idyll-35072 Reviews

How the Beatles Changed the World (2017 Video)

Solid account of the Beatles as cultural icons

[7/10 · 8 January 2022]

This documentary deals with the Beatles as a product of, and reaction against, repressive post-war England, and goes on to show how they revolutionised perceptions of pop stars, and later became major figures in the swinging counter-culture before Lennon's new life with Yoko and political activism were the most obvious sign that the band was no longer a unit.

Nothing much you don't know probably, and far from a comprehensive account -- no single film (or book) could be -- but this film is literate and coherent with well placed talking heads offering memories and analysis.

The story is familiar, but it's a great story worth telling again.

The Saint: Sibao (1965) Season 3, Episode 21

The Saint encounters supernatural evil

[8/10 · 15 March 2021]

When I was very young I saw this episode and was so shocked by the voodoo murder - the thing that moves through the jungle to its victim who seems to die from sheer horror - that sequence stayed with me 50 years. Recently I found Sibao again on Youtube. I expected to be disappointed, and was. But it's the ending that's a let down, a ceremony there to defeat the villain and tie up the plot. It looks cheap and feels clumsy and contrived. Before that though, bearing in mind the series was churned out rapidly for mass consumption for years, Sibao is well paced and genuinely creepy and its commitment to the supernatural is still impressive. From a Leslie Charteris short story, "Haiti: The Questing Tycoon". Directed by Peter Yates (Bullitt 1968), Screenplay by Terry Nation (creator of the Daleks)