the rhapsodic cineaste

Red: Man, I’m just into Buddhism, and I’m at peace with the fact that me, as this person, probably gonna not be around. Think about a hermit crab, okay? And it's a shell. It’s like, they go from one shell to the next. And that’s what I am. I'm just a hermit crab changin’ shells.
Dale: Except if you’re a dick your whole life, your next shell will be made of shit, okay? If you’re an asshole, you're gonna come back as a cockroach or a worm or a fuckin’ anal bead, okay? If you’re a man and you act heroic, you'll come back as an eagle. You’ll come back as a dragon. You’ll come back as Jude Law, okay? Which would you rather be?
Red: Maybe the anal bead, depending on who it belongs to.
Dale: Belongs to me.
Red: Then the dragon.

The best part of Sunday night’s predictably bloated, self-congratulatory Oscar telecast was Judd Apatow’s short tribute to comedy in 2008, with Seth Rogan and James Franco reprising their characters from Pineapple Express. I’ve been a fan of Apatow’s universe since his short-lived TV series, Freaks and Geeks (1999), but I hadn’t found the time to watch his latest production. The Oscar skit was sufficiently charming that I moved Pineapple Express to the top of my screening queue.

The film did not disappoint. Largely a dumb stoner comedy, the plot revolves about process server Dale Denton (Rogan), who witnesses a murder. The killers are drug kingpin Ted Jones (Cole) and his girlfriend Carol (Perez), a corrupt police officer. Dale is stoned when he stumbles on the crime, and in a fit of drug-induced paranoia he flees the scene, carelessly leaving behind a roach. Naturally, Ted recognizes the marijuana as his own rare strain, called Pineapple Express. This leads the killers to Denton’s dealer Saul Silver (Franco), and a wacky chase-fueled buddy comedy.

Sure it’s puerile—there are plenty of kicks to the crotch and a lot of mindless stoner ramblings. And the plot is filled with dead-ends. A weirdly amusing prologue and a subplot with Dale’s underaged girlfriend (Heard) are poorly resolved. The film’s climax unexpectedly veers into a gratuitous bloodbath. But it’s damned funny.

I was in stitches when Saul attempts to rescue Dale, evading the cops in a stolen police cruiser. The windshield is covered in red slushie, so Saul attempts to kick it out, like they do in the movies. The result, and it’s effect on their chase is the films best sustained gag. Dale and Saul also find themselves in an amusing, and incredibly destructive, stoner fight with another dealer named Red (McBride).

While there’s nothing particularly original or groundbreaking here, Pineapple Express met my basic criteria for a good comedy, keeping me laughing throughout.

“For guys like me, Las Vegas washes away your sins. It's like a morality car wash. It does for us what Lourdes does for humpbacks and cripples. And along with making us legit…comes cash, tons of it. I mean, what do you think we’re doing out here in the middle of the desert? It’s all this money.” – Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert DeNiro)

For years Casino has been derided as kind of a Goodfellas Redux. It’s not hard to see why. Released only five years after Goodfellas, the film reunited Martin Scorsese with author/screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, and actors Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci and Frank Vincent in a profane, shockingly violent tale about organized crime.

Inspired by true story of sports handicapper Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal and Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro, Casino has more in common thematically with Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II (1974). Though both films ostensibly portray the mafia’s influence in Las Vegas gambling, each more subtly chronicles the disintegration of a marriage and a vain quest for legitimacy.

Whereas The Godfather’s Michael Corleone is unrepentantly evil—his own quest for legitimacy merely lip-service to his long dead, youthful ideals—Casino’s Ace Rothstein wants merely to be an honest businessman. The dream is still within his grasp.

Interestingly, here is a mob movie where the lead character is generally honest, non-violent and law-abiding. Sure rules are bent here and there, and Rothstein has no illusions about the true nature of his gangster employers. Yet he works hard to keep his nose clean. Las Vegas has legitimized his trade, and he makes every effort to exploit the opportunity he’s been given. It’s largely the criminal escapades of gangster Nicky Santoro (Pesci), that destroys Rothstein’s dream.

Martin Scorsese is a modern master and, as such, any tale he decides to tell is one worth watching. Repeatedly. While not my favorite Scorsese film, Casino is in the director’s top tier.

