Reality Really Bites

Most of my life I've thought of The Breakfast Club of being my age's defining movie, but now I realize those kids were an age group too old for me (5-6 years difference does a generation make at that age, after all.) I remember writing a post years ago about the phenomenon that we're more likely to be nostalgic for times that came JUST BEFORE our own, but I can't find it so fuck it.

Unfortunately for me, I'm stuck with Reality Bites, about which I couldn't agree with this statement  any stronger:

few Gen Xers would willingly claim this movie, but they're stuck with it.

Side question - are PCU or Singles a better choice than Reality Bites? - XMASTIME

The movie that might single-handedly define my generation is, in fact, Reality Bites. Kill me now.  - XMASTIME

The unique thing about Reality Bites is that when I look back on my own age in those very years of the movie (or thereabouts), I can't tell if its exactly how my life was at the time, or the exact opposite. Trippy.

Reality Bites

THIS LIST HERE includes 10 Movies That Defined Their Generation.

Most of my life I've thought of The Breakfast Club of being my age's defining movie, but now I realize those kids were an age group too old for me (5-6 years difference does a generation make at that age, after all.) I remember writing a post years ago about the phenomenon that we're more likely to be nostalgic for times that came JUST BEFORE our own, but I can't find it so fuck it.


Unfortunately for me, I'm stuck with Reality Bites, about which I couldn't agree with this statement  any stronger:

few Gen Xers would willingly claim this movie, but they're stuck with it.

Side question - are PCU or Singles a better choice than Reality Bites?

Who Puts This Shit Together?

Most of my life I've thought of The Breakfast Club of being my age's defining movie, but now I realize those kids were an age group too old for me (5-6 years difference does a generation make at that age, after all.) I remember writing a post years ago about the phenomenon that we're more likely to be nostalgic for times that came JUST BEFORE our own, but I can't find it so fuck it.

Unfortunately for me, I'm stuck with Reality Bites, about which I couldn't agree with this statement  any stronger:

few Gen Xers would willingly claim this movie, but they're stuck with it.

Side question - are PCU or Singles a better choice than Reality Bites? - XMASTIME

The movie that might single-handedly define my generation is, in fact, Reality Bites. Kill me now.  - XMASTIME

Meanwhile, over at Salon we see this headline:

Generation X gets really old: How do slackers have a midlife crisis? 
Gutted by the economy, shipwrecked by nostalgia, Gen X stares down a midlife crisis. Winona Ryder can't save it.

And yet the picture right under the headline?

What? With that headline, why wouldn't you show the applicable movie featuring, you know...Winona Ryder? What the fuck?

Interesting Note

Re: Reality Bites:

The movie holds up, but what you can’t help but notice in 2014 is that it’s the last movie made about young people before the internet. If it had come out even six months later, every character would have had a kicky start-up job. Lelaina would have been a blogger and Vickie would have wasted time in sexy chat rooms. But no: These kids had to exist in the physical world. They had to work at the Gap. They had to start bands and play shows for people. If they had a quip to share, they had to go to where their friends were and say it to their faces. From today’s perspective, Reality Bites might as well be Downton Abbey. 

Of course I've mused about Reality Bites many times myself.

The Effect of Perspective

Like anyone who was a teenager, The Catcher in the Rye had a hold on me in my youth. And I still have a warm spot for it, and nothing stops it from being a really, really good book. But the older I get the less it means to me. I mean, I've never thought to myself "Gee, I wonder what Holden Caulfield would do in this situation" as I might with, say, Tom Joad. At the end of the day, Tom Joad is Paul Westerberg in 1984, and Holden Caulfield is your average Williamsburg hipster in a nouveau-rock art fusion no-bass-included Japanese haiku band: for all we know the last time we read of Tom walking away from Ma is followed by him getting his head bashed in for not being happy to work for 3 cents a day; Holden we're fairly certain will simply end up at another private school for fellow rich kids, and in a  few years he will look back on his melo-dramatic teen years and laugh. Both characters' stories have merit. But only one actually grows with you the more you experience actual life. - XMASTIME

Article here on The Holden Caulfield Effect:

When I first read the book, I was younger than the character, and he seemed mature and kind of glamorous, what with all the walking around Manhattan alone, the casual drinking of alcohol, and the making of plans. I'm more than twice his age now, and glamorous and mature are probably the last words I'd use to describe him....For ubiquity alone (at least for now), Holden Caulfield's probably the prime example of this kind of emotional doppler effect. He sounds like one thing as you move toward him and like something completely different as you move past, even though he's just standing there, in that red-covered book, making the same sound the whole time. His pitch hasn't changed, and I can still hear him loud and clear — even as I move farther and farther away.

