Post #9 in the Blogathon
There's no debating that, is there? SPLHCB was one of the greatest albums ever. Am I right, or am I right?
Actually, I've never been all that fond of it. I guess because there wasn't enough George Harrison. But then again, if he had had another tune on the album, it probably would've been another Indian spiritual one, and I'm also not all that fond of "Within You, Without You", either.
But, no, I can't fool you. If you know me, you know I'm not talking about the album. I'm talking about the movie. The movie you probably haven't seen, but may have heard about. The train wreck of a movie, starring Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
I've explained the plot here before after I first saw the movie. And after I first saw it, I loved it. And yet, so many people mock and ridicule and completely discount this cinematic masterpiece.
Okay, I'm going overboard there. But I'm not being sarcastic, I do honestly love this movie.
First of all, the cast. Peter Frampton. The Bee Gees. Earth Wind and Fire. Alice Cooper. AEROSMITH. You've got some big bands there. And how can you not like The Bee Gees? They wrote songs everyone would like, leaving the niche stuff to Led Zeppelin. (And yay for you if you got that pseudo-reference.)
Some good covers in there, too. Aerosmith's "Come Together" was a hit. I'm not fond of Earth Wind and Fire or the song "Got To Get You Into My Life", but I really liked their version of it. I've heard praise for The Bee Gee's version of "Nowhere Man", but personally, it didn't wow me. Steve Martin's "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" certainly isn't quality music, but it is darn amusing.
I can't praise the dialouge though, because, well… there is none. Well, no, that's not true. There is a bit, but only from George Burns, the narrator. So it's not that the writing is bad. That's not why people hate this movie.
Is it the plot? What plot, you ask? And if you do ask that, and you have seen the movie, and were not on drugs, then I tell you that, yes, there certainly was a plot, a pretty obvious one at that. Actually, it was quite simple. A plot used by many movies before and after. So true, it wasn't groundbreaking in the plot department, but it had a plot. There's a band, they want to be famous, they become famous, they realize fame sucks and they miss their old life, they save their little town from the bad guy, and everyone is happy.
So I've told you why this movie is not not awesome. I'm a lot better at disproving other people theories than proving my own, though. We'll see how I do.
It's funny. Unintentionally, yes. But that's the funniest kind of funny. Ever notice how real life is often funnier than TV? You can't write the kind of stuff that happens to you on a daily basis. We don't try to make funny things happen, we don't try to bring in more viewers to our life. Stuff just happens, and it's just funny.
A lot of the intentional funny things though aren't all that obvious. It's not like the physical comedy of today where they shove jokes in your face and tell you to laugh. You have to look closer.
There's a scene where the band is in a convertible, and the car suddenly drives off. It's a faraway shot, pretty quick, not too important. But you see all four of their heads fly backwards. Sure, it's a little thing, and it doesn't sound all that funny in writing. But because I didn't notice this until a few viewings of the movie, it was funny. It was there all that time, but I just noticed it. Maybe that's why it's funny, because I realize I'm blind.
Okay. So I have a lot of blonde moments. Just the other week I raced downstairs to tell my brother that I realized that the "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" scene was hilarious. Why, you ask? I happened to be watching "Let It Be", the rooftop concert scene. There was a shot of a girl looking up to the roof and something was triggered in my brain: "I've seen this before". And I had. It was the character of Strawberry Fields, gazing up atop a building, imagining the SPLHCB billboard coming to life and performing a song, but like The Beatles did in "Let It Be". Sort of an in-joke, you know?
There are tons of little things in this movie that you wouldn't catch if you only saw it once. It's truly a funny movie, but you have to be willing to let it be funny, if that makes any sense.
All I'm saying, is give it a chance.
