Review - 'The Beatles: Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years'

It has been said - I'm sure - that the last thing we need is another Beatles documentary.  Ron Howard's new movie looking at the concert-tour era of the Beatles' career blows that nonsense out of the water.

Eight Days a Week isn't just one of the best movie about the Beatles ever made - it's the first and only movie to focus on their years as a live band and how the excitement they generated was key to spreading Beatlemania from Britain to America and the world beyond.  New insights from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and archival reminiscences from John Lennon and George Harrison  illustrate how thrilling it was for the band to play live in their early days and invigorating it was to take the world by storm.

As Eight Days a Week progresses into 1965 and 1966, the ennui of touring shows as the Beatles were continuing to advance musically in the recording studio.  Their concerts - rare footage of which offers some astonishing samples of how pervasive and engrossing Beatlemania was - evolved from exciting musical performances to what Lennon called "tribal rituals"; indeed, some of the live music included here is ragged and sloppy.  Eight Days a Week also puts the viewer in the center of the action, with photos and dizzying footage of the group taking the stage, traveling long distances on planes, and dealing with the press.  There are some eye-opening anecdotes, too, like when the Beatles forced racial integration of the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville as a condition for performing there.   Philadelphia TV newsman Larry Kane, one of the many figures interviewed for the movie, traveled with the Beatles and covered them on their 1964 North American tour for the Miami radio station he was working for at the time; his specific memories and documentation of his time with the group are especially revealing.  Even the familiar stories of the Beatles' time on the road, particularly the controversy over John Lennon's statement of the Beatles becoming more popular than Jesus, are seen from a fresh perspective and give a picture of how grueling the road was for the group.  (Also worthy are comments from fans and observers such as Elvis Costello, Whoopi Goldberg, and Malcolm Gladwell.)

Fifty years after their last stadium concert at San Francisco, Eight Days a Week makes clear why the Beatles had to end their concert career, and how rock and roll benefited from their decision to do so; Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road couldn't have existed had they continued touring.  Howard's documentary, which ends with a clip of the Beatles in their last public performance from January 1969 on the Apple rooftop for Let It Be, ultimately succeeds in its main purpose; it brings Beatlemania as it played out in the mid-sixties back to life.  You had to be there, but if you weren't, this is the best (and only) way to experience it. 

(Note: During its theatrical run, Eight Days a Week is followed by a remastered, re-edited version of the film of Beatles' 1965 Shea Stadium concert.  It's an astonishing document, showing a confident foursome playing in perfect sync and giving one of their best live shows ever, despite the primitive sound system and the screaming fans. It is more than worth the price of admission.)         

Parents In the 'Hood

I don't know if this means that NBC is finally regaining its relevance, but its comedy-drama "Parenthood" is easily one of the best series of the 2009-10 season, and one that we can expect to stick around for awhile. Although it's co-produced by Ron Howard and is reported to be based on his 1989 movie of the same name, and although there's a slight similarity in some of the characters and ongoing story lines, the only thing "Parenthood" the TV series really has in common with Parenthood the film, apart from Ron Howard's association, is its title.

Instead of following the Buckmans of Kirkwood, Missouri, the extended family featured in the movie, "Parenthood" follows the Bravermans of Berkeley, California. The family is headed by patriarch Zeek Braverman (played by veteran actor Craig T. Nelson), a free spirit who has tried his hand at many careers and professions and distinguished himself at none of them, his wife Camille (played by the always wonderful Bonnie Bedelia) and their grown children, all of whom have their own immediate families.

The sons, Adam (Peter Krause) and Crosby (Dax Shepard) are as alike as night and day. Adam is a corporate professional who strives to keep his family happy but has to deal with his rebellious teenage daughter, and he and his wife Kristina (Monica Potter) find their lives becoming more complicated when their son is diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. "Parenthood" has already gotten plaudits for this step by bringing to light a condition not normally talked about or depicted in any way. Crosby, a recording engineer with a Peter Pan complex, suddenly has to grow up and be responsible when his former lover, a dancer named Jasmine, returns to Berkeley and informs him that their fling from five years earlier produced a son, whom he now races (gladly, it turns out) to catch up with and be a father to.

Oh yeah, Jasmine is black - she's played by Joy Bryant - and of course Crosby is white, and so NBC has brought to prime time a subplot involving a child who's both biracial and illegitimate. More reently, Crosby and Jasmine have renewed interest in each other and ended up in bed together, breaking another TV taboo - that of depicting interracial sex.

Zeek and Camille's daughters are no less interesting. Julia (Erika Christensen) is a successful lawyer and her husband Joel (Sam Jaeger) plays "househusband" by raising their precocious daughter. Sarah (played by the always wonderful Lauren Graham) can only dream of having her sister's success. A single mom, divorced from a man who pays no attention to their children (leaving their son withdrawn), Sarah has to move in with her parents and work at bartending jobs to keep her family going even as she deals with a daughter who has trouble with school as well as her bitter son. Sarah's economic plight is displayed best by her car - a Chevrolet Chevette, which she drives in the first couple of episodes. The Chevette, for the record, hasn't been produced since 1986; when I started watching the show, I thought it was set at an earlier time than the present. But, given that an old Chevette is all Sarah can afford, it seems appropriate that her car soon dies on her completely and she suddenly has to worry about how she's going to replace it.

NBC has already announced the renewal of "Parenthood" for a second season. That's good news, not only because it marks the return of Lauren Graham to series television, and this time on a real network. (A low-rated, emaciated, directionless, humiliated NBC is still preferable to a CW at the height of its broadcasting abilities.) It's good news because it deals with touchy subjects and personal issues- career choices, race, and, as noted, Asperger syndrome - and deals with them in an intelligent, touching way. "Parenthood" is able to explore these issues more deeply as an ongoing TV series than the movie could have, and the movie, released in 1989, only glossed over less controversial topics while only acknowledging more controversial subjects in passing. (In the movie, Tom Hulce plays an irresponsible dad with a biracial son, but his black girlfriend is never depicted.) There was an earlier attempt at making a TV series out of the movie in the early nineties, but that didn't go anywhere. Now co-producing a series anyone can relate to, because the issues dealt with are as diverse as this extended family, Ron Howard can count on this "Parenthood" being around in the long term, unlike Sarah's Chevette.