And hits the nail re: Reality Bites too:

It does, however, make me far more sympathetic to Ben Stiller's character in Reality Bites — who seemed like a greedy pariah when I first saw the movie and now seems like the only person with his shit even a little bit together. When someone puts your video babbling on MTV, you're supposed to say thank you. Again, I still enjoy the hell out of that movie, but I no longer see it as a fantasy; I see it as a cautionary tale.

Vacation Movie Watch Update

I liked Singles but I thought you had to make a Coke/Pepsi decision with it and Reality Bites and I chose Reality Bites. Thanks to the always great Rewatchables podcast, I’m giving it another try. You’re welcome, Singles!

The Evolution of Youth

Like anyone, The Catcher in the Rye had a hold on me in my youth. But at the end of the day, Holden Caulfield is your average Williamsburg hipster in a nouveau-rock art fusion no-bass-included Japanese haiku band; Holden we're fairly certain will simply end up at another private school for fellow rich kids, and in a few years he will look back on his melo-dramatic teen years and laugh.  XMASTIME

In other words, he would become Pete Campbell.

The Gen X version of course is when you're 19 you watch Reality Bites and think Winona Ryder should be with Ethan Hawke, and as you get older you realize there's no way she should be with that space moron and she should sprint into Ben Stiller's corporate sellout arms.

So. This is Fucking Depressing.

The movie that might single-handedly define my generation is, in fact, Reality Bites. Kill me now.

Things I Think About, by Xmastime

I've been screaming about Reality Bites for 2 days now - don't ask - oh wait, you didn't - and I've always loved the movie trope of "guy sleeps with insanely hot girl and then desperately tries to leave in the morning despite her pleas"; I wanna have a character whose modus operandi is the next morning when the girl's like "sooooooooo....you're probably leaving now, huh?" he giddily replies, "leave now, I'm on the lease baby!!"

What the - This Shit Was Actually WRITTEN?

In 1991, producer Michael Shamberg had an idea to make a film about people in their twenties. He read a screenplay entitled Blue Bayou written by Helen Childress on spec in 1990. He liked it and met with her. For three years she wrote and rewrote Reality Bites, generating 70 different drafts.

Wow. Seriously, I'm gonna need to see some of these early drafts. I mean, what are they, "Here's a picture of my foot?" Wow.

HOT TAKE du Jour

I always thought Singles was the Melrose Place to Reality Bites' Beverly Hills, 90210. 🤔🤷‍♂️

Calling Gen X

We have Reality Bites/Singles et al for our 20s, but where's the "Gen X Slacker at 50"/Last of the Summer Wine movie we're owed by now? And can someone make sure Noah Baumbach doesn't write it?

Movie Scenes from the Aughts

This site lists the Top 25 Movie Moments of the 2000s

25. Neil Patrick Harris tripping in 'Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle' (2004)
Didn't watch it, since unfortunately I'm not a roachspray-sniffing idiot  :(   On a side note however, after spending weeks shuffling around NYC after I first moved here pounding the pavement for a job, I did spend the last $7 to my name at White Castle. And that was BEFORE the wizards in the lab really started firing on all cylinders.
24. Uma Thurman fights off the Crazy 88 in 'Kill Bill, Vol. 1' (2003)
Didn't see it. Must've come out on "Ball-Scratching Day." But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “EVERY day is Ball Scratching Day for you!!" To which I cleverly parry by asking seriously, why are black people so scared of dogs?
23. The parkour scene from 'Casino Royale' (2006)
Didn't see it. Is this from Pulp Fiction's "cheeseburger royale" riff? Cause you know, Uma was in that too. She was the first celebrity I spotted when I moved here; I saw her walking up 6th Avenue in sunglasses and a scarf that covered almost her entire face, which I assumed was because as a country we were only four years removed from her then-husband's turn in Reality Bites. "Too soon", I quietly acknowledged in agreement as our paths crossed. Years later, she found herself a Mrs. Xmastime, thereby fully rehabilitated.
22. Jim Carrey's memory mind trip in 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' (2004)
Didn't see it. Christ, how much ass WAS I getting during this fucking decade? Did I even come up for air?
21. The Bamboo Forest fight scene in 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' (2000)
Saw it, but I think I fell asleep halfway through. Though when I woke up, my shirt was cleaned and pressed BOOM!!!!!!!!!  Oh, relax, the Chinese know I ruv 'em!
20. Abigail Breslin's dance in 'Little Miss Sunshine' (2006)
Fucking hell - the one part of an otherwise pretty great movie that sucked. Anyone else ever masturbated while driving a car? Yes? No?
19. The 'Tiny Dancer' sing-along on the bus in 'Almost Famous' (2000)
This was, actually, a great scene even though as I wrote HERE Kate "Hey, Look at Us All Pretending My Mom Isn't STILL Hotter Than Me!" Hudson ruins it at the end. Also, helped me with my own immigration relations on the bus. Which, of course, made for my first great bus moment since the humiliation of having to ride the bus even as a hotshot 3-sport letterman in 11th grade:

