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:

• Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpod
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• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast

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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
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast

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Filmed in 1974 and now remastered (not that you'd notice) for a cinema release, One Hand Clapping is the latest thing to come out of Paul McCartney's ongoing project to clear out his shed. It's good though! In this bonus episode we talk about how the idea behind its release might be as a sort of Get Back-lite, and whether that stands up, about the dynamic between Paul and the rest of the band, and about the "very special" bit at the end, which you won't see on the YouTube version, where Paul plays some acoustic songs in the Abbey Road back garden. Plus: Linda McCartney was very cool indeed.

• The film is currently on limited release in UK cinemas. https://www.onehandclapping.film
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0223840/
• Our rant about cinemas agreeing a policy on start times shouldn't be read as shade thrown at Picturehouse cinemas, by the way: they are lovely cinemas and someone gave us a free poster.
• Watch Paul on stage with comedian Deon Cole on 17 September 2024: https://youtu.be/TPTgmoW3VL8

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
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast

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One more, then: here's a bonus episode covering the Beatles Anthology DVD extras. We note just how much this disc complements the Anthology series, to the extent that watching it without watching this feels incomplete. It made us rethink some of the assumptions we'd made about the Beatles' interpersonal relationships in the 1990s, in fact. We see in longer form the footage from the Threetles' day at George Harrison's Friar Park home on 23 June 1994, and observe the differences between their behaviour when being interviewed together versus apart. We talk about the making of the Free As a Bird video, and put forward a theory about the nurse selling poppies from a tray (if it turns out it's been on the internet for years, no need to tell us).

Thanks for listening to season five. We loved hanging out with you guys. See you again later this year.

• The Beatles Anthology DVD boxset is available to buy.
• Watch the Free As a Bird video: https://youtu.be/ODIvONHPqpk
• Watch the Real Love video: https://youtu.be/ax7krBKzmVI
• George Martin's Alderney Sailing Club jumper will be from when he owned a house in Alderney, on Guernsey, in the Channel Islands. He also lived on Montserrat, where he had his studio. Here's an article from January 2024 about Guernsey donating instruments to young people in Montserrat in his name: https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2024-01-15/children-of-beatles-producer-receive-guernsey-instrument-donation

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
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast

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Beatles: Endgame. We discuss how the documentary gives George Harrison and Ringo Starr the space to craft their own narratives around how they left and then returned to the band, and we go over how it treats the Beatles' breakup, to the extent that it does at all. We talk about All You Need is Love in the context of the Beatles as rabble-rousing religious icons, and about how Yoko Ono is shown mainly in the context of her being a disruptive force. Plus: how the Anthology fails to tell a coherent story around the White Album. Was it a disjointed series of solo performances or a unified and enjoyable creative experience? It's the bloody Beatles White Album, shut up!

• The Beatles Anthology DVD boxset is available to buy.
• The Abbey Road songs on which John Lennon didn't perform are Her Majesty, Here Comes the Sun and Maxwell's Silver Hammer.

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
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast

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On we go from Shea Stadium to Sgt Pepper. We see how George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Neil Aspinall remember the incident in Manila differently to Paul McCartney, and we put forward the idea that these episodes contain the Beatles' two imperial phases. We ask why George in the 1990s is still annoyed with Paul for making himself LSD spokesman in 1967, and we look in detail at Paul's chipped tooth: did it change everything?

• The Beatles Anthology DVD boxset is available to buy.
• Maybe this is Meryl Streep at Shea Stadium, maybe it isn't. Why not spend your valuable time arguing with strangers on the internet in an attempt to resolve the matter? https://youtu.be/x6aNSHLg18Y
• Read more about the idea of a band's imperial phase: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_phase
• Of course, only an idiot would confidently claim George won Best Rock Video at the 1988 MTV Music Video Awards for Got My Mind Set On You, not least because that award didn't exist until 1989. He was nominated for both Best Male Video and Best Special Effects in a Video for that song but he won nothing, despite When We Was Fab also picking up several nominations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_George_Harrison#MTV_Music_Video_Awards
• The producer at the A Day in the Life session who announced "I just can't believe it ... I give up", was Ron Richards, producer of the Hollies, according to Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions.
• John Bishop is a Liverpudlian comedian and presenter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bishop We tried and failed to find a clip of the question he asked Paul that annoyed him at the Eight Days a Week premiere, but if you ever meet Paul, don't call the Beatles "an overnight success".

