SGT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND: we know you won't enjoy this show

How did it happen?

How did one of the most revered albums in the history of popular music get turned into quite possibly the worst film musical ever made?

I know it happened because I’m holding the dvd disc in my hand but I’m still finding it hard to believe the true awfulness of what I’ve just witnessed.

It’s not actually necessary to watch SGT PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND to recognise what a truly bad idea it is. Just take a look at the ingredients.

1. The most mismatched cast in the history of Hollywood. Who thought that pairing The Bee Gees with Peter Frampton, George Burns, Alice Cooper and Steve Martin would create on-screen chemistry?

2. A selection of classic songs so closely identified with their originators that the aforementioned mismatched cast haven’t got a hope of sounding like anything other than a karaoke cover band.

3. A plotline that has to fit the storyline of this bunch of songs which have little or no connection to one another.

4. A title taken from the Beatles famous album for a film that uses songs which are not actually on the album, negating the point of tying the film to the album.

Mix everything together, shake vigorously until it resembles a luridly-coloured mess and then hurl everything at a blank screen and hope like heck that it looks like something vaguely appealing.

The only sensible decision in the whole project was to leave all the dialogue to George Burns.

After all he’d been talking since the turn of the 20^th century and by 1978 was an old hand at it, whereas Frampton and the Brothers Gibb are stretched to the limits of their acting ability just reacting wordlessly to the action around them.

Frampton won the part of romantic lead Billy Shears by dint of his success with the 1976 LP “Frampton Comes Alive” which at the time was the biggest selling live album ever.

But what his chart success didn’t reveal but the film did was that he ran like a girl and had the charisma of an unpainted floorboard. On screen he made Shaun Cassidy look tough.

The Bee Gees had been enjoying similar chart success with “Saturday Night Fever” which was on its way to becoming the best selling soundtrack album of all time.

According to the prevailing logic it was this track record of writing and recording a string of disco hits in their distinctive falsetto singing style which made them obvious candidates to interpret the music of The Beatles.

The only musical act to emerge from the wreckage of this fiasco relatively unscathed are Earth Wind and Fire who succeeded in making “Got to get you into my life” their own by not trying to sing it like The Beatles.

Other bizarre casting decisions include veteran British comedian Frankie Howerd as the villain, Mean Mr Mustard. Well known in his homeland for his leering double entendres he would have meant nothing to American audiences even if he had been allowed to do his thing, which he wasn’t.

The film does no one any favours.  Neither Frampton nor The Bee Gees have ever starred again in an acting role on screen, director Michael Schultz has spent the bulk of his subsequent career directing tv shows, and leading lady Sandy Farina (who made her debut in SGT PEPPER) never made another film.

There’s not even the consolation of kitsch appeal. The film plays it too straight for that, so why watch it?

For me the appeal is in witnessing how so many talented and successful individuals could get it so badly wrong and create this multi-million dollar train wreck. I found myself compelled to keep watching because I wanted to find out how much worse it could get.

It’s a perverse pleasure and certainly not one I recommend paying money for, but if you can borrow a copy it’s definitely worth a look.

SOME GIRLS DO: some filmmakers shouldn't

SOME GIRLS DO has forced me to completely re-evaluate my opinion of 'The Wrecking Crew."
In my January 2011 review I described that 1969 James Bond wannabe as 'lethargic' and "an all round waste of time, money and talent" but it's positively Citizen Kanesian compared to this dreadful, cut-rate British Bond spoof.

Suave and handsome Richard Johnson sells his talents cheaply in his second outing as legendary British secret agent Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond. This time around he's called in to investigate a series of mysterious and deadly accidents that have befallen the scientists and engineers working on the world's first supersonic passenger aircraft - the surprisingly Concorde-like SST-1.
It doesn't take him long to discover the criminal mastermind behind these nefarious deeds. Carl Petersen (James Villiers) stands to make an eye-popping 8 million pounds if the plane is not ready on time, and he's using his army of robot dolly birds to make sure he can cash in.
The robots are actually a bevy of scantily clad young ladies with electronic brains who ruthlessly use their looks to lead men to their death, although their appeal is more that of a reasonably attractive office worker than a genuinely alluring Bond femme fatale. But, to put it in context, this is Great Britain 1969 when a bottle of Blue Nun was considered the height of sophistication, so I really shouldn't expect too much.
Drummond certainly doesn't and appears to be thoroughly enjoying himself as a consequence. It's standard sexist stuff which, depending on your outlook, you'll either find a charming throwback to an earlier less politically-correct time, or offensive and patronising in its objectifying of young women.
For me, the overwhelming sensation was boredom.
The story is feeble, nonsensical and punctured with numerous holes big enough to march a large army of orange bikini-clad robo-babes through, the acting is lame, the thrills limp, and the special effects spectacularly cheap and ordinary.
Just another black mark against the British film industry, SOME GIRLS DO is one of those movies that leaves you wondering why anybody ever thought it would be a good idea to invest time and money in.

BURN AFTER READING: frantic farce with an all-star cast of idiots

"Report back to me when it makes sense” a CIA boss barks at one of his subordinates as this farce starts to unravel.

He does report back but it never really makes sense. BURN AFTER READING is full of characters who think they know everything but actually don’t have a clue what they’ve got themselves caught up in.

George Clooney is a former Secret Service agent, married to a best selling children’s author, and having an affair with children’s doctor Katie Cox (Tilda Swinton).

Katie’s planning to divorce her eccentric husband Osbourne (John Malkovich). He’s quit the CIA after being demoted for an unspecified misdemeanour and is writing his tell-all memoir in revenge.