(Cue voice of Daniel Stern)
And that wasn't even the worst - as punishment, my parents took away my car and I had to do THE single-most humiliating thing a 3-sport varsity athlete in his junior year can possibly do: ride the bus home. Wow. Banned from baseball practice, thereby becoming the one white academic casualty in the history of the school, my gf would walk me to the bus everyday to say goodbye. Unreal. I'd kiss her goodbye, then get on the bus with a bunch of 7th and 8th graders. Ouch. It wasn't ALL bad I guess - they reminded me of youth and innocence, and I showed them you can't get pregnant from anal. Xmastime 101.
("to everything turn, turn, turn...") 

18. Russell Crowe's heartfelt concern for the audience in 'Gladiator' (2000)
Didn't see it. I prefer to keep the "number of movies made for gay dudes that I watch" down to a bare minimum.
17. Ennis and Jack reunite in 'Brokeback Mountain' (2005)
I'm not sure which scene they mean - do they mean the one when Ennis' purpled, turgid member was straining to be reunited with Jack's perfumed receiver that was trembling with want?

Hell, as I wrote HERE: just fuck the sheep, fellahs. Sheep can't talk, or beat you up when they've caught you with their Coldplay albums. Camon. Do the right thing.
16. "I drink your milkshake!" rant in 'There Will Be Blood' (2007)
That was pretty great, although I think if I was so rich that I had a bowling alley in my house and could eat steak with no utensils and nobody seemed to mind, I wouldn't be as angry as Daniel Day-Lewis was. Lighten up, bro. It's like they tell starving kids in Africa: "Hey, it could be worse, you could be Xmastime!...of course we're kidding, he's not black."
15. Bill Murray whispers in Scarlet Johansson's ear at the end of 'Lost in Translation' (2003)
Great flick, was still too early in the "Bill Murray sleepwalks through a movie" canon to be truly annoying. Of course he probably whispered something ironic like "They're gonna be trying to figure out what I'm saying right now forever." You're probably waiting right now for a SECOND thing for me to list as I'm usually want to do, such as "They're gonna be trying to figure out what I'm saying right now forever", or "One day you're gonna marry that guy from Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, but right now that doesn't matter because if I don't get a broken-off chicken bone up my ass in about 4 seconds I'm fucking flipping out on you people," but that's the old Xmastime, and I just don't do cheap gags like that anymore. You're welcome.
14. Wall-E and Eve's first date in 'Wall-E' (2008)
I guess Mamalizza and I had walked out before this point in the movie, but who can tell with that piece of shit. Hey, I gotta movie to shoot - here's a picture of a calculator!! Hold the camera on it for 90 minutes, then watch the fucking movie critics do somersaults trying to out-do each other with how much they "get it" and you just don't understand movies with no dialogue, action, plot, characters, or reason for existing. Right now spell-check is telling me it's "dialog" and not "dialogue" but they can suck my big fat fucking hawg bawls.
13. Will Ferrell streaking in 'Old School' (2003)
That was pretty good, and, like with BillMurray, was before the Will Ferrell character became the Will Ferrell character, ie a horrible, horrible thing to happen to people. One weekend in college my fraternity thought about having a fish fry, but we didn't, so.
12. Introduction of Jack Sparrow in 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl'
Didn't see it. But remember when Yogi Bear was a hard-ass pirate, robbing you mothafuckahs blind? Ha ha ha!!! But seriously, pirates are just fags who can swim.
11. The song-and-dance performance to 'Jai Ho' at the end of 'Slumdog Millionaire' (2008)
Didn't see it, but I would like to get up in some of that Freida Pinto. Hell, if I did then that would complete my "Continental Ass Sweep," meaning I will have tagged at least one chick representing every continent except for South America, Europe, Australia, Antarctica, and Africa, not including a chick I banged who could be declared her own continent. Yeesh. (banged a continent, pissed an ocean, heh heh heh)
10. The waxing scene in 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin' (2005)
This scene is okay, but I certainly wouldn't put it on any "Best of the Decade" lists. I have, however, noticed that porn sites now offer the chance to load their video onto your iPhone or cell phone. What? I'm sorry, who is this for? "Hey, this screen in front of me is too big with a clear picture, can I possibly get it onto a screen that is barely big enough to read letters on?" Why not just paint the goddam scene onto the inside of my fucking eyelids, can it get any smaller than that, please? And I'm already sitting here looking at the "film," what the fuck do I need to do anything else with it for? "Oh man, mother and daughter anal  piledriver team, this is fucking awesome....yeah, I'll save that on my phone for later. Gotta finish these bills" What? You mean, when you're out and about? Got some time on the train to kill, why not whip out the cellphone porn? This is like people that buy porn mags at the airport. Fucking hell. And watching porn is a HANDS-FREE  activity!!  Have I been doing it wrong this whole time, or is it true that the best possible scenario is one that I don't have to be holding onto anything in my hands other than my "life thermos"? What the fuck?
