Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 81
November 27, 2021
Podcast Review of The Beatles: Get Back, Part 3
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 218, in which I review Part 3 of Peter Jackson's The Beatles: Get Back documentary.
Relevant links:
review of Get Back, Part 1 review of Get Back, Part 2 The Omnipotent Ear my review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles A Vote for McCartney (my first published article, in The Village Voice, 1971)Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
The Beatles: Get Back, Part 3: Up On the Roof
Widening the focus a bit, the whole rooftop concert was a splendid, high-octane tour-de-force, finally shown in Jackson's movie in its full extent, making the original film of the concert that we've been watching all these years seem two-dimensional in comparison. That original movie has flashes of the energy of that rooftop performance, which takes full and gorgeous expression in Jackson's documentary.
It may have been the Beatles' finest moment. It certainly was their final moment in a public performance. Some of the earlier part of Part 3 tells us why:
Paul says to George Martin -- with Paul not sure that going on the roof the next day was the best thing, John saying it was, and George Martin saying they had to respect deadlines -- "that's why I'm talking to John not you".A little later, Paul's still not sure about the roof, George Harrison says he'd rather not do it, and Ringo declares they should do the roof concert. Ringo's opinion carries the day. But Paul is quietly a little dismayed with Ringo's opinion, or maybe that he has to put up with it.George tells John he wants to do an album of just his own songs, to see "what they all sound like together". George winds up doing none of his songs on that roof.But there are many beautiful moments to be treasured in the footage before the concert:George Harrison comes over to Ringo to help him write his song "Octopus's Garden". It's a wonderful, redeeming moment.And then George Martin gets interested in the song. Soon we see John on drums on the song. In previous parts, we saw Paul and George on Ringo's drums. In an interview conducted much more recently, Ringo lamented that every time he stepped out for a cup of tea, he'd return to find someone else in The Beatles on his drums. But it's all endearing,Great jamming with Linda's daughter Heather in the studio, and it's great to see how each of The Beatles relate to her.Paul really groovin' and enjoying working on one of George's songs.George Harrison telling John he took John's advice, given some ten years earlier, that when you start writing a song, you should stay up and finish it.So there was lots of love and good energy between the Beatles, even with all the problems, and the rooftop concert was magnificent. So why didn't they stay together? There's clearly even more to the story than Peter Jackson showed us in his documentary. But watching it changed my perspective on The Beatles forever, largely for the better, and I'll be forever grateful Peter Jackson made it.See also The Beatles: Get Back, Part 1: Soul Touching Anecdotes and The Beatles: Get Back, Part 2: Back from the Threshold and my review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles and A Vote for McCartney (my very first published article, in The Village Voice, 1971)
Podcast Review of The Beatles: Get Back, Part 2
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 217, in which I review Part 2 of Peter Jackson's The Beatles: Get Back documentary (review of Part 3 to follow soon).
Relevant links:
review of Get Back, Part 1 The Omnipotent Ear my review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles A Vote for McCartney (my first published article, in The Village Voice, 1971)Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
November 26, 2021
The Beatles: Get Back, Part 2: Back from the Threshold
A very different kind of feeling and (true) story in Part 2 of Peter Jackson's The Beatles: Get Back documentary. Up from the doldrums, George Harrison is back, Billy Preston joins them, and the sound and the ambience is often heady and exhilarating.
It's almost as if Twickenham, where the first part of the month of January 1969, and therefore the first part of Jackson's movie, took place, was infected by some kind of mold that put everyone on edge and made them depressed. In the new Apple Studios, the Beatles are transformed.
Billy Preston, who joins them, is given at least some of the credit by the Beatles themselves. But the four were getting along together much better, and beginning to gel, even before Preston arrived. Lennon blossoms with "I Dig a Pony" and in fact every song written by him or McCartney or Harrison that he sings and plays upon. Preston does add his inimitable smile and just-right keyboard. Harrison takes an active role in arranging McCartney's Get Back. The performances are punctuated not by complaining but joking, mostly Lennon's, with McCartney more than willing to jump in, and Harrison appreciatively laughing. Ringo is always in a good mood, except when he's sleeping.
