Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Yesterday (2019)

This is topic Yesterday (2019) in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=002434

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 06-27-2019, 09:52 PM:

After being knocked unconscious by a passing bus, a down-on-his-luck musician awakens to a world where the Beatles (and Oasis!) never existed, thus giving him an opportunity to cash in on the songs he remembers. At the Bow-Tie Clairidge Cinema, Montclair, New Jersey

*****

If you can buy the premise of this movie without asking a lot of questions, you’re in for a pretty good time. The bemused musician at the center of the story decides to play the classic Beatle hits that nobody recognizes, but his lack of stage presence causes audiences to ignore him until Ed Sheeran (playing himself) shows up to thrust him into the big-time as his opening act. Trouble is, it means he will have to leave behind the pretty manager who believed in him from the start, and sign on with an unashamedly greedy agent hysterically played by Kate McKinnon. He must also confront the fact that he is, in essence, a fraud making bank on the work of others, even though there is no-one alive in this alternate reality that has any idea who the Fab Four were (unless there are).

It’s all pretty entertaining, although there’s a near-the-end scene that I thought was unnecessary and not very well done, but probably obligatory. There IS a funny bit at the very end having to do with something else that’s British and world-famous also being missing. It’s an appealing and crowd-pleasing movie and fun to watch. Here’s the thing, though: if there were no Beatles, does that mean the world was spared Wings, a band that even Paul McCartney now thinks was pretty lame? If that's so, I need to find a bus to walk in front of.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-09-2019, 05:13 PM:

I liked this movie less than I thought I would. "It's the feel-fantastic movie of the summer!" said a review quote from Billboard, no less, on the poster.

Well the movie was OK, but it didn't make me feel fantastic. I thought it was over-long and pretty uneven.

With its music-business underlayer, the story is pretty much boilerplate. A kid named Jack is talented, but can't get noticed, then writes great songs (or in this case "appropriates" them) and is suddenly on a trajectory toward stardom, leaving his true love in the dust. It's almost like the story in every rock-biopic, with this fantastical alternate-universe twist.

I did enjoy the shark-like manager that Jack hooks up with. She probably represents the most honest portrayal of the music business ever in a movie.

But what I was waiting for was an explanation for it all. Apparently only Jack, and this other, random, older couple, are the only ones who remember the Beatles and their music after a massive power outage. But WHY?

The story is rife with inconsistencies....random things that are mentioned in Beatles tunes, like Coca Cola, cigarettes and such, are erased from existence, in this alternate universe. But why THOSE particular things? The movie never explains.

The music sounded good, but it bugged me that several times, Jack and his band would just launch into a song with vocals and all, no intro, no count-off, no nothing... I don't care what alternate universe you're traveling in. They're musicians, not mind-readers.

I couldn't help but wonder, what if something like this really happened and all the Beatles songs disappeared from memory, and were suddenly rediscovered? I have a feeling a lot of them would go over like a lead balloon in today's hip-hop, melody-free, programmed auto-tuned beat-box marketplace. It's too sad to even contemplate.

Two out of five stars from me.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-09-2019, 10:58 PM:

I am playing this at our normal volume, but when the credits began, I cranked up the volume for "Hey Jude" (the Beatles version plays in full over the end credits). About half the crowd stayed just listening to the song. Man that sounds good. I'm gonna do that all week.

Posted by Nathan McLaughlin (Member # 10057) on 08-10-2019, 07:25 PM:

I also played with the volume.
I hooked up my aisle lights to wifi and when the electric went out I would turn them off and back on with the movie.
Got a kick out the ones that noticed.
Nate

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 08-14-2019, 08:52 PM:

^ Nathan THAT sounds like a hoot and a half

glad I didn't read any of these comments before seeing this movie, so many spoilers ruined ...