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The Beatles‘ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” inspired way too many covers over the past 60 years. One of them came from a fellow British Invasion star who completely missed the song’s appeal. The cover in question almost feels like a joke.

Someone took the rock out of The Beatles’ ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’

Let’s rewind to the early 1960s. American pop music became a lot more middle-of-the-road and left rock ‘n’ roll in the dust. Nobody remembers much of the music that came out during this time. Then, The Beatles injected new life into the radio with rock ‘n’ roll hits like “She Loves You,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” This sets the stage for many more British acts to find success in the United States.

One of those acts was Petula Clark, most known for her hits “Downtown,...

Nostalgia tends to tint our view of the past a rose-colored hue, casting a glow over intense conflict and deep angst, as if those sentiments weren’t fundamental to the experience of people alive in earlier times.

In the case of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the rose-colored (granny) glasses might be appropriate, at least when looking back at the early 1970s when the famous couple moved to New York City and took up residence in a very modest apartment in Greenwich Village. That’s the era examined in One to One: John & Yoko, the acclaimed new documentary directed by Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald.

The filmmaker joins the latest episode of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast to discuss his film and the burst of idealistic energy John and Yoko felt in their adopted home. But around John and Yoko swirled protests over the Vietnam War, political conflict over the...

In the 1970s, John Lennon and Yoko Ono became friends with radio personality Elliot Mintz. They called him separately to discuss their relationship, and he became one of their closest confidantes. Mintz said he liked them, but the closeness of their relationship sometimes posed a challenge for him. One night, he tried to calm down a furious Lennon. The singer’s words to him were so shocking that Mintz refuses to repeat them.

John Lennon said something to a friend that still shocks him

After meeting Lennon and Ono, Mintz began receiving so many calls from the couple that he had to install a hotline just for them.

“I wound up installing a hotline, with a number that would only be for John and Yoko,” Mintz said, per the New York Post. “I’m an insomniac, Yoko woke up at 7 a.m. in New York [which was 4:00 in Los Angeles], and they liked the idea...

In 1980, Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon to death outside his apartment building in New York. Lennon’s murder shocked and horrified his fans, and mourners poured out to The Dakota to pay their respects. In his lifetime, Lennon received at least two warnings about his death from psychics. Their predictions ended up being accurate.

John Lennon received a letter warning him about his death

When Cynthia Lennon, the former Beatle’s first wife, heard her ex-husband died, her first thought was of their son, Julian. Her second was of an ominous letter Lennon received in 1966.

“My second thought was that for the past fourteen years John had lived with the fear that he would be shot,” she wrote in her book John. “In 1966, he’d received a letter from a psychic, warning that he would be shot while he was in the States.”

The Beatles | Evening Standard/Hulton Archive...

John Lennon was one of the most famous people in the world, but he said he had no interest in a bodyguard. The former Beatle received several death threats throughout his career, but he said he did not let them worry him. He shared why he wouldn’t hire any kind of protective detail.

John Lennon did not want a bodyguard

Radio personality Elliot Mintz was a close friend of Lennon and Yoko Ono. In 1976, the couple invited Mintz over after his friend, actor Sal Mineo, was stabbed to death by a mugger. They discussed Mineo’s tragic death and, during the conversation, Mintz asked if Lennon ever worried about violence against him.

“If it could happen to anybody or everybody, why would I waste any time worrying about it happening to me?” he asked, as Mintz recalled in his book We All Shine On: John, Yoko, and Me (via...

In 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono attended a party to watch the presidential election results. As it became increasingly clear that Richard Nixon would emerge victorious, Lennon grew drunker and drunker in an attempt to cope. By the end of the night, he was reportedly cheating on Ono in an extremely obvious manner. While Ono later said she could forgive him, she said she would not forget what he’d done to her.

Yoko Ono realized her marriage to John Lennon would not be the same after a party

In 1972, Lennon and Ono went to Jerry Rubin’s apartment to await the results of the presidential election between Nixon and George McGovern. The mood shifted unpleasantly as the night wore on, and, at one point, Lennon slipped away to have “loud, raucous” sex with another party guest. Through all of this, Ono and the other guests sat in mortified silence.

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters looked up to John Lennon. The Beatles inspired many artists to start making music, and Waters wanted to emulate one of Lennon’s albums with Pink Floyd. Still, his first meeting with the music legend was a bit rocky. According to Waters, Lennon was not on his best behavior, though he admitted that he wasn’t either.

