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George Harrison of the Beatles and Ravi Shankar organised two concerts on 1 August 1971 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, as relief for refugees from East Pakistan after the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide. The gigs featured Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell and Badfinger. We talk here about both the concert film released to cinemas in 1972, and the 2005 documentary on the DVD, The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited with George Harrison and Friends.
We discuss how this set a template for the benefit concert as we know it today, and talk about the white saviour complex and how acknowledging the culture of Bangladesh through Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan's performance arguably sets the concert apart. We also talk about the performances; and the challenges of, and comically rookie errors made while, filming it. And! Is Clapton's lacklustre performance down to choosing a hollow-bodied guitar, or the fact he was boxed on methadone?
We use clips of the film and concert in this episode, so we've made a donation to the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF, and you can do the same here if you'd like: https://www.unicefusa.org/about-unicef-usa/partnerships/foundations/george-harrison-fundThe concert on George's official site, with links to buy the DVD: https://www.georgeharrison.com/films/the-concert-for-bangladeshJohn Lennon's benefit gig for Willowbrook State School was released as Live in New York City: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6cgunrThe Greatest Night in Pop is the Netflix documentary about the recording of We Are The World: https://www.netflix.com/title/81720500The documentary we were thinking of is not called “Clapton” or “Slow Hand” but 2017’s Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars: https://g.co/kgs/hAKZ9TkAfter recording we confirmed that, uncharacteristically, Ed was right: Setlist.fm shows that If I Needed Someone is the only song written by George ever performed live by The Beatles. https://www.setlist.fm/stats/the-beatles-23d6a88b.htmlMeet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
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Scot Williams is best known to Beatles fans for playing Pete Best in Backbeat, and In His Life: The John Lennon Story. Scot's been a successful actor, director and writer for 30 years, and having grown up in Liverpool the Beatles have always been a big part of his life, and have featured in lots of his projects.
Scot is about to direct a play, Two Of Us, adapting Michael Lindsay-Hogg's 2000 film about John Lennon and Paul McCartney's final meeting. We covered it in our first episode, which we were delighted to hear Scot listened to, and which informed his interpretation of the script.
As well as Two Of Us, we talk about how he came to be in Backbeat, Stephen Dorff and the dynamic of British actors alongside Hollywood stars, and his friendship with Pete Best. We also get his take on the upcoming Sam Mendes Beatles films.
Note: through our own fault we had some problems recording Scot's voice, so we've cleaned it up with an AI tool (yes, just like John's voice on Now and Then). If the odd word sounds a bit funny, that's why!
Two Of Us runs at the Watford Palace Theatre 13–21 September 2024. Tickets: https://watfordpalacetheatre.co.uk/events/two-of-us/It will then have a short run at HOME Manchester from 24 September. We'll put a link here when available.Hear our episodes on Two Of Us and Backbeat in this podcast feed.Watch Two Of Us: https://youtu.be/nOGgmsDbx-UAs we mention, Backbeat is hard to get hold of, but you can buy the DVD easily enough.Scot's IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0931656/Barry Sloane will play John in Two Of Us: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1289351/Richard Short will play Paul: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2095375/ Scot's Beatles/Shakespeare musical A Bard Day's Night, cowritten with Backbeat co-star Chris O'Neill: https://abarddaysnight.com/ The Conversations with McCartney audiobook where Scot read Paul's bits: https://open.spotify.com/show/61RgyFASIKjzbP6OrgZOlIMeet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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Let's look at Ringo Starr's 1978 TV comedy film, written by Neal Israel and Pat Proft, both of whom would go on to make significant contributions to film comedy through the Police Academy and Naked Gun films, and loosely designed to promote his recent album Bad Boy.
We discuss where Ringo is in his career and how his performance (he plays two versions of himself in a take on Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper) made Hollywood reappraise him and led to his leading role in Caveman (also covered in a previous episode). We talk about why so many stars like Art Carney, John Ritter and an immediately-post-Star-Wars Carrie Fisher are keen to get involved.
