We weren't big fans of this 2023 Apple TV+ documentary series: it's prurient and invasive, and in the parts where it suggests conspiracy theories but then does nothing to back them up, it's pretty irresponsible. We discuss the techniques it uses in the context of the contemporary true crime boom, and ask whether we'd have liked it more if we had no personal investment in John Lennon's murder. Could it have achieved more by doing what it briefly threatens to, and framed itself around how thinking around criminality and mental illness, and gun control in the United States, has moved on since 1980?

• Watch it on Apple TV+: https://tv.apple.com/gb/show/john-lennon-murder-without-a-trial
• RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy: https://youtu.be/7H8ZV7QrVZY
• Netflix film Amanda Knox: https://www.netflix.com/title/80081155
• News of the World journalist Paul McMullan defending phone hacking on BBC Newsnight in 2011: https://youtu.be/ZV9Sh_R3wB4
• The documentary Ed mentions is Active Shooter: America Under Fire: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/active-shooter-america-under-fire
• Kenneth Womack's John Lennon 1980: The Last Days in the Life: https://kennethwomack.com/books/beatlesbooks/john-lennon-1980-the-last-days-in-the-life/
• John's surgeon Dr David Halloran in the BBC radio series "I Was": https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08tfsqb
• Paul McCartney was interviewed on the March for Our Lives on 24 March 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_for_Our_Lives

The 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.

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Ringo Starr's film career includes the odd misstep, of course, but this 1978 vehicle for Mae West is often cited among the worst films ever made. And fair enough, it's not great. But Ringo is the best thing in it: we talk about how he brings his whole self to the role, further evidence of how committed he was to making acting his primary career at this point in his life. And there are other Beatles connections: Dom DeLuise sings the Lennon/McCartney song Honey Pie in the film, and of course there's the small matter of the cover of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

• Watch the film: https://youtu.be/_d7y_ai5oy8
• The YouTube supercut of Mae West's best lines we mention: https://youtu.be/FJS670okmZc
• If you like one-star reviews, here are the two of Ed's we mention in the episode: What To Expect When You're Expecting: https://www.theshiznit.co.uk/review/what-to-expect-when-youre-expecting.php
• And Maniac: https://www.theshiznit.co.uk/review/maniac.php
• The bottle episode of Friends we mention is season 3, episode 2, The One Where No One's Ready, which you can watch on Netflix or just close your eyes and recite the entire thing in your head because it's all in there somewhere.

The 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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Paul McCartney's 1984 short animated film was a project he'd been planning for years: buying the film rights to the Rupert the Bear character was the first thing he did after leaving The Beatles. The more you get into it, the more you realise the extent of his passion for it. Released alongside Give My Regards to Broad Street in cinemas, the film also serves as a music video for We All Stand Together, also known as The Frog Song. We start by discussing the song: why was it for so long the watchword for "embarrassing Uncle Paul", and how does it measure up today now that image is largely shed? Paul's voiceover work is also worth getting into: it serves the story rather than acting as a showcase for him, and we contrast this with the approach to Broad Street. And with Ringo Starr doing the Thomas the Tank Engine voiceover, and George Harrison writing the foreword to the 1990 book The Secret Life of Sooty, we look at the relationship between psychedelia and the childlike.

• Watch the 13-minute film: https://youtu.be/WfEyEp62-l4
• You can also get it on the DVD Paul McCartney: The Animation Collection, which also includes Tuesday and Tropic Island Hum
• Here's George's foreword to the Sooty book: https://harrisonstories.tumblr.com/post/176977529878/the-secret-life-of-sooty-1990-foreword-by-george
• An episode of The Magic Roundabout, which ran on the BBC from 1965 to 1977: https://youtu.be/J2ihhAVLSIk
• The similar scenes Ed mentions in which the main character watches a secret ritual from an elevated vantage point, both from films released around the same time as this, are from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984): https://youtu.be/ftHyM_KSgE0
• And Young Sherlock Holmes (1985): https://youtu.be/QzahXAGAL9I
• You can also listen to our episode on Give My Regards to Broad Street in this feed

The 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:

• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
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An Accidental Studio is the story of HandMade Films, the production company set up by Beatle George Harrison and his business partner Denis O'Brien, which produced or distributed Monty Python's Life of Brian, Time Bandits, The Long Good Friday, Withnail and I, and Mona Lisa. We discuss George's contribution and what it says about his creative instincts. He seems to have been very happy to trust creative people with more film expertise than he to make the films. Was this good creative sense or commercial naivety? What does the film tell us about Denis O'Brien, whom George later sued for financial mismanagement, and about investors wanting to make creative decisions?