Mamma mia, here I go again, my my, how can I resist you?
Mamma mia, does it show again?
My my, just how much I’ve missed you?
Yes, I’ve been brokenhearted, blue since the day we parted
Why, why did I ever let you go?
Mamma mia, now I really know, my my, I could never let you go.
– Donna Sheridan (Meryl Streep)

Writing about Chicago, I suggested that one’s enjoyment of the film was predicated on one’s enjoyment of musicals in general. I’ll offer a similar disclaimer for Mamma Mia! with an additional caveat, this movie is purely for fans of the Swedish pop group ABBA.

Developed first as a stage musical by playwright Catherine Johnson, Mamma Mia! has shoehorned much of ABBA’s catalog into the story of single mother Donna Sheridan (Streep) who has raised her daughter Sophie (Seyfried) at a dilapidated hotel on a secluded Greek island.

About to be married, Sophie wants to invite her father to the wedding, so she steals her mother’s diary to discover her mysterious dad is one of three men. Undeterred, she invites all three to the wedding. Hijinx ensue.

There isn’t very much plot, just enough to stitch ABBA’s discography into a reasonably cohesive narrative. Streep, predictably, makes the most of her role and proves to be a surprisingly effective singer.

Seyfried, too, has a good voice, which is all her character really demands. To see Seyfried actually act, check her out in HBO’s Big Love. She is excellent as Sarah Hendrickson, the conflicted teenaged daughter of polygamists.

Neither Brosnan, Firth nor Skarsgård has a particularly strong talent for song, which is painfully obvious when they sing, or more accurately rhythmically shout over musical accompaniment.. Their banter is amusing enough though, and each display a seemingly genuine affection for Seyfried’s Sophie.

Mamma Mia!’s worst sin isn’t that it’s a horrible train wreck of a film, but rather that it’s completely unnecessary. I suppose that to be expected when you try to string a narrative from a collection of thirty-year old pop tunes.

“The American Dream, in my opinion, is in the toilet. It’s history. It’s gone. The American Dream is now how do we survive the future. It’s not having an eight bedroom home with eleven bathrooms. It’s not having the career and a lawn and all of the amenities. It is simply how do our children and our children’s children even have a chance at life.” – Michael Reynolds

Garbage Warrior wears its bias on its sleeve. A documentary about architect Michael Reynolds, the film is largely told from Reynolds’s point of view. It champions the architect’s perspective, it advocates his ideology.

The film’s not really a white-wash though. We see that Reynolds can be abrasive, dismissive of authority and that some of his designs are dysfunctional. We learn that there have been angry clients and lots of lawsuits.

To be clear though, with Garbage Warrior director Oliver Hodge is evangelizing on Reynolds’s behalf. Either you accept the designer’s belief that climate change, dwindling natural resources and overpopulation are potentially catastrophic or you don’t. If you accept Reynolds’s thesis, the film is a call to action, a blueprint for sustainable living. If not, well then Reynolds and his designs probably come across as sheer lunacy.

Though not really the focus of the documentary, it’s impossible to talk about Reynolds, or Garbage Warrior without discussing his creations, dubbed earthships. So what exactly is an earthship, anyway?

An earthship is essentially a passive solar home, situated for maximum southern exposure. The home’s south face is usually glass, and absorbs light from the sun. The earthship’s foundation, using principles of thermal mass, consists of old cans, plastic bottles and tires. The tires are filled with “rammed earth,” dirt tightly packed with a sledge hammer. When filled with as much mass as possible, the stacked tires are plastered in adobe.

Using these innovative techniques, earthship’s both capture and store the sun’s energy. Without heating or cooling systems, the homes traditionally remain a consistent 68° F, regardless of the external temperature.

Reynolds and a rebel gang of misfits and malcontents have been building these homes outside of Taos, New Mexico, where land is cheap and unconnected to the utility grid. Through the use of solar panels and grey water recycling systems, earthships can effectively remain off-the-grid, and free from utility payments.

Much of Garbage Warrior focuses on Reynolds as he battles county and state government to build earthship communities free from zoning laws. Flagrantly disregarding the law, he is stripped of his architectural licenses. And Taos County closes one of his earthship developments for code violations.

In the film, government employees claim that these were good faith efforts designed to keep the community safe. Other participants suggest that utility companies, threatened by the potential loss of revenue, successfully lobbied against Reynolds and his communities. I suspect one’s opinion about the state’s true motivations largely depends on one’s political philosophy. The film does offer a hint to the director’s opinion though.