9. Tom Cruise's cameo in 'Tropic Thunder' (2008)
ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY.
8. Mike Tyson's love of Phil Collins in 'The Hangover' (2008)
This was fucking awesome. How would've ever pictured Mike Tyson rocking out to Phill Collins? Or, as Mike himself calls him, "the drummer for Genesis that replaced Chris Mayhew which opened for a more accessible, more balanced sound based on metrical space combined with ecliastical timbres of tone and less-spacey lyrics before Mike Rutherford, the real heart and soul of the band, all REAL fans know this, left the band and went solo." One thing that bugs me though is how careful they are to walk the raw steak over to the tiger; we gotta go through that entire "scary" scene of Ed Helms carefully walking up to the tiger with the thing. It's a fucking tiger; is he gonna be pissed there's no gravy boat? You could wipe the steak on your ass and throw the thing in there and he'll fucking eat it. BECAUSE HE'S A FUCKING TIGER! WHO EATS ASS!!! LIKE MY NEXT EX-FIANCEE!!!!
7. The upside-down kiss in 'Spider-Man' (2002)
Didn't see it. Though in looking at that fugly Kirsten Dunst, I'd say I'm not surprised that some dude pumped full of so much radioactivity he thinks he's a spider is the best her disgusting ass can do. Curtains match the drapes? Not the hair, but definitely the skin. Ugh.
6. Javier Bardem's fateful coin toss in 'No Country for Old Men' (2007)
Didn't see the whole movie, but I've seen that part. It's pretty creepy. "Hey, lookit me, I have a shitty haircut. BOO!!"  Peut-etre whatshisface should've gone to "MY GUY" for a better cut?
5. Gollum falls into the lava in 'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' (2003)
I have a penis, so I have not seen this one. Sorry.
4. Edward saves Bella from a car accident in 'Twilight' (2008)
I have a penis, so I have not seen this one. Sorry.
3. Harry Potter is introduced in 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' (2001)
When this movie came out I was teaching a class in some Bed-Stuy projects, real crack-babies cum crazed, uncontrollable delinquents, and I don't mean "stealing candy from the counter." I had a class of 6th graders and I spent most of my time yelling and screaming "shut up!!!  shut up!  sit down and shut up!!!" (some of you sexier readers might recognize that as my "go to" move when I'm in "the home stretch", heh heh heh.) So one day the principal tells me we're taking the kids to see the Harry Potter movie. Since, you know, if the NYC public education system cant help a kid from the projects learn to read or write or add 2+2, maybe a mystical story of a wispy little faggy white kid from England with magical powers wearing a robe can do the truck, right? So we get to the theater, and I'm thinking there's no WAY these kids are gonna sit down and be quiet for one second - they don't do it in the classroom, and now they're gonna be quiet when the light go out? I'm expecting a massive orgy of pre-teen sex and drugs to break out before the goddam previews start. We all sit down and as the movie starts I'm on the  edge of my seat, crouched and ready to spring up and start shouting at the kids to sit down and shut the hell up. All of a sudden, after a few minutes, I realize you can hear a pin drop. I look around - every single kid is sitting in their seat, not moving a muscle, staring at the screen hanging on every word from these fucking wizard kids. I slowly slide back into my seat thinking "...what the fuck..." Finally after a few minutes I relaxed and figured shit, they're behaving. So then I start watching the movie, and I realize I had missed the first coupla minutes and had no idea who was who or what the hell was going on. So I started trying to ask the kids around me, who recoiled in horror that their attention was being taken away from the screen, and with every question I asked I got buried more and more underneath a flurry of "SSSSHHHH!!!  Mr. Wilson!! Be quiet! SHHHHHHHHH!" I was stunned, and sat there in silence, happy as a clam for the next hour and half. Until, of course, the lights came back up and all hell broke loose and I got shivved. Looking back now, maybe we shoulda just had all the lights turned off in the classrooms? Maybe these kids' batshit buttons were controlled by light?
2. The naked wrestling scene in 'Borat' (2006)
Didn't see it. I enjoyed the first few moments of this flick, but I'm always a bit uncomfortable with this "let's put a camera on someone and wait for them to say something stupid and then show it for all of America too see" style of filmmaking. I mean it's bad enough we have Republicans for that, do I really need it in my cinema?
1. Heath Ledger's performance in 'The Dark Knight' (2008)
Didn't see it. I'm sure he was great, although I'm sure his performance has become somewhat inflated by his death. Which was, I believe, on Op's birthday. Hey look at me, I'm tired of typing.

