MovieMan0283

As a big Beatles fan, I've seen lots of documentaries and shows about them; but this one has a lot of stuff I've never seen before, mostly because it focuses on John. The music of course is fantastic as always but what's most valuable is the candid looks we get at Lennon. A vagrant, probably stoned, confronts Lennon at his home in England, asking what the different lyrics mean and the ex-Beatle tries to talk some sense, comforting the confused man, and inviting him inside for a meal. It's even eerier considering what a later confused fan was to do. And some of the strongest parts of the film are long sequences of John confronting someone over his antiwar politics and tactics. Particularly Al Capp, famous cartoonist of "L'il Abner" who proves to be a royal a**hole here, insulting Yoko and John stays surprisingly level-headed throughout. It's a really dynamic scene. He actually loses his temper more when confronted by a NY Times reporter who tells him how immature it was for him to send back the MBE; he shouts back that maybe she liked the old him, the mop-tops and A Hard Day's Night but she needs to grow up. And finally, there's some footage taken not long before Lennon's death when a young man is thrilled to meet him, asking inevitably "When are you guys gonna get back together?" Little did he know that in a few days (or weeks, I'm not sure when this was taken) that dream would be shattered once in for all.

Watching this is like sitting at a friend's house and watching a movie they made with their friends as stoned teenagers. They'll get a huge kick out of it, but you'll be alternately baffled, amused, and embarrassed. Some of the humor has Monty Python potential, but the timing is off--and no wonder, the Beatles were stoned out of their mind. Nonetheless, it's worthwhile as a historical and cultural artifact and besides, the songs are fantastic. Fool on the Hill meanders; as many have noted, it's just Paul wandering around on a hillside. Though the view is great, not much is done with it. Your Mother Should Know is a lot of fun; the dance the Beatles are doing is silly but somehow fits in with the catchy tune. The true standout of the picture is I am the Walrus, which is actually an excellent music video, well-edited, and really hilarious. It seems that the whimsy the Beatles were trying to achieve here was better done in Yellow Submarine--though ironically, the Beatles had almost nothing to do with that movie (it was a cartoon and their dialogue was dubbed by actors). Go figure.