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Movie Review: “Yesterday”

*Read at your own risk if you haven’t seen the movie yet!*

First there was the release of the official trailer for “Yesterday”…

 

And then there were articles being released a week in advance with titles like:

‘Yesterday’ comedy movie gets Beatles’ seal of approval

 

Are Paul McCartney And Ringo Starr In The ‘Yesterday’ Movie?

 

And then the movie came out…and Facebook lit up with everyone say, “It’s amazing…but I won’t spoil it…”, “It fantastic…but there is a twist in the last 10 minutes…but I won’t spoil it”, “It’s great…but I never saw the ending coming…but I won’t spoil it”

At this point, I gave up trying to go see this movie on my own terms and decided it was best that I go see it before someone actually spoiled it more than everyone already had. Now, some people may not consider the above things spoilers, but I do. It gets ones hopes and visions of the movie up and the expectations start to outweigh anything that the movie can produce.

And let’s not forget to mention that before the movie was even released, people were making comparisons between Himesh Patel, the star Yesterday, and Rami Malik – who played Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody! “Himesh actually sings the songs!” So what?! It’s like comparing apples to oranges! And yes, you can buy the Yesterday soundtrack, complete with Himesh singing all the classic Beatles hits….

Himesh Patel does a great job playing the part of Jack Malik (Malik? Where have we heard that name before?) the wanna be rock-star. His manager is played by Lily James, who I was impressed with back in the days of Downton Abbey, but now think I need a break from seeing her in everything. Joel Fry does a fab job playing the sidekick/roadie Rocky, but other than that, most of the performances where mediocre. Except for Kate McKinnon…who’s performance as the agent was annoying from the start.

This movie was fun and funny, even if the theater I was in was only about 1/4 full at a noontime showing when it was 90 degrees and humid outside. I think I was laughing more than anyone else at some of the obvious and inside jokes, like when Jack finds out that the band Oasis doesn’t exist either! (I had to explain to my son that it’s widely known that Oasis ripped off the Beatles when writing their own songs, so if the Beatles didn’t exist, Oasis could never have existed).

Yeah…go see this movie. And I hope you get to see it on your own terms without all the hype and chatter that’s currently going on all over the internet. One of my sons (I took both of them to see it…since, well, I didn’t name them after the Beatles!) asked me what I thought…and I said,

I liked it. And yeah, when it comes on TV, I’ll watch it over and over again whenever it’s on.”

And for that reason,

I rate this movie, 3 out of 4 Beetles!

 

 

 

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Album/CD Review: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – 50th Anniversary Edition

I decided it was time for me to review something new, so I went out and bought the new Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – 2 CD Deluxe EditionYou can pick up various packaging for the revised/remix of the original album (1 CD, 2 CD, Deluxe, etc.), but I decided that for my own purposes all I really needed was the 2 CD set with the new mix and a CD of outtakes (I won’t be reviewing the outtakes).

In order to fully understand what Giles Martin did in his editing of the original cuts, I pulled out my Sgt. Pepper’s CD from 1987 and tried desperately to get my old 5 disc player to play the two discs in spiral mode so I could hear the old, then new version of each track…but alas, after 2 hours of wrestling with both our players, I ended up having to do it manually! UGH…time warp back to the 1980s!

Well, it didn’t take long to hear the difference! The older disc has a duller, more muted sound to it and the tracks sound very distinct as they change from speaker to speaker.  The new version is an amazing mix that flows…Picture yourself in a boat on a river, With tangerine trees and marmalade skies INDEED! The music literally surrounds you and it made me sorry I was listening to it on just two speakers. My next purchase is going to be a fantastic set of headphones for just the purpose of listening to this CD. I also can’t wait to get to listening to these mind blowing, full bodied moving tunes in the six speaker sound chamber of my car. It’s so hard to describe, maybe you just have to be there! And for that reason…

I rate this album/CD 5 out of 4 Beetles! (George Martin included this time…)

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DVD Review: “Confessions of a Beatlemaniac”


About 2.5 years ago, I reviewed the book  “Confessions of a Beatlemaniac!” A true story of a fan who broke all the rules to MEET THE BEATLES! by Dee Elias after meeting her at the Chicago Fest for Beatles Fans.  And about a year later, I posted that Dee was having a Kickstarter campaign to help fund a short film based on her book.

For those of us that were lucky enough to get in on the ground floor by contributing to her highly successful campaign, and requested a copy of the DVD as our reward, we got the goods about 2 weeks ago.  I couldn’t wait to pop this movie into my DVD player!

This 20 minute short starts with an animated title page that is just too cute.  Hint: It’s a play on the book cover.   Then the fun starts, as Dee and her friends reminisce about the fab time that had trying to meet the Beatles when they were just young innocent girls.  Flash backs will take you back to 60’s with Dee and company sneaking and conniving their way to actually get up close and personal with the Fab Four.  This movie is delightful…

But Dee’s adventures didn’t end in the 60’s.  Dee and her movie crew have decided to enter this movie as a Short Film in several movie festivals this year.  For the rest of her adoring fans, it’s scheduled to be released to the public in 2017!

For those that haven’t read her delightful true story of meeting the Beatles, you can purchase her book on her website or on Amazon.  It’ll help pass the time while we all wait for the movie to be released to the public!

Good luck at the film festivals, Dee!

 

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Beatles Freak Reviews adds new ‘Tea for Tuesday’ feature for summer 2015 | PRLog

Beatles Freak Reviews adds new ‘Tea for Tuesday’ feature for summer 2015 | PRLog.

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