get kind of surprised at how kind of intense and focused she is working. Because I think a lot of the views or people’s opinions about artists during certain periods of their life is kind of spaced out, hippie like. And then you see Stevie at work in the film and you go, ‘Holy s---!’ She’s like a force of nature.”

Turns out Stewart and Nicks met 30 years ago.

The occasion was an Eurythmics show in Los Angeles and Nicks came backstage.

“We got on really well,” says Stewart. “And I went back to stay in L.A. for a bit and we hung out and I was writing just experimental stuff with her and I ended up writing this song for her but then Tom Petty liked it and wanted to record it — Don’t Come Around Here No More — that’s why at the end (of the film, Stevie) says, ‘ Hey, Dave, definitely come around here!’ Because it became this epic sort of song for Tom.”

Stewart and Nicks regrouped again significantly in 2006 when Nicks appeared on a pilot for Stewart’s HBO music- themed interview show. In the documentary, she reveals after that collaboration she knew she wanted Stewart to produce either her next solo album or a Fleetwood Mac record.

He says after recording the album with Nicks and shooting about 50 hours of footage — boiled down to one hour and 40 minutes on-screen — he learned two significant things about her.

“Stevie’s incredibly generous. She’s always kept the same backing singers, the same friends ... even the sounds guys and everybody. They've all stuck by her. They’re so loyal to her. And that’s an amazing thing that I discovered about Stevie of how deep that runs within her, this loyalty. And then all of the time and effort she puts into putting her lyrics together. Training herself in books and reading so much literature. She’s steeped in her job. She said it herself. She purposely decided not to have children because she just knew she couldn't do both. It’s a massive decision.”

In Your Dreams, reviewed: In the Nicks of it

The week ahead for "In Your Dreams"

Fans who have seen this film across the U.S. absolutely loved it!... I think if you've been along for the ride from the inception of this album (and film) like many of us feel we have been, you'll get it... Obviously as an 'outsider' looking in, Mr. Bidini will have a different take on this film and situation, which is not a career spanning document but one of an experience of two seemingly different people, yet very similar in a lot of ways coming together and trying to capture the magic that occurred over that year (2010) of recording Stevie's "In Your Dreams".  But it is interesting seeing another perspective.

The National Post (Canada)

by Dave Bidini

A documentary that follows Stevie Nicks as she begins writing and recording her first solo album in nearly a decade.

“And herewith be the tale of the bescarfed nymphette spritzed with the gay mist of ladyhood traipsing about her earthen wares and sacred beads while cast in the glow of an everlasting aurora” is how any review about anything regarding Stevie Nicks should probably start. And yet the film, In Your Dreams, about the Fleetwood Mac sirenette, begins, regrettably, without much of her medieval-by-way-of-Topanga hoodoo or late ’70s Angelino imagery choosing, instead, to put us on a jet — a private jet, Nicks’s jet — before lapsing into footage of fans outside some indeterminate concert bowl in some indeterminate American city espousing life-changing testimony bout the bigness of Nicks’s songs as they relate to their lives. After too much of this, the plane lands. A limo. More fans telling the camera (and, ostensibly, telling Nicks): “I love you.” Then Nicks being made up backstage. Nicks shaking her bracelets. There’s the dull roar of the crowd, some lights, and: go. Lips struggling to push a food cart into his old highschool cafeteria in the opening moments of Anvil: The Story of Anvil this is not.

Movies about rock ’n’ roll — its scent, its pulp, its shattering emotional properties — are inherently disappointing because they’re not rock ’n’ roll, although In Your Dreams is disappointing because it’s not even really a movie. Instead, it’s a vanity postcard co-directed and co-produced by the film’s two principles, Nicks and Dave Stewart of The Tourists/Eurythmics, who are to cinematic objectivity what Stewart was to the ’80s neckbeard: ill-suited and gaudy. Because Stewart and Nicks are new filmmakers — and because everyone these days is a pocket Buñuel with their digital apparatii — the movie plays as if demanding visual Ritalin: colour becoming black and white becoming bordered with Kodak film stock becoming archival footage becoming video before eventually blurring into a kind of artless everything. Within the first few minutes, Stewart and Nicks are seen talking about the genesis of their working relationship — they have gathered to make her first record in 10 years — which amounts to each of them, by turns, telling the other how great they are. It’s like an SCTV sketch only no one gets blown up.

