Review: ‘Pets’ (2025), starring Sterling Davis, Travis Ford, Adam Burke, Sergi Basolí, Kristin Hartness, Jay Yontz, Rodney Stotts and Shinobu Takahashi

April 19, 2025

by Carla Hay

Sterling Davis and his cat Alanis Mewisette in “Pets” (Photo courtesy of Disney+)

“Pets” (2025)

Directed by Bryce Dallas Howard

Culture Representation: The documentary film “Pets” features a predominantly white group of people (with some African Americans, Asians and Latin people) discussing the special bonds that they have with their pets.

Culture Clash: Several of the pet owners talk about the challenges they face, particularly if they take care of several pets or if they take care of any pets with special needs.

Culture Audience: “Pets” will appeal primarily to people who like feel-good documentaries about animals and animal caregivers.

Kristin Hartness and Jay Yontz with their pig Ziggy and an unidentified pug in “Pets” (Photo by Al Drago/Disney+)

The documentary “Pets” offers a mostly lighthearted view of how pets and humans deeply affect each others’ lives. The movie excels at giving perspectives from people of diverse backgrounds and ages. The content is more entertaining than educational.

Directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, “Pets” has a similar format to her 2020 documentary “Dads,” which was her feature-film directorial debut. Some of the interviews are soundbites that were recorded in a studio, while the other interviews are in longer segments that are feature profiles. The interview soundbites are from children. The longer profiles are of adults who treat their pets like beloved members of their families. Besides the subject matter, the main difference between “Dads” and “Pets” is that “Pets” does not have interviews with celebrities.

“Pets” begins with a montage of video clips from social media showing people getting emotional when they find out that they’ve gotten pets as gifts. Throughout the documentary, there are soundbites of children commenting about their own experiences with their own pets. A recurring comment from all pet owners is that pets give unconditional love and generally make people feel better; people can learn a lot from pets; and pets can be easier to confide in than people.

Travis Ford and Adam Burke (a gay couple in Ridgefield, Connecticut) are shown during their journey of adopting a puppy named Blue from the Sato Project, a rescue group that finds homes for stray dogs from Puerto Rico. Ford and Burke say that Blue is the first pet they’ve adopted without meeting the pet in person first. They’re adopting Blue to be a companion for their senior dog Delilah, who was 17 years old at the time the documentary was made.

Sterling Davis (a cat rescuer in Asheville, North Carolina) talks about how he grew up in an abusive household that left him emotionally scarred, but his life changed with the help from a special Himalayan cat that he named Rick James, who died several years ago. Davis (who says he used to be a rapper) now operates a cat rescue service that does a lot of TNR (trap-neuter-return) work for feral cats that need to live outdoors. He says his experience surviving an abusive childhood has made him feel compassion for stray cats because he can relate to them feeling helpless in a bad situation. His rescue van (which is called Trap King) has an image of his cat Rick James. At the time this documentary was filmed, Davis had a cat named Alanis Mewisette that was his closest feline companion.

Sergi Basolí (an adventurer in Calella de Palafrugell, Spain) has dedicated his life to traveling by sea and by land. Before he met his love partner Eva (who is briefly seen in the documentary with their son Joe), he was a bachelor looking for a travel companion. He found that companion with a friendly mutt named Havana. And when he unexpectedly adopted a stray kitten named Goku, Havana treated Goku like Goku was her own child. Goku and Havana both learned how to live on sailboats and navigate rough terrain on hikes.

Kristin Hartness and Jay Yontz (an engaged couple in Providence, North Carolina) have a male pig named Ziggy, who was adopted by Hartness in 2011, when Ziggy was a baby. Ziggy is now almost 300 pounds. Having a pig of this size meant that Hartness and Yontz had to give up certain housing, so they spent a number of years traveling by motor home, just so they could keep Ziggy. Hartness and Yontz now own and operate Ziggy’s Rescue Farm Sanctuary, which has a specialty in taking care of animals with special needs. A cute female pig named Zippy (with paralysis in the lower half of her body) is featured in the documentary.

Shinobu Takahashi (a dog rescuer in Nagoya, Japan) talks about how a special dog he had named Daca changed him at a low point in his life when Takahashi was feeling down over the failure of a business that he owned. Daca (who is now deceased) inspired Takahashi to go into dog rescuing as a profession. Takahashi is also a dog trainer.

Shizue Funahashi (a retired widow in Nagoya) is part of a dog interaction program that Takahashi started for senior citizens because Japan has a law that rescue groups and adoption shelters cannot adopt out pets to people ages 65 and older. Funahashi talks about how her two dogs are her best friends. She also gets teary-eyed when she remembers how her late husband’s dog Pom Pom was his constant companion and died one year after her husband passed away.

Rodney Stotts (a falconer in Charlotte Court House, Virginia) says he used to be a drug dealer in Washington, D.C., but he turned his life around because of his love of animals. The special owl in Stotts’ life is named Hoot. Stotts has a rescue sanctuary for birds of prey and other animals. He’s also shown introducing Hoot to kids who visit the sanctuary.

The children interviewed in the “sound bites” parts of documentary are interviewed solo or in pairs. (The kids interviewed in pairs are siblings.) The kid interviewees are all adorable and range in ages from 6 to 15 at the time the documentary was filmed.

Howard’s children Beatrice Howard-Gabel and Theo Howard-Gabel are among those interviewed. The other children interviewed are Sabrina Beesely, Abner Chen, Axcel Chen, Eteri Coast, Sasha Dolan, Julia Gallagher, Amelia Jenkins, Xiaowan Jin, Iris Klumpe, Goldie Lee, Wyatt Liskey, Rhett Lopez, Mickele McKerring, Teddy McMahon, Tess Miyao, Ella Grace Oh, Kalista Price, LJ Randle, Jordan Roberto-Chen, Landon Sayer and Breanna Williams. Sayer is one of the more memorable kids because he and his dog both have cleft palates.

“Pets” touches on the realistic topic of coping with the death of a pet. It’s not a big part of the documentary, but the topic is handled with sensitivity without being too mawkish. Although the adults featured in the documentary profiles are engaging to watch, the documentary could have had better of a gender balance for the adults who are interviewed. Hartness and Funahashi are the only women who get significant screen time in “Pets.”

The documentary also could have been a little bit more information about pets in the workplace. For example, it would’ve been great to have at least one story about dogs that work for law enforcement, cats in bodegas, or horses that are part of guided tours. Mammals and birds get the vast majority of pet screen time in the documentary, while reptiles, amphibians and insects are barely mentioned and only briefly seen in the documentary. Of course, the possibilities are endless on what types of pets could have been in this documentary, so it’s understandable that the filmmakers had to narrow down the choices for a feature-length film.

“Pets” is an easy and very likable viewing choice for people of many generations and life experiences. There are plenty of other documentaries that explore the scientific aspects of domesticated animals. “Pets” is like looking at a family photo album and listening to personal stories rather than reading a fact-heavy textbook and getting an academic lecture.

Disney+ premiered “Pets” on April 11, 2025.

Review: ‘Music by John Williams,’ starring John Williams, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, J.J. Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy and Chris Columbus

December 29, 2024

by Carla Hay

John Williams in “Music by John Williams” (Photo by Travers Jacobs/Lucasfilm/Disney+)

“Music by John Williams”

Directed by Laurent Bouzereau

Culture Representation: Filmed in 2023, mostly in the United States, the documentary film “Music by John Williams” features award-winning music composer John Willams and a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans, Latin people and Asians) who are his friends, colleagues or family members talking about Williams’ life and career.

Culture Clash: Williams started off as a jazz musician and classical music orchestra player but transitioned into become the most famous and most-awarded movie composer of all time.

Culture Audience: “Music by John Williams” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Williams and the movies he composed music for, including “Star Wars,” “E.T.,” the “Indiana Jones” films, and the first three “Harry Potter” movies.

John Williams in “Music by John Williams” (Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm/Disney+)

The tribute documentary “Music by John Williams” gives an admirable career retrospective of the world’s most famous movie composer. John Williams and his colleague friends provide most of the commentary in a formulaic but educational and delightful film. Even the most ardent fans of Williams will see or learn something new from seeing this well-researched documentary. “Music by John Williams” had its world premiere at the 2024 edition of AFI Fest.

Directed by Laurent Bouzereau, “Music by John Williams” is the type of documentary that would be hard get wrong, considering the subject matter and the participation of all the immensely talented people (including Williams) in this film. Born in New York City in 1932, Williams has an extraordinary body of work that includes composing the iconic scores for numerous high-profile films, including “Star Wars” movies, the “Indiana Jones” movies, 1977’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” 1982’s “E.T. the Extraterrestrial,” 1993’s “Schindler’s List,” 1998’s “Saving Private Ryan” and the first three “Harry Potter” movies.

Williams has won every major award for film music composing (including several Oscars and Grammys) and has earned the description of being a “legendary” composer. “Music by John Williams” has the expected descriptions of Williams’ most famous movie scores with clips from these films and some anecdotal stories. As such, “Music by John Williams” is very much a nostalgia documentary, but it’s also an inspirational story of someone who refuses to follow the conventions that most people follow when it comes to aging and retirement.

“Music by John Williams” tells Williams’ story in chronological order and includes personal photos of Williams in his youth. Williams is candid about his experiences but mostly talks about his career, his compositions and the fondness he has for his colleague friends. He came from a family of musicians and creative people: His father Johnny was a drummer/percussionist, his mother Esther was a dancer, and his younger brothers Jerry and Don and older sister Joan also had musical talent and became musicians. Williams’ three children—daughter Jenny, son Mark and son Joe—also became musicians. (For the purposes of this review, John Williams will be referred to as Williams.)

Williams describes having a happy childhood, which is when he taught himself a lot of what he knows about music through constant practicing. By the time he was in high school, he was writing music for the school’s orchestra. Williams describes this accomplishment in such a modest way, it’s almost easy to forget that most high schoolers wouldn’t be able and wouldn’t be asked to write music for their school orchestra.

In his late teens and 20s, Williams studied music while he attended the University of California at Los Angeles, Juilliard, and the University of Rochester. For a brief time, he was in the U.S. Air Force. When he relocated permanently to Los Angeles, Williams became a session musician for many movies and TV shows from the mid-1950s onward. He worked with mentors such as Harry Mancini and André Previn. Some of Williams’ film credits during this time included 1956’s Carousel, 1959’s “Peter Gunn” and 1961’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

Williams also became known as a jazz musician. And it wasn’t long before he was composing and conducting his own film and TV scores. Some his TV credits in the 1960s included “Gilligan’s Island” and “Lost in Space.” His first movie score as a composer was the 1958 forgettable flop “Daddy-O.” It’s an example of how Williams didn’t let any early career failures deter him.

Because so much of Williams’ best-known music is in movies directed and/or produced by Steven Spielberg, it should come as no surprise that Spielberg is one of the producers of “Music by John Williams” and is one of the enthusiastic commentators in the documentary. As Williams says in the documentary, the “luckiest day” of his life was meeting Spielberg, who has worked with Williams for all of the feature films directed by Spielberg so far. In the documentary, Spielberg gushes about Williams’ music: “It’s the purest form of art I’ve experienced from any human being.”

Other filmmakers who are interviewed for the documentary are “Star Wars” creator George Lucas, J.J. Abrams, Ron Howard, Kathleen Kennedy, Chris Columbus, Lawrence Kasdan, James Mangold and Frank Marshall. Musicians who pay homage to Williams in this documentary include Chris Martin (lead singer of Coldplay), Branford Marsalis, David Newman, Thomas Newman, Alan Silvestri, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Gustavo Dudamel, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Thomas Hooten and Master Sergeant Karen Johnson of the U.S. Marines Chamber Orchestra. Other interviewees include actress Kate Capshaw, actor Ke Huy Quan and journalists Alex Ross, Elvis Mitchell and Javier Hernandez. Williams’ daughter Jenny and her singer/musician son Ethan Gruska are also interviewed.

The commentators for the documentary have nothing but praise for Williams as an artist and as a person. Spielberg says his first impression of Williams is who Williams remained for all of these years: “He was an elegant man—always has been—but very warm.” Williams gets absolutely no criticism in this movie, which makes him look almost too good to be true.

However, observant viewers will notice that if there’s one major flaw that Williams seems to have is that he’s a workaholic who has often put his career above his personal life. This not-very-surprising revelation comes directly from Williams. He describes how although he was a happily married father during his marriage to actress/singer Barbara Ruick (his first wife, whom he married in 1956), when their three kinds were young, he deliberately spent more time at the music studios of 20th Century Fox than he did at home because being around his kids at home was too much of a noisy distraction for him.

Williams’ daughter Jenny is the only one of his children who is interviewed in the documentary. She doesn’t mention how her father’s absences affected her childhood but she does say that she had to become a mother figure for her younger brothers after their mother tragically died at age 41 of an aneurysm in 1974. Williams says in the documentary that her sudden death is still hard for him to talk about, and he admits he had problems handling being a widowed father of teenagers. Williams and photographer Samantha Winslow (who is not interviewed in the documentary) got married in 1980, and he briefly mentions their happy marriage in the documentary.

One of the most poignant parts of the documentary is when Williams says that he believes that his music improved during this widower part of his life because he felt that Ruick (in spirit) was helping him be a better composer. The phenomenal success of the 1977 “Star Wars” score soundtrack catapulted Williams to a new level of fame. He has been performing at the Hollywood Bowl every year since 1978 and has been a Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor at Tanglewood Music Center every year since 1980, except for 2024, when he could not attend for an undisclosed health reason. As for his prolific career as a composer and conductor, Williams says that he has no intention of retiring.

“Music by John Williams” has scenes (exclusively filmed for this documentary) of Spielberg and Williams happily reminiscing about their collaborations. Spielberg repeats a well-known story about how he was skeptical at first when he heard the shark theme for “Jaws” because Williams had first played it on a piano, and Spielberg didn’t think it sounded menacing enough. However, Spielberg was convinced nce he hear the entire musical sequence in orchestra form.

Speaking of orchestras, Williams is one of the few major film composers who still records entirely with an orchestra and writes out his music by hand. He admits that this way of writing and recording film music is “dying,” as more film composers turn to digital technology. Williams doesn’t seem snobbish about it, but he does express some concern that some of the art form might be lost with new generations of film composers relying only on digital technology to make and record music.

At 105 minutes, “Music by John Williams” skillfully packs in Williams’ entire robust career so far in a well-edited compilation of archival footage and exclusive new interviews. There are very few surprises, except for Williams’ confession that he rarely watches movies and has never been that interested in being a moviegoer. What isn’t surprising is Williams saying that music will always be his biggest passion. Whether or not you’re the type of person to buy classical music scores, “Music by John Williams” makes his passion for music very infectious in the best ways possible.

Disney+ released “Music by John Williams” in select U.S. cinemas and on Disney+ on November 1, 2024.

Review: ‘Beatles ’64,’ starring Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Jack Douglas, Ronald Isley, Smokey Robinson, Jamie Bernstein and Joe Queenan

November 30, 2024

by Carla Hay

Pictured in front, clockwise from upper left: George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City in “Beatles ’64” (Photo courtesy of Apple Corps/Disney+)

“Beatles ’64”

Directed by David Tedeschi

Culture Representation: The documentary film “Beatles ’64” features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans), who are artists, producers, writers and Beatles fans discussing their thoughts on the Beatles in 1964, the year that the superstar British rock band first arrived in the United States.

Culture Clash: The Beatles experienced hysterical fan adulation as well as backlash from conservative adults who thought that the Beatles were harmful influences to young people.

Culture Audience: “Beatles ’64” will appeal primarily to music fans who want to get a deep-dive documentary look at an important year in the life of the Beatles.

Pictured in front, from left to right: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City in “Beatles ’64” (Photo courtesy of Apple Corps/Disney+)

“Beatles ’64” is a cinematic celebration about this pivotal year in Beatles history. This documentary doesn’t uncover new information, but it has great archival footage and notable interviews with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and a variety of Beatles fans. There are already many books, news reports and other documentaries that cover the same subject of the Beatles’ 1964 arrival in America—the first time that this world-famous British band toured in the United States. “Beatles ’64” gives perspectives mostly from people who personally saw and experienced Beatlemania.

Directed by David Tedeschi, “Beatles ’64” features a lot of archival footage originally directed by documentarian brothers Albert Maysles and David Maysles, who accompanied the Beatles on the band’s first tour of America. The Maysles footage in “Beatles ’64” was restored in 4K. New interviews for this documentary are mostly from famous or semi-famous people who are in the creative arts, although there are some interviews with people who aren’t famous but who were Beatles superfans in 1964 and still consider themselves to be Beatles superfans.

