Castle Rock Cash In - Lawnmower Man 2: Jobe's War

Did you think it was never going to show up?  Sometimes sequels get delayed, but Hollywood can't resist the chance to make a quick buck, and Noel can't resist the chance to defend an often maligned film!

The method will be changing a little - Noel will be doing purely written reviews on these, and the full review will be hosted over at his own blog.  I will be providing you with a teaser in the hopes that you will head on over and check them out.  You really should.

In case you never watched Noel and I review the first film, you can find that here.

 

 "I like this movie. No, seriously, I do. I know it's an easy movie for people to dump on, and many have without even watching it just because it looks silly, but I think it holds up as one of the better cyberpunk films about social decay and virtual reality to come out of the 90s..."

(read the rest of Noel's review here)

Castle Rock Companion - The Shining part 2

If you missed part 1, you can view it here 

Castle Rock Companion - The Shining part 1

Finding passion

We had the full blown seminar yesterday for those strengths I posted about last month.  Obviously the main focus was about thinking about those things you're good at and being proud of them and also putting them to the best use.  It's also supposed to be helpful for managers because it shows them how you work and how to relate to you, as well as how to group people together to make sure you've got all the bases covered, so to speak.

He mentioned near the beginning that a lot of us go about trying to be someone else, or trying to be what other people want us to be.  While I've never tried to explicitly copy others, the latter is definitely true for me.  When I was really little I wanted to be a teacher, and by the time I hit 13 I really wanted to be a writer.  Everyone in my family tried to discourage me from both of those things as often as they possibly could.  Teachers' salaries are abysmal and fiction writers don't make anything unless you're really lucky.

"You can do whatever you want, but it's really a good idea to go for a major that will guarantee you a job out of college" is what my dad said to me over and over again.  I love my dad and I respect him and I wanted to make him proud of me.  While there was a point where I considered going for psychology, I was once again told that the only way to make money from that was to be a psychiatrist, and the fact of the matter is that I hated school.  I was always good at it, but I hated it.  Learning has always been fun to me, but testing not so much.  The thought of going through that many years of school was not appealing to me at all.

So I went with business, because business was the easiest way to get a job out of college.  Nearly everyone in my family did something business related, so surely I must be good at it.  I took BA 1000 and the only topic amongst management, marketing, finance, and accounting that made sense was accounting.  Plain and simple numbers and reporting.  I was always good at math.  So I focused on that, and sure enough I was good at it.

I got to my senior year of college and found I truly hated it.  I looked around me, baffled at the people who seemed to actually be energized about this stuff.  It's just numbers, I thought.  How can they truly give a damn about it?  With the typical ignorance of a 21 year old who thinks they know everything, it never struck me that maybe I was the one with the problem.

When you combine my social anxiety with the fact that I didn't truly give a damn about the subject, it's no surprise that I couldn't get hired at any of the accounting firms I interviewed with.  I signed up for an accounting temp agency, but of course everyone wanted someone with previous experience, so they passed me off to their general office temp staff instead.  After a couple quick data entry jobs I got a temp to hire clerical job which landed me at this company.  I've since been promoted to a job that combines both clerical and accounting work, so I'm at least using my degree in some form.

There's also no denying I'm good at it.  I get glowing performance reviews every year.  My boss, a bit of a perfectionist, trusts me implicitly to do my job right.  He jokes that I have all 500 of our property IDs memorized, but that's not true.  I only know the ones for the leased properties since I make the payments for them every month.  Much like school, I know my job inside and out, but that doesn't mean I enjoy it.

This strength finder exercise has shed a lot of light on that fact.  Input means I like to learn, and after 7 years in this position, there isn't anything new to pick up on.  Intellection means I like to think things through, debate them, discuss them.. but there's not a whole lot to discuss.  Consistency means I want fairness, but I deal with landlords who are trying to cheat you out of money and tenants who can't be bothered to pay their rent on time.  Restorative means I want to solve problems, and while that does occasionally come up, most of the time it's pretty smooth sailing around here.  We have our processes and we stick to them.