Roger Waters said John Lennon was a bit rude when they met

Both The Beatles and Pink Floyd recorded at Abbey Road.

“‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn,’ we were doing that in number three studio at Abbey Road, and The Beatles were doing ‘Sgt. Peppers’ in number two,” he said on the podcast Wtf With Marc Maron. “And I made records in number two later, we made stuff in there as well.”

John Lennon | Harry Benson/Express/Getty Images

Waters looked up to Lennon, but he only met him once.

John Lennon spent nearly a decade with The Beatles, working with a shifting group of people before he settled in with the Fab Four. After the band broke up, he went on to collaborate with a number of other artists. Lennon worked with many people in his career, but he said he only chose two of these people. They made up the most impactful working relationships of his life.

John Lennon said he only chose two people to work with

While in The Beatles, Lennon worked closely with Paul McCartney. Their collaboration made the band what it was. After The Beatles disbanded, Lennon began working with his wife, Yoko Ono. He said Ono and McCartney were the only meaningful partnerships he chose to have in his career.

Yoko Ono and John Lennon | Susan Wood/Getty Images

“Throughout my career, I’ve selected to work with – for more than a one-night stand,...

John Lennon was truly a mystery in the eyes of his fans. In some ways, maybe it might have been better if the mystery had been kept up. As more people discover about The Beatles singer’s personal life, the more they wish they hadn’t. Nevertheless, his relationship with Yoko Ono was of special interest to the public and still is.

The Beatles | image: BBC Archive

Lennon allegedly unapologetically cheated on almost all of his relationships, and his relationship with Ono was also no different. But one specific incident that came to light in We All Shine On: John, Yoko & Me had people especially shocked.

John Lennon Openly Cheated on His Wife, Yoko Ono!

A close personal friend of the rock star couple, Yoko Ono and the myth, the legend John Lennon, published a book recently called We All Shine On: John, Yoko & Me, and it shows quite a...

John Lennon and Yoko Ono got together while he was still married to his first wife, Cynthia Lennon. He cheated brazenly during his relationship with Cynthia. While he claimed he had a deeper connection with Ono, he reportedly was still unfaithful. A friend of both Lennon and Ono said Lennon once cheated on Ono extremely publicly while she and other party guests sat in stunned silence.

John Lennon openly cheated on Yoko Ono at a party

In 1972, Lennon and Ono attended a party at anti-war activist Jerry Rubin’s apartment. They were waiting on the results of the presidential election between Richard Nixon and George McGovern.

As the night wore on — and Nixon began to emerge as the victor — Lennon began drinking heavily. At some point, Lennon slipped away and had “loud, raucous sex” with another woman.

“Throughout it all,” the couple’s friend Elliot Mintz wrote in We All Shine On.

Like many artists in the 1970s, Steely Dan rose to prominence while following in the footsteps of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. The Beatles were a source of inspiration for the band. Still, they didn’t feel impressed by some of their actions after the band broke up. In 1972, they released a song that mocked Lennon’s brand of activism.

Steely Dan wrote a song about John Lennon

On his honeymoon with Yoko Ono, Lennon began engaging in bed-ins, a nonviolent form of protest in which Lennon and Ono sat in bed to promote peace. In 1971, Lennon released the song “Imagine.” In it, he detailed his vision for a better future.

The following year, Steely Dan released the song “Only a Fool Would Say That.” In it, they sing that Lennon’s vision for a peaceful future feels impossible.

“I heard it was you/ Talking ’bout...

By the early 1970s, John Lennon and Yoko Ono had established themselves as artistic pioneers through their boundary-pushing conceptual works and music with the Beatles and Plastic Ono Band. Yet when they moved from London to New York in 1971, seeking a change of pace after the turmoil of that last year with the Beatles, they plunged headfirst into the radical ferment shaping American society.

Settling in a small Greenwich Village apartment, Lennon and Ono immersed themselves in the social and political disputes of the day, from opposition to the Vietnam War to the emerging feminist and civil rights movements.

Directors Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards shine a light on this transformative period through their documentary One to One: John & Yoko. Using archived audio recordings, television footage, and home movies in addition to a film of a pivotal 1972 benefit concert, they reconstruct the couple’s immersion in the protests and provocations that surrounded them.

The Beatles may have triggered the tradition of boy bands in the music industry, but it is John Lennon whose name invokes just a bit more awe and reverence than McCartney, Ringo, or Harrison. Decades after the singer’s tragic assassination, despite a life left incomplete, Lennon continues to impact lives across the planet, weaving threads of idealism among the masses.

