Category Archives: Movies

On Again, Off Again. ‘The Beatles: Get Back’ Now On Again

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The mysterious curse of The Beatles‘ Let It Be sessions seems to have permeated across 50 years, all the way to 2022 with the inability to get to a release date that everyone was happy with…..

Disney and Apple have experienced huge issues in getting Peter Jackson’s wonderful three-part opus out to the public on physical media (i.e. Blu-ray and DVD). There have been a few false starts this year but it seems finally the release is definitely on again. Hence this email from the official US Beatle store in our inbox this morning:

The official Beatle page also trumpets that The Beatles Get Back is definitely on again. At least on Blu-ray. It’s hard to find on either site a reference or images of the DVD…….

As previously announced before it was withdrawn, the Blu-ray will come in a ‘Collector’s Pack’:

This contains a tri-fold inner holding the three discs, one for each of the three parts that have been available as a stream on Disney+:

And also included are four Get Back collector’s cards, one for each Beatle:

There’s no bonus material however. It could be argued though that we’re already getting lots of that ‘bonus’ material on these discs as the original Get Back film (as initially planned for streaming release last year) had many extra hours added to it by director, Peter Jackson before it made it to Disney+.

Some Original Let It Be Lobby Cards

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To celebrate the release this week of the Disney+/Peter Jackson marathon re-cut of the original Let It Be footage, here are some of the movie theatre lobby cards (and a poster) from the 1970 movie-length version, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg:

New Album and Soundtrack: The Beatles And India

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The Beatles And India documentary film (released last month) is an historical chronicle of the influence that India had on the Beatles – and how that in turn changed perceptions of that country in the West.

Through rare archival footage, recordings and photographs, eye-witness accounts and expert comments, along with location shoots across India, the film brings alive the journey’s of George, John, Ringo and Paul “from their high octane celebrity lives to a remote Himalayan ashram in search of spiritual bliss that inspired an unprecedented burst of creative songwriting. It is the first serious exploration of how India helped shape the development of the greatest ever rock band and their own pioneering role in bridging two vastly different cultures”.

The Guardian newspaper wrote of The Beatles And India: “The memory of the Beatles’ relationship with India is revived in this engaging documentary, and if there isn’t much really new here, it’s still salutary to be reminded of how these four young men…used their colossal influence, greater than any politician or movie star or religious leader, to direct the world’s attention to India.”

Now, following the release of the film, comes the original soundtrack to the film:

Not only that, there’s also a companion album called Songs Inspired By The Film The Beatles And India. This CD features interpretations by contemporary Indian artists of the songs the Beatles were inspired to write as a result of the time they spent there.

The album is evidence of the legacy of the enduring cultural and musical crossover which occurred and it features a diverse cast of Indian artists (Vishal Dadlani, Kiss Nuka, Benny Dayal, Dhruv Ghanekar, Karsh Kale, Anoushka Shankar, Nikhil D’Souza, Soulmate and many others) – each bringing their own musical styles, as well as contemporary and classical Indian influences and techniques to the record.

The companion CD release also includes a bonus disc of the original soundtrack score to the film. The music is composed by award-winning composer Benji Merrison and was recorded at Abbey Road Studio 2 (the legendary home of The Beatles recording sessions), and also in Budapest in Hungary and in Pune, India.

Here’s Nikhil D’Souza’s interpretation of John Lennon’s ‘India, India’, a song written by Lennon and recorded in 1980 as a home demo, but not released until 2010’s John Lennon Signature Box.

Sneak Peek – ‘The Beatles: Get Back’ Movie

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In the vacuum of the year-long delay surrounding Peter Jackson’s film The Beatles: Get Back, the director has given us something of a holiday treat by releasing this terrific sneak peek teaser:

The sound, colour and clarity are fantastic, as is the mood of joy depicted.

Now, Jackson is at pains to say that this is neither a trailer nor a completed sequence from the film, but rather something to give us a flavour of what to expect.

It’ll therefore be interesting to see how the finished product comes up, because anyone with enough footage (and Jackson has more than 56 hours of it!) can edit together just the fun moments and make it look like everything with the band was hunky dory. We know this was not the case and that they were getting on each other’s nerves for quite a lot of the time as well.

However, this teaser is such fun to watch. It’s great to see The Beatles clowning around and enjoying themselves. We just hope there’s not too much history being revised.

From the web: “Acclaimed filmmaker Peter Jackson has released an exclusive sneak peek of his upcoming documentary The Beatles: Get Back for fans everywhere to enjoy. The 5-minute special look is available to fans worldwide on TheBeatles.com and streaming on Disney+.

Jackson said, “We wanted to give the fans of The Beatles all over the world a holiday treat, so we put together this five-minute sneak peek at our upcoming theatrical film The Beatles: Get Back. We hope it will bring a smile to everyone’s faces and some much-needed joy at this difficult time.”

