The Screengrab : julie taymor

Summer of '78: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Each Thursday this summer we’ll hop in the Screengrab time machine and jump back thirty years to see what was new and exciting at the neighborhood moviehouse this week in…The Summer of ’78! I’ve been on vacation, so this week we’re catching up on the past few Thursdays.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Release Date: July 24, 1978

Cast: Peter Frampton, The Bee Gees, George Burns, Donald Pleasance, Sandy Farina, Steve Martin, Aerosmith

The Buzz: The classic Beatles album comes to life on the big screen...without the Beatles. Or as its producers claimed before its release, “This generation’s Gone with the Wind.”

Keywords: Beatles, Based on Album, Cornet, Glass Coffin, Hot Air Balloon, Drugged Drink

The Plot: There’s a plot? Well, let’s see…crinkly narrator George Burns tells us of a magical town called Heartland, full of love and joy and the wonderful music of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Sgt. Pepper left his musical instruments to the town of Heartland – instruments with the power to make dreams come true, Burns (as Heartland mayor Mr. Kite) tells us. Eventually Pepper’s grandson Billy Shears (Peter Frampton) and the Henderson brothers (The Bee Gees) form a new version of the band, which becomes quite popular. Hollywood music mogul B.D. Hoffler (Donald Pleasance) signs the band to his label, and they must leave Heartland – and Billy’s girlfriend Strawberry Fields (Sandy Farina) behind. While the boys are away being corrupted by the music biz, Heartland is taken over by Mean Mr. Mustard and his singing robots. They hate joy! They hate love! They love money! They steal the magical instruments and Heartland descends into decrepitude. Now superstars, Billy and the Hendersons are alerted to the disappearance of the instruments by Strawberry and set out to recover them. They also perform a benefit concert for the town, with guest appearances by Earth, Wind and Fire and Future Villain Band (played by Aerosmith). This is when things get really confusing, but somehow Strawberry is killed, Billy is depressed and tries to kill himself, but a weathervane turns into Billy Preston, who shoots lightning out of his hands to save Billy and also turn some other people into nuns. Or something like that.

The Test of Time: This movie fails just about any test you’d like to give it, but none more so than the test of time. I can see why it seemed like a good idea in ’78: the first wave of Beatle nostalgia was sweeping the land, with the Beatlemania revue lighting up Broadway (“Not the Beatles, but an incredibly simulation!”) Producer Robert Stigwood had successfully brought the rock musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Tommy to the screen. Put two and two together and you get…an incoherent exercise in Ken Russell-lite psychedelia with a nearly unlistenable soundtrack, and one of the most notorious bombs of the ’70s. What’s really amazing to me is that I’d never seen it before now. Even at the heights of my own Beatle mania in the ’80s, I never sought it out; its reputation was always that terrible. And, I must say, well deserved. Produced more than a decade after the album that inspired it, the movie is actually much more dated than its source (which, lets be honest, is pretty dated itself). I don’t think anyone has ever accused Peter Frampton or The Bee Gees of being timeless artists, but even so, their disco fried versions of the Beatles classics are enough to make me doubt I ever liked the songs. They might as well be singing the lyrics phonetically for all the meaning and emotion they’re able to wring out of them, and the songs are all used in such numbingly obvious ways. (“Say, the sun is coming up in this scene. What would be a good number to sing here?”) And then there’s the “Golden Throats” parade of guest performers, including George Burns and his timeless rendition of “Fixing a Hole.” Seriously, did any of you buy this soundtrack album and listen to it on purpose? I mean, more than once? Steve Martin’s goony take on “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is often cited as one of the few highlights, but I think that’s overstating the case. Only Aerosmith’s “Come Together” works, and of course it was the only real hit. The movie ends with a group sing-along of the title track that's obviously intended as a tribute to the famous Sgt. Pepper album cover, but is more like dying and going to ’70s Celebrity Hell. Among the luminaries on hand are Carol Channing, Sha Na Na, Wolfman Jack, Leif Garrett, and Seals and Crofts. It’s certainly a thrill.

Quotable Quote: “She came in through the bathroom window.”