“Beatles ’64” makes attempts to put Beatlemania in a cultural perspective that has been covered elsewhere numerous times. Any comprehensive book on the Beatles will probably mention how the Beatles’ February 1964 arrival in the United States came at a time when America was mourning the November 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the Beatles came along like a breath of fresh air and pure joy. The documentary opens with a montage of President Kennedy as a way to confirm this widespread theory.

The Beatles formed in Liverpool, England, in 1960, and broke up in 1970. Beatlemania had already been a part of Europe for at least a year by the time the Beatles arrived in America in 1964. Because of America’s overwhelmingly enthusiastic response to the Beatles, the year 1964 was the year that Beatles became a worldwide phenomenon. New York City was the first U.S. city that the Beatles visited on February 7, 1964. The band’s arrival at the newly renamed John F. Kennedy Airport caused a media frenzy and is part of pop culture history that has been widely examined and parodied.

There’s no need to describe in this review how the Beatles’ appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964 had a tremendous impact on the band and countless people who saw these performances because these “Ed Sullivan Show” performances are such an immensely covered and discussed part of Beatles history. It was the first time on American television that people got to see Beatlemania happening live during a Beatles performance. Young people (usually teenage girls but quite a few boys too) screamed, cried, cheered, hyperventilated, and generally became obsessive fans.

“Beatles ’64” assumes that most people watching the documentary are familiar with at least some of the Beatles’ music. The Beatles songs that are featured prominently in “Beatles ’64” include “She Loves You,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “In My Life,” “With Love From Me to You” and “This Boy.” The documentary doesn’t bother with a detailed examination of the Beatles’ individual personalities and the nicknames that the band members were given by the media. And even if viewers aren’t familiar with the band members’ images, the archival footage in “Beatles ’64” does a fairly good job of showing the band members’ personalities at this time.

Lead singer/bass player McCartney was the “cute” Beatle and the one most likely to be a polite charmer in interviews. Beatles drummer Starr (whose birth name is Richard Starkey) was the “funny” Beatle and the one most likely to act goofy in public. Lead guitarist/singer George Harrison was the “quiet” Beatle who seemed to be the most uncomfortable with doing interviews. Lead singer/rhythm guitarist John Lennon was the “smart” Beatle who was most likely to give witty and acerbic comments to the media.

Lennon was murdered in 1980, at the age of 40. Harrison died of cancer in 2001, at the age of 58. The documentary includes archival interview footage of Lennon from the 1970s, and Harrison from the 1980s and 1990s, where they separately talk about their Beatlemania fame.

“Beatles ’64” interviewed McCartney at New York City’s Brooklyn Museum, which had a 2024 exhibit titled “Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm.” McCartney tells a few anecdotes when looking at some of the exhibit’s photographs. McCartney comments on how the Beatles felt about America at the time: “To us, it was the land of freedom. Once we got here, we learned it wasn’t quite the story.”

To its credit, “Beatles’ 64” acknowledges how racial tensions and the civil rights movement were very much a part of American history that affected how the Beatles were perceived and treated in America. On the one hand, the Beatles were extremely popular with young people. On the other hand, many older adults despised or distrusted the Beatles because rock music (which originated with African American artists) was associated with open sexuality and rebelling against the establishment.

“Beatles ’64” goes out of its way to mention that the Beatles gave credit to many African American artists for being influences on the band. Rock music pioneer Little Richard was one of those major influences. Little Richard’s signature “whoo” holler was copied by the Beatles in the Beatles hit song “She Loves You.”

In the documentary, Smokey Robinson (former lead singer of the Miracles) talks about how flattered he was that the Beatles did a cover version of the Miracles’ 1962 hit “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” which was on the Beatles’ 1963 second U.K. album “With the Beatles” and the Beatles’ 1964 third U.S. album “The Beatles’ Second Album.” Ronald Isley of the Isley Brothers did not write the Isley Brothers’ 1962 hit version of “Twist and Shout” (which was originally recorded by the Top Notes in 1961), but Isley says in “Beatles ’64” that he thought it was great that the Isley Brothers’ version of the song inspired the Beatles to do their own version of “Twist and Shout” on the Beatles’ 1963 U.K. album “Please Please Me.”

The documentary also includes a 2014 interview with Ronnie Spector (former lead singer of the female trio the Ronettes) talking about how she and the Ronettes were unofficial ambassadors to the Beatles when the Beatles first came to America. Spector (who died in 2022, at age 78) tells stories about how the Beatles had an insatiable curiosity about America and asked the Ronettes to teach the Beatles as much as possible about America. And when Beatlemania almost made the Beatles prisoners in their hotels in New York City, Spector says she and the Ronettes helped the Beatles “escape” to New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, where no one really knew who the Beatles were and didn’t bother them.

“Beatles ’64” does not ignore the obvious: In 1964, racial segregation was still a way of life in much of America, which is why almost all the people who attended Beatles performances in 1964 were white. “Beatles ’64” includes some archival footage of unidentified African Americans in New York City being asked what they thought of the Beatles. Most gave lukewarm to positive responses, with comments admiring the group’s songs and unique image. But one young man calls the Beatles “disgusting” and says he prefers jazz groups such as the Miles Davis Quintet and the John Coltrane Quartet.

“Beatles ’64” also has brief footage of a family only identified as the Gonzalez family watching the Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” The unnamed teenage girl in the family watches intently and seems to enjoy the performance. Her father, who’s sitting in the background, seems bored and unimpressed with the Beatles. It’s another example of the generational divide about the Beatles at the time, but it’s also the documentary’s way of showing that the Beatles didn’t have only white fans in 1964.

The message is clear in the documentary: Although racial segregation was a big problem in America, the documentary points out that the Beatles themselves weren’t racists and didn’t hesitate to befriend and work with people who weren’t white. Robinson comments that music concerts, especially those attended by young people, helped bring different races together in America: “The saving grace was the music because those kids had a common love.”

The Beatles faced a different type of prejudice that had to do with social class—mainly from people who thought the band’s long hair and rock music made the Beatles low-class degenerates. McCartney says in the documentary that when the Beatles (who all came from working-class families) visited the British Embassy in New York City in 1964, there was blatant snobbery directed at the Beatles. McCartney says that any insults or snubs that the Beatles experienced ultimately didn’t matter: “We didn’t give a flying fuck. They were at the embassy. We were on the road rockin’!”

Starr’s interviews for the documentary are lighthearted and don’t provide anything profound or illuminating—unless you think it’s profound that Starr remarks that his drum kit in 1964 was smaller than usual because he wanted the drum kit to be able to fit on the stage so he could be as close as possible to his band mates. Starr is interviewed by “Beatles ’64” producer Martin Scorsese in a room full of stage costumes that were being sold by Julien’s Auctions. McCartney, Starr, Sean Ono Lennon (John Lennon’s son with second wife Yoko Ono) and Olivia Harrison (George Harrison’s widow) are among the producers of “Beatles ’64.”

As for the fans interviewed in the documentary, many of the them get very emotional when remembering how Beatlemania impacted their lives in 1964. For writer Joe Queenan, he says the Beatles helped him cope with having an abusive alcoholic father. Queenan weeps when he says the first time he heard “She Loves You” was in December 1963, when he heard the song playing on his sister’s radio. Queenan says life was pretty dark for him, but when he heard the Beatles’ music, “It’s like the light came on.”

Vickie Brenna-Costa, writer Jane Tompkins and writer Jamie Bernstein (eldest child of famed composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein) were teenagers in New York in 1964 and did a lot of the things that Beatlemaniac teen girls did back then. (There’s some archival footage of Brenna-Costa waiting outside the Plaza Hotel, where the Beatles were staying.) The documentary has archival footage of Leonard Bernstein defending the Beatles’ artistry at a time when much of the classical music community looked down on rock music.

Danny Bennett, a music producer, shows some of the Beatles merchandise that he collected when he was a teenager in the 1960s, including a Beatles dress, Beatles athletic shoes and Beatles nylon stockings. Bennett makes a point of repeating that he never wore the women’s attire. He also shows part of the seat that he had at Shea Stadium, where he saw the Beatles in concert. Bennett says that he got this memorabilia item when Shea Stadium was being torn down, and he convinced an engineer working on the demolition to let him have part of the seat as a memento.

Jack Douglas, a successful American music producer who worked with Lennon and rock band Aerosmith in the 1970s, has the documentary’s most interesting personal story about how Beatlemania affected his life. This review won’t reveal all the details, but the story is how in 1964, 15-year-old Douglas traveled by ship with another young musician friend to make a pilgrimage to Liverpool. The two pals ran into immigration problems and briefly became local celebrities in Liverpool because of these problems. Years later, when Douglas was working at a recording studio in the early 1970s, he met Lennon and had a “full circle” moment that Douglas describes in the documentary.

“Beatles ’64” is by no means perfect. The documentary sometimes has editing that’s clumsy or has abrupt transitions. There’s archival commentary from philosopher/media guru Marshall McLuhan talking about electricity’s impact on pop culture. This McLuhan footage doesn’t really fit with the rest of the documentary. Sananda Maitreya (the artist formerly known as Terence Trent D’Arby) is interviewed about being a Beatles fan, but his interview looks out of place in this documentary because he was born in 1962, so he was too young to remember Beatlemania in 1964.

And although there’s a plethora of footage of the Beatles joking around and looking happy in this documentary, there’s only the most superficial acknowledgements of the dark sides of fame. Harry Benson, a photographer who accompanied the Beatles on tour in 1964, briefly mentions that all of the Beatles, especially Lennon, were worried about violence in America, in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination. It’s somewhat haunting to hear this tidbit of information, considering the fact that Lennon—just like Kennedy—was also murdered by gun violence.

The celebrity realities of hangers-on and groupies are barely discussed in the documentary, even though it’s a well-documented fact that the Beatles indulged in sexual attention from many women during this 1964 tour. At the time, Lennon was married to his first wife Cynthia, while Starr was in a serious relationship with Maureen Cox, who would become Starr’s first wife in 1965. Both marriages ended in divorce. Both women (who are now deceased) are seen briefly in the documentary but are not seen speaking.

“Beatles ’64” shows that Murray the K, a famous New York radio DJ from WINS-AM, latched on to the Beatles in 1964, to increase his own popularity. He’s seen interviewing the Beatles and hovering in the background in a lot of the documentary’s archival footage. Murray the K notoriously called himself “the fifth Beatle,” even though that title was more accurately bestowed on Beatles manager Brian Epstein, who is seen quickly in the documentary’s footage. Epstein died of an overdose of barbituates and alcohol in 1967, when he was 32. Murray the K (whose real name was Murray Kaufman) died in 1982, at the age of 60.

The documentary also glosses over and ignores the use/abuse of drugs and alcohol, even though many books and reports about the Beatles say that the band members were using amphetamine pills and drinking heavily during this period of time. “Beatles ’64” has some archival video footage of the band members surrounded by unidentified people at a nightclub. Everyone looks kind of drunk, but there’s no comment from McCartney and Starr about this footage. Bob Dylan famously introduced the Beatles to marijuana when he met the band in 1964, but that information is completely left out of the documentary.

Another obvious omission: “Beatles ’64” is about Beatlemania in 1964, yet the documentary has no mention of the Beatles’ critically acclaimed 1964 hit movie “A Hard Day’s Night,” a fictional comedy in which the Beatles portrayed themselves dealing with Beatlemania. “A Hard Day’s Night” (directed by Richard Lester and written by Alun Owen) was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Original Screenplay and Best Score (Adaptation). “A Hard Day’s Night” was also significant because it’s how Harrison met his first wife Pattie Boyd, a model who had a very small role in the movie as a schoolgirl.

Lennon and McCartney—the chief songwriters of the Beatles—wrote many early Beatles songs while in hotels during Beatles tours. However, “Beatles ’64” offers very little insight into the crafting of Beatles songs that were written in 1964. Instead, “Beatles ’64” has somewhat repetitive footage of Beatles fans (again, mostly teenage girls) trying to get a glimpse of the Beatles—whether the fans were gathered outside a building where the Beatles were, chasing after vehicles that were transporting the Beatles, or trying to enter places where the Beatles were and getting stopped by security personnel.

“Beatles ’64” also spends the vast majority of its screen time showing or discussing the Beatles in New York City, even though the band traveled to several other cities on the band’s 1964 North American tour. Oscar-nominated filmmaker David Lynch (who was 18 years old and living in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1964) is one of the few Beatles fans in the documentary who talks about seeing the band somewhere other than New York in 1964. He describes seeing the Beatles perform for the first time in Washington, D.C., at a venue that usually had boxing matches, and the band performed in a boxing ring. Lynch says he wasn’t prepared for the overwhelming experience of Beatlemania at that concert. For a more comprehensive look at the Beatles on tour, see director Ron Howard’s 2016 documentary “The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years,” a film that was approved by Apple Corps, the Beatles’ estate company.

Despite shortcomings of omitted or incomplete information, “Beatles ’64” is undeniably an entertaining documentary to watch. It’s not a complete story of what Beatlemania was like in 1964, but the stories from several Beatles fans—as well as the comments from McCartney and Starr—give this documentary a lot of charm. Whether viewers have a casual or ardent interest in the Beatles, there’s plenty to enjoy when watching this retrospective film that puts an emphasis on the happiness that the Beatles brought to people’s lives.

Disney+ premiered “Beatles ’64” on November 29, 2024.

Review: ‘The Beach Boys,’ starring Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and David Marks

May 26, 2024

by Carla Hay

A 1964 photo of the Beach Boys in “The Beach Boys.” Pictured from left to right: Dennis Wilson, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson, Brian Wilson and Mike Love. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images/Disney+)

“The Beach Boys”

Directed by Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny

Culture Representation: The documentary film “The Beach Boys” features a predominantly white group of people (with two black people) from the music industry discussing the career and legacy of the Beach Boys, the California-based pop/rock band that rose to prominence in the 1960s.

Culture Clash: The Beach Boys had various conflicts inside and outside the band on the band’s musical direction, touring, business decisions, mental health, substance addiction and power struggles.

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious target audience of Beach Boys fans, “The Beach Boys” will appeal primarily to people who like watching celebrity biographies that have a lot of great archival footage but follow a familiar formula.

A 1966 photo from “The Beach Boys” of Beach Boys chief songwriter/producer Brian Wilson recording the album “Pet Sounds” in Los Angeles. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images/Disney+)

Ardent fans of the band will learn nothing new from “The Beach Boys” documentary, which plays it safe but is a very good introduction for viewers who don’t know much about the Beach Boys. The movie’s ending scene indicates a better story could’ve been told. That’s because at the end of the movie, there’s a very short scene of a band reunion with five surviving Beach Boys members (past and present) gathering to talk on the beach at Paradise Cove in Malibu, California, where the Beach Boys did the photo shoot for their 1962 debut album “Surfin’ Safari.”

“The Beach Boys” documentary purposely doesn’t show what was said during this reunion and only shows some of the men smiling and embracing each other before they sit down at a table on the beach. It’s an example of how the documentary is certainly competent when it comes to giving a history of the Beach Boys, but the documentary would have been more impactful if it had anything new that was truly exclusive and compelling. Showing this type of heavily edited reunion clip at the very end of the movie just seems like a tease that will give viewers the impression that the documentary left out some of the best parts of the Beach Boys’ story.

Directed by Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny, “The Beach Boys” is one of several biographical movies or TV series about the Beach Boys. This documentary can be considered a quasi-update of director Alan Boyd’s 1998 documentary film “Endless Harmony: The Beach Boys Story,” which did not have the participation of the surviving band members. Some other Beach Boys on-screen biographies are the 1990 TV-movie drama “Summer Dreams: The Story of the Beach Boys” and the 2000 drama mini-series “The Beach Boys: An American Family.”

Curiously, “The Beach Boys” 2024 documentary has very little details about the band members’ lives after the early 1980s. For example, the band’s 1988 massive comeback hit “Kokomo” is not discussed and only played during the movie’s end credits. However, because “The Beach Boys” documentary has the benefit of the participation of the band members who were alive at the time this documentary was filmed, it makes this documentary slightly better than most movies about the Beach Boys.

“The Beach Boys” documentary dutifully covers the origins of the band, which was formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The original and best-known lineup of the band consisted of brothers Brian Wilson (the eldest brother), who was the band’s chief songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, playing bass guitar or keyboards on stage; Dennis Wilson (the middle brother), who was the band’s drummer; Carl Wilson (the youngest brother), who was the band’s lead guitarist; Mike Love, the Wilson brothers’ first cousin and lead singer of the band; and rhythm guitarist Al Jardine, a longtime family friend.

