Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue below [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)
Beatles '64 (David Tedeschi) rated R 108 min.
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After putting considerably more time last Wednesday (due to some glitch with Google BlogSpot that kept me from logging in for 1½ hours during which I posted possible Two Guys farewells on Facebook and LinkedIn before the problem somehow resolved itself [leaving me a bit embarrassed], followed by the 6 hours it took to do the lengthy posting) and energy (trying my damnedest [yes, that’s how it’s spelled when I looked it up; damndest is a different word, though] to make sense of Megalopolis [Francis Ford Coppola], which took longer, more space than I’d originally hoped) into that previous Two Guys posting, I was looking forward to some relief this week. Well, after a lovely Thanksgiving dinner and visit with some of the local relatives (all Nina’s; except for a couple of cousins back in Texas all of mine are deceased), followed by a marvelous Agatha Christie mini-marathon—Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet, 1974), Murder on the Orient Express (Kenneth Branagh, 2017), Death on the Nile (Branagh, 2022)—I felt rested/refreshed enough to tackle something new this week, which turned out to be short and sweet, not so new really, with this Martin Scorsese-produced look at how The Beatles made their cultural/musical impact on the USA in early 1964 (with a title akin to their US album, Beatles ’65, released in mid-December 1964, one of Capitol Records “extra” compilations taking some songs from the UK Beatles for Sale [1964] album, adding a few singles, and finding another way to milk additional cash from us American consumers).
So, there’s no need for Spoiler alerts here, nor is there anything you might be surprised about in this new documentary except seeing some off-stage footage of the Fab Four as they came to the US in early February, 1964, appeared twice on CBS TV’s The Ed Sullivan Show (in NYC, Miami), and played concerts in NYC’s Carnegie Hall and Washington, DC. 11 hours of footage from that time, shot by documentary-legends Albert and David Maysies, are greatly trimmed down to a digestible length, then enhanced by recent interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, older footage of a George Harrison interview, and some vintage TV clips of John Lennon. There’s also commentary from various folks about the marvelous present these musicians gave to a nation weary from the late November 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy (images from that tragedy begin this doc), with the most likely well-known commentator being film director David Lynch. Lots of Beatle songs are included, a few in full-length or from those concerts (“All My Loving,” “Roll Over Beethoven”), others as snippets behind the images (“She Loves You,” “Please Please Me,” “You Really Got a Hold on Me” [from Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, followed by them doing a version of Paul's “Yesterday”], “Long Tall Sally,” ”Baby It’s You,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” and on).
For those of us old enough to have been there when all of this took place roughly 60 years ago, this is a marvelous dose of nostalgia, which you can find via streaming on Disney+ ($9.99 for a month’s subscription if you’re not already signed up), where, at the end of the credits, you’re encouraged to jump ahead to the end of The Beatles’ career with the mini-series, The Beatles: Get Back (Peter Jackson, 2021)—you’ll also be encouraged by the CCAC to watch Beatles ’64 as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at 95%, the Metacritic average score is 78% (generally high for them). If you’re blessedly young enough not to know about this stuff directly, I think you’ll find this movie to be an inspiring introduction to the worldwide phenomenon of Beatlemania which blossomed in 1964 when the boys took America by storm, building on their British success, paving the way for their immense popularity on other continents as well. Maybe I’m letting nostalgia factor in too much in my choice of a rating (for B&W, 4x3 format imagery no less—yet, that’s how many media images looked like back then), but while there’s nothing notably cinematic about this documentary it’s marvelously-engaging, well-constructed as a viewing event for established and would-be fans alike.
To wrap up this (delightfully-short [feels nice for a change]) review with my standard trope of a Musical Metaphor, I’ll bookend my opening choice of “Love Me Do” (the necessary start of a huge recording career that propelled The Beatles into their 1964 American debut)—where the simple lyrics also reflect the growing connection between these musicians and their audiences—with their first US single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (a November 1963 UK hit, debuted in the US in December 1963 to become their first American #1; found on the 1964 US album Meet The Beatles) at https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=jenWdylTtzs (from their first Ed Sullivan Show appearance, live on 2/9/1964). It’s representative of this movie as a whole also because it presents romance in such a discreet, wholesome manner, reflecting The Beatles’ initial image, providing the upbeat joy so needed in America in those dark days after the fatal fall of the JFK Camelot Presidency. As one commentator notes, when The Beatles came to the US in 1964 “The light came on.” Boy, did it ever!
SHORT TAKES
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
Here are quite a few options for your consideration: (1) New York Film Critics Circle 2024 winners (I haven’t seen any of them yet); (2) National Board of Review 2024 winners (except for My Old Ass I haven’t seen any of these yet either); (3) Sean Penn slams the Oscars; (4) How Moana 2, Wicked: Part One, and Gladiator II set a Thanksgiving weekend box-office record; (5) Are sequels cannibalizing Hollywood's future?; (6) Recent theatrical releases now available for streaming; (7) What's new on Netflix in December 2024; (8) What's new on Amazon Prime Video in December 2024; (9) What's new on Hulu in December 2024; (10) What's new on Disney+ in December 2024; & (11) What's new on Max in December 2024.
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