After the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and subsequent tsunami that claimed more than 200,000 lives and displaced more than one million people, Reynolds and his team traveled to the Andaman Islands. Presented as a contrast to Reynolds’s fight with the New Mexican government, the Indian government is eager for any assistance and training that Reynolds can provide. Similarly, in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita, Reynolds’s crew visit Mexico, building an earthship for victims there.

In the wake of calamity, governments are only too eager for sustainable alternatives, forgoing bureaucracy to get earthships built as quickly as possible. But Reynolds’s point is that we’re all facing disaster. His mission is to build as many of these homes as possible, before we all run out of time.

I thought about Reynolds this morning as I read that Nicholas Gotelli, a professor at the University of Vermont, was invited to a debate with creationists from the ironically named Discovery Institute. Gotelli responded that:

Academic debate on controversial topics is fine, but those topics need to have a basis in reality. I would not invite a creationist to a debate on campus for the same reason that I would not invite an alchemist, a flat-earther, an astrologer, a psychic, or a Holocaust revisionist. These ideas have no scientific support, and that is why they have all been discarded by credible scholars. Creationism is in the same category.

I mention this because it reminds me of the inane pseudo-debate on climate change, in light of the potential perils we face. If we accept that catastrophic climate change has a basis in reality, with broad scientific support, it strikes me as insanity that we’d continue to simply go about our business as usual.

I have an enormous respect for former Vice President Al Gore, and the attention he’s brought to global warming with his film, An Inconvenient Truth (2006). But if you believe, as Gore does, as Reynolds does and as I do, that we are on the precipice, does it seem more intelligent to hypocritically rack up outrageous utility costs, as Gore does? Or does it make more sense fighting to build energy-independent housing, as Reynolds is doing?

Claiming that we face enormous challenge but ignoring potential solutions seems quite irresponsible to me. Garbage Warrior demonstrates that Reynolds is offering solutions, risking his reputation and livelihood to deliver them. Anything else is simply whistling past the graveyard.

“That’s the basis of our influence now, the fact that we’ve spent less on food. It’s America’s best kept secret. We feed ourselves with approximately 16 or 17% of our take-home pay. That’s marvelous. That’s a very small chunk to feed ourselves. And that includes all of the meals we eat at restaurants, all of the fancy doodads we get in our food system. I don’t see much room for improvement there, which means we’ll spend our surplus cash on something else.” – Earl L. Butz, 18^th United States Secretary of Agriculture

For good or for ill, in the United States today, much of our agricultural policy can be directly traced to Earl L. Butz. As Secretary of Agriculture from 1971-1976, Butz abolished the strategic grain reserve and shifted government crop subsidization policy to reward surpluses. Butz was also an advocate of monocropping, and encouraged farmers to plant their crops “from fencerow to fencerow.”

In addition to fostering corporate agriculture, these policies led to an abundance of inexpensive commodity crops, like corn and soy. Cheap corn gave rise to corn-fed livestock, and by extension cheaper meat. It also made high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) an affordable alternative to sugar.

In their documentary King Corn Ian Cheney and Curtis Ellis explore corn’s ubiquitous place in the food chain. Beginning with a hair analysis demonstrating how much of their diet can be traced to corn, the recent college graduates decide on a radical next step.

Cheney and Ellis move to Iowa, rent an acre of land and spend the next year growing a crop of government subsidized corn. They plan to ultimately follow their crop as it makes its way through the food system.

King Corn is an unexpectedly sweet film. Though both Cheney and Ellis grew up in the east, each had ancestors from the same rural county in Iowa where they grow their corn. The story of corn is intertwined with a history of agriculture, personalized through their families’ biographies and interviews with distant relatives.

In the age of Michael Moore’s self-aggrandizing, gotcha documentaries, Cheney and Ellis treat their subjects with an abundance of respect. They have an obvious reverence for the family farmer. And, while they are clearly troubled by corn’s place in our diet, they don’t fault the farmers—many of them barely making ends meet—who grow the subsidized commodities.

In fact, I think that King Corn may be a bit too generous. By focusing their documentary on smaller farmers, Cheney and Ellis ignore the rise of corporate agriculture. And in neglecting the fact that the top 10% of growers receive 75% of agricultural subsidies, King Corn glosses over a major contributing factor to the corn in our diets. The conglomerates that are growing these monocrops are tied to the large companies that package corn-syrup sweetened processed foods and offer 99¢ corn-fed beef burgers.