Meanwhile, I see a lot of my strengths related to the reviews I work on in my free time.  I don't just read a book, watch a movie, play a game, whatever.  I head to Wikipedia, imdb, etc. to research it, find out what's going on behind the scenes, what went into making it.  I think about what the work is trying to convey.  I try to explain why others should also appreciate it, why even things with a bad reputation deserve attention, what we can learn from things that go wrong and sometimes even suggest ways in which faulty works could be fixed.  I love storytelling in all its forms, and my reviews allow me a way to work through them.  Doing the podcast with Bethany or the MMME  with Noel and Jak adds another great layer, because I get to hear the opinions of others and interact with them about these things that I feel so passionate about.  Sometimes people comment and it continues like that.  I love it, I get a charge from it, and it truly makes me happy.

The problem is that today's technology allows anyone with a computer and internet to write blogs, anyone with a microphone and recording software to make a podcast, and anyone with a camera and editing software to make videos.  So a lot of people do.  Supply is much greater than demand and so the pay for such things is minimal.  People who have amassed a following I would kill to have are complaining about how the average person uses ad block software to cut through their means of income.  I can't entirely blame them, because no one likes ads.  We only tolerate them when we have to, and it's natural that only a small portion of your customer base is going to be the type willing to sit through them so you can make money off them.

I've been doing reviews in one form or another since 2009, and I've yet to earn anything off of them.  I have ads running on my blog and through both my youtube and blip accounts, and the earnings are so tiny that at this point I don't expect to ever get a pay out from any of them.  To do otherwise would be madness.

Another part of the session yesterday was telling us not to quit and not give up hope, that you can follow your dreams at any age.  He gave us a lot of examples of people who failed when they first started, but went on to be extremely successful.  I have no intention of quitting.  Working on my reviews, analyzing and discussing and writing about fiction is basically the only thing that keeps me sane at this point.

But I find it hard to see how I'm ever going to make a living off it, and as long as I still have to work this job, I'm still going to be dissatisfied with it and be one of those disengaged employees they don't want to have.  Switching jobs seems like a huge gamble, as it basically means losing the benefits I've earned after being here so long and possibly still being dissatisfied.  I also think it would basically be impossible for me to go back to school now.  I certainly couldn't do it while I was working here without imploding from stress, and I don't have the luxury some people do of having a spouse support them while they stop working to go back.  And what would I go back for?

I do still have an interest in psychology, but I'm not sure it's enough to work in the field.  It seems like it has the potential to be a really stressful job, and I have to admit that any time I try to give friends or loved ones advice I feel like I don't sound confident enough to help them.  Or worse yet I get impatient with them.  I would imagine they help you with those things, but once again, that's a lot of school that I currently don't have the time to go back for.

I don't really have the interest in teaching that I used to have.  I think it was something I thought about when I was little because that was what I was surrounded with.  When I got a little older I still thought it possible because that's what Stephen King did until he got big, but seeing as how I've lost the drive to write fiction anymore I can't see that happening.

That loss is another huge part of it.  For a really long time I had this dream in the back of my mind, but then I actually sat down and started writing it and I found it tedious.  Perhaps the biggest problem was that I made an open ended story, something designed to go on indefinitely, and the weight of that started to get me down.  But I also haven't had any new ideas for stories in a long time, and my focus shifted to doing the reviews because I was getting more enjoyment out of it.  But I can't say I have a dream to be known as a famous critic like Roger Ebert or someone like that.  So I kind of feel like I have no dream at all.

Perhaps I am just in between dreams, but this has been ongoing for six months to a year now.  How long am I supposed to wait until I find that new thing?

The Beatles - Abbey Road

The recording of Let It Be was miserable, to the point that the Beatles came very close to calling it quits right then and there.  But they decided to do one more album, and I for one appreciate their attempt to go out on a happier note.