All of this feels for all the world like this just happened, what we're seeing on the screen, took place just last week. This has to be a testament to Peter Jackson and all the people and the magic he and they brought to this documentary. It felt like a time portal, to a place all the Beatles were alive and young.
But all's not completely well. The disagreements that nearly tore the group apart at Twickenham are not gone, merely receded. Early in the episode, back at Twickenham, Paul and John have an on-camera conversation. Paul wants more planning, more organization, in their work. John responds with lines from Beatles songs, sarcastic in this context. (To some extent, I've always thought that bands are bound to fall apart, because they violate the very egos that make the band members join the band in the first place.) Near the end of this episode, we find McCartney once again discontented. It's not about how George isn't getting it right. It's McCartney's wish to end this now productive time for the Beatles not with just an album, but some kind of memorable event in itself.
The people working for and supporting and often thinking for the Beatles come up with a solution: a rooftop performance on top of their Apple Studios. But this brings us to the door of Part 3, which I'll watch and review right here tomorrow.
See also The Beatles, Part 1: Soul Touching Anecdotes and my review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles and A Vote for McCartney (my very first published article, in The Village Voice, 1971)
Podcast Review of The Beatles: Get Back, Part 1
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 216, in which I review Part 1 of Peter Jackson's The Beatles: Get Back documentary (reviews of Parts 2 and 3 to follow soon).
Relevant links:
The Omnipotent Ear my review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles A Vote for McCartney (my first published article, in The Village Voice, 1971)Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
The Beatles: Get Back, Part 1: Soul Touching Anecdotes
I started watching Get Back with the absolute knowledge that The Beatles were and are one of the best things in my life, and easily THE best thing musically. For the past few years, I've listened to them about as much as to MSNBC on Sirius XM radio, which is to say, any and all the time I'm in the car driving by myself (see The Omnipotent Ear). Their arrival in the United States in 1964 coincided with my first serious girlfriend, Barbara (we met when she came to hear my doo-wop group sing at a Y on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx). By January 1969, the time we see the Beatles in the studio in Peter Jackson's The Beatles: Get Back, I was with Tina, who became my wife. We're still happily married, with wonderful children and grandchildren.
So The Beatles in general, and Peter Jackson's documentary, are that central and important to my life. Masterpiece is not quite the right word for it, because experiencing the first part of this movie was more than that, deeply personal. But I will say that this documentary -- or, at this point, Part 1-- is brilliantly made. The rapid history of how The Beatles got to 1969, with words on the screen in an almost silent movie kind of style, worked perfectly. The two hours thirty something minutes flew by. Here are some moments that especially impressed, even touched my soul:
George compliments Paul on his beard. This happens at the beginning of the movie -- that is, early on in the first seven days which are the timeline of Part 1. That's about the happiest interaction between Paul and George in this part of the movie, which is surprising, given that the movie has been billed as spotlighting the joy which was cut of out everything we saw and heard back in 1969 about The Beatles. But Paul is quietly relentless in his disparagement of George, ranging from his well-known plea to George to keep it "simple," to complaining that he can't hear himself sing with George playing, to just the expressions on Paul's face. None of George's songs at this point in the movie are taken very seriously, with the partial exception of "All Things Must Pass," which didn't make it into The Beatles' new album, anyway. In a word, though I'll always be a champion of Paul and his extraordinary talent, Jackson's movie makes me think that George had every right to be angry.John suggests changing "wind" to "mind" in George's "All Things Must Pass" ("a mind can blow the clouds away"). By 1969, Lennon's leadership of the band had clearly given way to Paul's. But his incisive, sparkling mind was as sharp as ever. It looks in the movie like he's looking at the lyric sheet, when he says something along the lines of "mind" being almost the same word as "wind". Marshall McLuhan would've loved the visual/acoustic written/verbal interplay."Get Back" (the song) semi-seriously considered to be and developed into a protest song. There was a wave of fascistic anti-immigration fervor in England in 1968-1969 -- something we know all too well via Trump here in the United States in the past few years -- and Paul and John toy with pitching the song as a satire critique of what the right wing was calling on the Pakistanis who came to England to do.Ringo, watching and hearing Paul play the piano, says he could listen to that all day. One of sweetest, most heartwarming moments of the movie.Yoko and Linda talking and laughing. Shatters some of myths of Yoko and The Beatles, and also heartwarming.The joy on Mal Evan's face every time he plays the hammer in "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" -- he's just thrilled to actually play even this smart part in a Beatles' performance. I can understand how he feels, completely.The sheer abundance of Paul's contribution is just incandescent magnificent: In addition to "Silver Hammer" and "Get Back," we get clips of "Let It Be," "Long and Winding Road," "Two of Us," even "Another Day" (which, like George's "All Things Must Pass," never made it to The Beatles album we see under preparation).Back to George: As I said, I don't blame him for being hurt and angry. I can't quite say the same about his leaving The Beatles, which closes out Part 1 of this life-changing documentary. But, all right -- I'm going to post this, then do a podcast about it, then watch Part 2 of this movie, and I'll be back again.