Ah, the Sweet Smell of Cut Grass (Please Kill Me)

I saw the season's first cut grass this morning. Ugh. Summer's coming.

When I was a kid I swore my dad had my brother and I just so we could cut the grass. I guess we had maybe an acre of grass to cut, maybe a little less. Though when you're 7 years old and can barely reach the handle to start pushing, it seems like 100 acres. With woods. And an orange bear in a red sweater and no pants that can talk. Wait...what the fuck was I talking about? Ah yes. The grass. We split the cutting duties and stuck with that for about 10 years - I did the front yard and the sides, and he did the backyard. Looking back now, I wonder if my dad had me do the front because it was the part that was visible from the road? Was there a moment he thought "You know what...the front yard? I need to put my best man on it. Brothatime's good, he's real good...but is he ready for The Show? Better have Xmastime do the front." Of course, looking back my father also tried to convince me to drop out of the 11th grade and join the Army, so maybe he wasn't really making the best decisions he could have at the time.

Upon immediate perusal it would appear that my brother got the raw end of the deal, since the backyard was about twice as big as the front yard and featured a maybe 80 square foot patch of grass over the septic tank that grew oh, about 5 feet high every week. Looking back (again), and thinking about what helps grass grow so well...how well-sealed was this fucking septic tank underground? What the fuck? We played football on that shit!!!! Hopefully not literally. Anyways. In actuality my part of the cutting sucked more cause while the front yard was a nice, easy rectangle, the sides were a pain in the ass. Had to squeeze in between flowerbeds, rake away old pine needles etc etc. Sucked. The worst was I had to take the fucking clippers (my dad denied the existence of the Weedwhacker, of course) and, on my hands and knees, receive another man. No no no; I had to crawl around the house doing the snippity-snip on the blades of grass the lawn mower couldn't get that close to the house to cut. Miserable. Side note - nothing you wanna see invented, are they? "Fucking clippers"? The only things I wanna see in the boudouire that are long and hard enough to cut something are my girl's pencil erasers, flush with excitement upon seeing she was about to get all Winehouse on my luggage, know what I'm saying?

We'd cut the grass once a week. I don't know how he arranged it, but every time my dad would be leaving for work and say "make sure the grass gets cut today" God would overhear him and make sure the temperature outside went up to a nice, crispy 175 degrees. God forbid if there was a drop of water in my body by the time I was done. I'd start with the front yard, then the side on the east, then the west side by the house, then across the driveway, then come in and guzzle a gallon of water and tell Brothatime! it's his turn, have fun cutting the back, fuckface! and collapse in a heap of my own sweat. Of course, the whole thing was maybe 45 minutes, and I was at all times in peak physical condition; but something about having to do work always made it seem hotter, n'est-pas? If you had told me to go outside and play basketball for 6 hours in the heat I would've been fine. But cut the grass? I'd barely make it through each time before collapsing like a souffle next to Kevin James' hopscotch practice pad; my dramatics, I'm sure, were quite Oscar-worthy.

And luckily our dad made things tougher on us by having us use a lawnmower left over from the Coolidge Adminsitration. Fucker had to weight 150 lbs, I think the wheels were actually square, was completely covered in oil and sometimes would actually start. This thing was so old it wasn't a John Deere, it was a John Fawne. I will now pause typing while you catch your breath from laughing. Okay. You'd hafta fucking yank the cord and then stand there as it wouldn't start. Foot on the base of the mower, pull again, nothing. Try again. It would be at this time that by law one of our neighbors would have to look over from his yard and yell "you're gonna flood it!!" while whizzing around on his riding mower that had a fan, a radio and a deep fryer sizzling away with baby egg rolls and pizza bites. Thanks, asshole! Eventually Brothertime! and I would find ourselves standing over the goddam thing, giving each other advice on how to get it started. "Well, take that nail over there, hold it against the sparkplug, and try starting it while I swirl the gas around the tank with this screwdriver..." You'd wonder why your urine was red for the next few days, but damned if the thing wouldn't start. Meanwhile, a week wouldn't go by without us imploring our dad to buy a riding mower. "What do I need a riding mower for?" he'd say honestly perplexed, "I've got you boys for that." Sigh. Touching, father!! We love you too!!!!!!!!!