A copy of the unfinished book lands in the hands of Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda (Frances McDormand), a couple of fitness trainers at a Washington DC branch of ‘Hardbodies Gym.’

They’re not exactly the sharpest tools in the box but they are creative and unscrupulous. They hatch a plan to extort Osbourne, offering to return his book to him for $50,000. Linda wants the money to pay for the plastic surgery she believes will help her find true love.

When Osbourne refuses to play ball, they try to hawk the spyman’s story to the Russian Embassy, which is where the CIA come in.

BURN AFTER READING is a farce whose roots extend back to 1930s Hollywood and those screwball comedies featuring Cary Grant,  Rosalind Russell,  Katharine Hepburn and Ralph Bellamy talking at a million miles an hour as they get themselves entangled in convoluted plots involving escaped convicts, dinosaur bones and pet leopard called ‘Baby’.

This film’s not quite in the same league as 'Bringing Up Baby,' (1938) 'His Girl Friday' (1940) or 'Nothing Sacred' (1937) but it’s a spirited effort nonetheless.

Writer-directors Ethan and Joel Coen ('No Country for Old Men'), have dialed down the pace a few notches to accommodate Clooney’s slightly more leisurely comedic style and the result if not exactly comedy gold is still mighty entertaining.

Pitt proves he’s no slouch in the comedy department either, playing Chad as a likeable and well intentioned doofus who’s funny just by being himself.

But it’s John Malkovich comes closest to channelling the spirit of those 30s comedy classics as he rants, raves and becomes increasingly more unhinged by the inexplicable events which are turning his life upside down and inside out.

Frances McDormand is effortlessly enchanting as Linda Litzke, making her larger than life without ever tipping over into parody or overacting. Clooney’s 'Michael Clayton' co-star Tilda Swinton, meanwhile, manages to suggest a bottomless pool of bitterness and selfishness without once having to raise her voice.

The script is laugh out loud funny in places and - just like the screwball classics it seeks to emulate - there’s not a single wasted moment. Every line and scene works to keep the plot moving rapidly forward towards its unexpected conclusion.

One of the other pleasures contained within BURN AFTER READING is the Coen Brothers complete lack of consideration for the stature of their all-star cast.There’s no special treatment for the names above the title; their story is an equal opportunity offender when it comes to stripping characters of their dignity.

Funny and pacy (the ninety six minute running time goes by in a flash) but just too lightweight to really stick in the memory for very long afterwards BURN AFTER READING is a fast food delight; very tasty while being consumed but quickly forgotten afterwards.

WAITING FOR GUFFMAN: shining a spotlight on small town America

It’s a complete waste of time to search for the town of Blaine, Missouri on the map.

As the setting for WAITING FOR GUFFMAN Blaine certainly looks like a picture-perfect example of small-town America but it doesn’t exist.

It’s a three dimensional figment of the unique imagination of Christopher Guest, the film’s actor-writer-director and a keen student of the ridiculous in everyday life.

WAITING FOR GUFFMAN zeroes in on Blaine as the burg prepares to celebrate its 150th birthday with a musical celebration titled “Red, White and Blaine.”

The town council hires failed Broadway director Corky St Clair (Guest) to create the extravaganza. Corky’s big on ambition but tiny on talent and misguidedly sees the show as his ticket back to the big time.

He motivates his cast of five amateur thespians (all equally tiny on talent) by telling them that important talent scout Mort Guffman will be in the opening night audience and if he likes what he sees they could all be heading to the Great White Way!

WAITING FOR GUFFMAN is a wonderful example of the genre which Guest has made practically his own – the mockumentary - a comedy masquerading as a documentary.

There’s a real art to this kind of sharply observed, non-judgemental humour and – having cut his mock documentary teeth as Nigel Tufnel in “This is Spinal Tap” - Christopher Guest is a master of the craft.

He peoples Blaine with a cast of characters who are funny precisely because they take themselves so seriously. They see no humour in their behaviour, fashion sense, and relationships and would be embarrassed and appalled if they realised that others were laughing at them.

Guest’s Corky St Clair is blatantly camp with an ill-advised toupee and a barely disguised crush on his hunky leading man, yet everyone with the exception of the leading man’s father, accepts Corky’s mannerisms as “artistic” and nothing more.

Corky, in turn, never thinks to challenge town dentist Dr Pearl’s (Eugene Levy) characterisation of himself as a genuinely amusing entertainer even though it’s obvious to us outsiders that he’s substituting hard work and enthusiasm for any actual showbusiness talent.

And no one at all considers it the least bit strange that city’s sole travel agency is run by the Albertsons, a couple who’ve never left Blaine. Sheila (Catherine O’Hara) is a borderline hysteric with a drink problem while Ron (Fred Willard) is hearty but oppressively overbearing.

It’s the highlighting of these foibles, failings and idiosyncrasies which makes the townsfolk of Blaine so real and endearing. Corky and company unselfconsciously bring to life the eccentricities we recognise in those we work and socialise with, even if we don’t always spot these same flaws in ourselves.

A comedy which is both subtle and laugh out loud funny 1997’s WAITING FOR GUFFMAN was the first of four mockmentaries to team Guest with Levy, O’Hara and Willard and the three subsequent outings  – “Best in Show”(2000), “A Mighty Wind” (2003) and “For Your Consideration” (2006) are all worthy of equal praise.

A hugely entertaining send-up of small-town American life, amateur theatricals and the human condition, WAITING FOR GUFFMAN is a genuine viewing pleasure that will give you an itch you just can’t scratch enough for more of Guest’s output.