And here's the podcast:
See also The Beatles: Get Back, Part 2: Back from the Threshold ... my review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles and A Vote for McCartney (my very first published article, in The Village Voice, 1971)
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's musicNovember 25, 2021
Invasion 1.8: Contact!
I don't usually entitle my reviews with the given title of an episode, but today's Invasion 1.8 on Apple TV+ was so much about contact, that I didn't have much choice.
[Spoilers ahead ... ]
First, I realized as soon we saw Trevante's plane land in England that he would likely come into contact with Casper and Jamila, and sure enough, he did. This is a very important development. There's no way we beings of Earth can stand a chance against the invaders unless we pool our intelligence -- the smarts and the knowledge -- that some of us have. Plus, after seeing the separate narratives play out in isolation in the previous seven episodes, it's good storytelling to see at least two of them come together now in episode eight.
But "contact" has crucial relevance in another important way. We finally learn about what's going on in Casper's head and what that has to do with the invaders. He's seen them, before they arrived. He tells Trevante and Jamila that when he has seizures, scenes of the invaders appear in his mind. More than anyone on Earth -- except Luke, who may have similar powers -- Casper may have seen things essential to the defense of this planet and the survival of its human inhabitants.
By the way, Billy Barratt as Casper and Shamier Anderson work well together. As does India Brown as Jamila, as I mentioned last week. Only two more episodes left in what I hope is just the beginning season of Invasion. It's time to get Luke in America and Mitsuki in Tokyo into the mix. I'll be back here next week and let you know how I think that went.
See also Invasion 1.1-3: Compelling Contender ... Invasion 1.4: Three Out of Four ... Invasion 1.5: The Little Creepy Crawly Thing ... Invasion 1.6: Close Up! ... Invasion 1.7: Two Boys and their Connection to the Invaders
November 24, 2021
Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.4-5: How Much of a Shirt?
Been a busy few weeks, so I didn't get a chance to review Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.4 last week and I'm just getting around to reviewing 11.5 now. So I combined them in one review. But it's just a sitcom, right?
I've often said that what appeals to me most about this hilarious show is how often it delves into issues that I can relate to. And there was a sterling example in episode 11.5, which towers above everything else in these two episodes.
Larry talks for a second or two about how much of his white undershirt should be visible when you're wearing a polo shirt or whatever kind of shirt over it. Now, obviously, this question doesn't arise if you're wearing a tie, because then your shirt would be buttoned on top, right under the collar, so no white undershirt would be visible at all. But I almost never wear a tie, and Larry doesn't, either, at least not on the show.
Anyway, Larry has a very specific idea of how much of the white undershirt should be visible, and I think I pretty much agree with him. But that assumes the top of the undershirt is out-of-the-laundry clean, which may not always be the case. Larry frequently gets surprised by something, and if he's about to sip a cup of coffee, a splash of coffee could easily end up on this undershirt. In fact, I think that happened to Larry in episode 11.4 or 11.5, but I can't recall which one it was. I do know that, just a few days ago, as I was about to go off and teach my class at Fordham University, I looked in the mirror and noticed there was a tea stain on my white undershirt, right on the top, and therefore visible to anyone who looked at me.