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
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast

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Into episodes 3 and 4, the bulk of the Beatlemania and touring years, and we get straight to the key issue: why has Paul McCartney suggested he be interviewed while steering a tugboat? We also get into how the Anthology handles John's habit of making fun of disability: why is it addressed, given there was probably no real pressure on them to do so in the nineties, and how would it be received if included in a rereleased Anthology today?

Plus: Jimmie Nicol and another example of Ringo Starr's emotional intelligence, as his memory of being temporarily replaced mainly involves taking a 24-hour flight to Australia on his own and how that made him feel. 

There's a bit more too on the group dynamics of the Threetles meeting at Friar Park, and we ask whether George Harrison would've been as snarky in his interviews if John Lennon had been alive and participating in the documentary.

• The Beatles Anthology DVD boxset is available to buy.
• The Big Train sketch in which George Martin can't stop doing Beatles anecdotes: https://youtu.be/yIA_NVFnXZ8
• The episode of BBC Radio 4's Front Row in which Samira Ahmed uncovers the previously unheard recording of the Beatles performing at Stowe School on 4 April 1963: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kpq1

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
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast

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In the first of our four episodes covering the 1995 documentary series, we start with some of our own memories of when it aired, when we were teenagers and Britpop had made The Beatles cool again in the UK. We note the vast structural difference between episode 1, which of course covers the bit of their career of which there's the least amount of video footage, and episode 2, which focuses much less on talking head recollections and more on live and TV appearances, often shown nearly in full.

We also discuss the practical impact of the three Beatles still alive at the time, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, being interviewed mainly separately, and how much each of them is enjoying the experience. Paul is in full anecdote mode, but is George enjoying himself more than he expected to?

Plus: how are Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best treated in this, and why? What are the implications of only including a limited core of contributors? And a bit of digging into the idea that they got their name from the Marlon Brando film The Wild One.

• The Beatles Anthology DVD boxset is available to buy.
• Watch a TV advert for the Anthology DVD release: https://youtu.be/hlHX8FPqsDM
• The tweet from Joe Wisbey of the Beatles Books Podcast, linking to the short doc that aired before the Free as a Bird video premiere on ITV. Thanks Joe! https://x.com/BooksBeatles/status/1631351804335120391
• Beatles Bible diary entry for 30 October 1963, when the Beatles performed on the Swedish TV show Drop In: https://www.beatlesbible.com/1963/10/30/television-drop-in-stockholm-sweden

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
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast

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A quick bonus episode to discuss Michael Lindsay-Hogg's film, restored by Peter Jackson's team and released on Disney+ on 8 May 2024.

We discussed the original film at length in our two-part episode at the end of season four, and you can find that in this podcast feed. But we were lucky enough to get an advance viewing of the restored Let it Be, so we wanted to have a quick chat about the significance of this re-release. In particular we try and answer the question: Why do we need this when we have Get Back? We also talk about Jackson and Lindsay-Hogg's introduction, and how it suggests this has been ready to go for over a year, and about the visual and audio distinctions between this restoration and Get Back.

So give it a listen and then scroll back through this feed and check out the original Let it Be two-part episode.

• Read Dan Rivkin's excellent post about the Let it Be restoration on his blog, They May Be Parted: https://theymaybeparted.com/2024/05/07/tmbp-extra-then-and-now/

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
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast

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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-fund
• The concert on George's official site, with links to buy the DVD: https://www.georgeharrison.com/films/the-concert-for-bangladesh
• John Lennon's benefit gig for Willowbrook State School was released as Live in New York City: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6cgunr
• The Greatest Night in Pop is the Netflix documentary about the recording of We Are The World: https://www.netflix.com/title/81720500
• The 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/hAKZ9Tk
• After 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.html

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
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.