1. "Come Together" - Like a lot of others of John's from this period, it's bluesy and it has nonsense lyrics.  But it's probably the best of them.
2. "Something" - George once again shows us that he knows how to write a good song now.  It's a simple love song, but his guitar sound just adds that extra bit to make it special.
3. "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" - In what almost seems like a direct response to all my comments about him writing sweet love songs, Paul writes a song about a serial killer.  The actual hammer hits on the chorus make this one even more irreverent.  It's poppy and bouncy and yet with such wonderfully twisted subject matter.
4. "Oh! Darling" -  Would you call this a bluesy ballad?  Regardless I think it really shows off Paul's vocals well and I like it a lot.
5. "Octopus's Garden" - Poor Ringo.  He was kind of setting himself up for this one, wasn't he?  All I can think of is that moment in Walk Hard where they have him say "I wrote a song about an octopus."  But despite it's rather light hearted and silly subject matter, I think this is a good song for Ringo, definitely the best of his we've heard so far.  If nothing else, it's a strong hint for what his solo career would be like.  I like the song, though I'll admit I don't listen to it regularly.
6. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" - I like the slow build of this song.  It's  one of their better blues songs.
7. "Here Comes the Sun" - Another strong one from George that really shows off his strengths in both guitar and singing at this point.
8. "Because" - Another hippie song.  Between the subject matter and how little music there is here, I don't care for this one.
9. "You Never Give Me Your Money" - This starts the medley of short songs that finish up this album.  I like this one.
10. "Sun King" - This song is barely enough of a song to comment on.  It's a little too simple.
11. "Mean Mr. Mustard" - The brevity of this one just makes it more fun though.  It paints a great picture of the old man (who is stingy, not necessarily cruel).
12. "Polythene Pam" - Another fun quick portrait of a person, and once again a great beat to accompany it.
13. "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window"  - Another strong one from Paul that I wish was a little bit longer.
14. "Golden Slumbers" - Probably the most interesting thing about this song is that it was written because Paul couldn't read sheet music.  It's good but there's not much to it.
15. "Carry That Weight" - There's not much to this one either.  It makes it hard to talk about songs when they're often not much more than snippets.
16. "The End" - What I like the most about this song is the fact that each Beatle gets a solo on it, and maybe it's just because of how often I listen to their music, but I can easily tell which one is which (granted, Ringo's is a given!).  It's a great climax to the album and their career as a whole.
17. "Her Majesty" - Though we technically have this simple little hidden track right at the end that is such fun to sing along to.

The Beatles - Let It Be (album and film)

If you're wondering why I'm doing this one now and not Abbey Road, it's because I'm covering them in the order they were recorded, not when they were released.

This is another album that I waited a long time before I ever purchased.  It's not necessarily bad, it's just that none of these songs are really among my favorites so I never felt compelled to purchase it.  It also doesn't help that this was a very bad time for the Beatles, and their inability to get along means that some of these are not much more than jams that were spiced up a little to try to make more complete recordings out of them.

1. "Two of Us" - A good start to the album, simple and sweet, but something about John and Paul singing it together really adds to the song.
2. "Dig a Pony" - There's a lot of nonsense words here, but musically it's a pretty basic blues number.  It's not something I listen to a lot, but when I do I enjoy it.
3. "Across the Universe" - It's pretty strongly different from the other stuff John was doing at the time, and it's also very slow.  But I think it works well for what it is. It also seems to be a song that it's easy to cover and not screw up, as I like both Fiona Apple's version and Rufus Wainwright's.
4. "I Me Mine" - George is being thoroughly passive aggressive here, but he writes a good song out of it..  This one gets stuck in my head a lot, probably because it does have a bit of a repetitive nature, but it's an excellent song and shows just how much he's grown as a song writer.
5. "Dig It" - This is definitely one of the songs I'm talking about that is not much more than an extended jam.  I'm just not a fan of this kind of unpolished recording.
6. "Let It Be" - A nice ballad from Paul.  Growing up I always assumed "mother Mary" was a Christian reference, but his own mother's name was in fact Mary so you could take it either way, I suppose.  This is probably the second strongest song on the album, its simplicity is what makes it so strong.
7. "Maggie Mae" - An old folk song they recorded.  I'm not a huge fan of folk so I don't care for this one very much.  But it's also less than a minute long.
8. "I've Got a Feeling" - A good song, and similar to "Two of Us" I like it because it feels like a true collaborative effort between John and Paul, which was becoming so rare at this point.
9. "One After 909" - As I mentioned on the Anthology review, this is an old song that it took them a long time to finally record.  I'm a little more partial to the original version, but this one is good too.
10. "The Long and Winding Road" - Another ballad from Paul.  I'm not sure we needed two of them on the album, as listening to them one after the other makes this song feel as long and winding as the road.
11. "For You Blue" - Another George song.  I don't like this one as much as the other, but I do like that slide guitar sound he's using here.  It's a fairly simple song, but it's nice.
12. "Get Back" - This one is the strongest on the album, in my opinion.  A great upbeat tempo and some fun lyrics to go along with it. 