With their presence setting off the crowds at every concert and show, the latitude of the band’s influence in the global socio-cultural landscape was unprecedented. Beatlemania became a phenomenon that was felt in the marrows but never capable of being described in words.

The Beatles [Credit: The Recording Academy]

Soon after the Beatles’ cataclysmic rise, Lennon quickly became accustomed to the fact that a life lived in fame and under the spotlight of celebrity glamor was not all that it was cracked up to be. Charities, for one, were...

The Beatles‘ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is often seen as the best album ever. But what is the best song from Sgt. Pepper? Here’s a look into a oddball masterpiece.

The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’ has the best and the most bizarre song in the history of pop

Sgt. Pepper is often classified as a psychedelic album. That’s accurate, but the track listing varies. It includes baroque pop (“Lovely Rita),” Indian classical music (“Within You Without You”), hard rock (the title track), and circus music (“Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”). The best song on the record is its most psychedelic — the album closer: “A Day in the Life.”

“A Day in the Life” is superb for two obvious reasons: its instrumentation and its lyrics. Let’s start with the instrumentation. The tune variously sounds loose and tense, poppy and experimental, upbeat and languid. And yet,...

The director speaks about his documentary exploring the couple’s life after moving to New York in 1971

From sit-ins for peace to avant-garde happenings and covert surveillance of revolutionary sympathies, the world of John Lennon and Yoko Ono can seem removed from that of our own.

But a new documentary about the couple exposes the eerie similarities between the 70s and now, the Oscar-winning director behind the film has said.

After The Beatles broke up, Paul McCartney said he had little interest in returning to the band. He had a new group, Wings, and didn’t want to continually look to the past. He said he wouldn’t even listen to their anthology record. McCartney admitted he had very little interest in listening to the compilation album.

Paul McCartney said he didn’t have much interest in The Beatles’ anthology record

In 1973, Apple Records put out 1967–1970, a compilation album featuring Beatles songs from that time period. McCartney admitted that anthology records like this one did little to grab his attention.

“I didn’t take an awful lot of interest in them, actually,” he told Rolling Stone, adding, “I still haven’t heard them. I know what’s on them because I’ve heard it all before, you know.”

The Beatles | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

He said that his contentious...

Theaters are brimming over with an army of well-reviewed and buzzy indie films. But, in an unusual state of affairs, pretty much all of them are in wide release, meaning Terrifier 3, Piece by Piece, Saturday Night and The Apprentice, as well as animated My Hero Academia: You’re Next. Limited openings are few — a trio of quality documentaries, A24’s We Live In Time, a couple of Academy runs and a faith-based Mormon film on Brigham Young’s ascendance. There also are a half-dozen Indian films in limited to moderate release.

Starting with Kino Lorber’s doc Daytime Revolution. It opened Wednesday in 60+ theaters for a one-day event screening timed to John Lennon’s 84th birthday and now playing at NYC’s Quad Cinema. Directed by Emmy- and IDA Award-winning filmmaker Erik Nelson, and with creative consultation from Yoko Ono and Sean Ono Lennon, it chronicles the week in 1972 when...

Transport yourself back to a time when America had just three major television networks and a single daytime talk show was able to generate viewer numbers as high as 40 million a week — more than a fifth of the population back then. Now imagine, if you will, a broadcast climate in which a beloved fixture of afternoon TV, watched in red states and blue, would risk alienating a significant chunk of his audience by welcoming as co-hosts a celebrity couple known for their revolutionary zeal. You can almost hear the suits’ alarmed cries: “We’ll lose the housewives!”

But this actually happened in February 1972, when John Lennon and Yoko Ono — fresh from penning their human-rights protest song “Attica State,” a lament for the lives lost in the tragic prison riot and a stinging denunciation of the country’s judicial and penal systems — sat in with the affable host of The Mike Douglas Show...

Paul and Linda McCartney were practically inseparable once they began a relationship. He said he realized he wanted to marry her a year after they met, which some advised him against. McCartney said people warned him that getting married could lose him fans. He shared why this wasn’t much of a concern for him.

Paul McCartney said he didn’t worry about the way Linda McCartney might impact his career

McCartney married Linda in 1969. He said he was very happy in his marriage, but he knew some people thought it was a bad idea. He acknowledged that many musicians avoided marriage because of how it could impact their careers.

“I know of a lot of rock & roll stars or just even show business people who will regulate their life to their image,” he told Rolling Stone. “It can mess you up a lot. I know a lot of guys...