I was pressed for time -- what else is new -- and didn't want to run up the stairs and take off my polo shirt, then my undershirt, then put on a new undershirt, and then put back on my polo shirt. That would be four shirt procedures, in addition to running up and the back down the stairs. So I came up with a solution:
Just take off my polo shirt, downstairs, then take off my undershirt with the tea stain, then put my polo shirt back on, and dash out of the house. Pretty good solution, right? And, actually, I think a polo shirt, even a dress shirt with an open collar, looks better with nothing on beneath.
And I'll be back here this coming Sunday with another review.
See also Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.1: Not Quite Tsuris ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.2: Twist on Twist ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 11.3: Highs and Lows
See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.1: Reunited! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.3: Garbage Cans and Apples ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.8: Meets Mad Men ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.9: Science Fiction ... Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 10 Finale: Unjust Desserts
See also: Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.9: Salmon Discretion ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.10: Outfit Tracker
November 23, 2021
La Brea 1.9: Lilly and the Cow
Isaiah is not the only one we know who came to our present via a time sink upflow fountain from 12,000 years in the past to 1988. Lilly did, too. And our people in the prehistoric past are beginning to grasp the possibilities. If they went to 1988, they could see Die Hard in the movie theater and get some pizza. I saw Die Hard on a VHS tape and that was good enough for me. But yeah, I'd go up a mountain and go through time in the sky to get to a time where I could get a decent slice. Probaby.
And Scott -- who made the point in 10,000 BC about Die Hard -- also discovered a cow. With some kind of brand on its neck. Which is proof positive that it couldn't have come from 12,000 years ago, even if we didn't believe the historical fact that Europeans were the ones who introduced cattle to America (we had buffalo before then). I froze the screen and tried to make out what the brand on the cow said. Just a bunch of numbers, at least to me.
But the plot is thickening as the action is quickening. A new time sink is going to open in Seattle tomorrow -- well, next Tuesday, in our real time off the screen. But we don't know how far in the past it's going to go. Or maybe to the future?
The season one finale should tell us a little more next week, as La Brea takes its place as a time travel series on an old fashioned network that's well worth seeing. And I'll see you here next week, with my review of how some of that comes down -- or turns up.
See also La Brea 1.1: Pros and Cons of Falling Into the Past ... La Brea 1.2: Deepening Horizons ... La Brea 1.3: Descending Into the Maelstrom ... La Brea 1.4: Expanding Horizons ... La Brea 1.5: The Letter and the Resemblance ... La Brea 1.6: Cross-Temporal Communication ... La Brea 1.7: Time Sinkholes Not Only in Different Places but from Different Times ... La Brea 1.8: Clearer Visions
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Podcast: Foundation 1st Season: Cora Buhlert, Joel McKinnon, and Paul Levinson discuss
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 215, in which Cora Buhlert, Joel McKinnon, and I talk about the first season of Foundation on Apple TV+.
Cora's reviews of the first season of Foundation are here ... also check out Joel McKinnon's Seldon Crisis podcast and his What I Like about the Show on Reddit
Talk to us on Twitter: @CoraBuhlert @JoelGMcKinnon @PaulLev
Enjoy the video of this podcast episode.
earlier Paul Levinson podcasts about Foundation: November 19, 2021 Review of Foundation 1.10 ... November 12, 2021 Review of Foundation 1.9 ... November 5, 2021 Review of Foundation 1.8 ... October 29, 2021 Review of Foundation 1.7 ... October 22, 2021 Review of Foundation 1.6 ... October 15, 2021: Review of Foundation 1.5 ... October 8, 2021: Review of Foundation 1.4 ... October 1, 2021: Review of Foundation 1.3 ... September 24, 2021: Review of Foundation 1.1-2 .... July 17, 2021: Thinking about Asimov's Foundation Series on AppleTV+ ... March 12, 2009: Asimov's Foundation and Herbert's Dune Trilogies as Sources of PhilosophyPostcard from Isaac Asimov to me in 1979 about the Foundation trilogy
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
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