The Beatles up close and personal

    I know rock aficionados who approach the Beatles with the kind of parsing skills one expects from Talmudic scholars. These are folks who steep themselves in analysis of the music, the books, and the lore — all things Beatles. 

    And why not? The Beatles were a pop-cultural phenomenon like no other and their music grew and developed in complexity as they became more accomplished and famous. 

    I leave that kind of analysis to rock critics and I look forward to reading what some of them have to say about Peter Jackson's documentary, The Beatles: Get Back. 

   For me,  Jackson has made the perfect movie for anyone who has ever wondered how it would feel to hang out with The Beatles during a recording session. Watch the film and you'll know.

  The nearly eight-hour documentary has been assembled  from 60 hours of footage shot in January of 1969 by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for the documentary Let It Be, which was 81 minutes long and evidently hasn't been available since 1980.

   Beatles mavens feel free to chime in with more details.

  Jackson's version hints at the dissolution to come, notably George Harrison's discontent with how Paul and John, to a lesser extent, dominate the group's musical decisions. 

    At one point, George says he's leaving the band. 

    When, someone asks. 

     Now, says George as he walks out. (He does return.)

    Yoko Ono almost always can be seen sitting at John's side, even while the group is working. She's either ignored by the others or, at times, becomes the subject of conversation, none of it memorably vicious.

   Mostly, Jackson reveals the stop-start quality the creation process for songs originally meant to be part of a TV concert. They eventually were used in a rooftop concert staged at Apple’s London building, The Beatles' last public performance.

   During their sessions, The Beatles seem most alive when they're playing classic rock tunes -- Blue Suede Shoes, for example. They can sound like the most fantastic bar band imaginable, musicians who share the same fondness for rock and revel in the fun of playing it.

  At times, the movie is ... well ... boring, even a bit infuriating. You want the band to get on with it, to find the focus for their work which Paul acknowledges is missing.

  I'm guessing Jackson knew that he might tax some viewers' patience but he’s taking pains to clarify the difference between creation and performance -- one arduous, repetitive, and frustrating; the other, exhilarating.   

   Beatles enthusiasts will find much to chew over in Jackson's lengthy, fascinating three-part documentary — and I might even return for a second look.

   Several times I thought I’d give up on it. I couldn’t. It was, after all, The Beatles.

   The film is available for viewing on Disney+. 

A staggering look at trench warfare

Director Peter Jackson and a good deal of technical skill help bring World War I to life in They Shall Not Grow Old.

There's a sadness about World War I that's like no other sadness, perhaps because that war has been written about by many great writers as a conflict so impersonally brutal that it changed the world forever. To many, it seemed as if the world had sacrificed the last remnants of youth.

Working from footage supplied by the Imperial British War Museum, director Peter Jackson demonstrates that he understands the delusions and sorrow that have accumulated around the so-called War to End All Wars. And he does it in a novel way, not by looking back but by trying to make the past feel shockingly immediate.

Jackson, of Lord of the Rings Fame, has assembled an extraordinary documentary that brings us close to the soldiers who fought on the war’s bloody Western Front.

Before we go any further, it's necessary to talk about the technical achievements of Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old. Britain's Imperial War Museum asked Jackson to look at 100 hours of vintage footage and do something to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the war's end. Jackson colorized some footage, added 3D, and altered the speed of footage that -- in its original form -- had a jerky Keystone Kops quality that resulted from cameras that were cranked by hand.

These may sound like gimmicks of a digital age, but Jackson achieves what he set out to do: He liberates the war from its historical prison and makes it feel contemporary. You definitely should stick around for the epilogue that follows the film so that you can hear Jackson explain how the movie was made.

Aside from the technical challenges, Jackson had to find ways to narrow the film's focus. He decided to bring us close to trench warfare and tell the story through interviews recorded in the 1960s and 70s with British soldiers who had fought on many of the locations we see. Jackson used actors to recite dialogue that was obtained by employing skilled lip readers when soldiers in the restored footage speak.

