The Beatles Invade America All Over Again In New Disney+ Doc

BEATLES ’64 (Dir. David Tedeschi, 2024)

There was a sketch on the IFC show Portlandia in which comedian Fred Armisen decides he wants to make a documentary about the Beatles. Despite his friend/comedy partner Carrie Brownstein skeptically replying “seems like there are so many,” Fred isn’t dissuaded, and declares that he will bring a new spin to the oft told tale, saying it’ll be about “Four mop-topped lads from Liverpool who changed the world…forever!” 

 

The rest of the sketch has Fred telling anyone who’ll listen what he’ll have in his film - the Beatles arrival at JFK, their Ed Sullivan Show appearance, their psychedelic experimentation, etc. – obviously all the expected historical highlights of the band’s career that have been done to death. The joke that Armisen had no new angle, spin, or take on the Fab Four for yet another doc came to my mind when I first heard about BEATLES ’64, which premieres on Disney+ this Friday, November 29.

 

Now, this Portlandia bit was from ten years ago, and there have been lots of Beatles docs since then - even one funnily enough about the band’s 1965 visit to Portland – but I had to wonder what new could be brought to the table about a period that was pretty well covered by Albert and David Maysles’ THE BEATLES: THE FIRST U.S. VISIT or THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY or HOW THE BEATLES CHANGED THE WORLD or…well, you get the idea.

 

So the big selling point of David Tedeschi’s BEATLES ’64 (produced by Martin Scorsese) is that it features 17 minutes of never-before-seen footage that comes from the 11 hours of film the Maysles brothers shot for a program entitled What’s Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A., which was aired on CBS in late 1964 as a special episode of the TV show, The Entertainers.

That show was later re-edited for the 1991 home video release, THE FIRST U.S. VISIT. Now, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that on VHS in the ‘90s, so I can’t say how much overlap there is here, but as a big fan of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, I am delighted to report that this third take on the material delivers a fresh, insightful exploration of that crazy time when the Beatlemania epidemic swept the country.

BEATLES '64 gives viewers quality time with their prized Pepsi vending machine replica transistor radio.

Tedeschi deftly packages the narrative of the Beatles arrival in America, and the days leading to their legendary appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, with present day commentary from Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr, who we see showing his collection of clothes and gear to Scorsese (so makes me want a mini-series of Marty and Ringo just hanging out). 

There are also fascinating and funny interviews with Ronnie Spector, Smokey Robinson, and most touching, David Lynch, who saw the Beatles in Washington D.C. a few days after their stateside debut on Sullivan. There’s also a sideline story that producer Jack Douglas tells about travelling to Liverpool to tap into that Merseybeat magic, but not being able to perform without a visa and work permits might perplex at first, but pays off amusingly.

 

Another selling point is that the black and white footage pops with sharp crispness, which isn’t surprising as it was restored in 4K by Beatlemaniac Peter Jackson. And, of course, the music all sounds terrific, not just the Beatles, but of their contemporaries like Robinson, the Supremes, and Little Richard. 

 

In moments that play like a real-life A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, we see the guys clowning around in their Plaza Hotel room with highlights being when a cheeky McCartney tells the cameraman to “defy convention!” and shoot them from a lower angle so the mike can be seen, which he does to clapping from the group and entourage, and when Lennon calls a reporter a “wanker.” Meanwhile, the hubbub happening outside the Beatles’ bubble plays like a real-life I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND (Robert Zemeckis’ 1978 comedy about fans trying to get close to the band at the hotel) with groupies praising their beloved in street interviews, and being caught in the hallways by cops and hotel security.

 

All of this comes together now as a highly worthwhile watch even if you feel like you’ve seen and heard it all before. It’s especially recommended if the Beatles are new to you, and you don’t know how it went down, but I doubt many of those people would’ve read this far. Three years ago this week, Jackson’s monumental, and wonderful three part/eight hour GET BACK project was released, so if BEATLES ’64 is supposed to continue the trend for future Thanksgiving weekends, I’ll say what Paul’s father suggested should be the repeated refrain in “She Loves You,” - “yes, yes, yes.”