Paul McCartney played his first concert of 2024 on Tuesday night at Estadio Centenario in Montevideo, Uruguay. He kept largely to the script from last year until the midway point when he performed “Now and Then” for the first time.

John Lennon captured the wistful piano ballad “Now and Then” on a tape recorder at his New York apartment building in 1977. Yoko Ono gave the tape to the surviving Beatles in 1994, along with “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” for inclusion on the Beatles Anthology box sets. They attempted to...

John Lennon and Frank Sinatra agreed that this classic 1970s song was the greatest of all time. Today, it is featured on channels of soft rock songs grouped in a genre called Yacht Rock. But the Little River Band’s “Reminiscing” was a global sensation during its heyday and caught the attention of Old Blue Eyes and one of The Beatles chief songwriters.

The Little River Band’s ‘Reminiscing’ hit a musical sweet spot for both Frank Sinatra and John Lennon

In her book Loving John, May Pang, who dated the singer for two years during his separation from Yoko Ono during his “lost weekend,” claimed they would lie together in bed, listening to the Little River Band tune. She wrote that he asked her to play it again and again.

The song wasn’t released until 1978. Thus, the conversation could have been during a different moment shared between the two former lovers.

In 1971, George Harrison reached out across the rift separating the former members of The Beatles by inviting Paul McCartney to play in his Concert for Bangladesh. The benefit concert was among the first of its kind and raised money for refugees. McCartney admitted that when Harrison asked him to participate, he felt irritated.

Paul McCartney shared why he wouldn’t play George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh

After The Beatles broke up, Harrison and John Lennon publicly aired their grievances with McCartney. Still, Harrison asked him to take part in the benefit concert. McCartney declined, not wanting to reunite the band so soon after breaking up.

“George invited me, and I must say [my reason for declining] was more than just visa problems,” McCartney told Rolling Stone. “At the time there was the whole Apple thing. When the Beatles broke up, at first I thought, ‘Right, broken up, no more messing with any of that.

Frances Bean Cobain and Riley Hawk have announced the arrival of their baby boy, Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk. He was born on Sept. 17.

Cobain shared three black-and-white photos via Instagram on Saturday: the first snapshot features a swaddled Ronin. In the second photograph, Ronin is seen grasping his mother’s index finger; and in the third, Hawk lovingly looks at Ronin as he cradles his son in his arms. “Welcome to the world most beautiful son,” Cobain captioned the post. “We love you more than anything.” Hawk also shared the...

The 2024 edition of Sffilm Doc Stories is celebrating a milestone year as the festival toasts its 10th anniversary.

This year’s four-day program will take place from October 17 through 20, and open with Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’ “One to One: John & Yoko,” about John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 18 months living in the U.S.

The festival will close out with a full circle moment, marking the premiere of Robinson Devor’s “Suburban Fury,” which was funded in part by a 2012 Sffilm Rainin Grant. “Suburban Fury” tells the story of Sara Jane Moore, who attempted to shoot President Gerald Ford on a crowded sidewalk in San Francisco’s Union Square in September of 1975.

The 2024 Sffilm Doc Stories lineup includes 10 features, two shorts programs, two filmmaking and industry talks, and a documentary filmmaking workshop for teens.

The Doc Stories weekend will kick off with a free, retrospective screening of Amy Berg...

Leading documentary festival IDFA has added more than 100 films to the program of its 37th edition, which runs from Nov. 14 to 24 in Amsterdam, as it unveiled the first titles for the Signed, Best of Fests and Paradocs selections, as well as the Short Documentary and the Youth Documentary sections.

The Signed section includes Radu Jude’s found-footage documentary “Eight Postcards from Utopia,” showing the commercials from Romania’s transition to a capitalist democracy, and impressionist desktop film “Sleep #2,” capturing live stream recordings of Andy Warhol’s grave. Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” examines questions of repatriation of African artefacts from Europe.

Several renowned directors push the boundaries of music film in this year’s program. Andrei Ujică revisits 1965 in “Twst – Things We Said Today,” offering a poetic look at the Beatles as they captivate New York while the Watts riots erupt in Los Angeles. Kevin Macdonald’s “One to One: John & Yoko...

When Imagine Documentaries president Sara Bernstein pitched New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams on making a film about her career, even the veteran journalist didn’t understand why Bernstein was interested. “What do you want to make a doc about me for?” Adams asked the “Jim Henson: Idea Man” producer. “Everybody has a documentary. My dentist has a documentary!”

Good line — and she must have a great dentist.