The Wilson brothers’ parents—Murry Wilson and Audree Wilson—encouraged and supported the band. Murry became the first manager of the Beach Boys. By all accounts, Murry was tough, bullying and abusive. (Murry’s physical and emotional abuse of his sons is briefly mentioned in archival interview footage with Carl and Dennis.) However, people who talk about Murry in the documentary also agree that the Beach Boys probably wouldn’t have achieved the level of success that they had if not for Murry. Eventually, a major problem for the band was Murry’s constant interference in how he wanted the band’s music to sound.

The Beach Boys had an image of being a carefree California pop/rock band with distinctive harmonies. The Beach Boys experienced almost immediate success with their first single “Surfin’,” which became a hit on a Los Angeles radio station, which led to bigger opportunities for the band. Many of the Beach Boys’ biggest hits were about surfing (“Surfin’,” “Surfer Girl,” “Surfin’ USA”) or about the California lifestyle. The band’s earliest musical influences included the Four Freshmen and surf music artists such as Dick Dale.

Even though the Beach Boys were initially rejected by every major record company, they eventually signed with Capitol Records, with Nick Venet as the band’s A&R (artists and repertoire) executive from Capitol. Venet started off producing the early Beach Boys records until Brian Wilson took over as the chief producer during the height of the group’s success. Murry acted like he wanted to be a producer for the band too, and that led to inevitable major conflicts.

Each member of the band had a certain role that was part of the Beach Boys image. Brian Wilson was the “musical genius” who didn’t like to tour. Love was the extroverted lead singer who was band’s jokester with a huge ego. Dennis Wilson (the only member of the Beach Boys who was an enthusiastic surfer) was the rebellious heartthrob. Carl Wilson was the “shy and quiet one.” Jardine was the “regular guy” who was often the peacemaker.

“The Beach Boys” documentary has the expected archival footage and use of the band’s original songs. Most of the band’s biggest hits from the 1960s are included, such as the aforementioned “Surf” songs, “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “California Girls,” “I Get Around,” “Good Vibrations,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “Sloop John B.” The documentary’s best archival footage (audio and video) is of the recording sessions, particularly when it shows how these recordings took shape.

During the heyday of the Beach Boys’ 1960s commercial success, they were heavily influenced by the music created by music producer Phil Spector (who was famous for his Wall of Sound) and the Beatles. The Beatles’ 1965 “Rubber Soul” album influenced the Beach Boys’ 1966 album “Pet Sounds,” which in turn influenced the Beatles’ 1967 album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The rivalries and the influences that the Beach Boys and the Beatles had on each other are detailed in the documentary, but there is no new information revealed.

The documentary and band members give a lot of credit to the Wrecking Crew, the influential group of studio musicians who played on a lot of iconic music of the 1960s and 1970s. Don Randi of the Wrecking Crew is interviewed for this documentary, which also has archival interview clips from Wrecking Crew members Carol Kaye and Glen Campbell, who was briefly a member of the Beach Boys. Other collaborators, such as lyricist Van Dyke Parks (who worked on the Beach Boys’ previously unreleased “Smile” album from the late 1960s), are seen in archival clips.

The Beach Boys had various lineup changes over the years. Brian Wilson and Jardine quit and rejoined the band multiple times for various reasons. One of the people who is interviewed in the documentary is David Marks, a neighbor friend of the Wilson brothers, who replaced Jardine in the band for a few years after Jardine quit the band for the first time in 1961.

There have been several reasons cited for why Jardine quit the Beach Boys for the first time, with the reasons ranging from creative differences to apathy to wanting to finish his college education. In the “Beach Boys” documentary Jardine says he quit the band in the early 1960s because he wanted to finish his college education. Jardine rejoined the band in 1963, replacing Marks, who quit after getting into a big dispute with Murry Wilson.

In 1965, guitarist Bruce Johnston joined the Beach Boys as a replacement for Campbell, who went on to have a successful career as a solo artist. Johnston takes some issue with the widespread public perception of Brian Wilson being the most important member of the Beach Boys. In the documentary, Johnston says, “Brian was lucky to have our voices to sing his dreams.” Out of all of the surviving Beach Boys members who participated in this documentary, Brian is the one who has the least to say in new interview footage. Most of the documentary’s comments from Brian are from archival interviews from other sources.

South African musicians Blondie Chaplin (who is interviewed in the documentary) and Ricky Fataar joined the Beach Boys in the band’s more experimental early 1970s era. Chaplin doesn’t say much in the documentary except that the Beach Boys’ music had a harder-edged sound when he was in the band, and the band situation “wasn’t that great” during this period of time. The documentary mentions the Beach Boys’ declining popularity in the first half of the 1970s got a significant boost with the release of the 1974 greatest hits compilation album “Endless Summer,” which was a big hit and made the Beach Boys a touring powerhouse that could sell out arenas again but also cemented their fate as a nostalgia act.

“The Beach Boys” is not a documentary where people should expect to hear much about the Beach Boys’ personal lives. The only current or former spouse of a Beach Boy who is interviewed in the documentary is Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford, who was Brian Wilson’s first wife and who was the president of Brother Records, the Beach Boys’ record label. The children of Beach Boys members are not interviewed.

Wilson-Rutherford tells the same stories she’s told in many interviews and books about the ups and downs that she witnessed or experienced as a member of the Beach Boys’ inner circle. Brian Wilson’s health problems (mental and physical), including substance addiction and depression, are also rehashed in the documentary, as they have been in many other biographies. This documentary provides no new insight on these issues. The only people who will be surprised by the information in this documentary are people who don’t know much about the Beach Boys.

One of the biggest flaws in the documentary is how it sidelines the deaths of Dennis Wilson and Carl Wilson. In 1983, Dennis drowned while intoxicated in Marina del Rey, California, when he was 39. Carl died of lung cancer in 1998, when he was 51. The deaths of Dennis and Carl are not even mentioned in “The Beach Boys” documentary until the very end, when a caption is briefly flashed on screen with their names and the years of their births and deaths.

In other words, don’t expect anyone in this documentary to comment on how these deaths affected them. For a movie about a “family band” (a term Love uses more than once), it’s a glaring omission not to discuss the deaths of two of the family members in the band. The documentary also never mentions that at the time that Dennis died, he was homeless and had nearly been fired from the band because of his alcoholism. The other band members ordered Dennis to go to rehab, but he left rehab after a few days and then died. None of that information is in the documentary.

“The Beach Boys” documentary features interviews with some well-known music artists—Lindsey Buckingham, Janelle Monáe, Ryan Tedder and Don Was—but their comments really just amount to fan gushing and offer nothing new to say. Josh Kun, a former music critic and currently University of Southern California’s vice provost of the arts, gives the obligatory academic/historian perspective. One person who is noticeably absent from the documentary is actor John Stamos, who has been a close friend (and occasional touring musician) of the Beach Boys, beginning in the 1980s.

As for Beach Boys scandals, there’s a brief mention of Dennis Wilson introducing an aspiring musician named Charles Manson to the Beach Boys’ inner circle in the late 1960s. (The documentary doesn’t mention that Dennis let Manson and some of Manson’s cult members live at a house rented by Dennis, who moved out and eventually got the Manson people evicted by no longer paying the rent.) Lead singer Love says in the documentary that he only met Manson once, and that was enough for him not to get further involved. Still, Manson wrote a Beach Boys song called “Never Learn Not to Love,” which was the B-side of the Beach Boys’ 1969 remake single of “Bluebirds Over the Mountain.”

Music producer Terry Melcher, whom Johnston describes as Johnston’s best friend at the time, declined to work with Manson, which led to a terrible aftermath that doesn’t need to be described in this review. The Beach Boys’ brief but notorious association with Manson is obviously described as a mistake in judgment, with the band members having no idea what Manson and his cult would end up doing. It’s quickly mentioned that Dennis Wilson felt tremendously guilty over introducing Manson into the Beach Boys’ world.

“The Beach Boys” documentary has an even shorter mention of all the lawsuits and legal disputes that Love has had with the Beach Boys in the 1980s and beyond. The documentary does not mention the controversy over Brian Wilson’s therapist Eugene Landy, who had an on-again/off-again, guru-like relationship with Brian from 1975 to the early 1990s, resulting in several lawsuits that involved the Beach Boys. (Landy died in 2006.) Beach Boys singer Love will only say in the documentary what is already public knowledge about his own Beach Boys legal conflicts: Love has been fighting for a share of royalties for Love’s uncredited songwriting of Beach Boys songs.

The Beach Boys lead singer bitterly comments in the documentary that Murry Wilson’s 1969 decision to sell the Beach Boys’ publishing (without consulting any of the band members first) has damaged the family’s legacy. Love, who says that he and Brian Wilson don’t talk very much these days, gets teary-eyed and chokes up when he remarks that if he would say something to Brian, it would be “I love you. And nothing anybody can do can change that.”

That’s why it’s incredibly frustrating that this documentary doesn’t show what was said in the reunion of Love, Brian Wilson, Jardine, Johnston and Marks seen at the end of the movie. There could almost be an entire documentary about that conversation. “The Beach Boys” gets the job done on an acceptable level when retelling well-known facts and putting them in a nostalgic package. Ultimately, it has the glossy sheen of a celebrity biography where all the key people participated but still didn’t tell the whole story.

Disney+ premiered “The Beach Boys” on May 24, 2024, with a sneak preview at select U.S. IMAX cinemas on May 21, 2024.

Review: ‘Hocus Pocus 2,’ starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy

September 29, 2022

by Carla Hay

Kathy Najimy, Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker in “Hocus Pocus 2” (Photo by Matt Kennedy/Disney Enterprises Inc.)

“Hocus Pocus 2”

Directed by Anne Fletcher

Culture Representation: Taking place in Salem, Massachusetts, the fantasy comedy film “Hocus Pocus 2” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Latinos and African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: In this sequel to “Hocus Pocus,” the Sanderson witch sisters return to wreak more havoc on Salem. 

Culture Audience: “Hocus Pocus 2” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s main stars and the original 1993 “Hocus Pocus” movie, but fans should keep their expectations low, since “Hocus Pocus 2” delivers a very forgettable and middling story.

Belissa Escobedo, Whitney Peak and Lilia Buckingham in “Hocus Pocus 2” (Photo courtesy of Disney Enterprises Inc.)

The magic of a classic film is missing from “Hocus Pocus 2,” which lacks much of the charm and adventure of 1993’s “Hocus Pocus” movie. The chase scenes are tepid, the performances are inferior to the original movie, and the witches show no real danger to the kids. “Hocus Pocus 2” plays out like a lazily conceived TV special (including annoying sitcom-ish music) instead of a cinematic event, which is why “Hocus Pocus 2” was released directly to Disney+ instead of movie theaters first.

Directed by Anne Fletcher, “Hocus Pocus 2” suffers from sequel-itis: when a sequel doesn’t do anything to improve on the original project. Because it took 29 years to release a sequel to “Hocus Pocus,” this sequel-itis problem is harder to forgive for “Hocus Pocus 2,” because there’s been plenty of time to come up with better ideas for a follow-up to “Hocus Pocus.” The more experienced cast members of “Hocus Pocus 2” perform better than the less-experienced cast members, but that’s not saying much when the movie’s unimaginative screenplay from Jen D’Angelo drags the movie down a lackluster and frequently boring path.

The original “Hocus Pocus” movie is not a great film, but it gained a cult following and has since become a Halloween classic for a lot of people, just like 1983’s “A Christmas Story” (another mediocre movie) gained a cult following and became a beloved Christmas film for a lot of movie viewers. The story in “Hocus Pocus 2” gets distracted by a lot of teen angst about who is and who isn’t in certain cliques in high school. “Hocus Pocus 2” has too many filler scenes that make it look like about 40 minutes of this 103-minute film could have been removed, and this editing wouldn’t have made a difference at all to the movie’s underwhelming conclusion.

In the first “Hocus Pocus” movie (which was set in 1993), 15-year-old Max Dennison (played by Omri Katz) and his 8-year-old sister Dani Dennison (played by Thora Birch) have recently moved with their parents from Los Angeles to Salem, Massachusetts. Max and Dani hear about the Salem legend of three witch sisters—Winifred Sanderson (played by Bette Midler), Mary Sanderson (played by Kathy Najimy) and Sarah Sanderson (played by Sarah Jessica Parker)—who were known for eating children and were hanged to death by Salem residents in 1693. Ever since, Salem has been under threat of the possibility that the spirits of the Sanderson witches could return to get revenge and to kill more children.

Winifred, the eldest Sanderson sister, is bossy and mean-spirited. Mary, the middle sister, is nervous and eager to please “alpha witch” Winifred. Sarah, the youngest sister, is ditzy and very flirtatious. As legend has it, Winifred poisoned to death a man named William “Billy” Butcherson (played by Doug Jones) in 1693, because Billy was caught kissing Sarah, even though Winifred claimed Billy was her boyfriend. In “Hocus Pocus,” the Billy character was resurrected from his grave as a zombie.

The only way that the Sanderson sisters can come back to life is on Halloween, during a night with a full moon, and if someone lights a special black candle and chants a certain spell. The Sanderson sisters have a big book of spells called the Manual of Witchcraft and Alchemy that is actually “alive” (the book has one eye that can open and shut), and the sisters want to get possession of this book when they are resurrected. However, these witch sisters can be stopped when the sun comes up before they can cast the ultimate spells that they want to cast.

In “Hocus Pocus,” a skeptical Max, who doesn’t believe in magic, accidentally brings back to life the Sanderson sister witches, who then kidnap Dani. Max teams up with a classmate (and his secret crush) named Allison Watts (played by Vinessa Shaw) to try to rescue Dani. “Hocus Pocus” is very predictable, but it has plenty of amusing and adventurous moments.

In “Hocus Pocus 2” (which takes place in Salem in 2022), the witches are brought back to life on purpose by two best friends named Becca (played by Whitney Peak) and Izzy (played by Belissa Escobedo), who conjure up the Sanderson Sisters on a moonlit Halloween night that happens to be Becca’s 16th birthday. There’s also an adult character who wants the witches to be brought back to Salem. This conjuring scene doesn’t happen until about 30 minutes into the movie.

Instead, “Hocus Pocus 2” begins with tedious flashback scenes showing the Sanderson sisters as girls who are about 11 or 12 years old, sometime in the late 1600s. Taylor Henderson has the role of Young Winifred, Nina Kitchen performs as Young Mary, and Juju Journey Brener is the character of Young Sarah. None of this backstory amusing, interesting or well-acted.

The only real purpose of this drawn-out flashback is to show that the Sanderson sisters’ main nemesis back then was a judgmental pastor named Reverend Traske (played by Tony Hale), who has told Winifred that she’s getting old and has arranged for her to marry a young man named John Pritchett (played by Thomas Fitzgerald). The movie makes a point of showing that back in the 1600s, when human beings’ life expectancies were much shorter than they are now, pre-teen girls could get married and had marriages arranged for them by elders in the community.

However, Winifred doesn’t want to marry John, because she has her sights set on young Billy (played by Austin J. Ryan) to be her future husband. Winifred also defies and insults Reverend Traske by taking the Lord’s name in vain. With a crowd of Salem residents gathered in the town square, Reverend Traske shames Winifred and banishes her from Salem. (No one mentions where the sisters’ parents are during all this brouhaha.)

During this public shaming, Winifred has secretly put a live spider on the reverend’s arm. When he sees the spider, Reverend Traske panics and causes an uproar. Amid the chaos, the Sanderson sisters run into the woods nearby to hide. While in these woods, the sisters encounter the Witch Mother (played by Hannah Waddingham), who gives them the Manual of Witchcraft and Alchemy. The Sanderson sisters use the Spell of Smoke and Flame to set fire to Reverend Traske’s house as revenge. (No one is killed in this arson.)

“One day, Salem will belong to us!” Winifred vows when stating what will be the Sanderson sisters’ main mission. Winifred is the most vengeful and angriest of the three sisters. “Hocus Pocus 2” later has flashbacks of the Sanderson sisters as older teenagers, with Skyla Sousa as Winifred, Aiden Torres as Mary, and Emma Kaufman as Sarah.

It turns out that Reverend Traske was an ancestor of Salem’s current Mayor Traske (also played by Hale), who is campaigning for re-election in one of the movie’s useless subplots. Hale does his usual schtick of playing a neurotic character who is socially awkward but puts up a front of false confidence. Mayor Traske has a teenage daughter named Cassie (played by Lilia Buckingham), who attends Samuel Skelton High School in Salem. Becca and Izzy are two Cassie’s classmates.

