Category: Movies

  • The Beatles Movies in 2027

    I just so happen that I have my Let It Be tee-shirt on today. It’s a cold day here in New York, and this shirt is rather thick and goes well with my favorite sweater. Anyway, it was a good day to be a Beatles fan.

    If you haven’t heard, Sam Mendes is to direct four movies, each based from the perspective of John, George, Paul and Ringo, telling the story of The Beatles. It appears that the four movies will be intertwined, and will conclude with the breakup of the band in 1970.

    The second I heard the news, the first thing I thought of was that this was the start of The Beatles Cinematic Universe… only to find out that about a million other Beatles fans, and non-fans alike, were making the same joke. Sadly, I was being serious. I actually want to see a movie, or at least a limited series, based on the life of Mal Evans. (IYKYK) I would love it if you could get all the official Beatles movies (Hard Day’s Night, HELP!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, Let It Be, Anthology, Eight Days a Week, and Get Back) in one place, as well as additional stuff – like a Mal Evans movie, as well as one about Neil Aspinall, and George Martin. Not to mention how cool it would be to get a series about Brian Epstein.

    If you have read any of my other Beatles posts, then you know I fully admit that I will be first in line with whatever is put out by Apple, Paul, Ringo, John and George’s estates. I am biased in the highest degree with anything Beatle. Even when I’m a little judgmental about something they put out, I still will love the shit out of it.

    So, in that vein; this whole project is about making money, staying relevant, and controlling the narrative. Look, The Beatles have always had an eye on making the most amount of money as possible, and that attitude has served them well. You don’t become a billion-dollar band by giving your music away for free. I think the relevant issue is becoming apparent as time goes on. Baby Boomers are starting for the exit now, and though Gen-X has some pretty die-hard fans, the number of people who remember them from the 60’s is shrinking, and their impact on music is become more of a story than a memory in the collective cultural consciousness. Which leads me to controlling the narrative, and I have been rather critical of Paul for this one. Ringo, god bless him, appears to be cool with how ever he’s remembered, and that’s pretty on brand for him. But Paul – he appears to be the driving force to make sure that The Beatles stay The Beatles after he’s gone. Just looking at Anthology, Eight Days a Week, Get Back, and the final single Now and Then, all projects pushed hard by Paul, the story being sold here is timeless music created by people who were great friends, and loved every minute of it because it was so much fun. Sure, there were ups and downs, but in the end, it was all about love. Not sure if I believe that, but personal nostalgia can be a hard force to fight, especially if it makes you feel good at the end of the day.

    Will I go to these movies? Oh My God, YES! I will be first in line, but I won’t dress up. I’m not that level of fan, but I will be there.

    Because even for me, The Beatles are part of my personal nostalgia as well. Listing to The White Album in my room when I was in 9th grade, over and over again. Trying to figure out if there were deeper meanings to those lyrics, and how I wished love was like the way these songs sounded, and man, it must have been so cool, and fun to be in a band… fifteen year old me was inspired by them, they helped me feel optimistic and hopeful, and that we can work it out and love could solve all problems. That’s a good feeling to have, to be reminded of, to experience.

    So yeah, even if it’s awful, I’ll be there enjoying it.   

  • ODDS and ENDS: Anyone Remember This, Super Bowl, and Sketchbooks

    (Guidelines are for losers)

    Does anyone remember Faces of Death? I’ve never seen it, nor do I want to. But the other day the movie popped in my head. I had a flashback of a memory from high school of finding out that it would be playing at a local dollar theatre at midnight, and how we all had to go. Through a combination of curfews and chickening-out, most of us didn’t go and see it. The handful of guys who did go just ended up arguing about how much of the movie was real or faked. (Turns out most of it was faked.) It’s funny thinking back on how controversial Faces of Death was back in the early 90’s, but also it’s not surprising how we couldn’t keep away from it. And don’t get me started on Banned from TV.

    I pick KC. I will also buy frozen hot wings from Trader Joe’s along with those frozen Mac ‘n Cheese balls this weekend for the game. Don’t give two craps about Usher; not that I have anything against him, he’s a talented man, just never been a fan. So… yeah; super bowl, yeah…

    I haven’t been drawing in my sketchbook lately. I have in my bio that I am a “sketchbook enthusiast,” but with my lack of production lately, I’m not sure if I can call myself that anymore. (It also begs the question; does anyone read bio’s let alone mine?) My daughter got a couple of sketchbooks for Christmas after having been inspired by her art teacher. She tries to draw something every day, and most of what she draws are cartoon characters, which is great. I hope that she establishes this as a habit that she keeps up with. Not that I am expecting her to become some “artist.” I just would like for her to have a creative outlet – a way to express herself and her feelings. Nothing bad comes from that.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Christmas Has to Go, Can You Believe It, Must Win, and Serious

    (It’s a trip… it’s got a FUNKY beat. And I can bug out to it!)

    This is the weekend that we are taking the Christmas decorations down. Normally, we do this on January 1st, as a sort of cleaning the house for the New Year. And I think you can read between the lines there and see that the wife and I have passed the days of staying up late and waking with a hangover. But this year, we didn’t get around to it. We put it off. Not that we had a good reason to do that, other than we wanted to lay around and not doing anything on New Year’s Day. The end result was that we got an extra week of Christmas, which has left me feeling like the holiday has over stayed its welcome. I like Christmas, but I really like it when it lives tightly between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

     Sometimes I find it hard to believe that we live in a world where the movies Cocktail and Road House exist.

    And I need the Cowboys and Tottenham to win this weekend. Simple as that. If it doesn’t happen I will be heartbroken and disconnected from the universe.