And we discuss George Harrison’s performance, and why it’s a good job Ringo doesn’t seem to play You’re Sixteen live anymore.
Watch the film: https://youtu.be/LditHJXu4LUThe Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet is James Mangold's A Complete Unknown, currently in production: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11563598/Watch 1977's The Prince and The Pauper, starring Oliver Reed: https://youtu.be/CNx2-e-OcIUWatch 1983's Trading Places, with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/trading-placesSetlist.fm stats which seem to show that Ringo wisely hasn't played You're Sixteen live since September 2019: https://www.setlist.fm/stats/ringo-starr-and-his-all-starr-band-63c6b20b.htmlMeet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcastHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Leslie Woodhead's 2009 film for BBC Four wasn't his first entry into Beatledom: he also shot the Cavern Club footage in 1962 that we're all so familiar with. He's also spent time making films in Russia, so he's ideally placed for this look at Russian youth's relationship with The Beatles, during the Soviet era and into the early, less scary, Putin era. We look at Russian then-Deputy PM Sergei Ivanov's contribution to this film. He seems fun! Maybe less so these days. We also discuss the practice of smuggling contraband Beatle recordings about by etching them into X-ray acetates, and Paul McCartney's meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2003.
You can watch the film at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUO1atyECD8 Chuck Norris vs Communism doesn't look like it's on any streamers at the moment, but its details are here: https://g.co/kgs/uoaNUFT Nick Broomfield's film Kurt & Courtney: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hfrtn Pete Paphides' excellent book, Broken Greek: https://g.co/kgs/3XqWL4KElton John's autobiography, Me: https://g.co/kgs/3XqWL4KMeet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcastHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Paul McCartney's first solo project, other than judging beauty contests, was the score for The Family Way, a 1966 comedy-drama in which a northern English community have an invasive interest in the non-consummation of Hywel Bennett and Hayley Mills' marriage. Is Paul really the chief composer of the score for which he won the Ivor Novello award, or did George Martin do more than "supervise and arrange" it?
There's a lot going on in The Family Way in terms of changing attitudes in the sixties, and of course the Beatles were at the forefront of this. Intellectualism, sexual freedom and men being allowed to be sensitive and artistic. We look at how the film handles these things. Plus! A bonus (if you like that sort of thing) Kula Shaker connection!
You can watch The Family Way in good quality on Dailymotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8csmfpAnd listen to the soundtrack album on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/4opUUCL6CG5SLSEysBytapSome more information about the Carry On film franchise, if you don't mind a wiki in your face: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_On_(franchise)There are full episodes of Hywel Bennett's long-running sitcom Shelley on YouTube. You might recognise the title theme if you like the Top Flight Time Machine podcast: https://youtu.be/BMduOLx6vToThe book Ed mentions is Steve Turner's excellent Beatles '66: The Revolutionary Year: https://g.co/kgs/n29WPBaMeet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcastHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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We both loved Robert Zemeckis's 1978 debut feature, the story of a group of New Jersey teens trying to get into the Beatles' first Ed Sullivan Show performance in February 1964. We talk about the techniques Zemeckis and his writing partner Bob Gale use here and how a lot of it prefigures their later work, in particular the Back to the Future trilogy. We also discuss how using the Beatles as characters who are always just off camera or somehow out of reach plays into how America saw them at the time: almost as mythical figures or religious icons. And we get into how the female characters find self-expression through the freedom their fandom gives them, and how that mirrors the Beatles' sociological impact where teenage girls were concerned.
I Wanna Hold Your Hand isn't on a streaming service, but pick up the Blu-ray, which is cheap and a great restoration with an interesting commentary track from Zemeckis and Gale.Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/QEPDFYuhkDIWe also mention some other films in this episode, like Detroit Rock City, a similar story revolving around a Kiss Concert: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/detroit-rock-cityAnd American Graffiti, George Lucas's 1973 coming-of-age film: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/american-graffitiAnd Dazed and Confused, again about the last day of high school: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/dazed-and-confusedMeet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcastHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The 1988 documentary commissioned by Yoko Ono might have been the jumping-off point for the Lennon legacy project we know today. It shows John at his best, for the most part, and there's not much dissent from the talking heads, including May Pang, Julian Lennon and Cynthia Lennon. We ask why John chose George Harrison to play on How Do You Sleep?, his Paul McCartney diss track, when he could've got a session player. We discuss how John and Yoko's bed-in confrontation with the cartoonist Al Capp prefigures a lot of contemporary online discourse. And why wasn't Paul familiar with Real Love when Yoko gave him the demo cassettes, given he'd seen it used in this?