The first cut of the season was always the best, cause with the first fruitless, futile non-working pull on the starting cord you could let yourself dream for a split second "it's dead!! the fucker's finally dead!! we'll hafta get a new one!!" during which you would prepare to pull out the charts and graphs you had prepared to show my dad how much better off he'd be getting a riding lawnmower "...if you look, the dollar to grass cut ratio goes up 34.6% over the first quarter..." You'd let yourself step back with relief and say to the mower "guess what? ain't cutting grass today, fucker!!! More time for me to practice my Pyraminx!!" Of course then dad would walk up (first cut was always on Saturday, so he could be home for this particular "ceremony"), give the thing a yank and it would immediately start up. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. It's like the goddam thing KNEW it was my dad, lighting up like the computer in WarGames when it thinks that Prof Falcon is in the hizzee. As the mower would start up with a sound that was like a jet crashing into another jet during a Who concert but louder, my dad would give us a look of "fucking pussies" and start pushing. Now, this is another mental delusion we would allow oursleves every fucking year; as my dad was pushing the mower across the yard my brother and I would look at each other with raised eyebrows, thinking "is this finally the year dad cuts the grass, and not us?!?!" Actually I was thinking that; my brother was probably thinking "if the words 'enumerably infinite' mean 'countable using integers perhaps extending to infinity' then does that include imperfect integers..." Fool's gold thinking on my part of course; just like that moment you're thinking "ooooohhh...is she gonna let me put it in THERE??" we'd be snapped back into reality by my dad, now about 30 yards away, standing at the mower beckoning me to come with his index finger. He'd make exactly one swath, not even bothering to cut another swath and thereby bringing the mower back to me. So it's bad enough I have to use this monstrosity to cut grass for the next hour, but now I have to go FETCH the fucking thing. Christ. This scene was like clockwork, every year.

EPILOGUE: the first time I called home after I got to college I was talking to my mother and asked where dad was. "Oh, outside cutting the grass on the new riding mower, hold on I'll go get him."

Sigh.

Live-Blogging Get Back

EPISODE 1: DAYS 1-7 January 2-10

My live-blogging of the second episode HERE 

My live-blogging of the third episode HERE

TWO OVERARCHING POINTS:

GOOD: Although it makes total sense when I think about what Let it Be was to begin with, I'm fairly shocked at how much this is geared to super-fans. I *guess* I was expecting a kind of Anthology Part 2, but this is a super-inside look at how a band - THE band - works, and for a super-fan like me it is beyond intoxicating, and something I consider a gift to myself and fellow fans.

BAD: While I understand that watching them vamp through golden oldies shows us how much fun they have with each other and how much connective tissue they have with their own learned canon of rock n roll after having grown up together, it gets quite wearying. It probably takes up an entire hour, I mean camon. As much as they were musical gods, The Beatles - particularly John & Paul - were also great comedians, but we can get this across without repeatedly having to watch them them goof around to Blue Suede Shoes.

1:00 The intro to the brief “Here’s the entire career of The Beatles!” kicking off with In Spite of All the Danger does in fact make you think it’s just another part of the Anthology. Not sure why Peter Jackson, who made this entire thing for super-fans, felt the need for this run-through?

5:37 I didn’t think I’d comment during the career retrospective part but George, after being asked about the infamous dust-up in Manila, bitching that he hadn’t wanted to go to Manila in the first place is about the most George thing George could possibly have said at that moment.

10:01 Enough isn’t made of the fact that The Beatles had to wrap these recordings up so quickly because…Ringo had to start shooting a movie? Wouldn’t this be like D-Day being scheduled on June 6th because General Eisenhower had his Kick-the-Can Fantasy Draft on the 7th?

11:33 Michael Lindsay-Hogg looks like he’s 12 years old. The legend, unconfirmed, was always that Orson Welles was his father. Much like Ronan Farrow, what is is about famous kids who have unconfirmed famous fathers that makes it look like they’re pre-pubescent? MLH looks like he’s a fetus and yet he’s older than each of The Beatles!

11:33 First Beatle sighting: George!

Interesting that the first song heard in the entire doc is Lennon’s On the Road to Marrakesh, which would become Child of Nature, which would eventually become Jealous Guy, a track on his second solo album. Like All Things Must Pass and Gimme Some Truth, I don’t know why McCartney didn’t jump on this one to be on the album.

12:22 Interesting that The Beatles sit on normal, drab wooden chairs during rehearsals. I guess I'd pictured them being hoisted up by puppies dipped in gold while practicing with each other?