The feature-length film is set to open in theatres on August 27, 2021.

Can’t wait!

Great New Beatle-related Movie – “Yesterday”

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Imagine you woke up one day and there were no Beatles.

No one you speak to has ever heard of them, and there are no references to the band or their songs online, in music stores, libraries, or anywhere. But….you can remember them clearly, and you know how to play their songs.

That’s the premise of an interesting new comedy movie coming out later this year called Yesterday. It comes from Danny Boyle (who directed Slum Dog Millionaire and Trainspotting), and Richard Curtis (the writer of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually).

Jack (played by Himesh Patel) is a struggling singer-songwriter who dreams of making it big, but his career is going nowhere. His biggest supporter is his best friend, Ellie (Lily James). Then, something mysterious happens. During some sort of global electrical blackout, Jack gets hit by a bus and wakes up to discover that The Beatles have never existed. Only thing is, he remembers them clearly, starts to perform their songs, and from there things really start to get interesting….

Yesterday looks like it will be real fun for Beatle fans. It is due in movie theatres on June 28.

Yellow Submarine Picture Disc

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The Beatles official site has announced that a limited edition ‘Yellow Submarine’ 7″ vinyl picture disc single is to be released on July 6:  
 This will mark 50 years since the Yellow Submarine animated film hit movie screens around the world:

Of course this isn’t the first time we’ve seen an officially released ‘Yellow Submarine’ 7″ picture disc. As part of its 20th anniversary celebrations for each British Beatle single, EMI issued a series of picture discs. This one came out in 1986 – marking 20 years since the band’s 13th single ‘Yellow Submarine’/’Eleanor Rigby’ was issued in August, 1966:

The new 7″ vinyl picture disc will come in a coloured die-cut sleeve and will be released on Friday, 6 July. A high-resolution, 4K restoration of the Yellow Submarine film will open at selected movie theatres in the UK, Ireland and the US in the following days. Tickets are here.

Paul McCartney a Pirate?

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Paul McCartney has posted this photo on his Instagram feed:

#PiratesLife  And this on Facebook.

Release date is the same day as the newly re-mixed 50th Anniversary of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band comes out……

Beatles “Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years” Blu-ray Photo Unboxing

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After seeing this on the big screen in the cinema on its first day of release we finally got around to purchasing a Blu-ray copy for the collection. Chose a good day to do it too, as our local store had 30% off all DVD’s and BluRays! This is the Australian, 2 Disc Special Edition (for all images click on each to see a clearer, higher definition version):

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Here’s the rear cover:bathb-rear

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The inner 3-panel gatefold fans out to reveal this fabulous photograph on its rear: bathb-inner6

On the other side are the storage for the booklet and the 2 discs:bathb-inner4

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The 64 page booklet is nicely done, with a lengthy introduction from director Ron Howard, plus a long essay about the Beatles touring years by Jon Savage, plus lots of great black and white photographs:

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A close-up of the sticker on the Australian edition:bathb-sticker

And for those of you who like the small print on the rear outer cover:bathb-smallprint

And finally the two discs:bathb-disc1bathb-disc2

Eight Days A Week – A Fan Review, plus News on the DVD and Blu-ray

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Well, we saw Eight Days A Week: The Touring Years at a screening in Sydney, Australia last night – and it truly does live up to expectations.

The tale of the Beatles touring years is well-told in a (mostly) chronological order with some strong thematic elements sprinkled throughout. Great existing concert footage (remastered and with the sound remixed) sits comfortably alongside newly uncovered footage from fans taken at the time. There are also new interviews with Paul and Ringo (interspersed with archival interviews with John and George), and many observers, key players and fans including Richard Lester, Neil Aspinall, Sigourney Weaver, Elvis Costello, Larry Kane, and Whoopi Goldberg to name just a few. The addition of 30 minutes of pure, infectious performance from the Shea Stadium concert (as an added cinema-only bonus experience) was simply cream on the top.

Enough from me though. Here are some immediate post-movie thoughts from a big Australian Beatle collector and fan, Bruce Hamlin. Bruce runs The Beatles Records Information Service:

In a word: Fab, FAB, fab, etc.

So lets get it straight – this is not a movie of their concerts. Ron Howard has broken the Beatles career into 2 parts that are often quoted in magazines. The Touring Years (that go up to Candlestick Park or just after) and the rest, which is obviously The Studio Years.The end result of the touring stopping was Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. So that’s actually where this movie finishes (basically).

And what do we get for our money? Some nice and recent interviews with Paul and Ringo. Some very nice sound bites from George and John. There are lots of clips of live songs. Most, unfortunately, have small voice-overs that do tend to detract from them but the audio for the live stuff is great so it tends to make you forget the voice-overs.