An incomplete list of this year’s celebrity docs includes Simone Biles, Celine Dion, Steve Martin, Roger Federer, Stevie van Zandt, Brian Eno, Frida Kahlo, Devo, Christopher Reeve, Sue Bird, Andrea Bocelli, Elton John, Martha Stewart, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Paul Anka, Pharrell Williams, and Bruce Springsteen.

The appetite seems nearly endless, but producers say it’s increasingly difficult to find famous people whose lives haven’t flashed before our eyes. Said Bernstein, “The challenge today is, who hasn’t had a documentary?...

The 2024 Venice Film Festival awards ceremony has wrapped up after a sweltering week and a half on the Lido.

The prestigious Golden Lion award for best film went to Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door. The Spaniard’s first-ever English-language feature received a whopping 17-minute standing ovation when it premiered at the festival. Almodóvar said in his acceptance speech Saturday: “I would like to dedicate it to my family, who is here now… This movie The Room Next Door, it is my first movie in English.. but the spirit is Spanish.”

His film, an adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s novel What Are You Going Through, follows best-selling writer Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and Martha (Tilda Swinton) as they rekindle their friendship after losing touch. As they immerse themselves in past memories, anecdotes, art and movies, Martha, battling terminal cervical cancer, wants to die with dignity and asks Ingrid to be...

When Cynthia Lennon met John Lennon, she saw a great deal of potential in him. Most people in their hometown of Liverpool did not also feel this way. According to Cynthia, the people who knew Lennon as a child and teenager did not think he was destined for greatness.

Cynthia Lennon said people in Liverpool didn’t think highly of John Lennon

When Cynthia began dating Lennon, his closest friends were Paul McCartney and Stuart Sutcliffe. Cynthia said that the three of them were among the few people who believed Lennon was someone special.

“Most people thought John was destined to be a drop-out and a bum, who would never knuckle down to a decent job or make anything of himself,” she wrote in her book John. “All they saw was the fool who clowned around in class and gave all the serious students wicked — and very irritating — nicknames.”

Cynthia...

This year’s festival is rich in impressive female leads, including Kidman, Gaga and Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton bonding for Almodóvar, while a strong documentary lineup ranges from Trump to Yoko Ono

In a summer when oppressive heat has turned the Venice Lido into a sauna, the stars at the city’s annual film festival were as numerous as the droplets of sweat. Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Jude Law, Angelina Jolie, George and Brad, the list goes on… Interestingly, many A-listers were working in English-language productions by auteurs from Spain (Pedro Almodóvar), Italy (Luca Guadagnino), Chile (Pablo Larraín), Greece (Athina Rachel Tsangari), Mexico (Alfonso Cuarón)… It shows how much cinema’s mainstream is fuelled today by global voices, although it raises the question of where this leaves the world’s national cinemas once their biggest names move abroad.

One director who has returned to his national roots is Brazilian film-maker Walter Salles.

Scott Simon, who dedicated 52 years playing the piano for doo-wop group Sha Na Na, died Thursday in Ojai, California, at the age of 75 after a long battle with sinus cancer, his daughter Nina Simon announced.

Nina shared the news on Thursday in a social media post. “My dad was a rock star. Literally. A member of Sha Na Na for over 50 years. He loved early morning diners and late nights onstage. But he loved his girls most of all,” she wrote in a caption with photos of her father and their family.

Screamin’ Scott Simon, who spent 52 years as the pianist of the energetic rock ’n’ roll and doo-wop group Sha Na Na, died Thursday in Ojai after a long battle with sinus cancer, his daughter Nina Simon announced. He was 75.

A member of Sha Na Na from 1970 until they quit touring in 2022, Simon sometimes played the piano with his feet as he belted out such hits as Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and Danny & the Juniors’ “At the Hop.”

Simon and Sha Na Na performed in the 1978 film adaptation of Grease as “Johnny Casino and the Gamblers,” playing six doo-wop numbers in the high school dance scenes.

Meanwhile, Simon partnered with Louis St. Louis to write “Sandy,” sung by John Travolta. The film’s soundtrack went on to become one of the top albums of all time, with sales of more than 30 million copies.

With the 1977 premiere of The Sha Na Na Show,...

“Screamin’ Scott” Simon, who played piano in the early-rock revival group Sha Na Na for more than a half-century and co-wrote the song “Sandy” that John Travolta crooned in Grease, died September 5 of sinus cancer in Ojai, CA. He was 75.

His daughter Nina Simon announced the news.

