Beatlemania

Last night Stephen (my boyfriend) and I hung out at my parent's house to celebrate my bro-in-law's birthday. We played Super Mario Bros on the Wii (which is really quite difficult), had Chinese takeout (I believe this marks the fifth time I've had Chinese take-out this month...) played Scene-it and had an enjoyable time. Later Stephen and I wanted to watch a movie, but since I've moved out for good my parents removed pretty much all movie watching devices from the downstairs except for a VCR so we had to settle for a VHS. I picked out Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band a 1978 movie musical to watch. I've seen parts of it when I was younger and thought it rather enjoyable because I've loved The Beatles ever since I could remember. This was the first time I actually watched the entire movie in one sitting, however. I personally would rank it in the top one hundred list of worst movies ever made, but boy is it entertaining. I found myself thinking the whole time, "Wow this is one messed up trippy movie..." but I was too engrossed in the bizarre colorful scenes occurring and constant song outbreak of classic Beatles songs covered by the Bee Gees, along with Aerosmith, Alice Cooper and Earth Wind and Fire to even care that it was pretty much void of plot and had some of the worst acting ever. I don't really think there was a single moment during the movie where I was actually silent. I found myself either singing along, laughing at something utterly ridiculous (which is pretty much the entire movie) or stating, "What in the world just happened?" or making some other random outburst caused by some random event in the movie.

The movie could be summed up in two words; trippy and random. It made me really want to watch Across The Universe and got me thinking about all of the other movies inspired by The Beatles; there's quite a bit out there. I'm not going to bother listing all of them, but I came across a Beatles album in a blog I was reading. The Magical Mystery Tour was listed in a post entitled "The Movies and Music That Inspired us to travel in 2009".

--Recommended by Greg Wesson from Greg Wesson’s Esoteric Globe
"Living is easy with eyes closed, said the walrus. Inspiring words to remind us to not take the gift of life for granted and be conscious of the choices we make. On the three days sight-seeing I spent in Liverpool, I couldn't stop humming Magical Mystery Tour. Liverpool is a city that is impossible to walk through without looking at it through Beatles-tinted glasses. For inspiring me both to live with my eyes open and go and visit the Mersey-side city of Liverpool, Roll up… Roll up… for The Magical Mystery Tour by the Beatles, released 1967."
(I also watched 500 Days of Summer today for the second time and I like how nicely it tied in with my movie choice last night through the brief, but imperative mention of Ringo Starr and "I am the Walrus" being the best Beatles song ever written.)

The Magical Mystery Tour was also the title of a TV film thought up of by The Beatles but mainly by Paul. One of the songs used in the movie is "Death Cab for Cutie" performed by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. The title of the song just so happens to also be the name of my favorite band of all time. I think The Beatles is probably the most influential band-- film speaking. I can't really think of any other bands that have so incredibly inspired this aspect of culture, but there have been other songs which have inspired movies. Two songs that immediately come to mind are "Stand By Me" and "Pretty Woman" but these songs merely inspired the titles of the movies. Since songs are able to create a story, however, (Even classical music--Tchaikovsky; i.e. The Nutcracker) it is only natural that they be used for inspiration in other mediums of storytelling such as film (It's not obvious at all that I'm trying to make this tie in with my previous post...). I just love when creative worlds collide.