You can rent the film to stream very cheaply on a few platforms: https://g.co/kgs/RvcGK68Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/kqg3plZzxZYHere's the audience member who asked John and Yoko a question on Dick Cavett, wrongly thought by some to be Curt Claudio: https://youtu.be/-Ej3h02KPLU?si=nRgu_iUn3-DSYg6n&t=71A documentary, What Happened to Claudio? has been on the verge of release for a while and we're looking forward to seeing it. Here's its YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaR2o3qwr2RBu7s95IxSMXw John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky contains a longer version of the encounter with Claudio than you get in this film: https://youtu.be/99fXJ8nSR1M An in-depth article by Ryan H Walsh about Curt Claudio which is well worth reading: https://medium.com/@JahHills/on-claudio-the-man-who-sought-out-john-lennon-to-ask-if-his-songs-were-about-him-c0b34c5d57ac The interview Julian Lennon gave to the Daily Telegraph in 1998: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4713954/Dad-was-a-hypocrite.-He-could-talk-about-peace-and-love-to-the-world-but-he-could-never-show-it-to-his-wife-and-son.html Julian's 1984 song Too Late for Goodbyes: https://youtu.be/aQs1Ynq0rlkMeet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
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With the announcement that Sam Mendes is to direct four Beatles biopic films for release in 2027, one from each of the perspectives of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, it'd be remiss of us not to speculate wildly about what this might involve. Will it tell the same story four times? Will bits of it only be told from one Beatle's perspective? Will it actually just be a bit more metaphysical than that, bypassing the need for narrative realism? Will it be like Beatles Peep Show? God, we hope so. Join us as we discuss all this, plus thoughts on who should play who, and the mechanics of shooting and releasing four films simultaneously then releasing them all within 12 months of each other. And a reminder to Sam Mendes that we are very much available as creative consultants for a modest fee.
Meet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcastHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Merry Christmas! Here's a festive gift marking 40 years since Paul McCartney's Pipes of Peace video, which recreates the 1914 Christmas Day truce on the Western Front of World War 1. How was this video turned around fast enough to be aired on the BBC six days after shooting? Has Paul got the acting bug after spending half of 1983 shooting Give My Regards to Broad Street? Does his decision to play both the English and the German soldier lend a sense of shared humanity and emphasise the futility of war? (Seriously, stay with us here.) And why hasn't the song endured as a peace anthem in the last 40 years, in the way that Give Peace a Chance has?
We used a clip of the charity record He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother by The Justice Collective in this episode, and so we've made a donation to The Hillsborough Survivors Support Alliance. You can donate here if you'd like to: https://www.gofundme.com/f/1qf2s20740
Thanks so much for listening in 2023. We've loved making these podcasts and we're very grateful for all the positive feedback we get. If you've enjoyed any of them, we'd really appreciate it if you gave us a five-star rating in your podcast app. It helps people find us. See you again in 2024.