The concept of the film is all right — it’s essentially a making-of doc that hiccups between tiresome music videos of the songs — yet it’s a wonder that neither of the musicians/filmmakers’ watched VH1’s Classic Albums instalment on Fleetwood Mac’s seminal Rumours, a fine 60 minutes that reveals more about Nicks and her life than anything here. That said, it’s easy to imagine them deciding that they could do better, the massivity of their ego being what it is. Long and terrible passages in the film are spent while Nicks lounges on a settee worrying over lyrics, which are also long and terrible. While watching people write is rarely effective cinema (“Let’s face the music and dance” is a great lyric, but I doubt the scribbling down of its words would make a good film), the only thing less gripping is watching people track boring albums, which Nicks and her band do throughout In Your Dreams. In these scenes, Stewart directs himself pitching advice while wearing his fedora and sunglasses, which he never takes off. The truth is that, after a few weeks in the studio, one is rarely in good enough shape to get dressed, let alone dress well. Being in the studio is like being shipwrecked: oxygen-deprived and starving for normalcy and a decent meal. There’s nothing here that comes close to reflecting this experience. In the end, this film, like the sessions that produced Nicks’ album, reeks of catering.

Visit inyourdreamsmovie.com for more information.


A Stevie Nicks documentary by Stevie Nicks
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
by Brad Wheeler

Billed as an “intimate portrait of one of rock’s most enduring and legendary artists,” In Your Dreams, a documentary on the making of Stevie Nicks’s 2011 album of the same name, runs the risk of being too intimate for its own good. Musician Dave Stewart, who co-produced the album, shared directorial credit on the film with the singer herself. We spoke with him about a documentary being too close to its subject.

Stevie Nicks was involved in the editing of the documentary. Without someone independent doing it, doesn’t In Your Dreams end up being a fans-only film?

I suppose. My favourite music documentary is D.A. Pennebaker’s Dont Look Back, on Bob Dylan. But that kind of film would have never been made with Stevie. She never would have allowed an independent filmmaker to film her making a record. She wouldn’t have felt comfortable writing and recording with a camera filming. This came about naturally. A lot of it in the beginning was filmed on a cell phone.

I cringed watching her visit with soldiers in the hospital. Isn’t that a bit self-serving on her part?

Maybe. But it’s something she’s been doing for quite a while, that kind of charitable endeavour. It’s something she wanted to put in. She felt very seriously about the song Soldier’s Angel. The film could have had many different narratives. But once she got involved in the editing and really put herself into it, it meant that it wasn’t going to be the movie I would have exactly made.

At the end, she describes the experience of making the album as the best year of her life. You were there. Why do you think she felt so strongly about it?

I think there was a realization that happened to her – that the album was a collaboration, and that it was possible. She’d been closed in and locked in, if you know what I mean, and then the whole world opened up for her. I’m sure she could spend a lot of time in her house on her own, or with the people she normally works with, and not realize that there’s a world out there to play with.

In Your Dreams screens April 16 to 18 (special screenings on April 15 with Nicks Q&A sessions are sold out). TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King St. W., 416-599-8433.

In Your Dreams runs from April 16-18 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, with further screenings across Canada listed below.

REVIEW: Stevie Nicks: "In Your Dreams" Documentary

Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams

Two and a half stars out of five
by Katherine Monk
Canada.com

Starring: Stevie Nicks and Dave Stewart
Directed by: Dave Stewart
Running time: 100 minutes
Parental Guidance: coarse language

They say the creative process can be like riding a rabid bull, eager to gore you in a moment of distraction one minute, and likely to stampede in a rush of inspiration the next.

Unpredictable, fiery and completely random, creativity can reduce the bravest, most decorated left-brained soldier into a puddle of nervous mush.

For singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks, this seems to be a natural state — a lacy palace of romantic thoughts and swirling melodies that complements her actual abode, a sprawling mansion with a mega-rotunda in suburban Los Angeles.

The house and Nicks’s ephemeral creative muse are essentially the two stars of In Your Dreams, a new documentary from multi-hyphenate producer Dave Stewart.

Part video diary of the production process, and part artist portrait, In Your Dreams chronicles the conception, gestation and eventual birth of Nicks’ latest studio offering, which shares the same title as the movie.

In many ways, it feels a lot like a generic outing from the folks at VH1 or MuchMusic — a slick collage of music videos and talking head interviews cut within an inch of looking like a straight commercial.

Yet, for all the generic filmmaking device, In Your Dreams is not a generic experience because Stevie Nicks is not your average pop star.

Easily one of the more compelling figures to occupy a stage at the height of the arena-rock era while a member of the record-breaking, iconic act Fleetwood Mac, Nicks always smacked of difference.

With her black cloaks, spinning dance moves and sulky, notoriously nasal voice, Nicks became a cryptic sex symbol, and part of the pop culture soap opera as the world followed her affairs and heartbreaks with the likes of Lindsey Buckingham and others.

Rumours of everything from substance abuse to witchcraft were also thrown into the cauldron of talk, and while In Your Dreams doesn’t exactly denude the singer’s quirky personal curiosities, it does bring the icon into clearer focus.

And frankly, that’s not always a good thing.

On the up side, we are given unprecedented insight into how Nicks creates her signature tunes. Without the structure of a formal musical education, Nicks simply sits at the keyboard and plinks around on the keys until she finds the right sounds to fit the melody in her head.

As the musicians in the room make abundantly clear, she breaks the rules of music all the time, often changing the number of beats in a bar, the time signature and the verb tense of the lyrics.

At times, we hear expert production staff tell her “she can’t” do something, to which Nicks responds in a perfectly diva-esque drawl, that “of course she can” — because it’s art, after all, not a term paper.

Her self-possession is obviously one of the big reasons why she became as successful as she is, but we also hear how success created fear at the bottom of her creative well, making her dread the possibility of fabricating a complete dud.

Stewart helps her get through all these creative traps because he not only understands the musician’s headspace and the female mind (having worked with Annie Lennox as the other half of Eurythmics), he’s a natural observer.

At the top of the film, Stewart tells us he’s been a man with a movie camera ever since he found a gold chain on the street, turned the corner to find a pawn shop, and traded the chain for an 8mm consumer model. He loves making movies, and we can feel his passion behind the frames as he completes a two-pronged project: the record, and the movie about making it.

The best parts come after the midway point, once Stewart has established Nicks as a serious artist worthy of icon status, because once he’s dispensed with her legacy, he can get down to brass tacks — and offer up the real face of the Phoenix-born daughter named Stephanie Lynn Nicks.

Conjuring a feeling somewhere between nutty cat-collector and esteemed oddball sculptress Louise Nevelson, we hear Nicks tell us she was so moved by the plight of Katrina victims she “needed to take action.” So she wrote a poem.

She also tells us: “If my father were still the president of Greyhound, he would have had every bus in the country” converging on the deluged bayou to help move people.

These are lovely sentiments, and writing a song for the suffering is a nice gesture. Similarly, she tells us how much the Italians are going to love the ballad she wrote about Italy because it’s “the most romantic song (she) has ever written.”

And then, she talks about how much she loves Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series because she feels a soul connection to the fictional Bella Swan — because she, too, fell in love with a beautiful boy at 16 who eventually dumped her.

This stuff all feels a little too self-indulgent to spur feelings of sympathy, but it’s undeniably real and speaks directly to who Stevie Nicks really is: A well-intentioned, high-minded woman who feels great waves of empathy for others, but also has a healthy sense of ego to ensure she never feels like a wishy-washy waif.

Stewart captures the woman in fits and spurts, but he’s a rather random director and for all the technical prowess he brings to the booth, the songs feel overproduced. In fact, one of the most illuminating moments involves a demo track for an old unrecorded song that was found on the Internet.