To put it mildly, trench warfare was no picnic: Even some of the most vivid World War I films don't show the vast number of rats that scurried through the trenches nor do they explain how the soldiers improvised bathrooms. The soldier’s life was one of misery. They got lice. They smoked cigarettes and pipes. Many of them died. They wore the single uniform they had been issued until it was rendered threadbare.

Yet when the cameras rolled, soldiers did what people tend to do when cameras roll: They smiled. The put on a good face.

The emotional arc of the film should feel familiar. The buoyant optimism of going off to war quickly gives way to the tedium and terror of the trenches. Young and naive, enlistees thought they'd make quick work of a conflict they only dimly understood.

They Shall Not Grow Old pays tribute to those young men by showing us the fear and hardship they experienced, as well as the intense connections they developed with one another. When you're finished watching They Shall Not Grow Old, we feel as if we've seen an invaluable slice of history, a war story told by those who fought it.

Post-apocalyptic sci-fi that tilts juvenile

Mortal Engines can't find characters to keep us interested in its 'visionary' design.

It's not difficult to see why Lord of Rings guru Peter Jackson might have wanted to be involved with Mortal Engines, a big-screen adaptation of a British YA novel by Philip Reeve.

Set 1,000 years in the future, the movie includes a massive version of London that moves through a post-apocalyptic world on giant treads. It also features a balloon habitat that floats in the sky, a variety of scruffy looking characters who could be extras from a Road Warrior movie and a Lazarus Warrior, a once-human creature who gave up memory and pain to become a mostly mechanical creation.

These are the ingredients in which Jackson, who serves as the movie's producer and one of its writers, may have seen mind-blowing visionary possibilities.

Under the direction of Christian Rivers, these possibilities are only partially realized. It's telling, for example, that the movie's Lazarus Warrior -- he's named Shrike -- might be its most interesting character.

The rest of the cast is stuck playing characters who have a generic quality, cardboard cutouts roaming this imaginatively conceived (if seldom plausible) world.

A complicated story involves the evil plans of one of mobile London's big-wigs (Hugo Weaving). Weaving's Thaddeus Valentine has a strikingly blonde daughter (Leila George) who idolizes him but who eventually will be forced to face disillusionment about her father.

This isn't much of a spoiler because the bulk of the action revolves around two other characters. A history buff named Tom (Robert Sheehan) devotes himself to collecting pre-apocalypse memorabilia while harboring dreams of being an aviator. Toasters from "ancient" times fascinate Tom.

The plot contrives to throw Tom into the company of Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar), a young woman with a scarred face and a deep hatred for Valentine.

Expelled from London, Tom and Hester find themselves on the run but eventually must return to the city to stop Valentine from executing his hyper-destructive plans, which (of course) involve an ambition to make himself the world's most powerful man.

Some of the movie's set pieces (an opening chase in which the mobile London chases a smaller city and "ingests" it) fly by in an entertaining fashion but you'd have to have emerged from a 50-year coma not to know that the initial hostility of Hester toward Tom eventually will turn to love.

The movie manages to wring a bit of humor out of what it calls "old tech," i.e. stuff that's recognizable to audiences in 2018.

Before the movie's great final battle, Tom and Hester visit a city constructed behind a wall and led by a monkish looking Asian man who screams of fictional stereotyping. This, after hooking up with Anna Fang (South Korean pop star Jihae), a pilot with her own agenda and a haircut so severe, it might have edges that cut.

The final battle involves Valentine's deployment of a weapon that would have been at home in an old Flash Gordon serial, but by then, it's difficult to believe anything's really at stake, aside from finding a way to conclude the proceedings.

Oh well, Mortal Engines doesn't generate disdain -- at least it didn't in me -- but it's difficult to avoid thinking that not enough has been accomplished by a scrapheap of a movie that can feel both old-fashioned and old hat.

Five armies battle. Boy, do they ever

Final chapter of The Hobbit passes muster, but I'm glad it's done.

I give up. Why resist director Peter Jackson's final installment of The Hobbit; a.k.a., The Battle of the Five Armies.

