Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | June 29, 2005 | | Summary | September 2005 | Content
 | This movie is basically about the making of an album but later falls apart into the breakup of the Beatles. We see Paul trying hard to keep the band together, while George seems agitated and Ringo and John seem like they could care less about the band.
The program has some great music but I wouldn't reccomend getting one of the bootlegs because they are just bad quality. Rumor has it that the official remastered version of the DVD will be out on September 2005. It will also contain "some remarkable bonus material". The person that remastered it also did the Festival Express and he says that the viewers will be surprised on how good the quality is. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 13, 2005 | | Summary | Grim but Fascinating | Content
| The Beatles' fourth film was a documentary of their January 1969 recording sessions for an album of the same name. The state of the Beatles' relationships with one another was at an all-time low, due to personal and professional strains, and it certainly shows in the film. Grim and voyeuristic, it is a well-made film but for serious fans only. Even for them it is liable to be a depressing experience. The Beatles' goodwill towards one another had evaporated completely. Lennon's increasingly bizarre behavior can be attributed to either his well-developed taste for heroin or Yoko Ono's constant presence, which greatly annoyed the rest of the group during these sessions. John can barely disguise his boredom or contempt of the material, while Paul attempts to hold the group together, only to be resented as pushy and domineering. George is detached and even Ringo looks like he's about had it. Saddest of all, the video outtakes and recordings bootlegged from these sessions show that Let It Be's dreary footage actually represented the cheeriest material from early 1969. The film's climax is the famous "Rooftop Concert" on top of Abbey Road Studios, which proved to be the Beatles' final "public" performance. It's a bit of a let-down, as the Beatles go fairly quietly when the constables arrive, but the whole episode is bizarre enough to pay off. Oh yeah, and they were still an unbelievably good live band. |
| Rating | | | Date | December 21, 2004 | | Summary | Great but this isn't the version we deserve | Content
| This film is a great piece of historical documentation of the breakup of a great band... and the 1970 version shows just that.. but i feel they should condense the 100's of hours of footage into a box set and let us, the real fans, see the thing unfold there were some great moments throughout the sessions that were happy times...
I think we should see George presenting classics like All things must pass... and if it is available a remastered version of Child of Nature (hinted at on the Fly on the Wall bonus disk) release as much as possible and let us be a real fly on the wall watching our favorite band making an album...
and the aspect of time could only improve this film in that it would be a retrospective view now that, with the help of the Anthology series we can finally start to understand the events surrounding it...
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| Rating | | | Date | November 02, 2004 | | Summary | Priceless footage | Content
| I have a copy of this movie on VHS I bought years ago, copied from an old laser disc of the movie. I love it... the rooftop concert is of course the highlight. I Me Mine is awesome, and VERY different than the version on cd. Let It Be, The Long and Winding Road, Dig It, Besame Mucho, Don't Let Me Down are all excellent! It's cool to see Billy Preston playing with them, which leads me to wish they had considered having other 'guests' come in and jam with them for the film (such as Clapton or Dylan). The fighting is unfortunate... Paul seems pushy, John seems arrogant, George is uninterested, Ringo is quiet. But there are also some great happy moments, and they are still obviously friends. But in terms of style, appearance and music, this version of the Beatles is MUCH cooler than the Help or Hard Day's Night era of the band, and some of the performances here as I mentioned are AMAZING. I hope the DVD will offer alot of bonus footage... I would LOVE to see performances of All Things Must, Love You So, and Watching Rainbows!!!!! The very cool promo video of Something would be a nice bonus throw in too! |
| Rating | | | Date | September 23, 2004 | | Summary | Let It Be remade. | Content
| The biggest problem with this movie is that the movie itself doesn't live up to it's legend. If you didn't know anything about the fab fours later years this is what you'll get out this movie: Band jamming in sound stage then cut away to band jamming in building then cut away to band jamming on roof - the end. The film only works if you have piror knowledge of the events of early 1969 that lead to the band demise. Thus film itself suffers from the same hurdle that most rock movies of this time come across: a lack of narrative. Why are they on the roof? What is the building they're jamming in, are they recording? And the sad fact is that there is footage out there that could rectify this.
In 1996's 'The Beatles Anthology' we got the scenes of the band and crew discussing the concert on the roof, talking to the camera's about why they chose a sound stage and more importantly the aims of the whole 'Get Back' project. Even some subtitles at the bottom of the screen could give this mess a bit of direction. If this film ever gets released it needs a needs a new cut, including all the meetings the band has with the crew, the on camera interviews with Paul and of course some of the tense moments that occurred while making the movie. Yes, there is the famous scene of Paul and George arguing over how the lead to 'I've Got A Feeling' should be played but for the rest of the bickering that most Beatles fans have heard on bootlegs of outtakes have all been glossed over.
On the positive side the performances are great, even if 'Let It Be' did boast some of the fabs weakest efforts the music is still worth sitting through the seemingly pointless scenes of dialogue. In saying that, 'Let It Be' is not a bad movie, in fact I'd say it's a great movie that's been poorly hacked up. This makes it only worth it if you know enough already to read between the lines. |
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