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I Finally Saw GLADIATOR So I Could Be Properly Disappointed By GLADIATOR II

GLADIATOR II (Dir. Ridley Scott, 2024)

Nearly a quarter of a century after Ridley Scott’s historical epic GLADIATOR ruled the box office, and swept the Oscars, comes this highly anticipated sequel, opening everywhere today. But it wasn’t highly anticipated by me as, despite all the hoopla, I never got around to seeing the original until earlier this week. When I got an invite to an advance screening of GLADIATOR II, I decided it was time to catch up. I found it on a streaming platform (Paramount Plus), and finally got to see what all the fuss was about.

 

I can’t say that the 2000 GLADIATOR will make any dent in any of my mental lists of greatest movies, but I could see why it was an award-winning crowd pleaser. Highly enjoyable was its star-making turn by Russell Crowe coming up against Joaquin Phoenix in another break-through performance in a richly shot ancient Roman revenge adventure enhanced by a stunning Hans Zimmer score. It didn’t matter that it was a pretentious presentation with weak dialogue, and obvious plotting, it worked as overblown epic entertainment, and I’m glad to have now caught up with it. 

 

Sadly, all the elements that made the first film so successful are sorely lacking in Scott’s GLADIATOR II, which opens with an animated sequence laying out the basic story points of the original, which, because of the many call-backs, I’ll call GI for the rest of the review. I really don’t think it’s a spoiler to say the sequel concerns the son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus, but an actor I was previously unfamiliar with, Paul Mescal plays the lead, Lucius, who was played as a kid in GI by Spencer Treat Clark. The only folks from GI to reprise their roles are Connie Nielsen as Lucius’ mother, Lucilla; and Sir Derek Jacobi as a much more minor Senator character, Senator Something.

 

As the film follows the story beats of GI – big opening battle, hero’s wife gets killed, slave becomes lauded gladiator, colossal Colosseum fights, family drama, and final showdown – we get the new characters, Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), a Roman general who is married to Lucilla, and appears to be inwardly tortured; and, more interestingly, Macrinus (Denzel Washington), who at first, seems to be simply rehashing the blustery former slave turned wealthy merchant part Oliver Reed played in GI, but he turns out to be the film’s central baddie here.

 

Since sequels are programmed to attempt to top the original’s highlights, the Colosseum set pieces are even more over the top with scary CGI baboon, rhinos, and most ridiculously sharks when they fill the venue with water to restage a naval battle with two warships facing off. Now historical record does show that the Romans did have outlandish events like this, but that the water in the Colosseum wasn’t deep enough for sharks. Since this was one of the movie’s most engrossing scenes, I’m going to let it go. It's hard to complain about unnecessary CGI sharks when the entire affair is unnecessary.

 

Anyway, as the lead Lucius, Mescal just doesn’t have anywhere near the gravitas or the charisma of Crowe’s Maximus; and as the antagonist, Washington has swagger aplenty, but his role is underwritten, giving the audience little to grab onto. Same could be said for Pascal, who brings what he can to his worried warrior persona, but again, like every other player here, doesn’t have much pull. 

 

Despite that it shares the same cinematographer with GI, John Mathieson, the look of GII is far less spectacular. Gone is the crisp panoramic imagery, replaced by a washed out less engrossing landscape for which us to go through a lesser telling of the same story. GI had memorable movie moments – Maximus yelling “Are you not entertained?” at the crowd, Phoenix’s Commodus sneering, “It vexes me. I’m terribly vexed” -  but I can’t remember a single line from GII just two days after seeing it. And unlike Zimmer’s work on GI, I can’t recall any of Harry Gregson-Williams’ score either!

 

So this uninspired sequel is director Scott’s third collaboration with screenwriter David Scarpa after the mixed bags that were ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD (2017), and NAPOLEON (2023), and apparently the third time isn’t the charm. I doubt GII will leave much a mark on pop culture after it gets chewed up and spitted out this weekend, but since I’ve been wrong about the masses not wanting big, flashy empty machismo before, I won’t be surprised if it hits big. 

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MEGALOPOLIS: A Weird, Pretentious Blend Of Bad Acting And Beautiful Imagery

Now playing at every megalopolex from here to New Rome:

MEGALOPOLIS (Dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 2024)

It’s been three days since I took in a screening of the legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola’s highly anticipated, and highly dreaded big, ambitious epic MEGALOPOLIS, and I’m still processing the damn thing. I’ll just jump in – it takes place in New Rome, which is New York City in a world in which the Roman Empire never ended, and concerns a visionary architect, Cesar Catilina, portrayed by Adam Driver.