The song is so cool, they decide to record it with all the bells and whistles. Yet, it doesn’t take a thick-rimmed music geek to realize the track sounded better as a haunting acoustic number. Stewart seems to turn everything into a Sting solo album, which may be manna to some people’s ears, but make mine hide under the bed.

As a slice of L.A. life, In Your Dreams succeeds beyond caveats because it captures all the ego and chandelier crystal of the fame-enabled lifestyle, but as a music doc and straight biography, In Your Dreams feels a little bleary-eyed.

Eurythmics’ Stewart wowed by Night of 1,000 Stevies
by Jane Stevenson
Jam ShowBiz!

Eurythmics’ guitarist Dave Stewart, who co-wrote and co-produced Stevie Nicks’ 2011 solo album, In Your Dreams, also directed a documentary of the same name about the experience which begins exclusive engagements across Canada starting April 15 in Toronto.

Stewart told QMI Agency he came away from the exprience impressed by the diversity of Nicks’ fan base.

“What’s amazing about Stevie’s audience is that it ranges from 12 years old to 60 odd years old,’ said Stewart.

“I mean girls of 16 are obsessed with the look, the feeling, the words, and then you get soldiers – it’s amazing – you get a cross-section audience, age-wise, gender-wise.”

Like the Night of 1,000 Stevies, an annual event bringing together Nicks lovers and look-and-sound-alikes staged in New York, with this year’s 23rd event happening on May 3 at Highline Ballrom.

“It’s a huge sort of gay gathering that all worships Stevie. It’s another huge part of her audience,” said Stewart. “They all have a great time and every single one is dressed as Stevie.”

In Your Dreams Canadian screenings.

• Toronto / TIFF Bell Lightbox April 15 (7 p.m and 730 p.m. with Stevie Nicks Q&A afterwards) and then April 16–18.
• Ottawa / Mayfair Theatre - April 19 & 20
• Winnipeg / Winnipeg Cinematheque - May 2,3 & 5
• Saskatoon / Broadway Theatre - May 13
• Edmonton / Metro Cinema at the Garneau - May 14
• Calgary / Globe Cinema - May 16
• Vancouver / Vancity Theatre - May 18
• Montreal/ Cinema du Parc - June 14-17

REVIEW: Stevie Nicks 'In Your Dreams' Documentary

When someone co-creates a cinematic love letter to herself, you can’t expect an edgy portrait complete with flaws.

So In Your Dreams, a chronicle of the recording sessions for Stevie Nicks’s 2011 studio release of the same name, offers few deep, revealing insights into the rock diva, but it does have some surprises.

Who knew Nicks was smart, for example – I mean really smart? She’s crystal clear about her artistic vision, and uses the film to explain the inspirations for the tunes – everything from Edgar Allan Poe to Hurricane Katrina. 

Recording session sequences, shot under the co-direction of former Eurythmics guy and film freak Dave Stewart, who produces and plays guitar, track the creative process revealingly. I kind of love how Nicks throws her weight around, artistically speaking, making demands and getting her way. 

She can get whomever she wants to play with her – Waddy Wachtel and old Fleetwood Mac pals Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham – so the quality of the musicianship is high.And archival photos of her childhood give the film some historical flavour. 

Less interesting are the ways the doc incorporates music-video-like footage. Stewart is an expert at creating this kind of material, but it feels like unnecessary filler designed to solve the editor’s problems, who otherwise gives Nicks exactly the celebration of her diva-ness she was looking for. 

Fans’ll go nuts.

STEVIE NICKS: IN YOUR DREAMS (Dave Stewart, Stevie Nicks). 100 minutes. Opens Monday (April 15) at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. The special screenings on April 15th of In Your Dreams with an appearance by Stevie Nicks are now sold out. 

Tickets are still available for the regular screenings on April 16, 17 & 18 at 8:30pm. HERE

website: inyourdreamsmovie.com

By SUSAN G. COLE
Now Toronto

Stevie Nicks and Dave Stewart collaborate on new album, documentary

By Richard Crouse
Metro Canada

“I do, in my brain, marry visuals and music,” says Dave Stewart.