“Screamin’ Scott” Simon in an undated family photo

The elder Simon joined Sha Na Na in 1970, the year after its founding as a 1950s/early-’60s rock ‘n’ roll and doo-wop revivalist act and its appearance at Woodstock. He remained with the group, along with original members Donny York and Jocko Marcellino, until it disbanded in 2022. He played piano — banging out energetic covers of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “At the Hop” and others — and was known for his signature shirt whose sleeves bore piano keys, which he often pretended to play.

The group basked in the ’50s and early-’60s nostalgia craze...

Cynthia Lennon said that she, Stuart Sutcliffe, and Paul McCartney were the people closest to John Lennon before The Beatles. Lennon had a number of friends, but she didn’t think he could be his full self around them. Of everyone in Lennon’s life, though, she believed Sutcliffe offered him the most. Even McCartney, who had a fulfilling creative relationship with Lennon, didn’t treat him as an equal at first. She believed this set Sutcliffe apart.

Stuart Sutcliffe treated John Lennon as an equal

Sutcliffe and Lennon met at art school in Liverpool. While Sutcliffe helped Lennon with his classwork, Lennon taught his friend about music. Cynthia believed Lennon was a positive force in Sutcliffe’s life.

“Stuart was so wrapped up in his work that he didn’t have a girlfriend and often forgot to eat,” she wrote in her book John. “Most days he would stay after classes to paint.

Bob Dylan and the Band brought their reunion tour to arenas all across North America in January 1974 before touching down in New York City at the tail end of the month for three sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden. Demand for tickets was feverish, and a handwritten spreadsheet at the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, shows that Yoko Ono, Miles Davis, David Bromberg, Bob Gottlieb, Allen Ginsberg, Murray The K, Mary Martin, Noel “Paul” Stookey, and Sid Bernstein were all on the guest list. (Paul Simon’s name was crossed out.

John & Yoko in NYC! Mercury Studios has revealed a first look teaser trailer for a compelling documentary film titled One To One: John & Yoko, which is premiering now at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. The doc is a time capsule that takes us back to the year of 1972, when John Lennon & Yoko Ono appeared in New York City and riled up the culture and politics by getting involved in activism and showing up on TV (also see: Daytime Revolution). Set in 1972 New York, this documentary explores John and Yoko's world amid a turbulent era. Centered on the "One to One" charity concert for special needs children, it features unseen archives, home movies, and restored footage. A unique take on a seminal time in the lives of one of music’s most famous couples, One To One: John & Yoko explores the 18 months that John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent living...

In the fall of 1971, John Lennon and Yoko Ono moved into an apartment on 105 Bank Street in the West Village of Manhattan. It had been two years since Lennon told his Beatles bandmates that he wanted “a divorce,” and the recently married couple craved a fresh start in America away from the oppressive shadow of the group he founded. By this point, Lennon and Ono’s lives were completely intertwined—they were not merely lovers, but also close creative collaborators whose artistry was developing in tandem. Her background in the avant-garde and gallery world intermingled with his experience with pop music and celebrity until their work became inseparable from persona. Together they garnered a more focused political conscience as the Vietnam war continued unabated amidst an increasingly fractured, hostile social environment. They wished to put theory into action, to commit to activist politics, and what better place to do that...

If a cross-section of documentary filmmakers were offered access to live performances, behind-the-scenes footage and even private phone calls during a couple of years in the life and career of John Lennon, it’s unlikely that many of them would choose the period of 1971-1972. That was when Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, got heavily into political causes and made “Some Time in New York City,” an unwieldy and hamfisted slice of rock ‘n’ roll agitprop that long ago secured its reputation as the worst album of Lennon’s career.

But that’s the period that director Kevin Macdonald and co-director Sam Rice-Edwards had to work with to make “One to One: John & Yoko,” which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Friday and will also play in Telluride this weekend. The filmmakers have managed to make a bracing, scattered and somewhat revelatory look at...

The bond between John Lennon and Yoko Ono, mutually inspired artists from very different worlds, is only one of the love stories at the core of director Kevin Macdonald’s vibrant and stirring new documentary. Tracing an eventful year, One to One: John & Yoko is, first and foremost, a portrait of the couple’s love affair with New York City, their newly adopted home. In its mix of remarkable archival material, the film is both tender and galvanizing, summoning up what New York felt like in 1972 (yes, I would know) and offering a fresh slant on a country’s upheaval and a generation’s countercultural awakening.

