ETPC

tonight's movie was All This and World War II (1976)! and this was...interesting. i'd love to be in on the pitch meeting for this. there's so little i could find on this movie in terms of writing or it's director that it's so hard to figure out what was intended. the best way to describe this movie is iconoclastic in it's mashing up of pop music with real (and fake) historical warfare. because that's what this movie is, it's a mashup of World War II newsreels and movies with covers of Beatles songs. and sometimes it works! i specifically liked the way that 'With a Little Help from My Friends' was used in showing the two alliances formed. but outside of that? it's so unbelievably scattershot that my mind just cannot square the circle. sure, there's obvious moments like using 'Here Comes the Sun' for the attack on Pearl Harbor and it's awful, but there's also moments like how 'Get Back' is used to illustrate the Nazis getting pushed out of France by......running footage of Hitler backwards. it's so on the nose sometimes then other times it's incredibly confusing what was the thesis of the work as a whole. it was never boring, which was my biggest fear. it's incredibly easy to see why this was a dismal failure critically and financially. who was this for? yet at the same time, i can't stop thinking about it as some kind of punk art in a way. maybe i'm giving the movie too much credit, but it has to be appreciated for it's bravery at committing to the bit at the very least. and what other movie has Milton Berle and Joseph Stalin???? YMMV is definitely in effect for the soundtrack, with my personal tastes falling straight down the middle of the quality of the covers. some of the really good ones are barely used while others drag on way too long as well. do i recommend people watch this? i honestly don't know. but it's weird enough that i might say yes if you are the right type of person to appreciate the whole endeavor.