Formerly one half of Eurythmics, Stewart has had a lifelong fascination with sound and vision.

“It started with a tape recorder when I was a little boy, about nine,” he says, “My grandmother got me an old-fashioned tape recorder, a battery operated reel to reel, so you could go outside with it. When I first recorded something outside and went back in my bedroom and played it back, it was a mind-blowing experience. It was the first time I had replayed reality.”

It wasn’t until he bought an 8mm camera in an Australian pawn shop that he combined his dual loves.

“I walked out of the shop filming,” he says,

“And I sent the films away, these 8mm three minute films. When I got them back and got a projector and played them onto the wall of my bedsit, it was a magical thing.”

“I have thousands of hours of stuff from the time I walked out of that shop.”

Among those thousands of hours is a new film, a collaboration with a music legend. Stevie Nicks brought Stewart on to produce her first studio album in a decade, and in the process they also created a song-by-song documentary, Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams.

With In Your Dreams now done and ready to open in theatres Metro asked Stewart about his favourite movie music moment.

“I am fascinated with the use of music in films,” he says. “I thought Midnight Cowboy was fantastic. When Ratso dies at the end and Jon Voight has his arm around him and the music starts, ‘Everybody’s talking at me…’”

"IN YOUR DREAMS" - IN CANADA
Tickets On Sale Now For the Following Canadian Dates

Toronto, ON	TIFF 7pm	Apr 15	SOLD OUT
Toronto, ON	TIFF 7:30pm	Apr 15	SOLD OUT
Toronto, ON	TIFF	Apr 16	Get Tickets
Toronto, ON	TIFF	Apr 17	Get Tickets
Toronto, ON	TIFF	Apr 18	Get Tickets
Ottawa, ON	Mayfair Theatre	Apr 19	Box Office
Ottawa, ON	Mayfair Theatre	Apr 20	Box Office
Winnipeg, MB	Cinematheque	May 2	Get Tickets
Winnipeg, MB	Cinematheque	May 3	Get Tickets
Winnipeg, MB	Cinematheque	May 5	Get Tickets
Saskatoon, SK	Broadway Theatre	May 13	TBA
Edmonton, AB	Metro Cinema	May 14	TBA
Calgary, AB	Globe Cinema	May 16	TBA
Vancouver, BC	Vancity Theatre	May 16	TBA
Montreal, QC	Cinema Du Parc	June 14	Get Tickets
Montreal, QC	Cinema Du Parc	June 15	Get Tickets
Montreal, QC	Cinema Du Parc	June 16	Get Tickets
Montreal, QC	Cinema Du Parc	June 17	Get Tickets

TONIGHT! Once-in-a-lifetime-experience. Stevie Nicks "In Your Dreams" on the BIG screen - Fan Reviews

‘IN YOUR DREAMS’ – STEVIE NICKS 
ONCE IN A LIFETIME EXPERIENCE!

The film "In Your Dreams" hit U.S. theaters tonight for ONE NIGHT ONLY showings allowing fans from across the U.S. to finally get a glimpse behind the making of Stevie's last album "In Your Dreams".  If you were following along back in February, 2010 when that first tweet by Dave Stewart indicated they were working together and things were brewing, then you know that this making of documentary was always part of the long term plan to eventually have it screened in theaters... So glad it made it and from all accounts, it appears to have been a successful launch with most theaters selling well or selling out to the point where additional screens were added for tonight or additional screening days were added to the schedule.  Bodes well for the upcoming VOD and Digital release later this spring - and eventual (hopefully) DVD release.

If you happen to catch the movie tonight, for many of you it was your first time...Some of you were lucky enough to have seen it a second and third time... Some of you have yet to see it as it hasn't screened in your city yet... So for those that have seen it, what did you think?  Leave your "fan review" in the comments section.  Or you could leave it in the post on Facebook

If you haven't seen the film yet, you may want to avoid this post so not to spoil your experience. Post away! 

Check out the inyourdreamsmovie.com website for further screening dates of the film particularly this coming Sunday at all iPic theaters... Sunday Matinees!