United Artists didn't feel as though Yellow Submarine qualified as a film starring the Beatles, and I can't say I disagree with them.  So they still had one more film to go to satisfy their contract.  A documentary style was chosen, filming the Beatles as they worked on their next album, which would eventually become Let It Be.  They also unintentionally caught what was essentially the beginning of the Beatles break up on film.  This film is largely unavailable today, though it did have a brief VHS release.  A DVD release was planned but never finished, and the rumors are that Paul and Ringo found the extra footage (which I guess was going to be part of the bonus features) to be too upsetting to be released to the public.  I suppose if you imagine someone had filmed a particularly nasty breakup between you and your ex, you probably wouldn't want the whole world to see it either.  While I would definitely purchase and watch it, I have to admit it would probably be a one time only viewing, because if it's as ugly as they suggest, it might be a bit upsetting for me to watch.  Hell, the ending of The Beatles Anthology bums me out, and that's much more lovingly handled.

I watched the full version of Let It Be on Youtube a few years back, but it seems to be taken down.  Most of the notable clips are available within The Beatles Anthology documentary.  The film is fairly dry, and only one disagreement between Paul and George is included.  We simply follow the Beatles as they work on some recordings, bring Billy Preston in to join them for a few songs, and the film ends with the now famous performance on the rooftop.  It's a good end for the film and a good end for the Beatles film career.  I recommend checking out that footage of the concert if you can, and don't feel too bad about missing the rest.

[Edit:  This was obviously written long before The Beatles: Get Back was announced,  but I'm anxiously awaiting that seemingly more hopeful and pleasant depiction of this period, even if I can't help but wonder if portraying that time as only positive when some people may not be familiar with the original Let It Be doesn't truly tell the whole story.]

The Beatles - Yellow Submarine (album and film)

There's a couple repeats on this album and the second half of it is all instrumental, so we'll quickly go through these and get to talking about the film.

1. "Yellow Submarine" - See my Revolver review
2. "Only a Northern Song" - The lyrics are pretty weak and the music is pretty slow and sleepy.  There's a couple interesting bits in there with the horns, but overall I'm not really impressed.
3. "All Together Now" - Really meant to be more of a children's song than anything else, I feel like this could fit easily on Sesame Street or something like it.  It's repetitive but it's cute, and it's enjoyable for what it is.
4. "Hey Bulldog" - I don't own this album, so when I got The Beatles Rock Band, I was essentially hearing this song for the first time.  It was great, because it meant I got to fall in love with a Beatles song like I hadn't in ages.  It's a simple bluesy number, but the shouting exchange between John and Paul makes this song so much fun.
5. "It's All Too Much" - I find myself having a hard time finding anything to say about this one.  There's just nothing to it and nothing particularly special about it.
6. "All You Need is Love" - See my Magical Mystery Tour review
7. "Pepperland"
8. "Sea of Time"
9. "Sea of Holes"
10. "Sea of Monsters"
11. "March of the Meanies"
12. "Pepperland Laid Waste"
13. "Yellow Submarine in Pepperland"

Instead of analyzing all the instrumental tracks together, allow me to just say this: George Martin is a fantastic composer and musical arranger.  He was clearly as adept at arranging orchestral instruments as he was the rock music. Listening to these tracks his influence on other Beatles' works like "A Day in the Life" and "Eleanor Rigby" becomes obvious.  I once watched a clip of atheist Penn Jillette talking about how a friend  told him the Beatles existence was proof of God, because the four of them together made something greater than any of them ever did individually.  His snarky response was "So you're saying George Martin is God."  I fully believe he is right in as much that Martin is the reason that the four of them were better together than they ever were alone.

Perhaps understandably, Magical Mystery Tour was panned by critics and not well received by the public.  As such, the Beatles weren't too enthusiastic about making another film, but were still contractually obligated to United Artists to make another one.  Their attempt to get out of it was Yellow Submarine.

