CD Giveaway - Sam Shrieve, "Bittersweet Lullabies"
Ends Nov 29, 2009
The current student at Berklee College of Music has a rock 'n' roll pedigree, but delivers a pleasing and diverse collection of soft pop on his debut record. Enter our contest for your chance to win!
The Twilight Saga: New Moon Prize Pack
Ends Nov 29, 2009
The second installment of the Twilight saga is hitting theaters, and we've got the stylish goodies you'll howl over!
Stephen Dorff as Stuart Sutcliffe
Ian Hart as John Lennon
Sheryl Lee as Astrid Kirchherr
Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon are best friends in a band. One day that band will be the greatest rock-n-roll band of all time. Right now they're just a bunch of teenagers playing a gig in Hamburg, Germany. But it all changes when a young woman walks into their lives and threatens to tear apart the friendship between Stu and John.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe went to Germany in August 1960 to make a name for themselves. Stu isn't the best bassist in the world but he's doing the gig for his best friend, John. John has high hopes for the band. "We're gonna be big," he tells Stu. "We're gonna be too big for our own bloody good." But Stu's got other plans. Stuart Sutcliffe is an artist and when he meets existentialist Astrid Kirchherr after a performance, he falls in love. He's captivated by her and the Bohemian scene of which she's a part. Soon, Stu stops showing up for performances and misses the band's big break when they get to play back-up for Tony Sheridan on his recording of "My Bonnie." This may be all well and good for Paul and the other members of the band who know Stu just isn't cutting it as a musician. But John sees his best friend slipping away into the arms of Astrid. "You're jealous," Astrid tells John, "...of me." The love triangle between best friends and lovers is made even more poignant given what we all know will be the outcome. We're treated to a bit of forshadowing at the start of the movie when Stu gets a serious lump of the head during a bar fight.
The story is heartwrenching at times. John Lennon's anger at the world is tangible and made all the more intense by his frustration at losing his best friend to someone else. Stu is torn between his commitment to his best friend and his new love. Astrid is uncomfortably caught between the two men. She doesn't want to anger or alienate John but she's in love with Stu and sees his potential as an artist.
John Lennon (Ian Hart) and Stuart Sutcliffe (Stephen Dorff) hang out.
For a Beatles fan, "Backbeat" is an excellent movie. It's a minutely detailed look at the early years of the Beatles. All the usual suspects are here. Cynthia Powell, the future Mrs. John Lennon, is here. There's even a cameo by Ringo Starr. But this isn't a movie about the Beatles. It's a love story that takes place on the periphery of the Beatles. As a stand alone story, had the Beatles not been a part of the story, "Backbeat" may not have been as compelling. But that's neither here nor there. What we have here is the true story of how Stu and Astrid found each other in Hamburg and how John came out of it a changed man.
Stuart Sutcliffe is played by Stephen Dorff at the dawn of his career. He is uncanny in his resemblance to Sutcliffe. His portrayal of the tragic protagonist is spot on. Ian Hart played John Lennon in a previous film and does it again here. Long before John Lennon was the introspective man of peace we knew in the 1970s, he was an angry teenager in the 1960s, and Ian Hart captures this teen angst perfectly. Sheryl Lee - Twin Peaks' Laura Palmer - is just a vision of beauty as Astrid Kirchherr. Seeing her on screen, it's easy to see how Stu fell for her. Director Iain Softley, who in one interview on the DVD says he didn't want to make this a movie about the Beatles and at one point thought of not even mentioning the band by name in the film, clearly decided to go the other way in the end. We're treated to numerous performances by the band (lip-synching to a score produced by Don Was and recorded by an all-star band of alternative rockers including Nirvana's Dave Grohl and R.E.M.'s Mike Mills). This movie's soundtrack is a must-get for anyone who was into the grunge scene of the 1990s or wants to hear some excellent covers of early Beatles songs.
Bonus Material
The Collector's Edition of this film, compiled a decade after the film's release, is a loving homage to the movie. The disc itself comes in an embossed slipcase (pretty snazzy for a film with little more than a cult following). Bonus features include an interview with the director for the Sundance Channel, probably done at the time of the film's premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, a second interview with the director, this time joined by actor Ian Hart, which appears to have been done exclusively for the DVD, ten years after the film's release, a conversation with the actual Astrid Kirchherr which features several of Astrid's photos of the Beatles in Hamburg which the film calls "the definitive record of the Beatles in Hamburg", a TV featurette, recordings from a casting session (young Stephen Dorff looks like Ewan McGregor), deleted scenes, a photo gallery, a director's essay, and audio commentary by Iain Softley, Ian Hart and Stephen Dorff. The commentary was recorded expressly for the DVD and there's references to the production of the DVD during the commentary. It appears that Softley and Hart did their commentaries together (probably at the same time as the interview) while Dorff recorded his at another time, although they're edited so well it's nearly impossible to tell. The commentary is very insightful as to the production of the movie and offers up a few good anecdotes. Dorff, who likely did the commentary alone, seems the most introspective and insightful as he goes on at length about what it was like to play Sutcliffe on film.
Softley mentions in every interview and commentary the story of how he came about this idea for a movie. By the third account, you can tell the story yourself. So if you're tired of it, imagine how tired he must be of telling the same story over and over again. He mentions how he wanted to be true to the story and how he sought out and tried to appease the principals portrayed in the film. But during his commentary over the film's epilogue he mentions how he was unable to get the rights to a John Lennon song, which hints at some potential strife with John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono. Still, he's proud - and should be - of an article he read in a newspaper where Julian Lennon is quoted as having said that he was going to see "Backbeat" because his mother told him he would meet his father in the movie.
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Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon are best friends in a band. One day that band will be the greatest rock-n-roll band of all time. Right now they're just a bunch of teenagers playing a gig in Hamburg, Germany. But it all changes when a young woman walks into their lives and threatens to tear apart the friendship between Stu and John.