• If you're in the UK you can currently watch An Accidental Studio on ITVX: https://www.itv.com/watch/an-accidental-studio/10a6252a0001B. If not, you can rent it very cheaply on various platforms.
• A playlist of the songs recorded by George Harrison for the soundtracks of Time Bandits and Shanghai Surprise, later used mainly on Cloud Nine. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6VJrPcjROto7LZO6-CVzJtcqAp4osHVk

The 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:

• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
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In December 1968 Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who next month filmed The Beatles for the Let It Be/Get Back sessions, shot this circus-themed showcase for the post-psychedelic rock movement, starring John Lennon and Yoko Ono fronting supergroup The Dirty Mac, which also featured Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Mitch Mitchell. Between performances the Rolling Stones introduced acts like The Who and Taj Mahal, and there were pieces to camera from John and Yoko with Mick Jagger.

We ask: Beatles or Stones: is it a stupid question? Why was the film, like so much of the Get Back footage, shelved for so long, only seeing a release in 1996? Why didn't The Beatles perform here as a group? And was Yoko Ono subverting the gendered norms of the rock 'n' roll vocal performance by wailing a lot?

• You can pick up the DVD cheaply to watch the whole film, or watch most of the Rock and Roll Circus on YouTube, on a Stones official playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA26O6DcPwiaMAzvHCrOqZmnE46UyQQjU
• Watch Britpop Now, the programme we mention from 1995 presented by Damon Albarn: https://youtu.be/skb6lVS35Jk
• The documentary Matt mentions is Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg, available to rent online: https://www.flicks.co.uk/movie/catching-fire-the-story-of-anita-pallenberg
• Performance is available to rent online too: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/performance
• The Netflix documentary about his 1968 comeback special is Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley: https://www.netflix.com/title/81462290

The 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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Next up: it's the 2010 BBC TV movie starring Christopher Eccleston as John Lennon, and Andrew Scott as Paul McCartney. We get into the film's approach, in which it frames the story around John's meetings with his father, and ask how successfully it makes the point it's trying to: that Freddie Lennon's abandoning him was the main catalyst for John's emotional turmoil, and that primal scream therapy allowed him to overcome it.

We look too at Eccleston's performance, and ask how he stacks up against the other Lennon big hitters like Ian Hart and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. And does the film do Yoko Ono a disservice?

• You can pick up Lennon Naked on DVD.
• The BBC website has a page on the film with a couple of clips: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sv451
• The Second Coming, the other Eccleston performance that Ed mentions: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0353104/
• Christopher Fairbank in Eastenders, playing Eddie Knight, a very similar character to Freddie Lennon: https://youtu.be/dTa6ZhOa-6s

The 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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Many viewers of last year's Beatles '64 seemed to ask the question: "Why does this exist when we already have The First US Visit?" So we thought we'd have a go at an answer. This is a 1991 re-edit of the Maysles brothers' original 1964 Granada TV film What's Happening! The Beatles in the USA, and a much straighter, more chronological telling of the short tour's story using much of the same footage. We ask how this compares to Beatles '64, and in particular we discuss the effect of having no narration or talking heads, and whether this creates a void of context that needs filling. Apple later bought the rights and released it on DVD in 2004, and we look at how Apple's approach to documentary releases differs 20 years on, now the Beatles legacy project is in full swing.

• You can pick up the Apple DVD easily enough. The film is also on archive.org at the moment, but who knows for how long ... https://g.co/kgs/Y26cAuf
• The "making of" documentary included on the DVD, which we both generally preferred to the film itself: https://youtu.be/38jmSpSPujY
• The best we can do for a copy of What's Happening! The Beatles in the USA is here, but it's only 38 minutes of what should be an hour and 21, so: https://archive.org/details/vts-01-3_202011
• 7 Seconds by Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry, the soundtrack to Ed's 1994 French exchange: https://youtu.be/wqCpjFMvz-k
• We Love You Beatles by The Carefrees: as Matt warns, listen at your own risk: https://youtu.be/Hj3A3WcjBDE

The 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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Welcome to this year's Christmas special in which we, the fearless investigative journalists that we are, refuse to be silenced and meet head-on the issue the mainstream media doesn't want us to: can Paul McCartney make mashed potatoes?