The story was written by Lee Minoff taking large amounts of inspiration from various Beatles songs, "Yellow Submarine" being the most obvious.  It's animated and the characters are not voiced by the Beatles themselves.  The film is of course a musical, and while the plot is somewhat loose it's stronger than Magical Mystery Tour.  Pepperland has been attacked by the Blue Meanies, and so they send Old Fred out in the yellow submarine to get the Beatles to come help them.  They pass through several seas and pick up a real nowhere man before finally arriving in Pepperland and saving the day.  It ends with a very brief scene of the Beatles in live action that is absolutely adorable.

I didn't see this film until I was a teenager, and when I did I found myself really confused.  I basically thought that the filmmakers had to have been on drugs when they made it.  I recently asked around trying to see if anyone I knew had watched the film as a child and what they had thought of it.  I got two different responses, one telling me they had thought of the film as a moving storybook as a child, and another person telling me it was her daughter's favorite movie at the age of 2.  For me personally, I think if I had watched this film as a kid it would have given me nightmares.  There's just a lot of really bizarre imagery going on here.

But as an adult I've come to appreciate the film a lot more.  There's some fun wordplay to be had and of course all the songs used are great.  The moments where we're first introduced to each Beatle in turn are very cute and play very well to their established personas.  I also think having "When I'm 64" playing while they age and de-age in the Sea of Time is a very cute idea.

The highlight of the movie for me though is definitely Jonathan Hillary Boob.  Now that's a fun name to say!  He speaks in wordplay and despite the insults they throw at him, seems to be the smartest character in the movie.  It's interesting how culture changes over time.  In A Hard Day's Night we got Paul's grandfather insulting Ringo for reading a book instead of going out and experiencing life, and now we see the Beatles chiding Jonathon for being a well studied expert in so many fields without actually experiencing anything.  While there's certainly a valid point there, I think we can all agree that people could stand to read a bit more and take their schooling more seriously these days.  And I think well read people are a little more respected now than they were then.  At least I hope so.

While this is a children's film, I think there is enough to enjoy as an adult thanks to both its artful look and clever script.  It's not really a classic, and I'm not sure modern children could entirely appreciate this older style, but I think it's worth checking out.

The Beatles - The Beatles aka The White Album

 I remember around high school there was a sudden thing where musicians couldn't seem to resist name dropping this album as being really influential on them. I'm sure that's true, but for me, this album is a mess.  It's a double album solely because they were reaching a point where they all wanted to do something different and no one wanted to yield and the record company wasn't going to tell them no because this is The Beatles we're talking about.  There's good and there's bad and there's horrid on here.  Let's get to it.