With the backdrop of skyscrapers that shine like gold, under an endless yellow sky, Cesar aims to rebuild the city into some glorious shape-shifting utopia out of some magical substance called Megalon, but he’s opposed by Mayor Frank Cicero (Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito), but lo and behold, the mayor’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) falls in love with Cesar. 

 

On the flashy sidelines in what seems like endless partying is the scene stealing Aubrey Plaza as a blonde, gold-digging news anchor named Wow Platinum (she said on The Daily Show that she “watched a lot of Fox News to research my role as a corrupt journalist”), an actor that Coppola remarked was cast because he was “cancelled,” Jon Vought as Cesar’s uncle Hamilton Crassus (crass name for a crass character), Dustin Hoffman as Crassus’s confidant Nush “The Fixer” Berman, Crassus’s son Clodio (Shia LaBeouf, who just gets creepier with age), and Clodio’s sister Cladia (SNL’s Chloe Fineman who called he character a “coke whore” on Late Night with Seth Myers). 

 

Lawrence Fishburne, whose third ever film credit was as a 17-year old Larry Fishburne in Coppola’s 1979 vietnam masterpiece APOCALYPSE NOW, grandly narrates, and plays Cesar’s assistant and chauffeur. Another member of the cast with major history with the director is his sister, Talia Shire (THE GODFATHER, and ROCKY series), as Cesar’s mother, but she isn’t given much to do. Neither does Jason Schwartzman as one of the Mayor’s men, he’s Coppola’s nephew so it was nice he was invited.

 

Oh, and somehow Driver’s Cesar has the ability to stop time, simply by yelling “Time, stop!” Now this is a compelling used element, and amazingly shot by Coppola veteran, cinematographer Mihai Mălaimare Jr., and the movie surrounding it is gorgeous-looking, but it is never explained, and doesn’t make any sense in the narrative, but I’m not sure if it’s supposed to. Like many things that litter the screen in this strange story, I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be saying.

 

But if you let it wash over you, there’s a lot of lush imagery and stunning set pieces to get lost in. One such mesmerizing sequence involves Grace VanderWaal as Vesta Sweetwater, a Vestal Virgin pop star, is harmonizing with an army of multiple versions of herself hanging from the ceiling of the coliseum, and I’m watching thinking, I don’t know what any of this means, but it looks fantastic!

 

After a 9/11-style disaster involving a fallen satellite, the building of the new Megalon-enhanced paradise goes forward, while LaBeouf crazily tries to f*** with Cesar’s reign as hard as he tried to f*** with the fourth Indiana Jones movie, and Plaza’s Wow Platinum (love that name) gets caught up in her own web of manipulations.

 

Unfortunately so much of the acting in this overblown opus is stilted, awkward, and unconvincing. Driver fares the best as his protagonist has an intense gravitas to him (even breathing a little bit of new life into Shakespeare’s done-to-death “To be or not to be” soliloquy), but Cesar is a broadly drawn magazine image for a character, and there never feels like there’s a back story or much depth to the guy. Coppola’s camera obviously adores Emmanuel as Cesar’s love interest, but her dialogue all seems like she’s narrating the film to herself, and it’s a bad thing when her blankness at times recalls Sophia Coppola’s miscast turn in GODFATHER PART III.

Plaza’s Wow Platinum (again, primo moniker) is definitely the most engaging persona here as she’s so unlike any other character the great deadpan actress has played, and feels like she’s in a much more interesting movie than everyone else.

Now, as for the movie’s meaning and/or message, it is obviously Coppola’s attempt at an allegory about how the crumbling of society in our modern times is historically embedded, but I’m not sure how the abstract architectural adventures of Cesar really makes any purposeful point. I may someday though.

 

But at this time, I can’t in good faith recommend MEGALOPOLIS. It struck me as a pretentious, badly acted, poorly paced, messy, cringingly weird, but eye-poppingly beautiful piece of catastrophic cinema made from what I bet is one of the nuttiest screenplays ever (written by Coppola himself with no help!). It does say something that I would watch it again as I feel like I may get something out of another viewing, but I really don’t think casual non-film geek movie-goers will connect to this perplexing passion project, and make it a hit. I’ll be very surprised if it does well at the box office this weekend.

 

I will say it would probably make a good double feature with the new re-release of CALIGULA: THE ULTIMATE CUT, as MEGALOPOLIS often plays like that decadent yet prestigious porno (produced by Penthouse Bob Guccione’s no less), but without the mass orgies. 

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