Cassie, Becca and Izzy used to be a trio of best friends, until Cassie started avoiding Becca and Izzy and began spending more time with her athlete boyfriend Mike (played by Froy Gutierrez), a fellow classmate who is shallow and not smart. Mike has a particular dislike of Becca and Izzy, because he thinks these two pals have a weird interest in magic and the supernatural. He publicly teases Becca and Izzy about being witches.

Cassie is a passive girlfriend who goes along with whatever what Mike wants. Becca and Izzy feel confused and betrayed over why Cassie has seemingly turned against them, just so Cassie can fit in with Mike and his popular friends. Is this a “Hocus Pocus” movie or a run-of-the-mill teen soap opera? The movie takes way too much time with this subplot about teenage cliques when it should have focused more on how menacing the witches are to children.

“Hocus Pocus 2” further muddles the plot with a goofy character who calls himself Gilbert the Great (played by Sam Richardson), a magic enthusiast who owns and operates Olde Salem Magic Shoppe. Gilbert has a black cat named Cobweb, who’s cute and lives at the shop, but the cat doesn’t talk like the black cat did in “Hocus Pocus.” (The reason why the black cat talked in “Hocus Pocus” is explained in the beginning of the movie.)

On Halloween, Gilbert tells a group of assembled kids at his shop that the Sanderson sisters were “the most powerful coven who ever lived.” In other words, Gilbert is a superfan of the Sanderson sisters. And to prove how much of a fan he is, Gilbert has the Manual of Witchcraft and Alchemy proudly on display in a locked case in his shop. Guess who’s going to want to bring back the Sanderson sisters too?

Of course, there would be no “Hocus Pocus 2” if the Sanderson sisters didn’t get revived again. They make their entrance by performing “The Witches Are Back,” to the music of Elton John’s “The Bitch Is Back,” but with different lyrics. At least “Hocus Pocus 2” had the sense to continue to use the singing talent of Midler in a scene that will delight fans of campy entertainment.

However, “Hocus Pocus 2” continually mishandles the depictions of why these three witches are supposed to be so dangerous. In “Hocus Pocus,” the Sanderson sisters are constantly craving children to eat. These sister witches, who have extraordinary senses that can detect the presence of children, often use these supersenses to try to hunt down children.

In “Hocus Pocus 2,” the Sanderson witches encounter children, but the witches don’t have the same air of intimidation and make very little attempt to capture any children that are in their way, like the same witches did in the first “Hocus Pocus” movie. Instead, “Hocus Pocus 2” has a silly sequence where Becca and Izzy pretend to be fans of the Sanderson sisters and lure the witches into a Walgreens store to get beauty products, in an attempt to appeal to the witches’ vanity. Yes, it’s as bad as it sounds.

The witches are flabbergasted and fascinated by the Walgreens store’s sliding glass doors (apparently, the witches never knew sliding glass doors existed in 1993), which is one of the many not-very-funny gags in the movie. When the witches look for tools for riding in the air, Winifred finds a broom at Walgreens. Apparently, it’s the only broom in the store, because Sarah has to make do with a Swiffer WetJet, while Mary uses glowing hover rings.

The Walgreens sequence and other scenes in “Hocus Pocus 2” are just blatant excuses for product/brand placement. The movie also throws in a shameless and rather pointless mention of ABC’s “Good Morning America.” (ABC is owned by Disney, the company behind the “Hocus Pocus” movies.)

Meanwhile, the Sanderson sisters have time to show up on stage during Salem’s annual Halloween carnival to perform their version of Blondie’s “One Way or Another.” Billy the zombie returns in “Hocus Pocus 2” with his own agenda: He wants to clear his name, because he says he never cheated on Winifred, since he says that he was never Winifred’s boyfriend. Mayor Traske also has some of his own unresolved love-life issues from his past: He’s pining over a woman named Sandy, who founded a candy store in Salem called Sandy’s Candy Cauldron, and she’s coming back to Salem to re-open the store.

If this “Hocus Pocus 2” plot sounds very scatter-brained and unadventurous, that’s because it is. Midler, Najimy and Parker are obviously having fun, hamming it up in their roles, but the Sanderson Sisters act more like wannabe cabaret singers in “Hocus Pocus 2” than real witches who are hungry to hunt for children. When the witches finally capture a child (it’s the most obvious person possible, considering the sisters’ feud from the past), this kidnapping arrives so late in the movie, the stakes aren’t as high as they were in “Hocus Pocus.” The visual effects in “Hocus Pocus 2” are mediocre.

The Sanderson sisters are supposed to be over-the-top and ridiculous. In that respect, cast members Midler, Najimy and Parker deliver what they’re expected to deliver in “Hocus Pocus 2,” despite the substandard screenplay. However, the movie’s younger cast members don’t do anything special with their performances in “Hocus Pocus 2,” like Birch did in her scene-stealing performance in “Hocus Pocus.”

Fletcher’s direction of “Hocus Pocus 2” is just too unfocused and unremarkable to make “Hocus Pocus 2” shine in an outstanding way. The movie overall is unable to overcome the “Hocus Pocus 2” screenplay’s many flaws. Simply put: “Hocus Pocus 2” might be satisfactory enough for people with low expectations. But for people who expect better from a sequel that has been talked about for years and took 29 years to get released, “Hocus Pocus 2” will not be casting any enchanting spells.

Disney+ will premiere “Hocus Pocus 2” on September 30, 2022.

Review: ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,’ starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, Michael Stühlbarg and Rachel McAdams

May 3, 2022

by Carla Hay

Xochitl Gomez, Benedict Wong and Benedict Cumberbatch in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” (Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios)

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”

Directed by Sam Raimi

Some language in Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City and various parts of a multiverse, the superhero action film “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Latinos and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Superhero sorcerer Doctor Strange, also known as surgeon Stephen Strange, goes on a quest to save teenager America Chavez, who has a special superpower that a villain wants to steal. 

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious target audience of comic book movie fans, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen and the Disney+ superhero series “WandaVision.”

Elizabeth Olsen in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” (Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has now become the world’s first cinematic franchise where you need encyclopedia knowledge of certain comic books to know what’s going on and to fully enjoy the movies and TV shows in the franchise. There are many MCU fans who’ve invested years of watching every Marvel movie and every Marvel TV show that comes along. And that investment has its rewards in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”

But what about people who aren’t die-hard Marvel fans and just want to see a good superhero movie? Simply put: “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is a convoluted but entertaining experience that should not be a viewer’s first MCU movie. It’s a movie that can be considered the tipping point where at least one Marvel show on Disney+ is essential viewing to understand the entire film.

For “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” that essential Marvel show is “WandaVision.” It also helps, but it’s not crucial, to watch the Disney+ animated series “What If…?,” which explored alternate storylines for Marvel characters. If you don’t want to watch any of these Marvel shows, then “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” has this message for you: “Too bad, because you will be left behind, and you will feel ignorant about storylines and nuances in any upcoming MCU movies.”

Viewers also need to see (or at least know what happened in) the following movies to fully appreciate “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and its complex plot: 2016’s “Doctor Strange,” 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War” and 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame.” If you don’t know about the supervillain Thanos or the five-year “disappearance” that he caused, some of the dialogue in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” will not make sense to you. Viewers who have no prior knowledge of any Marvel movie will just be hopelessly lost and will just have to try to enjoy “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” for the movie’s high-energy action scenes and compelling visual effects.

The movie’s screenplay, written by Michael Waldron, keeps transporting characters from Multiverse scene to Multiverse scene with such dizzying regularity, the best way to know these characters is by seeing them in previous MCU stories. “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is just like very eye-catching and detailed icing on a cake. It will appeal to many people but be completely unnecessary to others.

Sam Raimi—a filmmaker known for helming the first three “Spider-Man” movies and horror classics such as the first two “Evil Dead” films—directed “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” as someone who is clearly an ardent fan of the MCU. But he also directed “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” as an ardent fan who expects everyone watching to be all caught up in almost everything related to Marvel on screen prior to the release of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” And that includes some of the Marvel movies released by the studio formerly known as 20th Century Fox, because some characters from those movies make cameos in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”

Here are the basic things that people need to know before watching “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”: New York City-based superhero sorcerer Doctor Strange, also known as brilliant surgeon Stephen Strange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch), is going on another “good versus evil” quest. Fights and chase scenes ensue. And the “Multiverse” in the MCU is really just another word for “different versions of comic book characters existing in different universes.” After the blockbuster success of 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which had three different versions of Spider-Man interacting with each other in the same movie, there’s no point in being coy about what “multiverse” means if it’s part of a Marvel story.

However, there’s a reason why spoiler-free descriptions of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” are so vague: The movie is filled with more spoilers than a typical superhero film. And those spoilers include describing which characters encounter different versions of themselves in the Multiverse. It should come as no surprise that viewers can expect to see more than one version of Doctor Strange, whose rescue mission in the movie is to save superhero newcomer America Chavez (played by Xochitl Gomez), who’s about 16 or 17 years old, from being robbed of her extremely rare superpower.

What is her superpower? She can travel through the Multiverse with ease. But in this movie, she doesn’t know how to control the power. All she knows is that she can exert this power in moments when she feels extreme fear. America doesn’t know yet that she’s a superhero, so “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” can be considered the introduction to her discovering her superhero identity. One of the things that America knows about herself is that she has not found other versions of herself in the Multiverse.

The movie also has a brief flashback to America, when she was about 7 or 8 years old (played by Aliyah Camacho), being separated from her two lesbian mothers—Elena Chavez (played by Ruth Livier) and Amalia Chavez (played by Chess Lopez)—who were involuntarily yanked into a portal that took the mothers into another universe. Ever since then, America has been looking for her mothers, and she fears that her mothers might be dead.

America feels a lot of guilt because she caused that portal to appear after she became frightened by a bee, not knowing that her parents would be taken away from her. In the Marvel comic books, America is openly a lesbian, but her sexuality is not mentioned in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” She’s too busy running around trying not to get killed to think about dating or having a love interest.

And who exactly is targeting America for her Multiverse superpower? It’s Wanda Maximoff, also known as Scarlet Witch (played by Elizabeth Olsen), a character who is a hero or a villain, depending on which version of this character is in the scene. And because this movie is all about the Multiverse, the Wanda/Scarlet Witch character can sometimes be a hero and a villain in the same scene.

In “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” Wanda is a single mother to fraternal twin boys Billy (played by Julian Hilliard) and Tommy (played by Jett Klyne), who are about 8 or 9 years old. Billy and Tommy have superpowers in “WandaVision” that might or might not be on display in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” Wanda’s motherhood is crucial to her motivations in almost everything she does in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” Her motherhood is used as a way for her to manipulate people and how she is manipulated herself.

Viewers who last saw Wanda in 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” without knowing what happened in “WandaVision” might be utterly confused over when she became a mother. “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” explains (in a “WandaVision” spoiler alert) that Wanda/Scarlet Witch used her magical powers to create these children. She quips in response: “That’s what every mother does.” Doctor Strange scolds Wanda/Scarlet Witch for using her magic to mess with reality, which is completely ironic and hypocritical considering what he does later in the movie.

What “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” doesn’t explain adequately is why Wanda created these children. The twins were raised by Wanda and her superhero love partner Vision (played by Paul Bettany) up until a certain point in “WandaVision.” People who know what happened in “WandaVision” also know what happened to Vision, which is not explained in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” What happened in “WandaVision” helps people understand why Wanda, as the Scarlet Witch, has turned to the “dark side,” which in this universe is called the Darkhold, an ancient book of spells.

Don’t expect this movie to have any meaningful “WandaVision” flashbacks to further reveal Wanda’s family situation in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” but her family motivations are supposed to make her look more sympathetic in doing the things that she does in the movie. It also gives her character more emotional depth to viewers who know her family history, compared to viewers who don’t know. It’s all part of a cross-marketing plan for Disney-owned Marvel Studios to get people to subscribe to Disney+ to watch the Marvel shows on Disney+ so that viewers can fully understand Marvel movies. It’s also called creating viewer FOMO (“fear of missing out”) to full effect.

Certain characters from 2016’s “Doctor Strange” make their return in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” Stephen’s ex-girlfriend Christine Palmer (played by Rachel McAdams), a surgeon who worked with him at the same hospital, gets married to a man named Charlie (played by Ako Mitchell), who is a fan of Doctor Strange. Stephen is invited to the wedding, where he privately tells Christine that he regrets not trying harder for them to stay together. (They broke up because he’s a workaholic and because all those superhero duties got in the way.)

Christine responds, “Stephen, it was never going to work out between us. Because you were always going to be the one holding the knife. I could respect you for it, but I could never love you for it.” And there are more heartbroken and emotionally wounded moments for Stephen/Doctor Strange in the movie, with some of those moments involving Christine.

Doctor Strange’s loyal superhero colleague Wong (played by Benedict Wong) also makes his return. Wong is now the Sorcerer Supreme, who oversees sorcerer training in Kamar-Taj, which is located in another dimension. Doctor Strange and Wong fight side by side in some scenes, but there’s a stretch of the movie where Doctor Strange and Wong are not in the same universe and have to fight separate battles. There’s no story arc for steadfast and dependable Wong in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” which is a missed opportunity, because Wong deserves to have more character development in the MCU.

Also returning is Karl Mordo (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), who became an enemy of Doctor Strange in the first “Doctor Strange” movie, but Mordo might or might not have the same type of personality or life story in other parts of the Multiverse. Dr. Nicodemus “Nic” West (played by Michael Stühlbarg), the surgeon who operated on Stephen’s hands after Stephen was in a near-fatal car accident in the first “Doctor Strange” movie, makes a brief appearance (less than five minutes) in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” where Dr. West is a guest at Christine’s wedding. In this scene, Dr. West sits next to Stephen and smugly tells Stephen that although Doctor Strange likes to think that he is the “best surgeon and the best superhero,” in the end, Stephen/Doctor Strange “didn’t get the girl.”

Other than America Chavez, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” doesn’t do much with new characters in the MCU. These new MCU characters include mystic artists Sara (played by Sheila Atim) and Rintrah (played by Adam Hugill), who are both disciples of Wong in Kamar-Taj. The purpose for Sara and Rintrah in the movie is exactly what you think it might be in forgettable roles. As far as introducing new characters, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse” is all about making America Chavez a newcomer star of the MCU.

Scarlet Witch is the movie’s main villain, but there are some monsters that also cause mayhem. One of them is a giant one-eyed octopus that appears during Christine’s wedding. It’s a somewhat awkwardly staged scene, where the octopus suddenly appears on the streets of New York City, and Doctor Strange quickly puts on his magical cloak (don’t call it a “cape,” according to him) and jumps off of a balcony to fight the monster. Some generic-looking demons also make appearances during the fight scenes.

Visually, the movie has its dazzling moments. In terms of its story, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is a mixed bag. At times, it gets repetitive and jumbled as you think it can be when people jump through portals and enter different universes during chase scenes. And that’s not the only repetition: “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” repeats the MCU formula of superheroes making wisecracking jokes during action scenes. There are also parts of the movie that repeat a scenario where someone has to “prove” their identity and show evidence that what they’re saying is the truth, because the Multiverse is supposed to make people feel disoriented about what’s real and what isn’t real.

The movie also repeats a theme of the main characters looking for their definition of happiness. More than once in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” someone is asked, “Are you happy?” And then it’s followed up with some version of saying, “Are you really happy? Don’t lie to me because I can tell you’re not really happy.” Is this a superhero movie or a therapy session?

Other times, the movie works very well when it comes to laying the groundwork for developing the story of America Chavez and how she became an ally of Doctor Strange and Wong. Some horror movie elements kick into high gear in the last third of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” which handles horror better than 2022’s “Morbius” movie, the origin story of Marvel’s vampire anti-hero Morbius. Raimi’s experience as a horror filmmaker greatly benefits “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”

There’s nothing really spectacular about any of the acting in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” but the acting isn’t terrible either. Stephen Strange/Doctor Strange is known for his arrogance and impatience, but in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” he shows more humility and emotional vulnerability than in previous Marvel movies, and Cumberbatch plays the part accordingly. McAdams doesn’t have a lot to work with for her Christine character, who has a stereotypical action movie role of an ex-girlfriend thrown back into an ex-boyfriend’s life so she can be in the action scenes too.

Olsen is very good in her role as Wanda Romanoff/Scarlet Witch, but she was better in “WandaVision,” which required her to show a wider range of personalities in vastly different scenarios. Viewers’ reactions will largely depend on how emotionally connected they feel to Wanda Romanoff/Scarlet Witch, considering she has presented many different sides of herself in the MCU. Gomez portrays America with credibility as someone who is an awkward, slightly rebellious teenager who feels like a lost soul. She and Doctor Strange eventually learn to trust and respect each other, but their clashes just retread the “smart-alecky kid paired with a reluctant adult mentor” formula that’s been in many other movies.