I suppose Cheney and Ellis recognize that most advocacy works best from the ground up. In educating consumers about their food supply and the sheer quantity of corn-based foods being ingesting, they’ve provided the tools for people to modify their own diets.

Cheney and Ellis close the film with a simple action of their own, mostly a symbolic gesture, by purchasing the acre of land they’d rented for their experiment. Sure, it’s a futile effort, that will do nothing to curtail the pervasiveness of corn. Yet watching the two baseball fans play catch in their now fallow field made me smile.

“It's just…what? This is our whole life, and you’re taking it without permission! This is stealing! You're taking our homes, our schools, our hospitals…It’s all we have! And it’s on sale? I’m gonna get to the bottom of this. I’m gonna get to the bottom of all of it!” – Barry B. Benson (Jerry Seinfeld)

After his break-up with Mia Farrow and the tabloid circus that followed, Woody Allen’s professional reputation was tarnished, perhaps irrevocably. Throughout the 1990s Allen did a number of things to shift public opinion, including a rare acting performance in the computer-animated Dreamworks film Antz (1998).

Antz is the story of Z-4195, or Z for short, a non-conformist ant. And hiring Allen for the role was a casting coup. He’s perfect as the neurotic complainer, unhappy with his role in the colony, a drone destined for a live of drudgery. Z is desperate for some way to break free, to express his individualism.

Considering the length of time it took to develop Bee Movie, it’s surprising that, like Antz, the film focuses on a non-conformist insect, unhappy with his role in the colony and desperate to escape the drudgery of life as a drone. The only real difference is that Seinfeld’s Barry is a bee.

All of which made it a bit disappointing that, for his first project after retiring his wildly successful sitcom, Jerry Seinfeld spend the better part of a decade developing this highly derivative movie. In fairness, I suppose, once things get going the two stories diverge.

While both Antz and Bee Movie evolve into romantic comedy, Barry’s is a bizarre inter-special relationship, with human florist Vanessa Bloome. Their chemistry has an uncomfortable romantic undertone, but is key to the film’s machinations. It is Vanessa who leads Barry to the discovery that humans have been stealing the bees’ honey, transforming the film into a courtroom drama. The plot shifts a third time, in the dramatic climax, forcing the humans and bees to work together to re-pollinate the planet.

Bee Movie is amusing enough, but considering the talent and effort that went into making it, I expected something a bit more original. A largely disappointing and forgettable movie.

Efe Turner: Ain’t you goin’ back, Abe?
Abe Lincoln: No, I think I might go on a piece…maybe to the top of that hill.

In 1858, Illinois attorney Abraham Lincoln defended his friend William Armstrong in a murder trial. The case remains notable for Lincoln’s use of a then obscure legal tactic, judicial notice. Using an almanac, Lincoln successfully challenged the testimony of a witness who claimed that bright moonlight provided enough light to observe the crime.

John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln uses this case as the basis of its fictionalized account of the future president’s early life. Mostly a courtroom drama, Lincoln is presented as expected. He is intellectual, dedicated and deeply serious about the law. He has a good sense of humor, though, which he uses to effectively disarm both an angry lynch mob and his legal opponents. In other words, the film is not about a real man, but the marbleized icon memorialized in Washington, D.C.

It’s almost startling how nakedly patriotic Ford’s film is. Today audiences and critics practically demand that biographies are “warts and all” affairs. If a portrayal doesn’t sufficiently demonize some aspect of the character’s character, highlight some self-destructive flaw, then it’s dismissed as nothing more than hero-worship.

It’s no surprise then that Henry Fonda first turned down the role, likening the task to playing Jesus Christ. While I appreciate that Ford wanted to pay tribute to an icon, the film would have been more effective it it was more focused.

In some ways this is a paint-by-numbers biography, simply cramming in all of the elements we may not have learned in elementary school. So while there is only passing mention of the one-room log cabin, learning to read by firelight and Abe’s reputation for honesty, other bits of Lincoln’s early life—like his talent at rail splitting
—are shoehorned in. An alleged relationship with Ann Rutledge, and Lincoln’s early courtship of Mary Todd are both chronicled, but in an off-hand way. They’re mostly irrelevant to the story, especially in a fictionalized account.