Stevie Nicks on her new 'In Your Dreams' documentary and Dave Grohl's pivotal role

Why she and Fleetwood Mac mate Lindsey Buckingham are getting along better than ever
by Melinda Newman
Hitfix Music

When Dave Stewart first suggested to Stevie Nicks that he film the making of her 2011 solo album, “In Your Dreams,” which he co-produced, her blunt reaction was “I think you’re nuts.”

However, the Eurythmics co-founder convinced Nicks by simply reassuring her “If you don’t like it, we don’t use it.” And in the end, she not only liked it, but she saw the documentary as a way to extend the shelf life of the critically-acclaimed album, which debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard 200, but did not have the high-profile run Nicks hoped it would.

Nicks screened the 100-minute film last night (March 31) for fans, as well as held a Q&A at Los Angeles’ Landmark Theater. “In Your Dreams” will play in theaters in more than 75 cities in North America on April 2. Virgil Films will make the film available on Video on Demand and Digital Download shortly thereafter.

Stewart and co-producer Glen Ballard recorded much of the album in Nicks’ Los Angeles house and working with Stewart gave Nicks great joy, she told an adoring audience at the theater. Upon their first meeting about the album,  “I’m thinking this is going to be such a trip because he’s such a trip. He’s trippy. He gets up happy every day,” she said with a certain amount of astonishment. “I rather like suffering a lot.”

As the documentary details, Stewart is the first person Nicks has ever written with in the same room. She gave Stewart 40 poems of hers (she calls them "poetry", not lyrics), culled from her many, many books of poems, and he showed up at the house to start to write a song. “He doesn’t really think we’re going to write in the same room,” Nicks recalls. But they did, eventually penning seven songs for the album together.  She credits Stewart’s lack of arrogance as the key to making their co-writing work. “Dave watched my face. Whenever he’d go to a chord I didn’t like, he’d go a different way.”  (One of the film’s best scenes flashes back to video of Lindsey Buckingham criticizing Nicks’ lyrics on 2003’s “Destiny Rules. She snaps back that he wouldn’t criticize Bob Dylan).

The documentary will find its greatest appeal with the legion of Nicks’ faithful. It goes through the creation of each of the 13 tracks, her 30-year plus relationship with her back-up singers Lori Perry Nicks and Sharon Celani (which could be its own film), and the great time they had making the album. In fact, the biggest drama in the entire film comes when Nicks correctly note that the Stewart solo she hears on a song is not the one she originally heard and favors. Other than that, it’s a complete love fest that becomes somewhat redundant at times, though given how fractious the making of some of the Fleetwood Mac albums was, it's nice to see her have an easy time of it.

Dave Grohl, with whom Nicks worked on the “Sound City”  documentary, served a vital behind-the-scenes

role at a pivotal time. A few months ago, she was telling Grohl that she was “heartbroken” by the album’s lack of success, especially after she felt that she had “done every TV show known to man” to promote it, including “The Voice” and “Dancing With The Stars.” Grohl asked her if she filmed the making of the album. She said yes. He suggested finishing the documentary, adding “‘this will give your record another run for your money”,” she said. “I called Dave Stewart and said ‘We have to finish this...it’s the only way to save this record.’ Had it not been for Dave Grohl, I’m saying that I don’t know what I would have done.”

“In Your Dreams” documentary bows as Fleetwood Mac kicks off a new tour on April 4 in Columbus, Ohio. Nicks said the year-long tour comes at a time when she and former boyfriend Buckingham are “for the first time in 30 years, we’re getting a long really well. We had a little talk a year ago and he had a year to think about it. He’s understanding that it’s really good to be my friend.”

inyourdreamsmovie.com

'In Your Dreams,' documentary on making of latest Stevie Nicks album, to play at Ross

By L. KENT WOLGAMOTT / Lincoln Journal Star

Stevie Nicks spent most of 2010 making “In Your Dreams,” her first solo release in a decade. Collaborating with former Eurythmic Dave Stewart, they wrote and recorded much of the album in her old mansion high atop the Hollywood Hills.

Stewart, who has been shooting video since he bought a camera out of Australian pawn shop decades ago, convinced Nicks to film the sessions.