The most emotional moments in”Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” will have the greatest resonance with people who’ve seen “WandaVision” and the aforementioned MCU movies. Everything that has to do with Wanda/Scarlet Witch can best be understood by people who know what happened in “WandaVision.” And when you need to watch a TV series first to understand a movie’s chief villain, that could be a problem for “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” also has the expected mid-credits/end-credits scenes that tease what will happen in other movies or TV shows that are part of the MCU franchise. Charlize Theron is in the mid-credits scene as a character who becomes a very important part of Doctor Strange’s life, based on this character’s Marvel Comics storyline. The movie’s end-credits scene is a throwaway joke that has no bearing on subsequent storylines, but it’s a reference to a spell that was cast on someone in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” Some of the “surprise” cameos just further establish that certain franchise characters that were kept separate from the MCU have now become a part of the MCU.

If you yearn for a time when watching a new superhero movie sequel didn’t have to entail seeing at least three other movies in the franchise and possibly a TV series related to the franchise, in order to understand what happens in the sequel you’re watching, then get used to this MCU reality, because that simpler time is over. Also long gone are the days when having a maximum of five superheroes in a movie sequel was considered too much. Nowadays, not only has the MCU raised expectations for each MCU movie sequel to have numerous superheroes (as main characters and as cameos), but “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” has also ensured that viewers can expect different versions of these superheroes to pop up at any time. It’s a superhero party for superfans, but regular fans or casual fans will feel like they’re at a party where only certain people understand the inside jokes.

Disney’s Marvel Studios will release “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” in U.S. cinemas on May 6, 2022. Disney+ will premiere the movie on June 22, 2022.

Review: ‘Better Nate Than Ever,’ starring Rueby Wood, Aria Brooks, Lisa Kudrow, Joshua Bassett, Norbert Leo Butz and Michelle Federer

April 2, 2022

by Carla Hay

Rueby Wood (center) in “Better Nate Than Ever” (Photo by David Lee/Disney Enterprises Inc.)

“Better Nate Than Ever”

Directed by Tim Federle

Culture Representation: Taking place in Pittsburgh and New York City, the comedy/drama “Better Nate Than Ever” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, Latinos and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A 13-year-old boy, who dreams of becoming a star of musicals, temporarily runs away with his best friend from their hometown of Pittsburgh to New York City, so that they can audition for prominent roles in the Broadway show “Lilo & Stitch: The Musical.”

Culture Audience: “Better Nate Than Ever” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in sentimental, family-friendly stories about finding one’s identity and self-acceptance.

Aria Brooks and Rueby Wood in “Better Nate Than Ever” (Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios/Disney Enterprises Inc.)

The comedy/drama “Better Nate Than Ever” is an unapologetically sentimental love letter to musical theater geeks and anyone struggling with self-esteem issues. Everything in the movie is entirely predictable, but the movie is so earnest in its heartwarming intentions, most viewers will be charmed by it. People who have a deep hatred of musical theater or schmaltzy stories about kids who love performing will think “Better Nate Than Ever” is very irritating, so it’s best to avoid this movie if sounds like it isn’t worth your time.

Written and directed by Tim Federle, “Better Nate Than Ever” is adapted from his 2013 novel of the same name. Federle is also the showrunner of the Disney+ series “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.” Federle has said in many interviews that the title character of Nathan “Nate” Foster, who is 13 years old, is inspired by who Federle was when he was around the same age. In the book and in the movie, Nate is an unabashed fanatic of musicals. His biggest dream in life is to star in a Broadway musical.

Nate (played by Rueby Wood) lives in Pittsburgh with his parents Rex Foster (played by Norbert Leo Butz) and Sherrie Foster (played by Michelle Federer) and Nate’s brother Anthony Foster (played Joshua Bassett), who’s about 16 or 17 years old. Anthony is a popular athlete at his high school, and he thinks that musicals are a “wimpy” interest for boys to have. Nate has no interest in sports, and he’s somewhat of a social outcast at his middle school. Anthony sometimes acts like he’s embarrassed that Nate is his brother, and this type of rejection hurts Nate, but Nate tries not to let his hurt emotions show.

Nate’s best friend (and his only friend) at school is outspoken, confident and sassy Libby (played by Aria Brooks), who is the about the same age as Nate. Libby is also Nate’s biggest supporter in pursuing his dream of becoming a Broadway musical star. She has an interest in performing too, but she’s not as passionate about it as Nate is. Libby is very good at giving advice and coming up with ideas, so Nate often relies on her when he’s got a problem that he needs to solve or if he needs pep talks.

At school, Nate (who likes to wear lip gloss) is predictably the target of bullying. When Nate tries to take a seat on a school bus, a male student (played by Alex Barber) blocks Nate and sneers, “No more girls in this row.” When the bully steals Nate’s lucky rabbit’s foot, Nate fights back by hitting him. Nate gets more bullying in a few other parts of the movie.

Nate is the type of musical aficionado who can recite musical trivia by heart. He frequently sings songs from musicals out loud, and he practices his dance moves in front of mirrors at home. Nate’s school is staging a production called “Lincoln: The Unauthorized Rock Musical.” Nate has auditioned for the lead role of Abraham Lincoln. This audition is not shown in the movie, which opens on the day that Nate will find out if he was chosen for the role.

Nate is crushed when the casting results are posted, and he didn’t get the starring role that he desperately wanted. The teacher who made the decision tactfully tells Nate that Nate isn’t experienced enough to handle the lead role in this musical. As a consolation, Nate is offered the role of a background singer/dancer.

Around the time that Nate gets this disappointing news, Libby tells Nate about upcoming open auditions in New York City for the Broadway production “Lilo & Stitch: The Musical,” which will have a cast of mostly underage kids. Nate and Libby think it’s a good idea for them to audition for this Broadway musical. (In the “Better Nate Than Ever” book, Nate runs away to New York City to audition for “E.T.: The Musical.”)

And it just so happens that Nate’s parents Rex and Sherrie will be in West Virginia that weekend for a romantic getaway to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Anthony will be out of town that weekend for a sports meet. Nate and Libby hatch a plan to pretend that Nate will be staying at her house. Instead, Nate and Libby sneak off and take a bus to New York City to go to the auditions.

It’s never really mentioned what Nate’s parents do for a living, but the Fosters are a middle-class family who are going through a financial rough spot because Rex is currently unemployed. Sherrie is estranged from her older sister Heidi (played by Lisa Kudrow), who lives in New York City’s Queens borough. The two sisters no longer speak to each other because Sherrie thinks that Heidi abandoned the family to pursue a career on Broadway.

Meanwhile, Nate has a lot of admiration for Heidi and wishes that he could be just like Heidi. After a series of mishaps, Nate and Libby make it to the auditions, only to find out that an underage kid who auditions needs an adult guardian, for legal reasons. It just so happens that Heidi is available, and she reluctantly agrees to be the adult guardian for Nate and Libby.

Libby decides that being a performer isn’t really for her, so she decides to go back home to Pittsburgh, while Nate continues his pursuit of his Broadway dreams, with some help from Heidi. Nate finds out the reality that Heidi’s life isn’t as glamorous as Nate thought it was. Heidi is a struggling actress who lives alone in a small, one-bedroom apartment. She works for a catering company to pay her bills.

Nate turns out to be a plucky and optimistic kid who forges ahead, despite obstacles that get in his way. Many of these challenges test his confidence, but his love of performing is too strong for any skeptics and roadblocks to deter him. When Libby is away from Nate, she keeps in touch with him by phone to get updates on his audition journey.

Heidi is the type of person who starts off thinking that she’s not very good at taking care of kids. But as Nate and Heidi get to know each other better, they develop a newfound respect for each other. Heidi and Nate also begin to understand that the estrangement between Heidi and her sister Sherrie had repercussions on the family that went beyond the two sisters’ relationship with each other.

“Better Nate Than Ever” has some slapstick comedy that can be very corny, but it’s what you might expect from a Disney film. What isn’t typical for a Disney film is how the movie addresses Nate’s sexual identity without anyone in the movie ever giving Nate any specific identity labels. At 13 years old, Nate is too young to date anyone, by most standards.

However, there are signs that Nate and his loved ones know that he’s not heterosexual. People in his life describe him as “different” and not interested in dating girls. At various points in the movie, Nate goes out of his way to get merchandise in the style of the rainbow flag, which is the universal symbol for the LGBTQ+ community. For example, while he’s in New York City, Nate buys a rainbow-colored rabbit’s foot as a lucky charm.

“Better Nate Than Ever” shows these obvious signs without being preachy or heavy-handed about it. It’s all just presented as part of Nate’s natural identity. And although Nate gets some bullying for being “effeminate,” he embraces who he is and doesn’t try to change for anyone. That’s a positive message for people who go through life thinking that they have to pretend to be something they’re not, in order to be accepted.

As for the musical numbers, they are very contrived but play into fantasies that anyone might have of being the star of a musical. One of the standout musical scenes is when Nate attracts a crowd in Times Square as he does an impromptu performance of George Benson’s 1978 hit “On Broadway.” It’s a very corny scene but also very cute. Benson makes a cameo appearance as himself during this Times Square performance. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

“Better Nate Than Never” has some obvious cross-marketing promotion of the real-life New Amsterdam Theatre, which is owned by Disney and is home to all of Disney’s Broadway musicals. In “Better Nate Than Ever,” the “Lilo & Stitch” musical’s final auditions take place at the New Amsterdam Theatre. The “Better Nate Than Ever” movie seems like it’s a marketing test to gauge public interest in Disney making the 2002 Disney animated film “Lilo & Stitch” into a Broadway musical in real life, since Disney has turned many of Disney’s hit animated movies into Broadway musicals.

“Better Nate Than Ever” is the feature-film debut of Wood, who makes a lasting impression as the effervescent and talented Nate. This is a movie where the casting choices make a huge difference in how likable the characters are, because it’s obvious that Wood lives and breathes musicals as much as Nate does. Most people can’t really fake that kind of passion. Wood is also a fantastic singer who really does look like he was born to star in a Broadway musical. In addition to “On Broadway,” he sings the show-stopping: “No One Gets Left Behind” (written by Lyndie Lane), and he performs a monologue from “Designing Women.”

Brooks brings her own unique pizzazz to her role as Nate’s best friend Libby, a character who is thankfully not written as just another two-dimensional sidekick. Libby goes through her own journey of self-identity and figuring out what her passion and talents are in life. Libby is also a good “reality check” to Nate when he gets too hyper or too sarcastic. A recurring comment she makes to Nate to watch his tone of voice is to tell him calmly, “Nate: Tone.”

Kudrow also does nicely in the movie as Nate’s aunt Heidi, who finds a kindred spirit in Nate because of his love of theater performing. Nate sees Heidi as a role model, but she feels like a misfit and a failure. Through Nate’s perspective, Heidi’s self-confidence is boosted when she begins to understand how her life has inspired someone in ways that she didn’t even think were possible. The tensions between Heidi and Sherrie are eventually dealt with exactly how you think they will be dealt with in this type of family-oriented movie, as are the tensions between brothers Nate and Anthony.

“Better Nate Than Ever” sticks to a familiar formula, but there are elements to the movie that are truly unique and heartfelt. Federle obviously wanted to make a movie that could speak to people who have ever felt misunderstood, rejected or doubted because of who they are. Despite a lot of cloying moments in “Better Nate Than Ever,” the movie succeeds in its intended message to celebrate people for being their authentic selves.

Disney+ premiered “Better Nate Than Ever” on April 1, 2022.

Review: ‘Turning Red,’ starring the voices of Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh, Ava Morse, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Hyein Park, Orion Lee and Tristan Allerick Chen

March 7, 2022

by Carla Hay

Abby (voiced by Hyein Park), Miriam (voiced by Ava Morse), Priya (voiced by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and Mei (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) in “Turning Red” (Image courtesy of Disney/Pixar Animation Studios)

“Turning Red”

Directed by Domee Shi 

Culture Representation: Taking place in Toronto in 2002, the animated film “Turning Red” features a racially diverse cast of characters (Asian, white and a few black people and Latinos) portraying the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Due to an inherited family trait, a 13-year-old girl finds out that she can turn into a giant red panda when she gets very emotional, and she has to decide if she will keep or get rid of this family trait.

Culture Audience: “Turning Red” will appeal primarily to people interested in entertaining but somewhat predictable animated films that are stories about coming of age and about mother-daughter relationships.

Ming (voiced by Sandra Oh) and Mei (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) in “Turning Red” (Image courtesy of Disney/Pixar Animation Studios)

The comedic animated film “Turning Red” can at times get too one-note and formulaic in its themes of identity and self-discovery, but the movie has enough offbeat charm to make it a memorable coming-of-age story. The movie explores issues that are familiar to movies about children who are descendants of immigrants, such as whether to follow “old country” traditions or “current country” lifestyles. It’s a story that people of many generations and cultures can enjoy.

“Turning Red” is the feature-film debut of director Domee Shi, who won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short, for her 2018 film “Bao.” According to the “Turning Red” production notes, “Turning Red” (which was co-written by Shi and Julie Cho) is based on a lot of Shi’s real-life experiences as a Canadian child in a Chinese immigrant family. The story, which takes place in Toronto in the spring of 2002, is about a 13-year-old girl who finds her own identity, even when she has people telling her who she should be and what she should do.

The 13-year-old protagonist of “Turning Red” is Meiling “Mei” Lee (voiced by Rosalie Chiang), a smart, obedient and admittedly dorky eighth grader at Lester B. Pearson Middle School in Toronto. Mei is the only child of domineering, overprotective mother Ming Lee (voiced by Sandra Oh) and laid-back and mild-mannered father Jin Lee (voiced by Orion Lee), who both moved to Canada before Mei was born. Ming is the boss of the Lee Family Temple, which is a tourist attraction in Toronto’s Chinatown district. Jin appears to be a stay-at-home father. Mei works part-time as an assistant temple keeper at the Lee Family Temple, where she does menial tasks such as cleaning.

Mei is a self-described overachiever who’s not very popular at school, but she has a tight-knit trio of friends who are students at the same school. Miriam (voiced by Ava Morse) is tomboyish and goofy. Priya (voiced by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) is bookish and sarcastic. Abby (voiced by Hyein Park) is feisty and hot-tempered. All four girls are somewhat obsessive fans of a boy band named 4*Town, which will be performing an upcoming concert at the Toronto SkyDome, a stadium that can seat 40,000 to 50,000 people. (In real life, the Toronto SkyDome name was changed to Rogers Centre in 2005.)

Because Ming is very strict and suspicious of anything that she thinks could lead Mei to rebel, she won’t let Mei go to the concert. Ming tells Mei that 4*Town’s inoffensive pop music is “filth.” It’s around this time that Mei finds out that the women in her family have inherited a trait where they turn into giant red pandas when they get emotional. When Mei is a panda, she’s about 8 feet tall. Mei discovers this family gene when she wakes up as a giant panda. And later, she predictably turns into a panda when she’s in school, which leads to a humiliating experience.

Mei’s parents tell her that the red panda trait can be suppressed/cured with an ancient ritual during the next red moon, which takes place the following month, on May 25. Meanwhile, Mei finds out that her schoolmates actually like when she transforms into Red Panda Mei, because she’s more spontaneous and fun-loving as a panda. And so, Mei and her three pals come up with a scheme to get enough money to go to the 4*Town concert, which will cost them $200 a ticket. The red panda ritual and the concert are part of a “race against time” aspect to this movie.

“Turning Red” infuses this somewhat simplistic comedic story with more complex commentary about generational traditions and mother-daughter relationships, especially toward the end of the film. Ming expects Mei to put family duties above Mei’s social life, which is why Mei doesn’t hang out with her friends after school as much as she would like to because Mei often has to work at the temple. “Turning Red” has many nods to Eastern culture (which puts emphasis on family/community) and Western culture (which puts emphasis on individuality), as well as the conflicts that can arise when someone, such as Mei, is caught between the contrasts of these cultures.

For example, Ming tells Mei that the red panda trait originated from an ancient female ancestor named Sun Yee, who was a warrior, scholar and poet at a time when women rarely had those roles. During a war, when most of the men were off fighting in the war, Sun Yee prayed to the gods to give her a way to defend her daughter and their village. The gods answered her prayer by giving her the ability to turn into a giant red panda. This ability was passed on to all of Sun Yee’s female descendants. This inherited trait could be considered a blessing for those who see it as good for a community, or it could be seen as a curse for those who see it as bad for an individual.

In the movie’s opening scene, Mei makes a comment that shows how she’s conflicted between the need to get the approval of her family (namely, her mother) and her need to be her own person who can make her own decisions. She says in a voiceover as a montage of her life flashes on screen: “The No. 1 rule in my family: Honor your parents … The least you can do is everything they ask. Honoring your parents is great, but if you take it too far, you might forget to honor yourself.”