2008 Equivalent: The obvious choice would be Julie Taymor’s Beatles musical Across the Universe, but unfortunately that came out last year. So I’ll have to go with Mamma Mia!

Previously on Summer of '78: Revenge of the Pink Panther

DVD Digest for February 5, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:00:00 GMT

This week: some recent favorites premiere on DVD, numerous classic films arrive in new editions, and I double back to cover a new release we overlooked last week.

DVD Ripoff of the Week: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford was one of the best-reviewed films of 2007 and garnered Oscar nominations for Casey Affleck and cinematographer Roger Deakins. However, the film performed well below expectations at the box office, due in no small part to Warner Brothers completely bumbling its theatrical rollout. Due to its low gross and artsy rep, the brainiacs at Warner Home Video will release the film this week in a bare-bones edition. How bare-bones are we talking? Try these features on for size: widescreen, subtitle and language options, and 5.1 audio. And that's all, folks.

Not.

Even.

A.

Trailer.

You know, seems to me the DVD companies have it all backwards. It's mainly the hits that get splashy, extras-packed special editions, when it's the ambitious flops that could really benefit from them. Honestly, does a movie like Pirates of the Caribbean really need a boatload of bonus features to sell more DVDs? I don't think so. But The Assassination of Jesse James might attract more buyers if the DVD had commentary, some interesting featurettes, and so forth. At least the Blu-Ray edition has a documentary. How hard would it have been to put that on the regular DVD as well?

Of course, we know what this release really means: Warner is trying to make some quick bucks from opening-week impulse buyers, with the possibility of a super-sweet edition later on, possibly with Andrew Dominik's cut of the film included as well. Really, it's like they're not even trying to disguise it anymore. It's as though we're back in VHS days, when the studios would release tapes at higher prices to be sold primarily for rental, then lower the prices later on for buyers. The difference is that DVD is much more of a buyers' medium, thus collectors would piss and moan if they had to spend $100 on a new DVD. It's a money-grubbing ploy, but it must be working or else the studios wouldn't keep doing it, right?

Other new releases coming to DVD include: Jodie Foster in Neil Jordan's The Brave One (Warner, also Blu-Ray), Julie Taymor's Beatles-scored folly Across the Universe (Sony, also Blu-Ray), the Cate Blanchett-starring disaster Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Universal, also HD-DVD [!]), the Julie Delpy-directed 2 Days in Paris (Fox), Robert Benton's Feast of Love (MGM), and The Jane Austen Book Club (Sony, also Blu-Ray). Because when I think of the folks who own Blu-Ray players, I think Jane Austen.

No noteworthy classic films coming to DVD for the first time this week, but quite a few new editions of previously released films, including: Midnight Express: 30th Anniversary Edition (Sony), The Apartment Collector's Edition (Universal), The Aristocats Special Edition (Disney), The Wiz: 30th Anniversary Edition (Universal), Tootsie: 25th Anniversary Edition (Sony), and You've Got Mail: The Deluxe Edition (Warner). Fox is also releasing a two-disc set featuring both versions of Imitations of Life, for those of you who crave a Stahl vs. Sirk showdown. In addition, this week sees Blu-Ray only releases of Crimson Tide (Buena Vista), Me, Myself & Irene and Wall Street (both Fox).

Finally, I can't believe I neglected to mention in last week's column the second DVD release from our friends at Benten Films, Quiet City and Dance Party USA: Two Films By Aaron Katz. Founded last year, Benten is a decidedly small operation specializing in non-mainstream fare. Katz's work is a good match for the Benten label- a DIY filmmaker, Katz has been acclaimed by many as the most talented of the director comprising the movement that's usually labeled "mumblecore." With DVD mastering becoming cheaper and more widespread, there are many mom'n'pop DVD operations that have popped up on the scene, but Benten feels special to me, not least because founders Andrew Grant and Aaron Hillis are online cinephiles of long standing. Here's hoping for many successful years for the Benten team.

