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Paul McCartney - Get Back Live

Paul McCartney - Get Back Live

List Price: $49.99
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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: lazy filmmaking mars great concert
Review: Ouch! Such a pricey dvd. I sure wish it were better. Given the greatness of the music and performances, it's a little puzzling why the film is so distractingly bad--but bad it certainly is.

The blame probably goes in a number of directions. One is that it's not apparent that McCartney really thought through the visual aspect of this concert (the sets, lighting, and back-projections are very 70s). This is no surprise. McCartney is massively charming, as everyone knows, but it's also true that his visual imagination doesn't really work in terms of motion picture. So, he paints surprisingly well and takes a beautiful photo, but he can't really conceive of images extended through time, the way, say, David Byrne or Laurie Anderson do so well.

More importantly, however, I think McCartney is seriously let down by the filmmakers. The film stock selected is jaw-droppingly bad for these night concerts, the editing is lazy, the direction is plainly uninspired, the cameramen are too obviously flirting with audience-members, the interpolated 60s footage is ill-advised and in poor taste (I mean, is Long and Winding Road really about the napalm girl?). You almost wonder whether the filmmakers were *trying* to make a great concert into a dull one. The transfer on dvd is minimally adequate.

In short, any of the other McCartney videos are preferable to this one.

I might add that while the Tripping the Light Fantastic 2CD has a nice mix of classics and selections from McCartney's superb Flowers in the Dirt album, the concert here is short (is the dvd even shorter than the VHS?) and consists almost exclusively of Beatles/Wings oldies. As a consequence, we get to see Paul do the songs he nearly always does, and the video here has less to offer the Paul collector. Yesterday anyone?

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: What a Shame
Review: Paul hired old pal Richard Lester ("A Hard Days' Night") to direct this film, and boy, did Lester blow it. The 89/90 tour was fantastic, but this film captures none of the magic, and actually makes the tour look bad. I think Lester thought he was being artsy and relevant by mixing in all the sixties footage, but it seems utterly out of place and ruins the mood of each song.

...What Paul should do now is collect all that footage and hire someone to re-edit it and put out a new and improved DVD version.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: If you want to know what all the Magic is about
Review: Simple. You must see this guy Live and you will get an idea what the beatles were all about. Incredible musician

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Disappointing
Review: The song Long And Winding Road is entirely a documentary about the Vietnam war, instead of seeing Paul sing. I bought this DVD in order to let my mum see Paul sing this song. TOTALLY DISAPPOINTING.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Almost 4 stars but should be 3 1/2 stars!
Review: This film of Paul's 1989/1990 has great moments but it has a few flaws. Only 20 of the 30+ songs are performed and some of Richard Lester's footage take away much of a song's worth. However, some of his little bits of footage work quite nice. Overall, the performances, color, sound, and filming is done quite well. The film is shot better than "Rock Show" but "Paul Is Live In The New World" is slighly better. To sum it up, a can't miss for Paul Mcartney/Beatles' fan.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Dig It
Review: This is a DVD of Paul McCartney's 1989-90 world tour. Twenty tracks were selected and accompanied by enjoyable, but unnecessary, extra footage of the Beatles and the '60s. The concert is filmed very well, and Paul plays some of his best material. From the minute he kicks off "Band on the Run" to the moment he ends the beautiful Abbey Road medley, he never ceases to come through strong. Other highlights include "Put it There," "I Saw Her Standing There," "Back in the USSR" and "Let it Be." Paul, to me, is not 48 years old in this film. He still rocks as hard as he did at 22. Good work, Paul.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: This is awfully shot
Review: This is poorly put together. There are too many shots of the crowd and then they spliced performances of the same song together. I think this fails b/c you don't get a chance to experience the performance. The 'tour' itself becomes the showcase and I think R Lester missed out on a great opportunity to capture a Paul and his solid band.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Just as disappointing as the original VHS release
Review: When this concert video was released following Paul McCartney's 1989-90 world tour, I had great expectations as I had been to two of his concerts. It disappointed me then and the DVD release is no improvement.

Rather than being filmed sequentially during one concert, film was shot at many, if not all, of the concert venues on this tour. As a result, the performers may be shown wearing four or five different stage costumes during the span of one song. This may be the way the mtv-generation does it, but for a full-length concert video it comes off disjointed and annoying and detracts from the feeling of this being a live concert.

Crowd noise has been edited out of the musical tracks and is only dubbed in for a few seconds between songs. Some of the "concert" footage was even filmed on a sound stage in the UK and at another concert venue, sans audience. This was so some close-ups could be filmed. The way these were dropped in to the film is terribly obvious and it's clear this footage was not done in concert.

The worst part of the film is the way director Richard Lester ("A Hard Day's Night," "Help!", "How I Won the War") used archival news footage of 1960s war protests, Vietnam and even some Beatles film stock and showed this for the duration of entire songs. Right when the viewer is starting to enjoy the "concert," here comes these old news clips that have absolutely nothing to do with the song. This technique totally ruined this as a "concert film" for me. The film is poorly cut and edited.

One of the "extras" on the DVD is the option to show the song lyrics so you can sing along with Paul. Sadly, the lyrics shown are incorrect on many of the songs. It looks like someone wrote down what they thought they were hearing, rather than actually taking the time to get the sheet music and record the actual lyrics. Of course, any real Beatles/McCartney fan knows those songs forward and backward anyway. But the fact that this product was released with so many errors truly is shameful.

This was an awesome tour, and this DVD comes no where close to capturing the excitement, electricity and enthusiasm experienced in person by both the audience and the band. Being priced higher than most DVDs and not having any real extras is also a disappointment. This is really a waste of the digital media.

I only purchased the DVD as I'm attempting to collect all Beatles-related DVDs as they are released. If you are not a completist, I would definitely recommend the Live at the Cavern DVD or the Music for Montserrat instead.


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