The result of that multiple camera, monthslong shooting is “In Your Dreams,” a revealing 1 hour, 40 minute “making of” documentary that’s playing Tuesday only in theaters across the country, including the Ross Media Arts Center.

Directed by Stewart and Nicks, “In Your Dreams” follows the writing and recording process in Nicks’ home, where a stairwell became a vocal chamber, and in a couple of Los Angeles studios. It ventures into the past  briefly to sketch her life, writing and beliefs.

It’s a pretty fascinating journey with some moments of insight.  An old clip of a disagreement between Nicks and Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham over one of her lyrics captures the end of their writing relationship because she didn’t want to be told what to do.

Back in the house, she shows her studio acumen when hearing the playback of a song and finding Stewart’s original guitar solo missing. Stewart and producer Glen Ballard claim that it is the same. Playing the first version of the solo found deep in ProTools, Nicks is proved correct, and the mix is changed.

Early in the film, Nicks talks about how she’d like young people to see the movie to learn how to make a record the old way, with heart and feeling.

That’s a fine sentiment. But Nicks’ old way is far different from anything a new band or artist could do. She’s got a lineup of musicians that includes guitar master Waddy Wachtel, her Fleetwood Mac mates Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers drummer Steve Ferrone and guitarist Mike Campbell, who co-produced the record with Ballard and Stewart.

The documentary is framed as a song-by-song journey through “In Your Dreams,” with some music video-like segments for some of the songs. If it had been released at the same time as the album dropped last year, it likely would have, and to some measure rightfully, been seen as the world’s longest promotional video.

But it takes a different feel a year later. It does provide a knowing, if authorized look inside the elusive Nicks, who remains a spectacular rock singer. It’s a nice glimpse of how a big-star record is made and therefore a must-see for Nicks fans.

REVIEW: In Your Dreams: Stevie Nicks

New Stevie Nicks Film "In Your Dreams" is Only for the Superfans
BitchMagazine
by Kerensa Cadenas

I love Stevie Nicks. Who doesn't?  However, I came upon her music only within the last couple years—I'm by no means a Stevie expert. So I was excited to see In Your Dreams, the new film Nicks and collaborator Dave Stewart directed, at SXSW this month; the screening was a chance to learn more about Stevie from herself and an opportunity to wear a Stevie-approved ensemble (long flowing skirt obviously).

While I enjoyed In Your Dreams, it is very much a documentary for the Stevie die-hards. Fans who have been enrolled in the school of Stevie for years will enjoy the film that documents the collaboration between Nicks and Stewart (a former member of the Eurhythmics) on their album of the same name. Shot "somewhere in Southern California," Nicks, Stewart and their collaborators hole up in a gorgeous mansion to work on the album. There are very brief mentions to Nicks' childhood and time in Fleetwood Mac, that's not the focus here.


While the film centers on the making of this new album, the formatting of the film feels like a distraction. The documentary is set up like the film version of reading liner notes. Nicks and Stewart go through the album song by song discussing inspirations, then cut to recording of said songs, which at times can be a rather jarring transition. It feels similar to Beyoncé's recent documentary (which she also directed) in that it's a very purposefully controlled portrait, one that seemingly gives the audience insight into Nicks' life but doesn't at all.

However, one thing that can't be contained or controlled is the sheer awesomeness of Stevie Nicks.

Nicks calls the shots throughout the film, saying very early on, "I don't like to be told what to do." The audience sees Nicks take control of much of action while recording the album with Stewart. In one of the more humorous and loveable moments, Nicks explains her love for Twilight—she immediately connected with the romance between Bella and Edward. The song "Moonlight (A Vampire's Dream)" was inspired by New Moon. Somehow, Nicks' fangirling about the series is completely charming.

Even though Nicks was smack dab in the middle of second wave feminism, the subject doesn't really come up in the documentary. However, in the post-film Q&A at SXSW, Nicks discussed the choices that she had to make as a woman to do what she wanted to do, "I decided not to get married or have kids so I could follow music. I didn't want to be tied down." She also spoke about having to work multiple jobs (cleaning, waitressing) so she could continue to be devoted to music. Later in the day, Nicks spoke specifically for the music portion of the festival and that's when feminism explicitly came up. Nicks talked about how feminism has impacted rock and roll but also society as a whole, how she sees women's rights falling apart and how it's pissing her off.