Take Five: The Betrayal of the Body

Peter Smith — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:00:00 GMT

Julian Schnabel, who's proved to be a much more interesting film director than he was a painter, has caused quite a stir in France with his latest, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Opening in limited release this weekend, the film deals with a French fashion magazine editor who suffers a paralyzing stroke and is forced to communicate with the world — telling tales not only of his internal imprisonment, but also of his rich interior life — the only way he can: by blinking out the words with his left eyelid, the sole part of his body he can still control. The idea that the human body is as much a prison as a vehicle is as old as Shakespeare, and it's likewise yielded a number of fine films, particularly from directors who've had their own bodies betray them, or those of their loved ones. When the mind is still sharp but seems to exist solely as a captive of a body, without which it cannot survive, but to which it is frustratingly bound, some outstanding, if terribly depressing, dramatic situations can ensue. Here are five films dealing with the ways in which the mind can become a prisoner of the body — and the ways in which those minds seek escape.

JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN (1971)

For many decades, a number of prominent directors had sought permission to make a film of Dalton Trumbo's stunningly powerful anti-war novel. Trumbo (a longtime victim of Hollywood's anti-Communist blacklist) always refused, saying that only he could properly translate the novel — which deals with a WWI veteran who loses his arms, legs and face to an exploding shell and desperately seeks a way to communicate his rage at the futility of the loss to the world — to film. When he finally did, it was an odd effort, to say the least, but it featured many of the book's most essential themes and powerful scenes. (A remake, based on a recent stage adaptation, is currently in the works.)

THE FLY (1986)

David Cronenberg's films have a number of common threads, but if one attitude hovers above them all, it's the simultaneous attraction to and revulsion at the human body — its vitality as well as its decay. Although the theme is present in almost all of his movies, nowhere is it more purely realized than in his remake of The Fly, where scientist Seth Brundle's slow disintegration and dehumanization as he transforms into a monster is both subtly and explicitly compared to the progress of those suffering from deadly diseases like cancer and AIDS. In a number of the movie's most telling and memorable pieces of dialogue, the director's fascination with the body's potential and the horror at its easy disintegration are obvious.

MY LEFT FOOT (1989)

Christy Brown's childhood could have — should have — been a brief, sad nightmare. Born with crippling cerebral palsy, he was barely expected to live, let alone thrive. But his fiercely determined mother refused to believe that there wasn't a lively mind inside that shattered body, and kept at the young Irishman to grow and to think, until he eventually learned to read, to write, and to paint with the left foot of the title, his only working limb. Borne to lofty heights largely on the strength of a terrific performance as Brown by Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot was the directorial debut of Jim Sheridan, who went on to make other well-received, Oscar-nominated films such as The Field, In the Name of the Father and In America before somehow landing at the helm of 50 Cent's vanity project, Get Rich or Die Tryin', after which he presumably died of shame.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME (1991)

Master documentarian Errol Morris wisely assumed that audiences wouldn't be entirely enthralled by a straightforward discussion of the heavy-duty astrophysics contained in scientist Stephen Hawking's book of the same name. So he wisely chose to focus as much on Hawking himself as on his theories; Hawking is an endlessly compelling figure; despite having developed Lou Gehrig's disease in his early twenties, which has confined him to a wheelchair and made him incapable of speech or all but the tiniest movements, he is widely considered a scientific genius on the level of Albert Einstein. Morris presents some of Hawking's theories and, like the book that gives his film its name, attempts to make them accessible to the causal viewer, but likewise presents the enigma of the man who made them and asks us to consider the power of a the mind that occupies that nearly useless body.

FRIDA (2002)

Julie Taymor's biopic of the notorious Mexican painter Frida Kahlo is plagued with problems — spotty performances, a suspect script and more hoary clichés than you can shake a paintbrush at. But it's visually inventive, well-framed, and as good a cinematic look as we're likely ever going to get at the singular Ms. Kahlo. The brilliant, temperamental Frida was involved, at a young age, in a horrific accident that left her scarred for life and in constant pain, and while she became a celebrity, a heroine, and a towering figure in the arts of her homeland, she was never able to escape the wounds, both physical and psychic, left to her by the trauma.

— Leonard Pierce