1. "Back in the U.S.S.R." - We start off strong, with Paul writing a song that was a direct response to the Beach Boys, both with their multi-part harmonies and their All-American lyrics.  It's a fun song.
2. "Dear Prudence" - A fairly simple song by John, written in India because the lady in question refused to leave her room.  It's very sweet.
3. "Glass Onion" - It's followed by another from John that's a bit more blues inspired and contains some interesting sound clips as well, along with a lot of nonsense lyrics and references to their past songs.  The "here's another clue for you all, the walrus was Paul" line feels like he's talking about the "Paul is dead" conspiracy until you realize that didn't materialize until after they had broken up.  I'm pretty sure what he's really doing is calling Paul a charlatan, like the walrus from "The Walrus and the Carpenter."  These were not happy times for them.
4. "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" - The second song I knew of because of a TV show appropriating it for its theme song. (Anyone even remember Life Goes On at this point?) It's fun and bouncy and great to sing along to.  Reportedly, Paul drove them all nuts while recording this song.  That's also how the "Desmond stays at home and does her pretty face" line came about, because they had been doing it so many times that he accidentally sang the wrong thing and liked it enough to keep it.
5. "Wild Honey Pie" - It's so strange that this one appears before "Honey Pie."  This is just a jumbled mess of an experiment and should definitely have been left off the album.
6. "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" - I don't like a thing about this one at all.  The chorus of vocals, the lyrics, the music.  It's just bland to me.  Yoko's slightly off key vocals don't help at all.
7. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" - Probably one of George's best Beatles songs, with that wonderful slide guitar sound.  The lyrics aren't great, but I think the simplicity of the song really makes it work. And yes, Clapton plays on the track, but he doesn't do anything here that George himself couldn't pull off just as well, so I refuse to give him any credit for it.
8. "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" - A great one for John that sounds more modern today than it is, and is probably one of those that the 90s musicians found so influential.  I love the way the song takes so many twists and turns, and the lyrics evoke great imagery even if they don't always make sense.
9. "Martha My Dear" - This song was written for Paul's sheepdog.  I worry for anyone who thinks it's a romantic song.  But it is very sweet and fun to sing along with.
10. "I'm So Tired" - Another great one by John.  I love the building nature with that "I'll give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind" before grinding to a stop and then starting over again.
11. "Blackbird" - Simple, sweet, and lovely, a song about the civil rights turmoil going on in the states around this time period.
12. "Piggies" - I like that this is one of those songs that sounds like a children's song on the surface but has some of those more sinister meanings hidden in there.  It's a shame that it was later used by a madman to create something horrible.
13. "Rocky Raccoon" - This one is silly, but I really like it.  There's also a great early take on the Anthology discs where Paul flubs his line that's pretty funny. (Also, check out the adorable cartoon someone made of the song that I linked.  It's cute!)
14. "Don't Pass Me By" - Ringo has finally written a song!  And it sounds like a lot of the others ones they used to give him to cover really.  It's not bad for what it is, but not really my style.
15. "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" - It's Paul's turn to get a little bluesy.  I like the style of it, but it seems pretty clear that he really only had a couple lines of a song that he then jammed on while they hit record.
16. "I Will" - A sickeningly sweet Paul love song.  I don't like it. 
17. "Julia" - Julia was John's mother.  She died when he was 17 and it had a profound effect on him.  So why does this song suddenly become all about Yoko by the second line?
18. "Birthday" - I had taped this song off the radio once before I even realized it was by the Beatles.  To me it sounded like some sort of rock number from the 70s.  It also has Linda McCartney and Yoko singing on it, badly.  Unfortunately neither of their beaus would realize how bad an idea that was and continued to record them singing for years later.
19. "Yer Blues" -  More straight up blues than some of the songs John did earlier.  I think his vocals are well suited for the genre and so I really like this one.  If you are curious who "Dylan's Mr. Jones" is, click the link.
20. "Mother Nature's Son" -Way too slow and sleepy for me to get any kind of enjoyment out of this one.
21. "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey" - His monkey is referring to Yoko.  And it's not exactly sung in a way to suggest a loving pet name.  It's weird.  Beyond that I really do like the song's beat and that bell clanging away through the verses.
22. "Sexy Sadie" -This is one of those songs where I start off liking it, but it just keeps going on and doesn't change up all that much and I'm just ready for it to be over.
23. "Helter Skelter" - Growing up I remember always thinking this was a bad song that I shouldn't listen to.  I didn't really know why, beyond that it was somehow related to a serial killer.  Of course as I got older I realized there was really nothing wrong with the song itself.  It's about a playground ride for crying out loud!  It's also interesting to note that this was Paul attempting to beat The Who at making the "loudest, rawest, dirtiest"  song based on a quote from Pete Townshend.  Measure it up against "I Can See for Miles" (for which Townshend made the claim) and see which one you think wins.  It's kind of a shame that Paul largely dropped this style in his solo career, because I can only imagine how fun a Paul McCartney heavy metal album could have been.
24. "Long, Long, Long" -I had no memory of this song at all, and I can see why.  It's too slow and dreamy, with not much happening at all.  The ending is also pretty weird.
25. "Revolution 1" - Not the version you're thinking of, because this one was deemed too slow to be a single and they made the hit we all know and love today. I have to agree, I can't see this one possibly being released as a single.  Which is not to say that it's bad in and of itself.
26. "Honey Pie" - Unlike its strange sibling, I really like this song.  It's similar to "When I'm Sixty Four" with its old fashioned sound.  Easy to sing along to and easy to get stuck in your head.  I also like the lyrics a lot.
27. "Savoy Truffle" -George was having a bit of trouble finishing song lyrics around this time, and it's probably nowhere more obvious than on this one, where he was literally reading varieties off a box of chocolates.   It's not a bad song but it's not one I listen to very often.
28. "Cry Baby Cry" -I love the way the lyrics resemble the words to "four and twenty blackbirds" and then slowly develop into something else.  I find myself singing the chorus of this one a lot to my cats when they start whining.
29. "Revolution 9" - Junk.  (Did you imagine you'd ever hear me say that about ANY Beatles song? Especially a John song?) It's not music by any definition of the word.  It's just assembled noise and dreadful to listen to.  I appreciate his willingness to experiment but that doesn't mean I have to like the results.  If you do happen to like this one and are not familiar with noise art, I recommend you look it up.
30. "Good Night" - Written by John for Julian, so why is Ringo singing it?  His voice simply isn't strong enough for this.  It is a nice lullaby, but it's not really a Beatles song at all.