Watch the Pipes of Peace video: https://youtu.be/B3q4Up5ugTcPaul McCartney and George Martin being interviewed at the AIR Studios mixing desk by Russell Harty, 14 December 1983: https://youtu.be/xabqb5Y6Mg0All Together Now by The Farm: https://youtu.be/iRgtzZ-mOQoHe Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother by The Justice Collective, featuring a guitar and a vocal line by Paul: https://youtu.be/Ye4cELYLzJMPaul McCartney performing Freedom: https://youtu.be/zFFLlpC9f9QMeet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcastHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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To finish off our fourth season, thrill as our takes on why George Harrison is laughing when Ringo Starr starts playing Octopus's Garden differ slightly. Later we discuss how Let it Be's pacing is affected by showing the finalised songs in full. Would it defeat the purpose to have done this differently? Plus, is John Lennon's claim that the film was set up to make the other Beatles look like sidemen for Paul McCartney justified, given how Let it Be, The Long and Winding Road and Two Of Us are shot almost like music videos with Paul the focus? We talk about how forward-thinking Michael Lindsay-Hogg's approach was to filming the rooftop gig, and about how this was maybe underappreciated until Get Back revealed the extent of it, and about whether there's now any point releasing a remastered version: could audiences be blamed for receiving it like a shorter Get Back?
You can watch Let It Be online easily enough, not that we'd sanction it, of course.Meet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
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Now is the winter of our discontent: or is it? Michael Lindsay-Hogg's Let it Be is widely thought a miserable affair, documenting arguments and the breakup of the Beatles. But watching it afresh after Peter Jackson's Get Back in 2021, it doesn't feel so much like that. We ask whether the widespread consensus that it's a negative depiction is actually more a failure of collective memory. What was it really set George Harrison off when he told Paul McCartney "Well, I'll play whatever you want me to play"? And what do we make of Lindsay-Hogg's decision not to let you hear any of the songs in full until the end?
Let it Be is generally not commercially available to watch but, well, you know.The clip we mention of George Harrison talking to George Martin in the studio is from the Hey Jude sessions, and you can see it at https://youtu.be/nb8Ue3mk0Qo Meet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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This 2005 BBC Four documentary, narrated by Paul Morley and featuring contributions from Astrid Kirchherr, Pauline Sutcliffe, Tony Sheridan, Rod Murray and Horst Facher, looks at the life of fifth Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe before his tragic death at 21. It makes the case that he would’ve been a significant artist in his own right, but spends a lot of its time looking at his work with the Beatles, so we discuss how well it manages to fulfil its brief.
It’s also not the only BBC documentary of this period to be a bit coy about the idea of John Lennon having had a sexual relationship with a man (see also our episode on The Brian Epstein Story), and we ask how helpful this approach is and examine the techniques the film uses to further the suggestion.
Watch the film free on YouTube: https://youtu.be/k1Yrwyfk2NQNarrator Paul Morley is a regular figure on BBC pop music documentaries. He’s on record as not being a Beatles fan, and fair enough, but perhaps if you’re writing articles for the Guardian – albeit interesting and well-argued ones – about how the world wouldn’t be any different without them, you’re not the best candidate to voiceover documentaries about them: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/sep/06/showing-off-the-beatles IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499080/Meet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Mad Men's Matthew Weiner paid $250,000 to use the Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows in season 5, episode 8, "Lady Lazarus". We talk about the licensing of Beatles music in film and TV, which is also referenced in the episode, where the agency is trying to find a song for a Hard Day's Night parody advert. This episode is in August 1966 and we discuss how the characters are feeling the paranoia of the sixties closing in on them. America is tense and chaotic: the Richard Speck murders in Chicago and the Texas University sniper shootings have just happened, just as the Beatles are flying in to protests because of John Lennon's "bigger than Jesus" comments.
As for Don Draper, his young wife has left copywriting to become an actor, and she's bought him a copy of Revolver to play while she goes out to a class. Start with the last track, she says. Don sits in his chair, kicks off his shoes, and hears the sound of a generation about to leave him behind.
Watch Mad Men: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/mad-menDon Draper listens to Tomorrow Never Knows: https://youtu.be/6OquASU1y5AThe song Don can’t tell from the Beatles is September in the Rain by The Wedgwoods: https://youtu.be/IFCqKSrrMJQAnd in fairness he's not far off: the Beatles did it in the Decca audition: https://youtu.be/EElKJao9cmAThe University of Texas tower shootings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_shootingThe Richard Speck murders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_SpeckThe book Pete Campbell reads, Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Crying_of_Lot_49/Py5bngEACAAJThe New York Trilogy by Paul Auster: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_New_York_Trilogy/VRfe-QG_ls4CRead Ed's 2012 review of Mad Men season 5: https://www.theshiznit.co.uk/review/mad-men-season-five.phpMeet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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First shown in May 1997 on VH1 and ITV, Geoff Wonfor's promotional documentary for Paul McCartney's Flaming Pie album is a bit of a puff piece, but an interesting one. For context, this is all shot when Linda McCartney is receiving cancer treatment, which the public doesn't know about. We talk about how the film and the album might give insights into Paul's state of mind, and what sort of future he's contemplating.