    Some evenings, late at night, when I am alone on the couch while my family sleeps, I start to believe that the core of me is a very serious person. Alone and in the dark, I am confident in this pronouncement. And I say these things to myself when I am normally watching a terrible ninja movie, or something awful by Bert I. Gordon. That is when I know that I am a contradiction at all times. A silly one at that. I like walking funny and talking in goofy voices. I make up songs about doing mundane tasks. And I’d rather laugh than cry. I’d rather make you laugh; Try to make you happy through humor. I still attempt to rob an honest melancholy tear from people… but… I have never felt sure that’s what I’m best at. Yet, honestly, I have never felt sure about anything. And if I think too hard about that, I might start to wonder, worry, and then cry. Which is why I’d rather laugh. Hold it off, at bay, for a little while longer.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Yippie Dog, The Week of Black Friday, and a Movie Marathon

    (But I wanted a torta…)

    We have a new neighbor in our building, and they moved into the “Bermuda Triangle” apartment. That’s the unit no one stays very long in, maybe six months – tops. Anyway, they moved in, and I have only seen the person once. They seemed friendly and we exchanged pleasantries. But they brought something else with them; a little yippie dog. Oh, how that little dog likes to bark its yippie little bark. Day, night, walking by their door, and sneezing too loud. Yip! Yip! Yip! At first my dog was annoyed at the yipping, but of late, she seems to have resigned herself to ignoring it. We can block it out, and it’s more of a novelty of an annoyance than an actual annoying thing. Yet, I still have to wonder what it’s like in that apartment, as that dog yips and yips and yips day and night. Yip!

    So… “Black Friday” is a week-long thing now. When did that happen? I don’t really care that there is now a week of shopping deals – whatever needs to happen to sell TVs is fine. It’s the use of “Black Friday” to represent an entire week, and in some commercials, the whole month. It feels like this is the first year of the week- and month-long Black Friday title’s use, but I can also see retailers gaslighting me, saying that it’s always been like this. And I should be shopping more. Do I need a new TV? I should get a new TV.  

    As we are closing in on Thanksgiving, and I am a huge MST3k fan, this would be the time to start thinking about watching a marathon of awful movies while on vacation. Sadly, I don’t think I can get the wife and kid on board to watch a bunch of old Joel episodes, let alone actually look for some bad movies in general. (Maybe Rob Hill over at Bad Movie Bible should put out a list of suggestion awful movies to marathon through for Thanksgiving?) No, I think if I want to make this happen, I have to actually be rather creative in my movie selection. We have done all the Star Wars movies, and Harry Potter, and even did all the Marvel movies once upon a Covid. I think I might have to sub-genera it, like all the Spiderman movies. Or, maybe all the different versions of Fantastic Four? Or all the Marvel films? How about Bill Murray movies he later regretted making? Or Gene Hackman “paycheck” movies? This could be fun, come to think of it.

  • “Now and Then” The Last Beatles’ Song and Their Legacy

    I am biased toward everything The Beatles do; we should just get that out of the way right now. If you are looking for an objective opinion or review of their new song, “Now and Then,” this isn’t the place. In fact, I won’t review this song because even if it was the worst Beatle song ever, I would still like it. No, what I want to talk about is legacy and The Beatles place in music history.

    Here’s a little background on where this song came from. Back in the early 90’s, Yoko Ono gave Paul McCartney some cassette tapes that John Lennon had recorded songs on back between 1975 to 1980. The three remaining Beatles (Paul, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr) got together to “finish” recording three songs from the tapes, for use on the upcoming release of the Anthology Albums and documentary series. Two of the songs were completed, “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” but a third song, “Now and Then” was not completed. The story goes that though they had recorded a version of “Now and Then,” George objected to the sound quality of the cassette tape – specifically the quality of John’s vocal and how it could not be separated from the piano, as John had originally recorded them at the same time back in 1975-80. Jump ahead to Peter Jackson working on the Get Back documentary, where his team used computers and A.I. technology to clean up some of the audio and visuals from the original film and recordings in 1969. Paul and Ringo then had the “Now and Then” song worked on using this technology, thus separating John’s vocal from the piano, rectifying George’s objection to the song. Sadly, George did passed away back in 2001, but with the blessing from George’s family, his recoded parts of the song from the 90’s were reused, and Paul and Ringo rerecorded their parts, and there you have it, “Now and Then.” The Last Beatles song.

    And with this ominous “The Last Beatles Song” which is their words not mine, we are officially entering into the “legacy” period for The Beatles. The Anthology Albums and documentary series were not objective undertakings. That was defiantly the three of them getting to have a say on who and what The Beatles were As such, it felt more like a celebration, not really a history. Peter Jackson’s work on Get Back was breathtaking, if you are a Beatles fan, in how it showed the way the band created songs. But, it was also a push back against the idea that the Get Back sessions were the canary in the coal mine, predicting the impending Beatles break up in early 1970. Maybe “Now and Then” is a bit like cleaning out the closet; wrapping up that last project, before others get their hands on it once Paul and Ringo have passed on.  I won’t be surprised if there aren’t a few more nuggets of Beatles lore and music that come out in the following years.

    And I think it’s a good idea that they do this. I’m a huge Beatles fan, but I wasn’t alive when any of their original albums were released. My daughter was born when only two Beatles were still alive. Her kids are going to be born into a world of no living Beatles, and very few people who were alive when these songs first came out. I say all of this because that’s when the real objective study of The Beatles will begin. The first-hand accounts will be gone, and documentation will have to be studied. If Paul and Ringo want to set the record straight, they better get it in while they can.