For Macdonald (One Day in September, The Last King of Scotland), One to One is not only a return to form after his mixed-bag profile of John Galliano, but one of his finest pieces of work. He and co-director/editor Sam Rice-Edwards have conjured...

Are you ready to be transported back to one of the most influential periods in music history? Kevin Macdonald is willing to take you there, and he’s bringing John Lennon and Yoko Ono along for the wild ride. Macdonald’s upcoming documentary One to One: John & Yoko brings audiences back to John Lennon’s only headlining show after leaving The Beatles before he was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman, a disturbed fan who took the life of a legend far too soon. Today’s One to One: John & Yoko teaser trailer set to John Lennon’s “New York City” is a rush of memories and footage from Lennon and Ono’s collaborative relationship. As history pushes the world into unforgiving times, the legendary couple strives to share their gift of music with eager ears to influence the voices of change.

Here’s the official synopsis for...

Shortly after they moved to New York in 1971, John Lennon and Yoko Ono became so paranoid that the authorities were bugging their phone that they decided to record their calls. More than 50 years on, a selection of these never-before-heard recordings form what Kevin Macdonald describes as the “beating heart” of his new documentary, “One to One: John and Yoko,” premiering in Venice Aug 30.

In one call, Ono candidly describes what it was like to be blamed for breaking up the Beatles. In another, Lennon describes his idea for a tour around the U.S. that would raise bail money in each town they play, alongside efforts to get Bob Dylan onboard (and persuade Dylan aggravator A.J. Weberman to please leave the musician alone). In some of the film’s most amusing moments, there are endless back-and-forths concerning Ono’s efforts to procure some flies for a new art installation

For Macdonald,...

John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s legacy during their 18 months stateside in Greenwich Village is captured in new documentary, “One to One: John and Yoko.”

The feature, helmed by Kevin Macdonald, is set in in 1971 and 1972 New York as Lennon prepares for his One to One charity concert for children with special needs. The iconic performance, which took place on August 30, 1972, was Lennon’s only full length concert between the final Beatles show in 1966 and his death in 1980. “One to One” boasts unseen home videos filmed by Lennon and Ono, as well as archival personal phone calls and photos.

The iconic couple’s son Sean Ono Lennon is also involved as the music producer.

The official logline reads: “Set in New York in 1972, the film explores John and Yoko’s musical, personal, artistic, social, and political world set against the backdrop of a turbulent era in American history. While much...

Oasis will be compared to The Beatles until the end of time. Interestingly, Oasis once took a crack at one of the Fab Four’s psychedelic songs. The cover tells you everything you need to know about Oasis.

Oasis put a Beatles cover on some versions of ‘Definitely Maybe’

Oasis’ Definitely Maybe is primarily remembered for singles like “Supersonic,” “Live Forever,” and “Cigarettes & Alcohol.” Some editions of the record include a live cover of The Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus” from Magical Mystery Tour. “I Am the Walrus” is beloved because it combines oddball lyrics with a lush, well-produced soundscape.

Oasis usually didn’t get as surreal as “I Am the Walrus,” but they usually opted for layered lyrics that can be hard to understand on first listen. They also included a lot of the same production tricks as “I Am the Walrus,” such as baroque violins. In other words,...

1970s New York.

Andy Warhol, Susan Sontag, Studio 54, John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

It’s a period that has been explored to death, with countless works on the ‘scene’ across the city. Is there really anything fresh or engaging to be said about that time or its main protagonists? Scottish filmmaker Kevin Macdonald offers an interesting answer with his new feature documentary One To One: John & Yoko, which debuts tomorrow at the Venice Film Festival.

Set in New York in 1972, the ambitious and formally experimental film explores the time through the musical, personal, artistic, social, and political worlds of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. At the core of the film is the little-known One to One charity concert for special needs children, John Lennon’s only full-length concert between the final Beatles gig in 1966 and his death. The film includes a collection of previously unseen Lennon archives, including personal phone calls,...

"People tend to think that somebody will save them. There's only – people can save us. Only us all deciding to do something about it." Kino Lorber has revealed an official trailer for a documentary called Daytime Revolution, a look back at a major cultural moment in the 70s. This fascinating film, Daytime Revolution, will look at all that went into John Lennon and Yoko Ono's legendary weeklong 1972 residency as guests on The Mike Douglas Show — the most-watched daytime talk show at the time — and their impact. This is very similar to another doc premiering at the 2024 Venice Film Festival called One to One: John & Yoko - which is also a time capsule film about John & Yoko in 1972. Daytime Revolution is more specific, focusing on this very moment and their TV appearances. A document of the past that speaks to our turbulent present, Daytime Revolution is a time capsule...

