Rating: Summary: Had the chance of being a good flick... Review: I consider myself a Bealtes fan, having loved Help! and Yellow Submarine, I expected another delightfully cheesey Beatle flick. However, the story gets bogged down in a few too many songs, dream sequences, and a few bit characters. The story is there, but it moves painfully slow. Ringo it seems is a treat no matter where he goes or what he does, he should've had a bigger part with his simple few words to convey his point. :) It was a good idea, but the movie just didn't carry through. Paul should probably stick to his day job, but I'd like to see another go - and give Ringo some more screen time. Poor Linda had barely a sentence to say in the movie. The new versions of "The Long and Winding Road" with a sax solo and "Yesterday" are also appreciated. "No More Lonely Nights" is one of his best solo love songs, and it's music video persuaded me to buy this movie. I love movies like this about real people in fantastical type fictional situations. This would be a good candidate for DVD only to skip through all the slow parts. Too much padding, not enough substance. The "Eleanor's Dream" sequence is confusing, but the new tune is cool. likewise with "Ballroom Dancing" nice song, but what the heck is going on here?
Rating: Summary: Well done Paul Review: First of all let me say this - I absolutely love this film. The plot has been described in the other reviews so I won't do it again. It mightn't be an ordinary film - it's slightly more of an art film. If you watch it as a couple of music videos loosely connected by a plot this film is great. I expect I don't have to tell you that the music is brilliant - this is after all Paul McCartney we're talking about - "So Bad" is heart-meltingly beautiful. For me, the whole "Eleanor Rigby/Eleanor's Dream" scene alone is worth buying the video. I'll tell you what - if you enjoy an art film or music videos (or, in fact, if you enjoyed "Magical Mystery Tour") I recommend this film to you.
Rating: Summary: Give my fondest regards to Sir Paul Review: The star of this movie, panned as a vanity project by McCartney by a certain Leonard Maltin, is not only McCartney but the music, which is a mixture of Beatles songs, Wings songs, and solo McCartney, both old and new.The plot, flimsy as it is, involves the loss of the master tapes to McCartney's latest album, which has already sold millions in advance copies. Suspicion immediately falls upon Harry, a friend with a police record who has gone straight and whom Paul lends a hand by offering him a job. If the tape is not recovered in 24 hours, businessmen who helped his record company during a cash flow crisis will take over, leaving him broke. Trouble is, Harry's gone missing, and he might have taken it to the notorious bootlegger Big Bob for a lot of lolly. The movie also is a day in the life of Paul, with a hectic schedule of stage and radio appearances, recording, etc., but in this case, the creditors go around harassing Paul and company. The medley of "Yesterday/Here There And Everywhere/Wanderlust" is a treat very early in the movie. It's a nostalgic listen for Beatles fans and for the days when producer George Martin, who appears here, was like the fifth Beatle. The scene features a funny scene where Ringo spends two-thirds of the medley time finding brushes. He finally does and gets ready, only to find himself in time for "Wanderlust," which needs drumsticks, which he already had in the first place. The "Ballroom Dancing" number is about a trio of grammar school kids who play with each other. They grow up as teenage toughs, the boys who fight over the girl. The fight then spills over to the elegant ballroom dancers. Chaos sets in as the dancers tussle with the toughs, knocking over bits of the stage in the process. Audience members watching get alarmed, wondering, "What's going on here?" The fact that it was all staged, as one of the toughs gives a hand to one of the dancers, is somewhat of a joke. Paul then calmly asks Linda, "Lunch?" after the calamity. There's a funny scene in the BBC canteen when a man dressed in a hideously grotesque monster outfits scares someone nearby. In fact there are others on their lunch break who appear to be working on some sci-fi show that isn't Doctor Who. The rock set, "Not Such A Bad Boy," "So Bad," and "No Values," are performed by the band including Dave Edmunds on guitar, and it's fun to see Barbara Bach, aka Ms. Starr, jamming out to the music while sitting down. Hearing "The Long And Winding Road" in a version preferable to Paul made up my mind that this version is better than the Let It Be version. A pensive Paul is driving down the road, while Linda, Ringo, and Barbara are anxiously waiting for word, and Sandra (Harry's wife) is sadly looking at a picture of her missing husband. The "Eleanor's Dream" daydream sequence involves an idyllic countryside and the cobblestones of a Dickensian England. Linda is shown in a majestic sequence during her last bit in it. A brief scene between Paul and Sir Ralph Richardson, the latter's penultimate movie appearance, is touching as well as illuminating of Paul's character in the movie. Guest stars who help out are of course Richardson, Tracey Ullman as Sandra, and Bryan Brown as Paul's manager, but TV veteran John Bennett as the menacing Ratchett, pulls off the most effective performance, without saying a solitary word in the movie! Now that's acting! Fans of the Beatles and Paul in particular will give this video the rating I've given it--others might rate it 1 or 2, but who cares?
Rating: Summary: not good Review: I'm a published fiction writer, and fiction writers find it tiresome how people of other fields of art think they can jump into fiction writing and pull it off without any apprenticing. People often sing and act well without ever having done it before, why not writing? Well, writing is a 3-dimensional art form, whereas the others are 2-dimensional. And Paul made the typical mistake of thinking he could just pick up a pen and let that screenplay flow without any trouble. The screenplay is GARBAGE. Paul himself later ACKNOWLEDGED this. He said, "I really got caught up with writing the screenplay, so that I started giving other people ADVICE about writing screenplays. I really lost it there, and realize now I didn't know what I was doing." At least he fessed up to it. I will say, what keeps me from giving this one star is that "No More Lonely Nights" is one of his best compositions since the Beatles, and to see Ringo and Paul together in the film was a treat.