If there were a quiz, I confess that I wouldn't be able to name the five armies nor would I be able to say I deeply cared about which one of them prevailed at the end of Jackson's massive, three-part Tolkien extravaganza.

A sense of proportion pushes me into agreement with those who argue that The Hobbit might have been more admirable if Jackson had made one movie instead of three -- or at most, say, two.

It seems unfair to have asked us to spend almost six hours on the two previous movies that set up this final chapter, which clocks in at a fleet two hours and 24 minutes, almost a short when it comes to Jackson and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Say this, though: Jackson certainly hasn't underestimated Tolkien's audience appeal. He has given the Tolkien fan base ample reason to support his efforts, which are chock full of CGI marvels, complex storylines and -- in this case -- a battle that becomes the big-screen equivalent of the 100 Years War. That's a snarky way of saying that the damn thing lasts for about 45 minutes.

Now, if that battle -- which follows a bravura opening in which an entire city is burned by a fire-breathing dragon -- weren't something to see, Jackson would deserve to be scorned. But in both its larger and smaller fights, Jackson presents battles that have the power to awaken those who have suffered through mid-picture torpor.

The movie begins with an attack by the dragon Smaug on peaceable Lake-town. Smaug is well on his way to torching the entire place when Bard of Bowman (Luke Evans) figures out how to slay the dragon.

Bard (or is it Bowman?) then leads the survivors to a mountain redoubt to seek shelter from a pending attack by the Orcs, who are marching as relentlessly as only Orcs can toward the same mountain fortress.

Meanwhile, other groups also are en route to the mountain, and Jackson introduces us to a variety of familiar Tolkien characters -- of interest to the faithful and of no consequence to anyone else.

Now, the dwarves already have occupied the mountain, which also contains an ungodly amount of treasure. Thorin (Richard Armitage) has taken charge of the dwarves and is busy orchestrating things for his own, ambitious ends.

Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) continues to be a "can't-we-all-get-along" kind of Hobbit, and Gandalf (Ian McKellen) shows up to add the customary gravitas.

It takes a while for all of the various factions to realize that they must join forces against the Orcs.

Enough about the plot, which the uninitiated might best approach with a scorecard listing all the various players.

Here's what redeems Jackson's opus: Significant characters die, and we feel the sorrow of their passing. The tone of the final segment is full of nobility, and, at times, a tragic sense of heroism.

The great battle is followed by a kind of idyll in which Bilbo returns to the Shire, where he attempts to resume normal life. Suddenly, the movie's dark palette is flooded with lush greens.

Personally, I'm happy that the whole business has concluded, and I hope that Jackson finds other ways to express himself. I was touched by this operatic finale, but I've had all I can stand of Hobbits, Orcs, Dwarves, wizards and trolls.

Injustice in West Memphis, Ark.

The documentary West of Memphis continues and embellishes work begun by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky in their well-received documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. Berlinger and Sinfoksy followed their initial film with two more documentaries about the gruesome Arkansas child murders. Now comes director Amy Berg's take on the subject, which joins movies such as last year's The Central Park Five in calling much-needed attention to the troubling issue of false confessions. Working with producer Peter Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh (of Lord of the Rings fame), Berg (Deliver Us From Evil) presents a telling and often disturbing look at a case that began with the 1993 murders of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Ark. The murders, accompanied by hideous mutilations, initially were thought to be the work of a satanic cult. Three teen-agers -- Jason Baldwin, Jessie Misskelley  and Damien Echols -- were convicted of a crime that shocked the small community of West Memphis. Echols faced a death sentence, based mostly on a confession by Misskelley, a developmentally challenged young man.  Like its predecessors,  Berg's film does a fine job demonstrating that the three teen-agers were victims of the legal system in which they became ensnared. I won't dwell on details, but know -- as mentioned earlier -- that West of Memphis can be viewed as a harrowing companion piece to Sarah and Ken Burns's The Central Park Five. Although the milieus of the two films differ radically, both deal with what can happen when growing public hysteria conflates with a lust for punishment. West of Memphis is bound to give you pause about abuses in the American judicial system. It's worth noting that Echols, who spent 18 years on death row and who married while in prison, receives a producers credit, along with his wife Lorri Davis. And, unlike the photo above, West of Memphis was not shot in black-and-white.