12:32 The idea that the band is putting themselves under the pressure of writing and recording an entire album to be presented on a live tv special is even crazier when you really that they’d released The White Album - not just an album, but a double album - JUST A MONTH AND A HALF EARLIER!!!

12:52 Lennon seems to have Don’t Let Me Down pretty well down right away but as you people recall it’s not even my favorite song called Don’t Let Me Down.

13:28 It’s pretty shocking to hear them quoting A Hard Day’s Night since in Beatles time it feels like that was a million years ago,…but it was only 4 1/2 years ago! Jesus.

14:38 It's weird that they’re basically given an airplane hangar to rehearse in and the band immediately pretty much huddles in each other’s laps.

15:27 I just realized at this moment that in only 6 months I will literally be twice as old as George Harrison was while filming this goddam thing.

19:50 McCartney’s flip-flopping sense of diplomacy within one sentence is both impressive and alarming: “the sound in here is terrible but you never know it just might be great.” What?

24:00 George tries to bring up “gee, I have a bunch of songs ready to go…” to Paul and is somehow cock-blocked by Ringo deciding at that moment to learn how to play piano. Ouch! (We don't see the footage of Paul slipping Ringo £5 for his efforts)

36:11 Again, I have no idea why Gimme Some Truth didn’t make it on this album.

One great thing in particular about this whole doc is a fresh viewing of John Lennon himself. Even as he’s one of the most well-documented people in human history, over the years fans like myself have kinda gotten used to the same set of a dozen or so Lennon “moments” - pictures, quotes or video frozen in time and by themselves: here’s Lennon being brilliantly Lennon, here’s Lennon clowning around, etc. But seeing him just sitting around with the other Beatles is incredibly refreshing - sometimes he’ll say something brilliant, sometimes he’ll start cutting up, sometimes while playing a song you can tell he wants to please Paul, and sometimes he’s just sitting there looking like a dope, like anybody else. Very illuminating, and, again, a real gift this film has delivered for fans.

37:21 George finally gets them to do Sunrise, which will become All Things Must Pass. The song sounds amazing, the three of them singing together is magical, and so of course they don’t bother recording it. Useless, gentlemen! Like tits on a bull, some may say.

39:11 George’s earnestness about how he and Paul should feel connected with each other as though they’ve each written each other’s songs is incredibly moving. Being a Liverpool man of 26 I'm sure Paul will make fun of this to John & Ringo the second George leaves the room (hey this has always been how it is, unfortunately), but I really liked it.

41:35 Okay now they’re considering doing an older Beatles song and George wants to do Every Little Thing so now we hafta officially question everything about George. WTF George all those amazing hits and incredible album cuts and THAT’S the song you pick?! That's like Derek Jeter going back and wanting to bang his high school girlfriend instead of his Murderer's Row of Mariah Carey./Jessica Alba/Minka Kelly/Scarlett Johanson/Adriana Limna OKAY DAMMIT GEORGE MY FINGERS ARE TIRED OF TYPING!

Over the next 90 seconds George gives a remarkable speech about how he wishes he was a better guitar player AND foreshadows the coming of Billy Preston, to which John and Paul blink while waiting for the appropriate amount of time before they can talk about, you know, anything else.

44:26 Weird that they present themselves as being under the single greatest pressure any humans have ever been under and yet…have their weekends off? What? Are they Matthew Crawley during the Battle of the Somme?

It’s kinda weird/sad seeing George Martin throughout this doc. The way I’d always read it was that he was like “fuck this” and was never around for the Let it Be sessions. But throughout Get Back there he is just kinda standing around, looking fairly useless, the master for whom the pupils no longer have any use. He is THE only person I will ever accept as “The 5th Beatle”, so it’s painful to see him so seemingly useless here. Thankfully we know he comes roaring back months later during Abbey Road after the band comes crawling back to him, hat in hands asking for help.

54:37 Brutal 4 minutes of Paul doing all he can to completely ruin Don’t Let Me Down with terrible backups, all the while with John just staring at him until sanity reigns again with George calling it, in a word, “shit”. 

(Director Peter Jackson: “George is this wonderful, pragmatic guy who takes all the romance out of the other guys who go supernova into these flights of fancy. He just says, ‘That’s never going to happen.’ I really relate to George. You want John and Paul in your group, because you want that genius to be going into these crazy directions, but you always want George in your group as well to say, ‘That’s a bloody stupid idea.’ I really appreciate George for that. He would be great on a film set because he’s a let’s-just-cut-all-the-crap-out guy.)