Watch the film: https://youtu.be/-BhnIClthqQWatch the video for the Smokin' Mojo Filters' cover of Come Together, featuring Paul Weller, Noel Gallagher, Steve Cradock, Johnny Depp, Kate Moss, and Paul, Linda, Stella and Mary McCartney: https://youtu.be/IK0sMC5ntpcRead about the David Blaine incident in 2003: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/sep/19/marketingandprIMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168065/Meet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Directed by rock doc specialist Patrick Montgomery, 1982's The Compleat Beatles still represents the only real attempt at a feature length documentary covering their whole career, and was a huge success in the early days of the home VHS market. It was released at a time when there was renewed interest in the band after John Lennon's murder, and in the 20-year anniversary of Love Me Do, alongside a lot of other Beatles products.
It's a different beast to The Beatles Anthology, but how does it measure up? We talk about whether it was the original source for some of the best known Beatle stories, how its narration by Malcolm McDowell gives it gravitas, or tries to, and what the impact is of featuring ancillary characters from the Beatles' early story, like Allan Williams, Tony Sheridan and Horst Facher. And the film's content is very much led by its talking heads, in particular George Martin, so we examine what effect that has.
Watch The Compleat Beatles: https://archive.org/details/the-compleat-beatles-1982Ed wrongly calls the publishers of Love Me Do and PS I Love You "Ardwood & Beechmore"; yes, they were of course Ardmore & Beechwood. Don't write in.Here's the screaming girl Ed mentions, from the Washington Coliseum gig, 11 February 1964: https://youtu.be/W3QG37K3h94Meet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
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Peter Jackson's music video for Now and Then, and the 12-minute short documentary film by Oliver Murray, Now and Then: The Last Beatles Song, were both released this week.
What do we think of the techniques used, and what does the amount of restored footage point to? Plus! Is the song a Beatles song? If a song features all four Beatles, does it automatically sound Beatley? And AI: will it kill us all?
Watch the music video: https://youtu.be/Opxhh9Oh3rgWatch Now and Then: The Last Beatles Song: https://youtu.be/APJAQoSCwuAIf you're in the UK listen to the BBC radio documentary we mention, "Eras: The Beatles". This is the Now and Then episode which contains longer versions of the voiceovers in the documentary, among other things: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001rzkpThe two songs we reference as examples of self-consciously Beatley production are George Harrison's When We Was Fab https://youtu.be/AVu6nPTVbBQ and Tears for Fears' Sowing the Seeds of Love: https://youtu.be/VAtGOESO7W8Meet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Jon Lefkovitz's 2014 film Rubber Soul recreates – very faithfully – John Lennon and Yoko Ono's 1970 Rolling Stone and 1980 Playboy interviews, juxtaposing them and showing how John's thoughts on issues like drugs, fame and The Beatles changed over the intervening decade. We talk about the artistic value of recreating something exactly, and how that might play into Beatles fans' expectations and desires when seeing the band played on film by actors.
It also raises questions about the significance of the rock star interview, and John's interviews in particular. His statements in these conversations were accorded great importance, and Jann Wenner's 1970 interview in particular had a huge influence on public perceptions of Lennon and Paul McCartney for decades to come, but given John's habit of stating differing opinions from one day to the next, maybe interviews with stars shouldn't be treated with such reverence?