This 'Hobbit' hits -- and misses, too

It's by no means a disaster, but Peter Jackson's return trip to Middle Earth mixes thrills and disappointment.

I wish I had seen director Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at the normal 24-frames-per-second rather than the hyper-vivid 48-frames-per-second at which the movie is being shown at certain locations, apparently to give it the kick of extra clarity. When combined with 3-D, The Hobbit's high-def look proved so distracting that I had difficulty finding a way into J.R.R. Tolkien's story about Bilbo Baggins's quest to help a group of dwarves reclaim their homeland.

After the Hobbit screening, I checked with a couple of fellow critics. Averaging our responses, it probably took us somewhere between 30 to 40 minutes to settle into Jackson's film, which is nearly three hours long.

Watching The Hobbit, you may feel roughly the same sense of forced wonder you might experience while observing the latest super-dooper, high-def TV in the showroom of some big-box store. It seems plenty spiffy until you remember that you neither have the need nor the desire to see every bit of stubble on some anchorman's face.

And if you're a cineaste, the nuanced richness of film probably does a lot more for you than the shocking acuity of the images you'll find in The Hobbit. Put another way, instead of liberating the material in The Hobbit, technology seems to imprison it.

If you can get past Jackson's visual approach, you may find (at least I did) a story that doesn't fully engage until its final hour. Encumbered by lots of expositional foot-dragging, The Hobbit works in bits and pieces, some spectacular, some dull.

In this predecessor to Tolkien's more elaborate Lord of the Ring novels -- already made into three blockbuster entertainments by Jackson -- Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is recruited by the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellan) to help a troupe of dwarves regain the mountain kingdom they lose in the movie's action-oriented prologue.

Attracted to gold, a dragon -- Smaug by name -- expels the dwarf population from Lonely Mountain. Having become too gold-hungry for their own good, the dwarves are driven from their mountain Eden.

There's no faulting the performances which include brief appearances from Cate Blanchett (as Galadriel), Christopher Lee (as Saruman) and Hugo Weaving (as Elrond), but the burden of breaking the novel into three separate movies can't help but take its toll. Many scenes are extended well-beyond necessity, and the movie includes stretches that are talky enough to make you wish these damned dwarves would pick up the pace.

Early on, Bilbo's peaceful home is invaded by dwarves who disturb his much-valued tranquility and eat everything in his well-stocked larder. Sagacious as always, Gandalf seems to know that the reluctant Bilbo eventually will answer duty's call.

When this dwarf crew -- led by Thorin (a majestic Richard Armitage) -- takes to the road, the movie falls into a pattern in which talk alternates with action.

Jackson and the four writers who receive screenplay credit for The Hobbit would have done well to look up the word "adaptation;" it doesn't mean the same thing as "expansion." I know the legion of Tolkien fans demand careful detailing, but I could have used with some concision, particularly in a screening that required wearing 3-D glasses.

In Jackson's telling of the tale, the quest to reclaim a homeland sometimes feels like a forced march.

The well-cast Freeman tends to look less like a Hobbit than an aging Beatle, but for all its distractions, the force of Tolkien's story ultimately prevails.

If you hang in long enough, you will be rewarded by a final battle that takes place on footbridges in a goblin cave that's home to the Great Goblin, a blubbery creature with a beard-like growth on his face, a sagging sack of skin that has a tendency to sway. You'll also get an amusing sequence in which Andy Serkis -- sounding like a cross between Peter Lorre and Daffy Duck -- reprises his role as Gollum, this time playing a game of dueling riddles with Bilbo.

Look, I ultimately got involved with The Hobbit, but I hope that in the next two outings, Jackson pays less attention to technological wizardry and more to expeditious storytelling. I say this because it's already too late to wish that he had made one compact and totally involving film instead of committing to three.