57:54 OH NO HERE IT IS - the legendary argument with Paul & George! It’s always been framed as Paul accusing George of being annoyed by Paul’s musical instruction and George snarkily telling Paul he’ll basically play whatever Paul wants him to play as long as it will shut him up; now with the fuller context presented it’s pretty much Paul saying “I feel like I’m annoying you” and George saying “you’re not annoying me”. END OF SCORCHED-EARTH FIGHT!   

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED SO FAR: when Paul gets frustrated, he tries to blame the process. When George gets frustrated, he questions himself. When others are frustrated John doesn’t seem to really care, and Ringo is the drummer.

1:00:03 One of the more remarkable moments of the doc: while sitting around waiting for John to show up McCartney pulls the song Get Back out of thin air. Let’s be honest - it’s a fairly simple rocker song, it’s not like we’re watching the creation of A Day in the Life, but watching it from the moment it’s birthed is pretty thrilling, and a testament to the genius of McCartney people have spent decades rightfully espousing.

watching paul just pull get back out of the ether is still blowing my mind lol
pic.twitter.com/m5LWqCEqJR

— not the guy (@notnotnuanced) November 28, 2021

1:06:20 Lennon walks in late as they’re running through Get Back and, as half of Lennon/McCartney, instantly calculates how much $$$$ he’ll be making off the song.

1:09:57 Paul pleading to the rest of the band that they can still "ROCK!" is a ballsy move in this sweater/shirt combo.

1:14:04 Things are getting tense - George has even brought up the word “divorce”. And if we’re getting worried this is going to be curtains for the band it turns out it’s even worse than we think: Paul’s introducing Maxwell’s Silver Hammer to the band. Jesus.

1:19:30 The fact that they can go directly from playing Paul's abysmally stupid Maxwell’s Silver Hammer to John's brilliantly transcendent Across the Universe is yet another indication of how great a band they truly are, or that Paul has some photo evidence of John doing some really weird shit.

1:22:52 For being “The Quiet One” George is one chatty motherfucker, but I actually like it - everything he says is very earnest and well-intentioned, while Paul wraps himself up in riddles of what/who they are/aren’t, and John just wants to run out the clock being funny. Ringo is just delightful, of course.

I wonder if a reason we find something like this 8-hour doc digestible in 2021 is that we’re so used to reality tv? I mean if we can sit through hours of the Real Housewives of ________ throwing wine glasses at each other before commercial breaks then surely we can sit through watching The goddam Beatles for a few hours, n'est-pas?

1:24:22 Paul seems to actually like George’s new song I Me Mine, then immediately tries to point out a grammatical mistake in the lyrics. George thoughtfully bites his tongue about Paul one day marrying a woman with one leg.

1:25:22 Paul confronting John to ask him if he’s written any songs has all the warmth of a bill collector but without the entertaining threat of violence.

1:26:25 If you’re worried about what happened to Scott Farkus after A Christmas Story then please don't, he went on to find work:

1:42:20 Paul brings in Linda for the first time, and the entire world decides to blame her for breaking up The Beatles OH WAIT A MINUTE she's white and American. Never mind. Great job, Paul!

1:49:42 As someone who’s read a million Beatles books and LOVES the Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End medley at the end of Abbey Road, I for one am shocked to see that Carry That Weight started out as Paul writing a country song for Ringo. Thankfully, knowing this still doesn’t take away the heavy emotion the song holds in its final resting place on Abbey Road. Superslice.

1:55:40 Lennon’s “yes?” responses to Paul during Commonwealth is legit LOL funny. It’s easy to see why, while he was obviously frustrated by Lennon’s lack of professionalism from time to time, it was virtually impossible for Paul to actually get angry at him.

2:04:55 Okay, getting to witness Paul McCartney introduce Let it Be to the rest of the band for the first time is a pretty special moment.

2:08:22

"I'm gonna spend years & years being like a beloved part of the band!"

"Oy vey." 

 

2:22:20 Aaaaaand this is the moment George quits The Beatles. “I’m leaving the band now.”

 

Nobody at the time seems to know what he’s meant, one way or the other. Historical consensus has been that he simply got fed up with McCartney hectoring him about what to play. Watching Get Back, it’s also obvious he’s anxious about the Lennon/McCartney team never giving him a chance to record his songs, which have gotten better and better over the years. It’s probably a mix of the two. They had always treated him like the kid brother but hell, he had the lead-off track on Revolver and four songs on The White Album! Of course we know he comes back - he almost single-handedly saves Abbey Road later in the year - but this is of course great drama and history for the documentary. 

 

END OF EPISODE 1!!!!  I can't wait to see Episode 2, when they move out of dreary Twickenham and back to their studio at Apple. And might I say, this is easily the greatest Beatles moment in 26 years, since the Anthology. :) As always, The Beatles simply make this world a better place to be in.