Lots of clips from concerts that I havn’t seen before. And believe me, I do have lots in my own collection. Lots of relevant American (especially) newsreel footage of fans, press conferences, interviews with the boys and fans and some other talking heads. Instead of the usual musicians talking about how seeing the boys on Ed Sullivan made them pick up guitars and form bands, this time we get more of a female perspective [especially] how the American girls were affected by The Beatles. So that was an interesting difference to the usual.

It does go back to Hamburg and Liverpool, so it does start at the beginning and yes, we do get “Some Other Guy” from the Cavern. For Australians there was a few seconds of Adelaide footage, and maybe a blink’s worth of a Melbourne street scene! Hong Kong, Canada, Sweden, Germany, France, Spain, Italy but no really good concert footage from any of them.

The story linked together pretty well. I did really enjoy the movie. And I will be going to it again, especially as it’s only running for one week here.

Shea Stadium was tacked on at the end as a separate entity. Great to see it on the big screen. Some tech wizardry on some of the close ups, being brought up REAL close to the point of the picture distorting a bit. While we didn’t get the voiceovers that were in the released version, we also didn’t get the support acts and as with the original, they have played pretty loosely with the audio. BUT it still sounds great in the theatre with the great sound system.

All in all, like I said FAB! I really enjoyed it as a Beatles fan. I tried not to dissect it too much, just sat back and really enjoyed the movie.

As it’s only around for a few more days – get off your bums and go and see it NOW.
It will probably be on DVD by Christmas, but the big screen experience is the best way to catch it. My only real complaint was that it didn’t run for 30 hours !!!! That way we would really have got ALL the concert footage from everywhere. Thank you to StudioCanal and Event Theatres.

Bruce was correct about the DVD and Blu-ray being out in time for Christmas.

StudioCanal has just announced a November 21 release date for the UK, and November 18 in the USA. There will be 2-disc special edition, and single-disc standard editions in both DVD and Blu-ray formats:

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Special Edition Content and Features:

* Blu-ray/DVD 1 – Feature presentation
* Blu-ray/DVD 2 – Bonus Material (approx. 100 minutes of extras, highlighted below)
* 64 page booklet with an introduction from director Ron Howard, essay by music journalist and author Jon Savage and rare photos from The Beatles’ private archive
* Words & Music (24 mins) – John, Paul, George & Ringo reflect on songwriting and the influence of music from their parents’ generation, Lennon/McCartney writing for other artists, The Beatles as individual musicians, and the band as innovators. Also featuring Howard Goodall, Peter Asher, Simon Schama and Elvis Costello. The interviews with Paul and Ringo are previously unseen.
* Early Clues To A New Direction (18 mins) – A special feature touching on The Beatles as a collective, the importance of humour, the impact of women on their early lives and songwriting, and the band as a musical movement. Featuring John, Paul, George & Ringo, along with Paul Greengrass, Stephen Stark, Peter Asher, Malcolm Gladwell, Sigourney Weaver, Whoopi Goldberg, Richard Curtis, Elvis Costello and Simon Schama. Again the interviews with Paul and Ringo are unseen.
* Liverpool (11 mins) – The early days in Liverpool of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s are brought vividly to life by those who worked closely with them at that time including fan club secretary Freda Kelly, Allan Williams an early manager, and Leslie Woodhead multi-award winning documentary film director.
* The Beatles in Concert (12 mins) – Five great but rarely seen full length performances of The Beatles live in concert – Twist and Shout, She Loves You, Can’t Buy Me Love, You Can’t Do That and Help!

Additional Standard Bonus Features (on both Special and Standard editions):

* Three Beatles’ Fans
* Ronnie Spector and The Beatles
* Shooting A Hard Day’s Night
* The Beatles in Australia
* Recollections of Shea Stadium
* The Beatles in Japan
* An alternative opening for the film

Here’s the pack shot for the Deluxe Blu-ray version:edaw-deluxe-packshot

Sadly, there’s no Shea Stadium concert included. That would have been a nice bonus, but it looks like to could have possibly become part of a rights battle. That concert film footage is owned by a different company. Perhaps Shea will be released separately at some stage down the track. We can only hope.

Eight Days A Week – Excitement Builds

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On the day of the official launch of the new Beatle documentary film Eight Days A Week: The Touring Years, excitement is building.

This is the front page of the regular weekend lift-out in my local paper, The Sydney Morning Herald, today:img_2035img_2036

And this two-page article appeared in the paper’s Sunday edition two weeks ago:img_1928

Even The Big Issue, a great magazine that’s sold on the street in Australia to assist homeless, marginalised and disadvantaged people, has been getting Beatle-happy:img_1925img_1926

We’re off to the Sydney premiere this evening and really looking forward to seeing what director Ron Howard has done. Reports so far suggest his film hits just the right note as far as satisfying die-hard Beatle fans as well as those new to the band.