Other parts of the movie repeat scenarios where Mei would like to think that she’s independent and free to do what she wants, but then something happens (usually involving Mei’s mother Ming) where Mei is made to feel guilty or pressured to do things that will make her parents proud and honor the family. Ming already has Mei’s life mapped out for her and expects Mei to have a career as secretary-general of the United Nations. Ming is also extremely judgmental and wants to control every aspect of Mei’s life.

For most of the movie, Ming is a caricature of a “helicopter mom,” who hovers and often interferes with Mei’s life to the extent that it causes a series of embarrassments for Mei. For example, when Mei wakes up one morning to find out that she has turned into a giant red panda, Mei is so confused and frightened, she won’t let her parents in her bedroom, but she wails through the door: “I’m a gross red monster!”

Ming misinterprets Mei’s “gross red monster” comment as Mei getting her menstrual period for the first time. That misunderstanding leads to a scene where Ming shows up unannounced at Mei’s school to deliver sanitary pads to her. Much to Mei’s understandable mortification, Ming gets into a fight with a security guard over it in front of Mei and her classmates, while Ming shouts that she just wants to deliver sanitary pads that Mei forgot at home. Of course, Ming eventually finds out the truth, and that’s when Mei’s parents tell Mei about their family’s red panda secret.

It isn’t until the last third of “Turning Red” that Ming stops being a caricature and starts being more of a fully developed character, as some of her human frailties and vulnerabilities emerge. This gradual reveal of Ming’s true character is one of the best aspects of “Turning Red,” which skillfully shows how physical appearances aren’t the only traits that can be passed down through generations. Parenting habits and the ways that parents teach children how to interact with others can also be inherited.

The movie falters a bit in how it introduces a few potential storylines for Mei’s peers, and then just lets those storylines dangle unresolved. There’s a 17-year-old boy named Devon (voiced by Addie Chandler), who’s a heartthrob to Mei, her friends and some of the other girls at Mei’s school. Devon works as a clerk at a convenience store called Daisy Mart. And when Ming finds that Mei has drawn some romantic (non-sexual) fantasy illustrations about Devon in Mei’s sketchbook/journal, Ming goes on a rampage by yelling Devon at his job and wrongfully accusing him of taking sexually advantage of Mei. And then, Devon and his storyline are completely dropped, as if his only purpose in the movie was to be a target of Ming’s misguided parental rants.

Ming also hugely disapproves of Mei’s friend Miriam, for reasons that aren’t made very clear and should have been given better explanation or context. The only explanation put forth in the movie is that Miriam, who likes to skateboard and is comfortable with herself, is perceived by Ming as a threat to Ming’s idea that Mei should be a prim and proper girl. Even though Miriam is a nice person and a supportive friend, Ming has this unsubstantiated idea that Miriam is a troublemaker who’s a bad influence on Mei. At one point in the movie, Miriam briefly mentions that Miriam’s parents aren’t very strict, which could be another reason why Ming doesn’t trust Miriam.

One of the biggest flaws of “Turning Red” is that Miriam, Priya and Abby are underdeveloped characters overall. The movie gives no sense of who these three friends are outside of any context of reacting to Mei’s emotions, offering to help Mei with any problems that she has, or discussing things that they have in common with Mei. Teenage girls talk to their close friends a lot about their personal hopes/goals and their families, but that kind of talk is very absent in this movie for Miriam, Priya and Abby. It makes Mei’s friendship with them look more one-sided than it should be.

Every movie with a school of underage children inevitably has a character who’s a school jerk/bully. In “Turning Red,” this character is Tyler (voiced by Tristan Allerick Chen), a spoiled and privileged kid, who likes to taunt Mei for being nerdy. Not much else is revealed about Tyler. That lack of information about Tyler is a missed opportunity for “Turning Red” to give better context for why school bullies like this exist and why they target certain people. The way that the movie handles the bully storyline is a little problematic, because it’s oversimplified and has a morally questionable message of buying friendships with cash, when the lesson should be that real friendships can’t be bought.

A montage near the beginning of the movie shows what a few people at the school think of Mei. A teacher says, “She’s a very enterprising, mildly annoying young lady.” A female student says that Mei is a “major weirdo.” A male student describes Mei as “an overachieving dork narc.” Mei is then seen commenting cheerfully, “I accept and embrace all labels.” Viewers of “Turning Red” are left to speculate, with nothing shown in the movie, why some students have such hostile feelings toward Mei that they would call her a “narc” (in other words, a snitch) and a “major weirdo.”

The music group 4*Town is meant to be a parody of boy bands that were popular in the early 2000s. The five members of the group—don’t ask why they’re called 4*Town, because there’s no explanation—also mirror the stereotypes of boy bands: One or two members of the group are the most popular heartthrob lead singers, while the other members are more forgettable and tend to fade in the background.

In 4*Town, the two most popular members are Robaire (voiced by Jordan Fisher) and Jesse (voiced by Finneas O’Connell), who overshadow the group’s other members: Tae Young (voiced by Grayson Villanueva), Aaron T. (voiced by Topher Ngo) and Aaron Z. (voiced by Josh Levi). All of the members of 4*Town are not in the movie long enough for them to show distinctive personalities, even though the group’s concert is at the center of the movie’s climactic action.

In real life, O’Connell is the Grammy-winning producer/songwriter who’s best known for his work with his younger sister, Billie Eilish. O’Connell and Eilish wrote three original 4*Town songs for the “Turning Red” soundtrack: “1 True Love,” “Nobody Like U” and “U Know What’s Up.” These songs are meant to sound “boy-band generic,” so don’t expect this music to win any prestigious awards. Ludwig Göransson (who won an Oscar and a Grammy for his 2018 “Black Panther” movie score) composed the musical score for “Turning Red,” which is a serviceable score but not Göransson’s best work.

All of the voice cast members are perfectly fine in their roles, while the visuals are very good but not exceptional. Many parts of the movie are predictable, but “Turning Red” is ultimately satisfying for anyone who can enjoy animated entertainment that hits all the expected notes when the protagonist is a plucky teenager.

Disney+ will premiere “Turning Red” on March 11, 2022, the same date that Disney will release the movie for a limited engagement in select U.S. cinemas.

Review: ‘The Beatles: Get Back,’ starring Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr

November 25, 2021

by Carla Hay

Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison in “The Beatles: Get Back” (Photo courtesy of Disney+)

“The Beatles: Get Back”

Directed by Peter Jackson

Culture Representation: Taking place in London in January 1969, the three-part documentary series “The Beatles: Get Back” features a predominantly white and mostly British group of people (with one Japanese person and one African American person) representing the middle-class and wealthy in this chronicle of the beginning of the Beatles’ last recording sessions, as well as the Beatles’ last live public performance.

Culture Clash: Before the band broke up in 1970, the Beatles had internal struggles and disagreements over who would lead the band and how each member’s talent and contributions were valued within the group.

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious target audience of Beatles fans, “The Beatles: Get Back” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of 1960s rock music who want detailed observations of what music studio sessions looked like at the time.

Pictured clockwise, from left: Mal Evans, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, John Lennon and Yoko Ono in “The Beatles: Get Back” (Photo courtesy of Apple Corps Ltd./Disney+)

The three-episode official Beatles docuseries “The Beatles: Get Back” gives Beatles fans more than enough of what they might be looking for in this intimate chronicle of the band’s recording sessions and rehearsals in London in January 1969. “The Beatles: Get Back” (directed by Peter Jackson) expands on the footage that was in director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 Beatles documentary “Let It Be,” which is no longer officially distributed but has been widely bootlegged. “The Beatles: Get Back” is the docuseries for you, if you’re the type of music fan who relishes seeing several different rehearsal snippets of the same Beatles songs that mostly ended up on the band’s 1969 “Abbey Road” album and 1970 “Let It Be” album. If you have absolutely no interest in watching the Beatles in a recording/rehearsal studio, then you might be bored and might not be able to finish watching this documentary.

That’s because most of the footage in this 468-minute docuseries (that’s 7.8 hours) takes place at recording/rehearsal studios: Twickenham and Apple Corps, to be exact. (Apple Corps is the London-based entertainment company founded by the Beatles in 1967, and is not to be confused with the California-based computer technology company Apple Inc. that was co-founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976.) The docuseries culminates with the Beatles performing a brief surprise concert on the rooftop of Apple Corps headquarters, which would end up being the band’s last live public performance. A great deal of the docuseries shows the repetitive nature of doing takes and re-takes of songs in the studio. In that regard, “The Beatles: Let It Be” could have used tighter editing to keep the interest of people with short attention spans.

The vast majority of the docuseries footage is within the confines of a studio. But what happens in that studio is pure magic for people who want to see how the Beatles crafted many of their songs from this period of time. There’s plenty of footage of the band’s personal interactions, but it’s only in the context of this work environment.

And that’s why the docuseries will appeal most to die-hard Beatles fans, who aren’t going to mind that this documentary’s cameras didn’t follow Beatles members Paul McCartney (bass guitar), John Lennon (rhythm guitar), George Harrison (lead guitar) and Ringo Starr (drums) outside of the studio to show what they were like outside of work. People who want to see more controversy in this documentary will be disappointed. However, the filmmakers made the decision to not take the tabloid route, so that the documentary would remain focused mainly on the Beatles’ music.

“The Beatles: Get Back” is an insightful look at the band dynamics that foreshadowed why the Beatles broke up in 1970, but the documentary also shows the special chemistry and camaraderie that the Beatles had together. People who know Beatles history are the ones who will have the most appreciation of this deep-dive look into these recording/rehearsal sessions. After all, how many times does someone need to see the different ways that Beatles songs such as “Get Back,” “The Long and Winding Road” or “Don’t Let Me Down” were recorded or rehearsed? Die-hard fans will tolerate this type of repetition the most. The documentary also shows that the Beatles spent a lot of time in the studio performing cover songs for fun.

At the time this documentary footage was filmed, the idea was to record the next Beatles album live in the studio and make a documentary about it. (“Abbey Road” was actually recorded after the “Let It Be” album, but “Abbey Road” was released first.) The band also planned to do a live concert as a TV special. Lindsay-Hogg was the director hired for the documentary and the TV special, with the entire project tentatively called “Get Back,” named after one of the hit songs that would be on the “Let It Be” album. A big problem was that with less than three weeks before the concert was to take place, the band still couldn’t agree/decide on where the concert should be.

In the docuseries, band members have disagreements with each other, but no one has screaming arguments or destroys instruments in anger. Yoko Ono (an avant-garde artist who was Lennon’s girlfriend at the time and became his wife in March 1969) is not seen pitting Lennon and McCartney against each other, and she doesn’t try to tell the band what to do. In other words, this not the Beatles version of the 1984 rock mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap.” That might come as a surprise to people who have come to expect drama akin to a soap opera in behind-the-scenes music documentaries about rock bands on the verge of splitting up.

And so, people looking for that type of turmoil won’t find it in “The Beatles: Get Back,” whose producers include McCartney, Ono (Lennon’s widow), Olivia Harrison (George Harrison’s widow), Starr and Jackson. The documentary does show how George Harrison briefly quit the Beatles, but his departure is not the disaster it could have been. That’s mainly because the other band members carry on with their work, as if they know deep down that Harrison will change his mind and come back less than a week later. (And that’s exactly what happened.)

Harrison’s temporary split from the Beatles was not made public at the time. This abrupt departure of someone from the most famous band in the world would be harder to keep a secret in today’s celebrity news environment, where this type of news would spread quickly on the Internet. It’s a testament to how the Beatles employees and associates who knew about Harrison quitting back then were discreet enough to not leak this information.

There’s so much to delve into “The Beatles: Get Back” because each episode of the series is longer than the average episode of a docuseries. Episode One is 157 minutes. Episode Two is 173 minutes. Episode Three is 138 minutes. “The Beatles: Get Back” director Jackson (who is a Beatles superfan) and his team lovingly restored the footage that was originally directed by Lindsay-Hogg.

Over the 21 days that Lindsay-Hogg and his team documented the Beatles in January 1969, there were about 60 hours of filmed footage and about 120 hours of audio recordings that ended up being edited for “The Beatles: Get Back” docuseries. The results are footage and audio that look and sound clear and crisp. The songs performed in the studio sessions have quick-cut editing in the docuseries. It’s as if the filmmakers don’t want the entire performance of each song to be seen, in anticipation of the Beatles’ rooftop concert. On-screen captions indicate which takes of these songs ended up on a Beatles album.

It’s explained in the beginning of the series that the Beatles had the daunting task of writing and rehearsing 14 new songs within a two-week period, in order for them to make the deadline for the TV concert. The Beatles didn’t agree on everything, but they all agreed that if this concert was going to happen, it wouldn’t be to play their old hits. They wanted it to be a showcase for their new songs. For recordings and rehearsals, they started off at Twickenham Studios for the first eight days, and then spent the remaining 13 days at Apple Studios.

Here’s a summary of the highlights from each episode:

Episode One

(Days 1 to 7)

John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in “The Beatles: Get Back” (Photo courtesy of Apple Corps Ltd./Disney+)

The episode begins with a brief chronological history of the Beatles, leading up to January 1969. At this point in the Beatles’ career, the band members were managing themselves, ever since Beatles manager Brian Epstein died of a sedative overdose in 1967, at the age of 32. McCartney is clearly the band member in charge, but disagreements over who should be the band’s next official manager were among the big reasons why the band broke up. Beatles fans will notice in this docuseries that these tensions were brewing and an indication of trouble to come. More on that later.

Even though Epstein wasn’t much older than the Beatles, certain band members still refer to him as “Mr. Epstein” and describe him as a father figure who was the one who kept them disciplined and taught them a certain work ethic as a band. With Epstein gone, McCartney has tried to step into the role of a leader who expects everyone to be their best and show up on time. But it’s how McCartney handles that leadership role that causes friction with other members of the group, especially Harrison and Lennon.

Lennon and McCartney co-wrote most of the songs that ended up on Beatles albums. If McCartney wrote most of a Lennon/McCartney song, McCartney was the one who sang lead vocals. If Lennon wrote most of a Lennon/McCartney song, Lennon was the one who sang lead vocals. Harrison would write Beatles songs on his own and sing lead vocals on them, but his songs were very much in the minority on Beatles albums. On rare occasions, Starr (whose real name is Richard Starkey) got a songwriting credit and lead vocals on a Beatles song.

This is the type of Beatles history that is not explained in the docuseries. However, people who are unfamiliar with the Beatles can discern these group dynamics when watching this docuseries, because every time a song is performed, the song’s title and the last name(s) of the songwriter(s) are listed on the screen. Even people with scarce knowledge of the Beatles have some idea that the Lennon/McCartney songwriting duo was the dominant songwriting partnership in the Beatles.

Although early in the Beatles’ career, Harrison was nicknamed in the media as “The Quiet Beatle,” Starr was actually the quietest member of the Beatles at this point in 1969. He’s often seen silently observing (and sometimes napping) while the other members of the band hash out some of their differences. He’s also the most easygoing member of the Beatles and the one most likely to want to keep the peace. It’s probably why the Beatles chose Starr’s home as the place for the Beatles to meet with Harrison after he abruptly quit the group.

McCartney is either motivational or bossy, depending on your perspective. He’s the one most likely to have big ambitions for the Beatles. He repeats throughout the documentary that he doesn’t just want to do albums. He wants the Beatles’ music to serve a bigger purpose and have more visual documentation of their art, such as filming the recording of the album.

Lennon is the sarcastic joker of the group. After recently getting involved in an intense love affair with Ono, he is shown as becoming less interested in arriving on time for band meetings and studio sessions. Lennon and Harrison are the Beatles members who are most likely to be tardy in these studio sessions.

Ono is never far from Lennon during most of these sessions, where she often sits next to him as if she’s also a member of the band. She doesn’t talk much, but her influence over Lennon is obvious, since she’s the only woman who’s allowed to join in and contribute vocals with the Beatles when they’re writing and recording. She doesn’t sing. The sound that comes out of her mouth is more like screeching or caterwauling.

During the first days of these sessions, Harrison seems motivated and greets people warmly. Harrison and Starr say “Happy New Year” to each other the first time that the band meets for these sessions. In another scene, Harrison compliments McCartney by saying of McCartney’s newly grown facial hair: “I think the beard suits you, man.” But as time goes on, Harrison looks both emotionally alienated and exasperated. And it’s not just because McCartney is telling Harrison how he wants Harrison’s guitar playing to sound.