So I know I'm being pretty harsh here, but I can't help but be bothered by the way Yoko largely took over John's focus for a good portion of the album.  I'm not saying she forced him into it, mind you.  Infatuation that becomes love can hit a person hard and make them want to do things.  It's just that John was clearly so adamant about it that no one else (particularly his former writing partner) could make it through to him that maybe some of these things weren't such a great idea.  Granted no one had the guts to tell Paul that some of these songs didn't really belong here either, so I guess it doesn't matter what the circumstances where, you just had two guys who were a bit out of control in knowing the good from the bad at this point.

It's also worth noting that all of the missteps here are songs you could easily point to as being wildly influential in creating new styles of music.  So even if the guys themselves couldn't perfect what they were trying for, someone further down the line did.

Castle Rock Companion - The Mangler

 

The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour (album and film)

This album has some of my absolute favorite Beatles songs on it, and most of the rest are still pretty strong.  To give you an idea, all but two of the tracks here I have stored on my phone to listen to whenever I'd like. Of  course this is also technically a soundtrack album, but I always felt more like the movie was made to suit the songs rather than the other way around.  You'll see what I mean when I talk about the film.

1. "Magical Mystery Tour" - While certainly meant to be an intro into the film, I think the song still stands on its own.  I love the quality of the "roll up!" and how it sounds like the tape is warped and perhaps going to break at any moment.  It's also nice to hear a song where Paul, John and George all have individual singing parts on top of the harmonies (even though Paul obviously dominates the track).  It shows how they were developing their own distinct voices and I like moments like this where they all worked together.
2. "Fool on the Hill" - And of course, after I've said that, we now get Paul working alone.  That's not entirely true, as the other Beatles do play on the track, but this is most definitely his.  I enjoy the simplicity of the penny whistle in there, but it is a rather sleepy song so it's not one of my favorites.
3. "Flying" - A completely instrumental song, almost seemingly there to remind us that this is a soundtrack album.  It's not bad, but there's not much to it.  As you might have guessed, this is one I don't keep with me.
4. "Blue Jay Way" - While this one certainly still has Indian influence to it, it's a lot different than George's recent offerings.  It's slow and sleepy but the quality fits the song perfectly, and the inclusion of the cello means this is a song I really, really like. 
5. "Your Mother Should Know" - A fun, old timey sounding song.  The lyrics are pretty repetitive but it mostly suits the bouncy nature of the melody.  This kind of bouncy stuff is really what Paul is best at.
6. "I Am the Walrus" - I love this song so much.  It's so wonderfully absurd.  It doesn't make a lick of sense and I wouldn't have it any other way.  I remember when I was young, getting Beatle books from the library, trying to find some clue to what was going on here.  Instead I found John explaining that he wrote most of these lines while on acid.  Of course he did.  It's the kind of lovely nonsense that Lewis Carroll and T.S. Elliot would appreciate.  It's also interesting from a technical perspective, with the distorted vocals and the way they literally turned on a radio and twisted the dial until they found something.  My only criticism would be that the "Everybody's got one"/"Oompah oopmah stick it up your jumper" sequence goes on a bit too long.  But it's a pretty minor complaint.  Obviously, one of my favorite Beatles songs.
7. "Hello Goodbye" - And we move on to something completely different but just as wonderful.  It's a throwback to their early pop days while also displaying the musical maturity they've gained since then.  Paul's wonderful bass melody, a touch of George's slide guitar, and those wonderful contradicting backing vocals. I said it before in my anthology review, but the video for this one is just too cute.  I love the way they switch from the Pepper outfits to the collarless suits, the tiny and then oversized drums, and especially that ending dance sequence of them just being completely and utterly silly.  It's so very them and so very wonderful.
8. "Strawberry Fields Forever" - And on to another song I love, but in a completely different way.  There was a time when I would dismiss this as John leaning on more nonsense, but the deeper I looked at it the more these vocals spoke to me.  When I have those days that I feel so utterly alone and that no one is ever going to understand me, I put this on and suddenly I'm not so alone.  It's a little bitter toward the human race,  but that's pretty much what that feeling of isolation is all about, isn't it?  Beyond the lyrics it's musically both unique and beautiful, with so many things going on that it's hard to list them all.  It gives the track a dreamlike quality that I love.
9. "Penny Lane" - I don't think you can make it any clearer that Paul and John were starting to build a  bit of a rivalry here, where we've got two tracks in a row that mention areas they visited in their childhood.  It's a very different kind of song, naturally being a bit more light and playful than John's song.  I think what I found so surprising was when I found just how cheeky it is.  "He likes to keep his fire engine clean" and "Four of fish and finger pies."  It's an interesting thing to do for what sounds like such an innocent song otherwise.  Musically it's just all around very beautiful and a great song to listen to.
10. "Baby You're a Rich Man" - This is the other song I leave off.  It's even more repetitive than "Your Mother Should Know" and there's just not a whole lot to it.  It's not awful, it's just not something I ever feel much of an urge to listen to.
11. "All You Need is Love" - Admittedly, this one is also repetitive, but I think the message shines through strong enough to make it okay.  While it should be just as outdated as "The Word" was, I still like it, even if I think the idea is a bit naive.  Love won't fix all the world's problems, but a little kindness never hurt either.  I can understand how some people may find it a little too saccharine, but I enjoy it.  Especially the way Paul starts singing "Loved you, yeah, yeah yeah..." at the end.