Young Mr. Lincoln would be a much stronger film if it cut out all of the superfluous material, focusing solely on the courtroom drama, this is where the film really shines. Watching Fonda working to free his clients, I kept thinking about his much later role as a juror in 12 Angry Men (1957). There too, Fonda is impassioned, working nimbly to persuade his fellow jurors of reasonable doubt. If only the story here was a bit more tighter, focusing on Lincoln’s efforts to sway his jury, to foster doubt, it may have presented Lincoln as something more like a real man, as opposed to a idealized legend.

Reporter: Mr. President, what place do you think you will have in history?
George W. Bush: History? In history we'll all be dead!

Let’s get the disclosures out of the way first. I voted for George W. Bush, once. It is a mistake I deeply regret. In my view, not only was his presidency disastrous, but his poor judgement and intellectual incuriosity, coupled with a narrow cynical ideology, drove me from the Republican party, likely forever.

That said, I have no earthly idea who Oliver Stone intended to attract with his biography of the former president. W. isn’t a bad film, but with a figure both as divisive and as fresh in our minds as George W. Bush, Stone takes great effort not to offend. Ironically, Stone’s reputation is already such that the 22% who still approved of the president’s job performance when he left office will likely avoid the film, suspecting it a hatchet job. Alternatively, I suspect ardent liberals will be annoyed by the film’s attempt to paint W. as the victim of a cold, detached father he spent a lifetime trying to impress.

In typical Stone fashion, the story isn’t told chronologically, instead jumping around to various points in W.’s life, highlighting the events that Stone and his screenwriter, Stanley Weiser, have decided are important. Almost entirely excised is any reference to Bush’s tenure as Texas governor, and the president’s bungled response to Hurricane Katrina is ignored completely. More surprisingly, Stone omits all but the most off-handed references to 9/11.

One would imagine that presiding over the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history would be a subject worthy of inclusion in a presidential biography. Stone merely pays it lip service, ignoring both the event and the President’s subsequent power grab. The film says nothing about the ensuing erosion of civil liberties or Bush’s belief in the unitary executive.

Instead, we see Bush as a frat dick with daddy issues. Constantly seeking approval from Poppy, W. drinks, gets arrested, and dates trashy women. Once W. is elected president, much of the film is focused on the Iraq war, reminding us that George H. W. Bush failed to go into Baghdad. Viewing that decision a mistake, the younger President Bush and his circle of neo-conservative handlers are hell-bent on finishing the job.

Perhaps something was lost in the film’s editing, but repeatedly, and inexplicably, we witness W. choke on a pretzel while watching a football game. Portrayed as if a significant revelation to the president’s character, the event tells us absolutely nothing. The near-death experience isn’t even spirited as either life affirming or the cause for some serious soul searching. It just happens, totally devoid of context.

The film’s acting is something of a mixed bag. Josh Brolin has the unenviable task of playing George W. Bush without becoming a parody, and does a terrific job. A role that could have been little more than an comedic impersonation, Brolin infuses his subject with a real humanity. It’s a nuanced performance imbibed convincingly with religious zeal, pathos and humor.

Unfortunately, most of the acting is just astoundingly bad. Some of the actors don’t even try to capture their subjects’ voices or mannerisms. Neither George H. W. Bush (Cromwell) or Dick Cheney (Dreyfuss) bear any real resemblance to their real-life conterparts. I’m not sure whether this is more or less distracting than Scott Glenn’s Donald Rumsfeld, or Thandie Newton’s Condoleezza Rice, whose performances are even less nuanced than a subpar episode of Saturday Night Live. After finding a pitcher perfect W. in Brolin, Stone has filled the film with jarring performances that repeatedly draw attention to themselves, and away from the story.

Unresolved conflict between fathers and sons are a central theme to Oliver Stone’s work. While such sub-text can make for good Shakespearian drama, W. simply ignores too many critical events in order to force the story that Stone wants to tell. It’s a shame that Stone couldn’t let go of his own hang-ups to deliver a more complete, and complex portrait of the former president. Perhaps it is Stone’s empathy for a fellow Yalie, or simply pity, but W. feels like it wants to excuse the former president.

Whether or not W. ached for his father’s affection, it does little to mitigate the tragedies we’ve collectively endure under his calamitous stewardship. While not as complete a failure as W.’s presidency, it’s this odd grasp for kinship that keeps Stone’s film from being a success.