It’s also because Harrison can see that, once again, most of his song ideas are being ignored. At this point in Harrison’s life, he was deep into Hare Krishna spirituality. It shows in the documentary, because a few of Harrison’s Hare Krishna friends/hangers-on, including two named Shyamsunder Das and Mukanda Goswami, are seen occasionally sitting cross-legged in the background, looking zoned-out or meditative.

For the concert TV special, McCartney was keen for the Beatles to perform a live concert again for the first time in three years (the Beatles quit touring in 1966), but he doesn’t want the band to perform in a typical and predictable setting. It’s here that McCartney tries to assert his leadership because he comes up with the idea that the Beatles should do a surprise concert at a place where they could get arrested. He half-jokingly suggests that the Beatles perform at the House of Parliament, where the band would undoubtedly be ejected. “You have to take a bit of violence,” McCartney says of his idea to do a guerilla-styled concert.

Lindsay-Hogg hates the idea. “I think it’s too dangerous. You could go back to Manila,” he says. It’s a reference to the Beatles’ harrowing 1966 experience of facing a group of angry citizens who aggressively manhandled the Beatles for skipping a meeting with Imelda Marcos, the wife of then-Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos. Lindsay-Hogg is fixated on an idea to have the Beatles perform at an open-air amphitheatre in the desert of Subrata, Libya. (It’s a terrible idea because of the difficult logistics involved. The ancient amphitheatre was not built for a 1969 rock concert that would require a lot of electrical wiring.)

Lindsay-Hogg also suggests that maybe the Beatles could perform at orphanages. He appeals to Harrison’s charitable side by trying to get him to agree to a charity concert. “They say charity begins at home,” Harrison quips. McCartney responds by joking that they should have the concert at Harrison’s house.

Film producer Denis O’Dell pushes for the Beatles to do the concert on some type of ship or boat. However, practical-minded Harrison says that this idea is “insane,” because the acoustics would be substandard and the production costs would be too high. Harrison mentions the Beatles’ widely panned 1967 TV special “Magical Mystery Tour” as an example of an expensive mistake. Lennon doesn’t seem to care where the Beatles play, while Starr says almost nothing at all when it comes to ideas or suggestions.

It’s in this docuseries’ first episode that viewers are also introduced to many of the key crew members who were part of the Beatles’ inner circle for this documentary. There’s Lindsay-Hogg, an American-Irish hotshot director who talks in an upper-crust accent and is often seen puffing on a cigar. He likes to remind people that he’s a huge Beatles fan, not just a hired gun. Far from being a “yes man,” Lindsay-Hogg is very opinionated and isn’t afraid to disagree with some of the Beatles’ ideas.

Beatles music producer George Martin conducts himself with the air of a calm and dignified businessman, but he is surprisingly not in this documentary as much as people might think he would be. Instead, engineer Glyn Johns (who is most definitely not a businessman type) has the most screen time as the one who takes charge of the technical side of the recording sessions. Other staffers and associates who are seen in the documentary, beginning with this episode, include Apple president Neil Aspinall, music publisher Dick James, roadie/personal assistant Mal Evans, roadie Kevin Harrington, cinematographer Tony Richmond, camera operator Les Parrott, song recordist Peter Sutton and electronic engineer Alexis “Magic Alex” Mardas.

Harrison is the first one in the documentary to mention that the Beatles should break up. “Maybe we should have a divorce,” Harrison tells the other Beatles. Lennon quips, “Who would have the children?” McCartney jokes, “Dick James.” McCartney’s comment refers to how, at the time, James (through his Northern Songs Ltd. publishing company) owned the copyrights to Beatles songs written by Lennon and McCartney. Later in 1969, James sold Northern Songs to Associated Television (ATV) without telling Lennon and McCartney in advance. The battle to own the Beatles’ song publishing could be its own documentary.

Starr’s wife Maureen Starkey makes a brief appearance. Just like the other women in this documentary, she doesn’t say much. The episode ends with Harrison getting up and announcing he’s leaving the band. Lennon says that if Harrison doesn’t come back in a few days, the Beatles should get Eric Clapton as a replacement. (Clapton was Harrison’s best friend at the time.) An episode epilogue caption says that the attempted reconciliation with Harrison at Starr’s house did not go very well.

What the documentary doesn’t mention is that Starr’s wife Maureen Starkey and Harrison were having an affair at the time, according to several books about the Beatles. Meanwhile, Clapton was in love with Harrison’s wife Pattie (Clapton wrote the 1971 song “Layla” about her), and she would eventually leave Harrison in 1977 for Clapton, who became her second husband two years later. If this is the type of love triangle drama that people wanted to see in this documentary, you’re not going to find it.

Episode Two

(Days 8 to 16)

Paul McCartney, George Harrison and John Lennon in “The Beatles: Get Back” (Photo courtesy of Apple Corps Ltd./Disney+)

As we all know, Harrison eventually did come back to the Beatles, as seen in this episode. During his absence, the other band members have a bittersweet laugh when a bouquet of flowers arrives for Harrison at the studio. Starr opens the greeting card and sees that the flowers are from a Hare Krishna group that obviously doesn’t know that Harrison had recently quit the band.

But the most intriguing part of the episode is that McCartney starts to get real about the band’s problems. The documentary mentions that a hidden microphone was placed in a flower pot to capture a conversation between Lennon and McCartney over Harrison’s unhappiness in the Beatles. This secret recording was clearly the filmmakers’ attempt to find out McCartney’s true feelings, since he was the band member who tended to be the most image-conscious and careful about what he said on camera.

In this undercover conversation, Lennon says of Harrison’s discontent: “It’s a festering wound that we’ve allowed … and we didn’t give him any bandages. We have egos.” McCartney says of Harrison’s concerns: “I do think he’s right.” McCartney also tries to appeal to Lennon’s ego by saying that the Beatles will always be Lennon’s band.

Through his actions and words in this documentary, McCartney seems to want to give the impression that he’s stepping up in a leadership role because no one else in the Beatles wants to do it. The problem, which has also been documented in several books about the Beatles, is that the other members of the group get frustrated when McCartney acts like his ideas are usually the best ideas. Harrison isn’t the only one who’s starting to drift away and feel alienated.

In another part of the episode, when McCartney knows that he’s being filmed, he says to a group of people (including Eastman and Starr) that Lennon is losing interest in the Beatles. If Lennon had to choose between the Beatles or Ono, McCartney predicts: “Obviously, if it came to a push between Yoko and the Beatles, it’s Yoko.” McCartney also says that he and Lennon are spending less time writing songs together because their lifestyles have changed. He mentions that because the Beatles weren’t touring, he and Lennon weren’t spending time together in hotel rooms, where Lennon and McCartney would get a lot of songwriting done.

New romances were affecting the Lennon/McCartney friendship. Linda Eastman, a photographer from New York, had recently begun dating McCartney and would become his wife in March 1969. Eastman is in the documentary as a laid-back presence, who occasionally takes photos and snuggles with McCartney. During a band meeting where they discuss Harrison quitting the group, Eastman pipes up that she noticed that at the reconciliation attempt at Starr’s house, Ono seemed to be talking for Lennon instead of Lennon talking for himself.

The documentary doesn’t give a lot of evidence to support a lingering perception among some Beatles fans that Ono is mainly to blame for breaking up the Beatles. She doesn’t talk much when she’s with the Beatles in these studio sessions. On the rare occasions that she smiles, it’s when she gazes lovingly at Lennon or shows other public displays of affection with him. She’s shown as not being particularly close to anyone in the Beatles’ inner circle except for Lennon. McCartney says prophetically, “It’s going to be such an incredible, comical thing, like in 50 years’ time [people will say], ‘They broke up because Yoko sat on an amp.'”

Still, there’s no denying that there’s unspoken tension between McCartney and Ono. During a group discussion, McCartney talks about how he still wants the Beatles to be on the top of their game in the documentary. “We want to show the world what we have,” McCartney says. Ono chimes in, “Or what we haven’t.”

The reality seems to be sinking in with McCartney that he and his longtime pal Lennon are going in different directions with their lives. McCartney seems to want to hold on to an idea that the Beatles can continue, but only if they agree with his wish that they don’t do anything in a boring and predictable way. Meanwhile, a frustrated Harrison seems like he wants to be a solo artist, whether the other band members approve or not. As for Starr, he just seems to want to know if he has a job and where to show up. When McCartney half-jokingly suggests that the Beatles should announce their breakup at the end of their upcoming concert, Starr reacts with a mortified look on his face that’s priceless.

In between all of this interpersonal drama, the Beatles are still capable of working together in a respectful and cohesive manner as musicians in a studio. Harrison starts to become more jovial, while Lennon cracks jokes to lighten the mood. After Harrison comes back to the band, McCartney seems more mindful of how he gives suggestions to Harrison, in order to avoid looking like an overly critical taskmaster.

McCartney also mentions to his bandmates that he has personal film footage of the time that the Beatles spent at a 1967 retreat with the spiritual guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who was exposed years later as a con artist. McCartney vividly describes scenes from this footage, some of which are shown in the documentary. Lennon and McCartney have a laugh when McCartney comments on the retreat, “You can see from the film that it’s very much like school.”

Harrison’s wife Pattie appears very briefly in this episode when she visits the studio. Out of all of the Beatles’ significant others at the time, she’s the one who is seen the least in the documentary. Pattie was busy with her modeling career at the time, but she and other people have since revealed that her marriage to Harrison was in deep trouble in 1969, because of the love triangle with Clapton.

A great scene in this episode is when comedian/actor Peter Sellers (who was Starr’s co-star in the 1969 movie “The Magic Christian”) stops by for a visit. It’s the first time that Sellers has met the members of the band, other than Starr. Sellers is quiet and bashful. Some viewers might speculate that he seems a little star-struck by the Beatles. He also seems a little bored, because he doesn’t stay for long. Maybe he thought being in a recording studio with the Beatles would be one big party.

In this encounter with Sellers, Lennon proves to be a lot funnier than world-famous comedian Sellers. As Sellers says a “nice to meet you” goodbye to the group, Lennon makes a drug joke when he says to Sellers: “Just don’t leave the needles lying around.” Everyone in the room laughs, except for Sellers, who seems a little taken aback by this joke and that someone can get bigger laughs than he usually does.

Speaking of drug references, there are some noticeable ones in this episode. Lennon shows up late at the studio one day, and he says it’s because he stayed up all night while he was on drugs. “I was stoned and high and watching films,” Lennon confesses. McCartney, ever aware of the Beatles’ image, looks slightly alarmed, knowing that Lennon was caught on camera with this comment. McCartney responds, “Is there a need to do this in public, Mr. Lennon?”

Earlier in the episode, Starr is seen on camera asking personal assistant Evans, “Do you have any pep pills?” And the band’s goofiest antics and loopiest comments in this episode and the other episodes in the docuseries could be interpreted as actions of people under the influence of unnamed substances. At any rate, no one actually says out loud which illegal drugs might have been consumed. The Beatles are seen smoking a lot of cigarettes and drinking alcohol (usually wine or beer) during these sessions. Even if illegal drug taking had been caught on camera, it wouldn’t have made the final cut in a Disney+ documentary.

This episode shows how image-conscious the Beatles were, since there are multiple scenes of them reading articles about themselves in newspapers and magazines and making comments about what they see in this media coverage. Harrison is irked by a Daily Mail article written by Michael Housegro, in which Housegro claims that Lennon and Harrison got into a fist fight and that the Beatles are on the verge of breaking up.

Housegro was wrong about the fist fight, and Harrison asks someone in the room if the Beatles can sue over the article. The answer is no. Harrison and Lennon have a bit of a laugh over it though, and pretend to get in a fist fight when the article is read out loud. Later, McCartney reads the article out loud in a very sing-song, sarcastic manner while plugged into a microphone and pretending that article’s words are lyrics to a song.

The Beatles move their recording/rehearsal sessions to Apple when their scheduled time at Twickenham comes to an end. When they begin working at Apple, it’s the first time that the documentary shows life outside the studio bubble. The members of the band show up in separate cars and walk inside without any bodyguards or entourages. If there were any paparazzi photographers lurking about, they’re not shown in this documentary.

It’s in this episode that Apple Scruffs (the nickname for the female fans who would wait outside Apple headquarters to get a glimpse of the Beatles) are first seen. Two Apple Scruffs named Eileen Kensles and Sue Ahearne are interviewed. They both say that what they want most for the Beatles to do next is to perform a live concert.

At Apple headquarters, Magic Alex had constructed a custom-built studio for the Beatles. However, the band discovers that this custom studio equipment has too much distortion. Beatles producer Martin comes to the rescue by letting the Beatles use some equipment that he had, thereby diverting a major setback.

Things get livelier when keyboardist Billy Preston joins the sessions. His enthusiasm and talent seem to lift the Beatles’ spirits. McCartney briefly considers eventually making Preston a permanent member of the Beatles, but McCartney ends up nixing the idea. “It’s bad enough with four [members of the band],” McCartney comments.

And if you didn’t already know that “Get Back” was originally going to be a protest song against white nationalism, anti-immigrant racism and xenophobia, then you’ll find out what were some of the lyrics that McCartney originally wanted for the song. “Get Back” eventually evolved into a non-political song, but it’s interesting to see the thought process that went into the crafting of this song. At this point in his career, McCartney avoided making overt political statements in his songs, so his original intention for “Get Back” would have been a major departure for him.

Another song that went through a metamorphosis was Lennon’s “The Road to Marrakesh.” Never heard of it? That’s because the docuseries shows in this episode that “The Road to Marrakesh” was an early version of “Jealous Guy,” a song that would end up on Lennon’s 1971 solo album “Imagine.” The song’s melodies essentially remained the same, but the lyrics became very different when the song morphed into “Jealous Guy.”

Making brief appearances in this episode are photographer Ethan Russell (the cover of the “Let It Be” album features his photos), Apple executive Peter Brown and art dealer Robert Fraser. Brown and author Steven Gaines would later write the unauthorized Beatles tell-all book “The Love You Make: An Insider Story of the Beatles,” which was published in 1983. It’s considered one of the first exposés of the Beatles in-fighting that went on behind the scenes.

Lindsay-Hogg was also the director of the concert TV special “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus,” which featured Lennon and Ono among the guest performers. Lindsay-Hogg is seen asking Lennon if he wants to be a guest on this TV special, and Lennon readily agrees. It’s because of “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus” that Lennon came into contact with Allen Klein, who was the Rolling Stones’ manager at the time.

Klein was a controversial figure in the histories of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. By all accounts, he desperately wanted to manage the Beatles. Klein does not make an appearance in “The Beatles: Get Back” docuseries, but it clearly shows through Lennon’s descriptions of Klein how Klein began to woo and charm his way into the Beatles’ lives.

In this episode, the idea to have a live TV concert is scrapped. And it comes as no surprise, because the band was never ready to do a live TV show with just two weeks of preparation. However, McCartney still wants the Beatles to perform their new songs live somewhere and having it filmed. Lindsay-Hogg and Johns suggest doing a surprise show without a permit on the rooftop of Apple Corps, thereby making McCartney’s idea to have a guerilla-styled Beatles concert become a reality.

Episode Three

(Days 17 to 21)

Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon in “The Beatles: Get Back” (Photo courtesy of Apple Corps Ltd./Disney+)

Considering the internal problems that the Beatles were experiencing at the time, you would think that this strife would get worse as this docuseries goes on. In fact, this last episode is the most light-hearted of the three. One of the main reasons why it has so many laugh-out-loud moments is because of how it shows people’s various reactions to the Beatles’ surprise rooftop concert. The Beatles also seem more relaxed with each other, compared to previous days of the sessions.

During the rooftop concert, people are interviewed on the street by members of the film crew. Reactions are mostly positive. One middle-aged man says of the free concert: “It’s nice to have something for free in this country at the moment.”

Meanwhile, the complainers look like out-of-touch grouches in retrospect. One young man snarls angrily that the roof is “a bloody stupid place to have a concert.” An elderly woman is infuriated when she comments on the Beatles doing a free show on a rooftop: “I don’t see how it makes sense! It woke me up from my sleep, and I don’t like it!”

There’s also a very Keystone Kops moment when two young police officers are the first cops to respond to the noise complaints caused by the concert. One of the cops wants to take charge, but it’s obvious that he’s reluctant to arrest anyone in the Beatles. He does a lot of huffing and puffing and says this empty threat: “We’ve got 30 complaints within minutes … Turn it [the volume] down, or I’m going to have to start arresting people!” Meanwhile, the agitated cop’s partner barely says a word. You can tell that these reactions were not scripted, which makes everything even more hilarious.