On 17 December 1998 Paul took part in a live webcast to promote Wide Prairie, a compilation album of Linda's songs, released six months after her death in April 1998. In it he fronted a cookery segment in which he made mashed potatoes as part of a promotion for her book: Linda McCartney on Tour: Over 200 Meat-free Dishes from Around the World. We ask: does his addition of raw onions into the dish represent a bold embrace of the avant garde, betraying the influence of Stockhausen? How significant is it that Paul chose the DIY ethic of a webcast whose content he could control when he was grieving for his wife? And how else did Paul and George Harrison interact with the early internet from the late nineties?

Merry Christmas and thanks as always for your support this year. We'll be back with season six in January.

• Watch the whole webcast (this link will also take you straight to the mashed potatoes segment): https://youtu.be/plrN81ISkh4?si=XM2FPqDxsQzdmxdv&t=3768
• Some info about The Fireman webcast from 2 October 1998, although no footage is available (unless you've got some?): https://lostmediawiki.com/The_Fireman_(lost_live_Youth_and_Paul_McCartney%27s_band_internet_webcast;_1998)
• Watch Grateful Dead: A Photofilm by Paul and Linda McCartney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m7NkYfJCYc
• An example of The Big Breakfast, the 1990s UK TV show with a similar crew-participation ethic: https://youtu.be/LFqPHv7nh1A
• The clip from Sleepless in Seattle we mention: https://youtu.be/BHs6iLRvAQM

The 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/beatlesfilmpod
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ANOTHER new Beatles film. It's almost as if the runaway (for which read: very underwhelming) success of a podcast on the subject has led to a surfeit of new releases.

And underwhelming is the key word here: yes, Peter Bradshaw can somehow write a five-star review in the Guardian without once mentioning whether the actual film is good or bad, but for those of us at the coalface of Beatles films appraisal it's a bit more nuanced. What is the film actually trying to say? How much work have Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr put into this official Apple release? Fair enough, they're in their eighties, but still. And does the mention of Martin Scorsese suggest more prestige than the film actually delivers?

• You can watch Beatles '64 on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/beatles-64/mxZO6yBpYWOq
• Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/XLzMtQJnH8k
• See Paul's Instagram story which was definitely shot on the same day he did his interview for this film: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6gxsThsAOV/
• Leonard Bernstein talking about the Beatles in the 1967 documentary Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution: https://youtu.be/v32U0mjGz6g
• Elaine Kim's cover of All My Loving, as used in the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrFx2LZB7D4

The 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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It's taken a while to get here, but Brian Epstein biopic Midas Man, starring Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, is released on Prime Video today, 30 October 2024. We got a chance to see it at an advance screening and we think there's lots in there for Beatles fans to enjoy. Among the items up for discussion here: the performances as the Beatles by Jonah Lees, Blake Richardson, Leo Harvey-Elledge, Campbell Wallace and Adam Lawrence are all excellent. Did being less central characters free the actors up to focus more on mannerisms and delivery? Could you transplant them straight into the Sam Mendes biopics on this basis? How well does the film get around not being able to use Lennon/McCartney songs?

• Watch Midas Man on Prime Video. We understand this is a release in the UK only for now, with international release to be confirmed: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/Midas-Man/0L8KQBPKMK7JQHBNO8K7KBOK2K
• Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzDYxAwoUWk
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12627606/
• Jacob Fortune-Lloyd's article about finding the character of Brian: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/understanding-brian-epstein
• The story of Dizz Gillespie, represented in the film as Tex Ellington, is told both in The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines, and by Devin McKinney at https://www.heydullblog.com/brian-epstein/the-dizz-gillespie-story/
• IMDb and trailer for 2021's Creation Stories, with a clip of Leo-Harvey Elledge (George in Midas Man) as Liam Gallagher: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5693182/
• Vanity Fair doing the Lord's work and writing up the Hanks/Fonz beef from Turner & Hooch so we didn't have to: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/01/tom-hanks-henry-winkler-feud

The 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/beatlesfilmpod
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• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast

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