 "We fought very hard for feminism, for women's rights. What I'm seeing today is a very opposite thing. I don't know why, but I see women being put back in their place. And I hate it. We're losing all we worked so hard for, and it really bums me out."

While Nicks' documentary doesn't work well for the less devoted fans, it's still a fascinating portrait of an endlessly inspirational woman who cares deeply about women's rights within the music industry and outside it.

Film Review: In Your Dreams Stevie Nicks + Submit Your Questions For Stevie Flicknation Interview

In Your Dreams: Stevie Nicks Film Review
The Hollywood Reporter
by John DeFore

Stevie Nicks and producer Dave Stewart co-direct a diary about the album they made together.

THE HAMPTONS, NEW YORK — A diaristic doc whose appeal is limited strictly to megafans, In Your Dreams: Stevie Nicks chronicles the collaboration between Nicks and Eurythmics member Dave Stewart on the 2011 album of the same name. A raucous premiere here (with viewers applauding after every song) suggests Nicks has enough admirers to fill special screenings here and there, but the film is best suited to a CD/DVD Collectors' Edition package.

Nicks and Stewart share directing credit on the film, displaying an enthusiasm for effects -- from filters to fisheye lenses -- that sometimes exacerbates the choppiness of Shane Mclafferty's editing. Their stylistic flourishes fit more smoothly in the music video-like sequences scattered throughout, where 19th-century costumes and the occasional vampire or magician matches the music's mood.


The film opens "somewhere in Southern California," where Nicks has decided to set up mikes in the middle of her sprawling old house and spend the better part of a year piecing a record together with Stewart and some other old friends. Having handed Stewart a book full of writings (she uses the word "poems" pretty loosely), the two collaborate on making songs from them; the film gives each track its own bit of screen time, whether it was inspired by a long-ago post-rehab romance ("For What It's Worth") or is little more than an aural book report about "Wide Sargasso Sea."

This may suit devotees, but more casual fans will wish for a movie that doesn't assume we already know everything there is to know about the singer's career. Only one brief tangent on her childhood makes its way onscreen, and there's almost no talk of her early solo outings or her heyday with Fleetwood Mac. (An enjoyable bit of keyboard noodling on "Dreams" is as close as we get to the glory days.) Old bandmates Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham do drop by to record on new songs, though, and we are treated to a funny story about the time Nicks tried to steal a Mike Campbell tune that became Tom Petty's "Runaway Trains."
Though unconvinced viewers may snort when Nicks compares herself to Bob Dylan or treats lyrics scribbled on hotel stationery like relics of great import, we do see things partly explaining her success: Knowing she's not getting what she wants during a track's playback, she proves to have remembered one of Stewart's guitar solos better than he himself does.

Production Company: Weapons of Mass Entertainment
Directors-Executive Producers: Dave Stewart, Stevie Nicks
Producers: Dave Stewart, Paul Boyd
Director of photography: Paul Boyd
Editor: Shane Mclafferty
Sales: John Beug
No rating, 100 minutes

STEVIE NICKS INTERVIEW 

On 'IN YOUR DREAMS' Documentary

Sound Waves TV on the west coast will be interviewing Stevie tomorrow (Oct 10) about the new documentary and are asking fans "what's on your mind"... Ask Stevie a question.

Think about it.. Check out what others have put forth and submit your question on the Sound Waves TV Facebook page

It will soon be available on their Flick Nation radio show. 

FLICK NATION RADIO SHOW

(Weekly 1-hour talk show; hosted by Willis, and featuring Steve Wagner, Kevin Tripp and "Man in Hollywood" Steven Kirk). It's wall-to-wall insider news, rumors, deals, reviews and attitude! Available on Stitcher Smart Radio, iTunes, kgoradio.com, and flicknation.net.   Flicknation on Facebook