Rating: Summary: He's Paul McCartney and he can afford to do it! Review: Let's face it, this really isen't a movie. It's a collection of videos held togeather loosly with a impossible plot. That being said, I like it. The "Ballroom dancing" and "not such a bad boy" and the sureal "Elinor Rigby" video adaptation is worth the ten bucks right there. You should be a die-hard Paul or Beatles fan to enjoy the "movie". Not for the fair weather fan.
Rating: Summary: Give My Regards to Sir Paul Review: Paul McCartney is in a quest to recover some missing master tapes, and finds time along the way to jam with lovable bloke Ringo Starr. Always fascinated with filmmaking, Paul's "skill" here hasn't really improved since he had a go with "Magical Mystery Tour". Like that earlier film, things come off as disjointed and confusing, but the music sequences deliver the goods. That they do: Paul reprises some Beatles hits as well as songs from "Tug Of War", "Pipes Of Peace", and "Wings At The Speed Of Sound." The music definitely carries the movie, Paul and Ringo are a delight to watch, but the storyline is pretty weak. Fans have head start, but others will probably be bored.
Rating: Summary: Great at being what is is. Review: While this video seems to collect criticism it would seem to me to be misplaced. This movie is a great vehicle for Paul Mc Cartney to play a few tunes and have some fun, not a serious attempt to create an epic. There is a little morality tale about an ex-convict woven into the plot but it still stays fairly lighthearted. The secret of enjoying this movie is to not take it too seriously.
Rating: Summary: Fantastic in an Odd way. Review: I am a big Paul McCartney fan and maybe that's why I love this film so much. It's one of those films that's kind of bad but really good. I thought this film was okay at the beginning until it got to the 18th century scenes with an Eleanor Rigby instrumental being played in the background. I thought this was a truely inspired piece of work on McCartney's behalf even though most of the movie is a showcase of his songs. Now I love this film! This film is really fun and I would recommend it to a lot of people just because it is a really fun watch. I would like to know how they managed to make Barbara Bach look as ugly as she does in this film? She's gorgeous. Could have made her look better.
Rating: Summary: Self-indulgent eighties period piece Review: What can I say? This "movie" was terrible. The plot is relatively simple: a master recording tape is missing, and must be recovered by midnight or Paul's record company is taken over by big business. The courier, a rehabilitated criminal, is suspect. Sir Paul to the rescue. The themes are simple: trust your friends, good prevails over evil, etc. etc. etc. So what happened? Paul's ego happened. The plot has potential, but "screenwriter" McCartney treats the plot as a byline to his musical productions; the action is only a nagging interruption between musical numbers. Even worse, the musical productions lack any clarity and direction. First, Paul's in the studio. Then he's in a couple big production numbers. Then he's dreaming he's in Victorian England. Then he's rehearsing. Paul has a busy day, but it's a good thing that missing master tape that threatens to ruin his business is not disrupting anything. Pretty annoying. But more annoying is how the plot, during the few times it's being played out, gets interrupted by Paul's "visions" of what happened to the courier and the tape. They only confuse and annoy. And none of the characters, least of all Paul, seem to really care about finding the missing tape. Most annoying, is the plot resolution (skip this paragraph if you don't want the outcome spoiled). Halfway through the movie I took a guess to how the movie would end. "Hmmm...the courier probably got locked in a toilet somewhere..." Guess what? When I saw my guess was accurate, I remembered, "Hmmm, Paul fell asleep in his car at the beginning of the movie...I bet this was all a dream..." Guess what? Not clever, and not funny. The script is bad, the humor forced (and unfunny), the acting drab. There's no character or plot development. The music is overproduced, and sounds like Paul is trying to relive his glory days, yet be "fresh". As it turns out, he sounds very "eighties" and dated. Even the musicians in the performances look like they'd rather be doing something else. On a lighter note, check this movie out if you want to see to what lengths musicians would go in the eighties to be clever, in style, and "M-TV". There's a pretty (unintentionally) funny musical number (Silly Love Songs) where Paul and his band are dressed in whiteface and white costumes; with a bit more makeup, Paul could probably take the lead in "Cats". Put your notions of Beatle or McCartney music aside. This movie is about a self-indulgent aging rock musician. And it's terrible.
Rating: Summary: Cheesy fun for all true McCartney fans Review: WARNING: This movie is not for the fair-weather fan. It's extremely cheesy, doesn't have the greatest plot, and I even fast-forward through parts of it. That being said, I love this movie. It's one of my true guilty pleasures. The "Ballroom Dancing" sequence is deliciously over-the-top. As for the "Silly Love Songs" sequence...well, it WAS the early 80s. Bearing that in mind, it's interesting to watch. The appearance by Tracey Ulman is great fun, as is watching Paul McCartney beg for money as a busker. I could go on and on, but it boils down to this. If you love Paul, then you'll probably love this movie. If you don't love Paul's music, then you should probably pass on this one.
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