Earlier in this episode, Eastman’s then-6-year-old daughter Heather (from Eastman’s first marriage) is shown being an adorable and happy kid in the studio. She brings a lot of joy to the people around her. McCartney treats her like a doting father (he bounces her up in the air and hugs her a lot), while the other Beatles (especially Lennon and Starr) are friendly and attentive to Heather. She’s talkative, curious, and is allowed to run around and play in the studio. When Heather sees Ono shrieking in a microphone, Heather starts to do that too. Lennon responds to Heather’s vocal imitations by saying jokingly: “Yoko!”

Heather isn’t the only one acting goofy in the studio. A scene in this episode shows Starr, McCartney, Martin and Lindsay-Hogg appearing to have a serious conversation. Suddenly, Starr blurts out: “I’ve farted. I thought I’d let you know.”

Some Beatles associates featured in this episode include tape operator (and future artist/producer) Alan Parsons, sound engineer Keith Slaughter, Apple press officer Sally Burgess, producer/engineer Chris Thomas, Paul McCartney’s younger brother Mike McCartney, Apple office doorman Jimmy Clark and Apple office receptionist Debbie Wellum. When the cops show up during the Beatles’ rooftop concert, Wellum does a brilliant job of acting ignorant in stalling the cops as long as possible from going up to the roof.

But problems in the Beatles remain. While planning the rooftop concert, Paul McCartney is enthusiastic about it, while Harrison says irritably: “I don’t want to go on the roof.” Starr and Lennon chime in and both say consecutively: “I would like to go on the roof.” And with those statements, Harrison is outnumbered, and he seems to stop complaining about having to do this rooftop concert. However, Harrison still voices his dislike of the idea that the Beatles should continue to do films. It’s the opposite of how McCartney feels.

At this point in the Beatles’ history, Harrison is openly discussing taking his rejected Beatles songs and making a solo album out of it. He talks about it with Lennon and Ono, who tells Harrison that she thinks the solo album is a good idea. Meanwhile, Harrison is seen helping Starr come up with some ideas to finish Starr’s song “Octopus’s Garden,” which ended up on the “Abbey Road” album. It’s an example of how underrated Harrison was as a songwriter for the Beatles, because Starr (under his real name, Richard Starkey) is the only credited songwriter for “Octopus’s Garden.” This documentary clearly shows that Harrison co-wrote the song.

In this episode, Harrison talks about trying to finish a song that would become one of his most beloved ballads: “Something,” an “Abbey Road” hit single that was inspired by his then-wife Pattie. The first line of the song ended up being: “Something in the way she moves attracts me like no other lover.” But the documentary shows that Harrison had difficulty coming up with that first line.

Harrison considered using the phrase “attracts me like a Cadillac” or “attracts me like a pomegranate.” Lennon advises Harrison to just write what naturally comes to mind. “The Beatles: Get Back” is superb when it has this type of camaradie moment that shows a glimpse into how a classic Beatles song was written.

Lennon is in mostly a good mood during these final days of filming the documentary. He announces jubilantly that Ono’s divorce from her second husband Anthony “Tony” Cox has become final. (Lennon had already offically divorced his first wife Cynthia in November 1968.) Lennon is also seen praising Klein.

“I think he’s fantastic!” Lennon gushes to Harrison about Klein. “He knows everything about everything! He knows what we’re like. He knows me as well as you do!” The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were both signed to EMI Records at the time. Lennon also says he’s impressed that Klein was able to get an EMI royalty rate for the Rolling Stones that’s higher than the Beatles’ royalty rate, so Lennon wants Klein to do the same for the Beatles.

The Beatles have ther first meeting with Klein in this episode, but the meeting was not filmed for the documentary. In a voiceover, Johns is heard expressing cautious skepticism about Klein: “He’s a strange man, but very, very clever.” Johns also describes Klein’s habit of abruptly changing the subject in a conversation if someone says something that Klein doesn’t want to hear. “That bugs me a bit, actually,” adds Johns of Klein’s rudeness.

Harrison and Starr seem noncommittal about Klein at this point. However, people who watch this documentary should observe the expression on McCartney’s face when Klein’s name is mentioned by Lennon. Beatles fans now know that McCartney had already been planning to have Linda Eastman’s attorney father Lee Eastman take over management duties for the Beatles. McCartney is clearly concerned (and probably annoyed) that Lennon could persuade the other members of the band to want to hire Klein as the manager of the Beatles.

It’s a red flag of the management disagreements that would end up being a huge part of the Beatles’ breakup. But the docuseries ends in the best possible way, by showing the rooftop concert that would be the last time that the Beatles would ever perform together in public. (All of the Beatles’ wives/girlfriends are there except for Harrison’s.)

For the rooftop concert, the documentary shows the band performing “Get Back” (twice, but not consecutively), “Don’t Let Me Down” (twice, but not consecutively), “One After 909,” “Dig a Pony” and “I’ve Got a Feeling.” All these years later, the Beatles are still considered by many people to be the greatest rock band of all time. “The Beatles: Get Back” is a densely layered exploration into their artistic side, but it admirably never loses sight of the Beatles’ human side.

Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon in “The Beatles: Get Back” (Photo courtesy of Apple Corps Ltd./Disney+)

Here are the songs that are featured in “The Beatles Get Back” docuseries:

Beatles-Written Songs (for the Beatles or for Solo Material) Performed as Excerpts

In alphabetical order:

  • “Across the Universe”
  • “All Things Must Pass”
  • “Another Day”
  • “The Back Seat of My Car”
  • “Because I Know You Love Me So”
  • “Bonding”
  • “Carry That Weight”
  • “Castle of the King of the Birds”
  • “Commonwealth”
  • “Dehra Dun”
  • “Dig a Pony”
  • “Dig It”
  • “Don’t Let Me Down”
  • “Every Little Thing”
  • “Fancy My Chances With You”
  • “For You Blue”
  • “Get Back”
  • “Gimme Some Truth”
  • “Golden Slumbers”
  • “Half a Pound of Greasepaint”
  • “Help”
  • “Her Majesty”
  • “I Bought a Piano the Other Day”
  • “I Lost My Little Girl”
  • “I Me Mine”
  • “I’m So Tired”
  • “Isn’t It a Pity”
  • “I Told You Before”
  • “I’ve Got a Feeling”
  • “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”
  • “Just Fun”
  • “Let It Be”
  • “The Long and Winding Road”
  • “Love Me Do”
  • “Madmen”
  • “Martha My Dear”
  • “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”
  • “Mean Mr. Mustard”
  • “My Imagination”
  • “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”
  • “Octopus’s Garden”
  • “Oh! Darling”
  • “Old Brown Shoe”
  • “One After 909”
  • “On the Road to Marrakesh” (which later became “Jealous Guy”)
  • “Please Please Me”
  • “Polythene Pam”
  • “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window”
  • “Song of Love”
  • “Strawberry Fields Forever”
  • “Suzy Parker”
  • “Teddy Boy”
  • “Too Bad About Sorrow”
  • “Two of Us”
  • “What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?”
  • “Within You, Without You”
  • “You Wear Your Women Out”

Cover Songs Performed as Excerpts

In alphabetical order:

  • “Act Naturally”
  • “Blue Suede Shoes”
  • “Bye Bye Love”
  • “Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer”
  • “Going Up the Country”
  • “Hallelujah I Love Her So”
  • “Hi-Heel Sneakers”
  • “Honey Hush”
  • “House of the Rising Sun”
  • “Johnny B. Goode”
  • “Kansas City”
  • “The Midnight Special”
  • “The Mighty Quinn”
  • “Miss Ann”
  • “New Orleans”
  • “Queen of the Hop”
  • “Rock and Roll Music”
  • “Save the Last Dance for Me”
  • “School Days”
  • “Shake, Rattle and Roll”
  • “Stand By Me”
  • “Take These Chains From My Heart”
  • “Twenty Flight Rock”

Disney+ premieres each of the three episodes of “The Beatles: Get Back” on November 25, November 26 and November 27, 2021.

UPDATE: Walt Disney Pictures will release the feature film “The Beatles: Get Back—The Rooftop Concert” as an exclusive IMAX event screening with a filmmaker Q&A on January 30, 2022. “The Beatles: Get Back—The Rooftop Concert” will then have a global theatrical engagement from February 11 to February 13, 2022. The complete docuseries “The Beatles: Get Back” will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on February 8, 2022.

National Geographic debuts ‘Cesar Millan: Better Human Better Dog’

July 14, 2021

The following is a press release from National Geogrpahic:

Today, National Geographic announced the highly anticipated return of dog behavior expert Cesar Millan with “Cesar Millan: Better Human, Better Dog,” premiering on July 30, 2021, at 9/8c on National Geographic and simulcast on Nat Geo WILD. The all-new 10-part series brings Cesar back when pet owners need him the most, as the world has changed significantly since Cesar made his television debut 16 years ago. Airing globally in 172 countries and 43 languages, new episodes will air back-to-back on Fridays at 9/8c and 10/9c on National Geographic and encore Sundays at 8/7c and 9/8c on Nat Geo WILD. Episodes will also be available to stream on Disney+ each Wednesday, starting Aug. 4, 2021.

As humans face a world never seen before, they have turned to four-legged friends as a way to console, bringing harmony and peace to their homes. In fact, dog adoptions are hitting record highs over the past year, with some cities reporting a 90% rise in adoption rates. However, with great power comes great responsibility, and sometimes more pooches can cause more problems. Many rescue dogs can come from a troubled past resulting in unknown trust issues, which can be difficult for new owners. “Cesar Millan: Better Human, Better Dog” showcases Cesar Millan as he takes on the most challenging cases yet, treating a host of new canine behavioral issues impacted by well-intentioned but impulsive owners.

In the new series, Cesar opens the gates to the famed Dog Psychology Center, his California ranch retreat for dogs. Here he transforms canines – and families – one case at a time, working to make the world a better place. With updated philosophies, new techniques and family support, Cesar tackles some of the most demanding cases of his career.

Transformations include cases like Goliath, a dog that was once so unpredictably aggressive he blocked paramedics from entering his home during a family emergency. He is now a medical companion animal, able to seek assistance when his owner suffers a seizure. Also, follow Insta-famous Ducky the Yorkie as he em’barks’ on a journey with Cesar to gain comfort and composure with his second owner so that the newlyweds can finally pursue their dreams of starting a family. A rottweiler named Kuma is also transformed from an unstable liability to a calm, confident member of a family with five young children. To complement his efforts, Cesar’s own exotic animal ‘paw’sonal assistants pitch in to assist in the rehabilitation process – including llamas, a parrot and a miniature horse – all full-time residents of the Dog Psychology Center.

Episode descriptions and premiere dates are as follows:

“Fit For Service”

Premieres Friday, July 30, at 9/8c; Streaming on Disney+ Wednesday, Aug. 4

Cesar welcomes a broken pack to the ranch and helps the pet parents overcome past trauma so they can move forward united. Getting a little help from DPC trainers, Cesar turns a dangerous pit bull into a well-balanced dog who can provide help in an emergency. The pet parents of a famous Yorkie seek help from Cesar to get his frantic behavior under control before they start a family.

“One Brick at a Time”

Premieres Friday, July 30, at 10/9c; Streaming on Disney+ Wednesday, Aug. 4

Cesar comes to the aid of a 68-year-old recently retired woman, Judy, whose over-excited Australian kelpie, Shadow, has ruined her retirement and has developed a strange fixation with bricks. After several attempts to train and correct both the dog and Judy’s behavior, Cesar is able to transform them both, making for one of the most rewarding transformations in Cesar’s career.

“Canine Quarantine”

Premieres Friday, Aug. 6, at 9/8c; Streaming on Disney+ Wednesday, Aug. 11

Cesar aids a family of first responders with three large and out-of-control dogs, including an aggressive pit bull. With help from his own pack, Cesar teaches the family new techniques to prevent dangerous behavior and get this pack back on track. First-time dog owners of an over-excited bernedoodle with separation anxiety look to Cesar for guidance to bring order to their home.

“Front of the Pack”

Premieres Friday, Aug. 6, at 10/9c; Streaming on Disney+ Wednesday, Aug. 11

Cesar helps a military veteran and his pack get back in order when his German shepherd mix, who helped him through his PTSD, has developed an unhealthy bond with him. And later, a young woman looks to Cesar for help when her dachshund puppy’s dangerous habit of eating trash off the ground has put her in a life-threatening situation.

“Pack Attack”

Premieres Friday, Aug. 13, at 9/8c; Streaming on Disney+ Wednesday, Aug. 18

The Thompson pack is recovering from past trauma at the hands of an abusive ex-husband. Now, the women have suffered another tragedy: coonhound Nyla has become explosively aggressive, accidentally killing one family dog and viciously attacking another. Cesar needs to help the entire Thompson pack heal from past wounds and rehabilitate Nyla before the family is faced with a heartbreaking decision.

“Blind Faith”

Premieres Friday, Aug. 13, at 10/9c; Streaming on Disney+ Wednesday, Aug. 18

Cesar sets out to help a young couple’s cantankerous Chihuahua, whose recent blindness makes him increasingly hostile to be around. And later, a family makes a desperate plea to Cesar to help them rein in their fast-growing and overexcited Belgian Malinois before he becomes too tough to tame.

“Twin Trouble”

Premieres Friday, Aug. 20, at 9/8c; Streaming on Disney+ Wednesday, Aug. 25

Cesar works with a Mexican breed close to his heart when he rehabilitates twin dogs whose over-excited behavior has put their owner at risk of eviction from her apartment building. Later, an actress turns to Cesar for help with an overprotective pint-sized pooch that’s creating too much drama of her own.

“Dogs v. Cats”

Premieres Friday, Aug. 20, at 10/9c; Streaming on Disney+ Wednesday, Aug. 25

Cesar helps a family of seven with their young Rottweiler, who’s grown aggressive and territorial after a burglary at the family home. With help from his own pack, Cesar instructs the pet parents on techniques to exert leadership behavior and reestablish themselves atop the pack. Parents of a young pitsky with an overactive prey drive toward their cats look to Cesar for guidance to bring order and harmony into their home.

“Tail End of Trauma”

Premieres Friday, Aug. 27, at 9/8c; Streaming on Disney+ Wednesday, Sept. 1

Cesar helps a fearful family, which is still holding on to the pain of losing their first dog in a tragic accident, deal with their two-year-old black lab’s similarly aggressive personality. And later, a young 10-year-old girl looks to Cesar for help when her emotional support puppy is causing more chaos than comfort.

“Hijacked Pack”

Premieres Friday, Aug. 27, at 10/9c; Streaming on Disney+ Wednesday, Sept. 1

Cesar sets out to help a young couple’s sensitive Australian cattle dog, whose severe separation anxiety has held hostage the lives of his pet parents for nearly a year. And later, Cesar attempts to calm a blinding Lhasa apso, who lacks basic hygiene and has almost become too hostile for his exhausted owners to provide his needed eye care.

CESAR MILLAN: BETTER HUMAN BETTER DOG is the perfect series for pet owners across America – new and old! Even through troubled times, Cesar constantly overcomes obstacles, instilling faith in disgruntled pet owners. Humans are clearly not the only ones feeling restless with the onset of the dog days of summer. Dogs need help adjusting to the dynamic world we are living in too!

CESAR MILLAN: BETTER HUMAN BETTER DOG is produced by Leepson Bounds Entertainment for National Geographic. Cesar Millan serves as host and executive producer, with special consideration to Cesar’s Way Inc. and support from the Cesar Millan Foundation. For Leepson Bounds, executive producers are David Leepson, Jane Mun, Roger Roddy and Aaron Rice. For National Geographic, executive producer is Breanna Hoepner; senior vice president of unscripted development and production is Janet Han Vissering.

###

About National Geographic Partners LLC:

National Geographic Partners LLC (NGP), a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company and the National Geographic Society, is committed to bringing the world premium science, adventure and exploration content across an unrivaled portfolio of media assets. NGP combines the global National Geographic television channels (National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo WILD, Nat Geo MUNDO, Nat Geo PEOPLE) with National Geographic’s media and consumer-oriented assets, including National Geographic magazines; National Geographic studios; related digital and social media platforms; books; maps; children’s media; and ancillary activities that include travel, global experiences and events, archival sales, licensing and e-commerce businesses. Furthering knowledge and understanding of our world has been the core purpose of National Geographic for 133 years, and now we are committed to going deeper, pushing boundaries, going further for our consumers … and reaching millions of people around the world in 172 countries and 43 languages every month as we do it. NGP returns 27 percent of our proceeds to the nonprofit National Geographic Society to fund work in the areas of science, exploration, conservation and education. For more information visit natgeotv.com or nationalgeographic.com, or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

Copyright 2017-2025 Culture Mix
CULTURE MIX