A Hard Day's Night

A very spur of the moment review but well worth talking about.

I was just channel surfing with my mom and we caught the opening of this movie and I stuck around for two reasons, one my mom is still a very big Beatles fan and the other being I never saw it before. Oh I knew of the film's reputation, released during the height of Beatlemania, on the Criterion Collection, it was a very hastily put together production, so on and so forth. Not at all bad full truth, in fact the camera placements and editing is so unique to this film, they do good casting besides the band themselves, it's shot around London so it retains that british feel throughout. It's almost potrayed as an absurdist comedy detailing the events of just one day in the lives of John, Paul, George, and Ringo as they evade the screaming hordes of fans, deal with their manager, cut loose to enjoy themselves, and perform. I suppose it could technically be classed as a musical because they do an assortment of songs, and a good solid chunk of The Beatle's disocgraphy I am not terribly familiar with save for She Loves You in this film and it is good music. When 50+ year music can not only get my feet tapping like mad but also give me goosebumps, clearly there's something right about it. And you know it really and truly put their fame into perspective, because they were so young when the band skyrocketed and no one had any inkling of how big they would get, and you know that they would cut loose and not do business/band stuff all day every day to just enjoy their youth. There was a really great quote, and from my favorite of the bunch Ringo, "Being middle-aged and old takes up most of your time, doesn't it?", and I won't lie to you man it scared the shit out of me. You only get one good solid crack at being young, so enjoy it while it lasts before you get old, bitter, and broken like me. I genuinely am torn on my favorite character in this, and I almost use bunny ears for that but let's face it the boys are just being themselves, they don't need to act they just need to read the dialogue and it by God works, but it's a toss up between John and Paul's grandfather who is the utter antithesis of what his physicality would lead you to believe. You think it would be this horrendous stereotype of the stuffy brit, but he is just as wild if not more so than the group, always scheming to get some money, running up and around causing good grief, it's quite beautiful actually. It really is this bizzare, slightly stretched yet altogether true, window of time movie. The black and white stock was lovely and I must give all my props to the director, the writing is very funny and feels all too natural with the band banter, I'd say this film is a silly piece of nonsense but it is much more than that really and you can tell when watching it. It really is this fascinating piece of cinema that can't really be labelled. It's not a documentary, it's sort of a musical, it's comedic but does more than that, I'm stumped. I had a grand time with it and would have no problem seeing it again in the future, so I give it 3.5 stars, 8/10, give this thing a whirl seriously, it took me on a trip and I was not upset where I ended up.