A new documentary, Daytime Revolution, will look at all that went into John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s legendary weeklong 1972 residency as guests on The Mike Douglas Show — the most-watched daytime talk show at the time — and its impact. A trailer shows how the couple used the opportunity to discuss radical politics in addition to performing music. The picture opens in theaters on Oct. 9.

“What would you like to talk about this week, John?” Douglas asks the former Beatle at one moment. “Love, peace, communication, drugs, anything,” Lennon replied. The couple handpicked their fellow guests,...

In 1990, Cynthia Lennon contacted Yoko Ono about setting up a benefit concert on what would have been John Lennon’s 50th birthday. She hoped to televise the show and donate the proceeds in her former husband’s name. While Cynthia said Ono seemed receptive to the idea, she refused to get involved. Before long, Ono publicly spoke about the concert in a way that completely derailed it.

Cynthia Lennon told Yoko Ono about a benefit concert on John Lennon’s birthday

Over two decades after The Beatles’ first charity concert, the organizer, Sidney Bernstein, came to Cynthia about putting on a benefit concert in Lennon’s memory. He intended to call it Come Together.

“The idea was to mark what would have been John’s fiftieth birthday, Oct. 9, 1990, with a rock symphony, to be performed in the States and televised around the world,” Cynthia wrote in her book John. “The...

John Lennon and Paul McCartney spent years competing for control over The Beatles. While Lennon was initially the clear leader, McCartney took more and more control over the years. Cynthia Lennon, who watched The Beatles on their rise to success, believed Lennon never could have made it without McCartney. Still, she thought Lennon always had an edge over his bandmate.

Cynthia Lennon thought John Lennon had an edge over Paul McCartney

When McCartney first met Lennon, he looked up to him. Lennon was older and already in a band; at the time, he was everything McCartney wanted to be.

“In those days, Paul tried hard to impress John, posing and strutting with his hair slicked back to prove that he was cool, because John was very much the leader,” she wrote in her book John. “It was his band, and he had the final say about who got in and who didn’t,...

In 1967, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr received news that their longtime manager, Brian Epstein, died of an overdose. Epstein’s death was unexpected and deeply shook the band. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was with the band at the time and he told them to be happy and celebrate Epstein’s life. The band tried to do this, but Cynthia Lennon said her husband was still utterly devastated.

John Lennon was devastated by the death of Stuart Sutcliffe

Before The Beatles were a successful band, their lineup was a bit different. Starr joined the band in 1962; before him, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best were members. The former was one of Lennon’s closest friends.

Not long after Sutcliffe left the band, he died of a brain hemorrhage. Lennon took the news hard when Sutcliffe’s girlfriend, Astrid Kirchherr, told him.

Stuart Sutcliffe | Collect/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images

“John went into hysterics,...

Immediately after his father’s death, Julian Lennon traveled to New York to be with Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon. While he was not particularly close with Ono, he felt New York was the best place for him to be in the aftermath. According to Cynthia Lennon, an offer Ono made Julian came as a terrible shock to him.

Yoko Ono shocked Julian Lennon with an offer after John Lennon’s death

When Julian arrived in New York, he helped Ono break the news of Lennon’s death to Sean Lennon. The following day, Ono showed him Lennon’s ashes.

“The morning after Sean was told, Julian was asked to go to Yoko’s room,” Cynthia wrote in her book John. “‘Would you like to touch it?’ she said, indicating an urn that stood over the fireplace. Julian stopped in his tracks and stared in horror. Almost on autopilot, he did as he was told.

Immediately after John Lennon’s death, Cynthia Lennon reluctantly let her son, Julian, visit Yoko Ono in New York. Julian was still a teenager, and Cynthia didn’t want him to travel alone. Still, she allowed him to do what he felt was necessary. While Julian enjoyed spending time with his younger brother, Sean, Cynthia felt that Ono treated him callously.

Cynthia Lennon said Yoko Ono overlooked Julian Lennon after John Lennon died

When Julian arrived at the Dakota, Lennon and Ono’s building in New York, he found the apartment empty. Fred Seamen, Lennon’s personal assistant, took this opportunity to warn Julian about the visit.

Julian Lennon, Sean Lennon, and Yoko Ono | Robin Platzer/Images/Getty Images

“‘[Ono] will do anything to keep you in your place,’ he said. ‘Sean is the only person who matters to her. There’s simply no place for you in her world,’” Cynthia wrote in her book John.