“Once upon a time, or maybe twice, there was an unearthly paradise called Pepperland. 80,000 leagues beneath the sea it lay, or lie. I’m not too sure.” – Narrator

Yellow Submarine isn’t exactly a Beatles film. By this stage in their career, the Beatles had become disenchanted with film, and saw an animated feature as a good way to fulfill their contract with United Artists. Most of the film’s songs were recycled from earlier albums, and the band’s speaking parts were poorly imitated by voice actors. Were it not so fun, it would be tempting to simply dismiss Yellow Submarine as a money grab.

Expounding on their caricatural performance in Help!, here the Beatles are living together in Liverpool, in a modest brick building called The Pier. Inside, the building is impossibly large—like Oscar’s trash can or Snoopy’s doghouse—filled with endless corridors of doors, each opened to reveal something more outlandish than behind the last.

As the film opens Young Fred has escaped Pepperland from an invasion of Blue Meanies, a gang of nasty, music-hating villains who have imprisoned inhabitants of Pepperland. He arrives in Liverpool to persuade the Beatles to rescue their doppelgängers, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

And so the band sets out to the rescue, in Fred’s Yellow Submarine, traveling through a series of vividly painted, pop art seas, all set to a collection of popular Beatles songs.

I’m uncertain whether the film was specifically intended as a rejection of Disney animation. The cartoon style here is the anthesis of Disney’s realistic multi-planed technique, opting instead for a rudimentary psychedelic style. The Blue Meanies themselves seem to spoof Mickey Mouse, with their mouse-eared hats. If criticism was intended, it’s quite subtle and doesn’t come across as mean spirited.

As with Help! I suspect one’s enjoyment of Yellow Submarine largely depends on how one feels about the Beatles themselves. As an unabashed admirer of the Fab Four, the film works on multiple levels.

Unsurprisingly, the film, like their music, mostly deals with peace and love. Anger and negative thoughts are defeated with love and song. Violence is resisted through pacifism. At the very least, it certainly works as an appropriate children’s fable.

Yellow Submarine, though obliquely, also showcases the Beatles at the top of their game, when there remained the biggest band in the world. As such, the film is filled with moments of profundity about the band’s importance to history.

When the Beatles find themselves in the Sea of Nothing, in the company of Jeremy Hilary Boob, PhD, they are surrounded by emptiness, a simple white screen. When they begin singing Nowhere Man the Beatles dance across the screen, suddenly filled with beautiful colors and flowers in their wake. As they perform the Sea of Nothing comes alive with their creations. It is a perfect metaphor for a moment in time when the Beatles seemed capable of anything.

When rescuing Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Ringo suggests that their glass prison is Beatle-proof. John explains that, “Nothing is Beatle-proof.” Watching even the band’s cartoon incarnations sing and dance their way through Pepperland, I must agree.

“Without the ring, there is no sacrifice, with out the sacrifice there is no congregation, without the congregation there'll be no…more…me.” – Clang (Leo McKern)

Help! is wildly self-indulgent. There are a few reasons for this. To hear Paul McCartney tell it, “…things went a little bit awry, I think, because what happened then was we started saying, ‘well we’ve never been to the Bahamas, can you write that in?’…‘I’ve never been skiing, I wonder if you could write a scene in with skiing?’” John Lennon was even more direct in his assessment, explaining, “we were smoking marijuana for breakfast during that period. Nobody could communicate with us; it was all glazed eyes and giggling all the time.”

All things considered, it’s surprising that the film remains remotely coherent. Diverging from the far simpler A Hard Day’s Night, there is an outlandish plot here. Ringo has come into possession of a sacred ring, required for ritual sacrifice, and the cult who previously owned the ring wants it back.

To be clear, Help! is entertaining. As with A Hard Day’s Night there is quite a bit of amusing banter between the bandmates. Some of the humor is reminiscent of Monty Python’s sketch comedy, a very good thing to my mind.

For better or worse, the movie was also fairly inspirational. John Lennon suggested it was a precursor for the Batman TV series. Personally, it’s hard not to see how much the film influenced the fabrication of the Monkees.

Unlike A Hard Day’s Night, the Beatles play highly caricatural versions of themselves here. While the earlier film felt biographical, here the Beatles all live together in a series of connected rowhouses. The exaggeration is amusing in its own way, though it reduces the movie to a cartoon.

Ultimately, Help! is an excuse to watch the Beatles wander around, stoned out of their minds, with a few rudimentary music videos thrown in for good measure. How much you’ll enjoy that is directly related to your affection for the Beatles themselves.