Watch the film for free: https://youtu.be/kB8Z1LRBmTAThe Rolling Stone interview: https://youtu.be/5ZhBQRzBAa8Jann Wenner's Lennon Remembers: https://g.co/kgs/rkV5V5The Playboy interviews: https://youtu.be/PRDfBGagFkUDavid Sheff's All We Are Saying: https://g.co/kgs/Qs8fR7Important cow facts Ed can't quite recall: John and Yoko bought a herd of Holstein dairy cows with their upstate New York farm in 1978 (where Yoko now lives full time), and raked in money from them. One cow sold for $250,000.William Mann's "Aeolian cadence" 1963 Beatles review for The Times: https://www.beatlesbible.com/1963/12/27/the-times-what-songs-the-beatles-sang-by-william-mann/ (which refers to Not a Second Time, not I'll Be Back)We mention a few other films. Gus Van Sant's 1998 shot-for-shot remake of Psycho; Locke, a Tom Hardy film that takes place entirely in one car; Buried, the Ryan Reynolds film that takes place in a coffin; Disney+ series The Bear; and the one-take horror film Matt mentions is 2011's Silent House.Watch Beautiful Boy, about David Sheff and his son: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/beautiful-boyMeet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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That's right, we couldn't put it off any longer: it's the Bee Gees' towering hubris of 1978. We spend some time unpicking Robin Gibb's contemporary quote in which he confidently predicted that the Bee Gees' version would effectively make the original Sgt Pepper obsolete, and we talk about rock operas and how this one is structured. We delve into its interesting backstory involving Brian Epstein contemporary and potential NEMS heir (whom the Beatles rejected), Robert Stigwood, plus: what did George Martin get out of it, and why didn't he take the chance to finally do his own string arrangement for She's Leaving Home?
Watch the film for free on YouTube: https://youtu.be/7v3PchZzNoIRead Robin Gibb's quote in full on page 256 of Peter Doggett's You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/_/luOMJFxe-bYC?hl=en (in the UK it's subtitled The Battle for the Soul of The Beatles instead) or see it abridged at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sgt._Pepper%27s_Lonely_Hearts_Club_Band_(film)#OverviewThe documentary we mention is 2020's The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, which is well worth watching: https://g.co/kgs/SqGJExThe compilation album we mention is The Soul of Lennon and McCartney: https://www.discogs.com/release/2014089-Various-The-Soul-Of-Lennon-McCartneyIMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078239/Meet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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We have a look at May Pang's documentary about her relationship with John Lennon, just released digitally and on blu-ray on 13 October 2023. We talk about perspectives and whether or not there's such a thing as "the truth" in a documentary, and whether that matters. Also we discuss how Yoko Ono comes across in this film and how a critical depiction fits into contemporary Beatles fandom.
We interviewed May Pang about the film back in April 2023, and you can find that episode in this podcast feed.This episode includes a clip of May Pang's appearance on the Geraldo Rivera show on 5 October 1988. Here's the whole thing, in which he attempts to equate her book with Albert Goldman's notorious character assassination The Lives of John Lennon and is generally a bit of a dick to her, and she stands her ground with grace: https://youtu.be/1OZnsKtLKiQWatch the trailer for the film: https://youtu.be/xrQHqTB3qjoThe Kenneth Womack book we mention, which is excellent, is John Lennon 1980: The Last Days in the Life: https://g.co/kgs/jwHeQTIMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19812518/Meet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Our attention turns to 1981's Caveman, starring Ringo Starr, Barbara Bach, Shelley Long and Dennis Quaid. We discuss where Ringo is in his life and career at this point, the shadow cast over the production and release by John Lennon's murder, and how Ringo's physical and expression-based performance measures up in a film without dialogue. Also, while it's fair to say neither of us thought it was Citizen Kane, we do disagree a bit about the merits of the film in general, so if you like a scrap you've come to the right place. (Assuming you like your scraps conducted as very mild and polite verbal disagreements.) Fight!
Watch the whole film in good quality on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GhOXaxhR2kk?si=qlkKQxhBV-ICTEzg Roger Ebert's 1981 review: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/caveman-1981IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082146/Meet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.
But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:
Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Visa fler