While it's not my favorite era of the Beatles, it's definitely one of my favorite albums of theirs, just full of so much strong material.

After being in two well made studio based films, the Beatles decided to try their own thing with Magical Mystery Tour.  There were no scripts written, and only the basic of plots planned out.  As such, this film is entirely experimental art film and not much else.  There are still song performances that are like music videos, but the rest is primarily like strange dream sequences.  If you prefer structure and logic to your movies, you're going to be immensely disappointed.

I managed to tape this movie off VH1 in the 90s.  It was released on DVD in 1997 but is now out of print. [Edit: It has since been released on Blu-ray.]

Richard Starkey and his Aunt Jessie are joining a ragtag group of individuals on a bus tour.  That's Ringo using his real name and actress Jessie Robins, not actually related to him in anyway.  John, Paul and George are also on the bus, though they don't necessarily seem to all know each other. The four of them and Mal Evans also portray some wizards in the sky watching over the bus that are sort of responsible for all of the crazy things that happen to them.

Beyond the fantastic music sequences, there are some fun scenes.  The scene of John with the little girl is very cute, and Ringo's comfortableness in front of the camera just shows, even if the dialogue is sincerely lacking.  Victor Spinetti is very funny as the army sergeant, even if they let the scene go on a bit too long.  My favorite is probably the scene of John shoveling spaghetti onto Aunt Jessie's plate.  His deranged look just makes it hysterical.

Of the music sequences, I really love “I Am the Walrus,” which manages to be just as zany and insane as the song itself, but I also really enjoy “Blue Jay Way.” The projection is a simple effect, but they put it to good use.  Also, how can you not love that ginormous sunflower John is wearing? (I've linked both of these videos above with the songs if you'd like to see them.)

For a movie that was originally shown on television, it's a little surprising to see a strip tease included, but then I guess British standards are different from American.  That scene also begs the question, what were the women doing while the men watched that?  By the way, the song being played during this scene is “Death Cab for Cutie,” and yes, that's where they got their name from.

During “Your Mother Should Know,” Paul is wearing a black carnation while the other Beatles sport red.  This has been used as a “Paul is dead” clue, and Paul's official defense is that they ran out of red flowers so he took a black.  I'm sorry, but that just doesn't make any sense.  I can accept him walking out of step on the cover of Abbey Road since he's left handed, but are you really going to tell me they only had three flowers of a very common color?  Which is not to say that I think Paul is actually dead, I'm just saying there's got to be a better reason there.

I realize this review is pretty disjointed but given the nature of the film, I don't really have a choice.  It's a complete mess.  My love of the Beatles allows me to enjoy it, but even then it's the kind of thing I probably would only watch once every five years or so.