Ringo Starr Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Robert Zemeckis just can't get enough of his 3D motion capture, and clearly no film or concept will elude his grasp. According to Variety, Zemeckis and Disney are in the middle of a complicated deal that will allow them to remake the Beatles' psychedelic cartoon Yellow Submarine.

It's been a long time since I saw Yellow Submarine and if I need a refresher on the plot, you might as well. The trippy adventure takes place in Pepperland, a magical undersea place protected by Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The music-hating Blue Meanies attack, seal the band in a bubble, and turn the citizens into statues. The Mayor seeks out the help of the Fab Four, who travel in a yellow submarine through several musical interludes. The power of the Beatles restores Pepperland to its colorful, musical self before returning to London. Naturally, it's enjoyed best if you're on drugs.

The remake negotiations have been taking place for months, as Zemeckis wants to use all the original Submarine tunes and spin it off into an original Broadway musical, but meanwhile the Beatles catalog is a complicated thing. The goal is to have it filmed, and in theaters by the 2012 Summer Olympics, which are taking place in London. Zemeckis is hoping that a 3D motion-capture approach will introduce the Beatles to a new generation, who are already enjoying a surge of youth interest thanks to the upcoming The Beatles: Rock Band.

I hardly have to explain why I'd go fetch this one from the vaults, since it's the only known anecdote for 10,000 BC. Roland Emmerich certainly hasn't lost his delicate touch, has he? I feel the pain of people who had ten year old sons and thus were dragged into it. You get force marched through the tundra for what seems like hours only to arrive at the Pyramid of the Fancy Boys. And the only real diversion besides 3 minutes of saber-toothed tiger, are those devil-ostriches. After I got out, I couldn't wait to have a look at director/writer Carl Gottlieb's satire of the all-purpose caveman movie. Unfortunately, I never saw Caveman back in the day, despite the high-spirited tagline on the posters: "Back When You Had to Beat It Before You Could Eat It!" I think the reason I skipped it was because of all the genial oafs I knew who kept quoting the dinosaur poop joke in the film. They are there, alright, but happily it's only a tiny part of the comedic inanity set in "One Zillion Years BC...October 9."

If there's something Martin Scorsese knows about almost as much as movies, it's music from the '60s. Apparently. Why else would he be on such a roll these days with music documentaries on iconic acts from that time? First there was the wonderful Bob Dylan documentary No Direction Home; now he's about to release a Rolling Stones doc titled Shine a Light; and he's just announced another doc he's going to make about George Harrison. According to Variety, the film will be more of a comprehensive biography, covering Harrison's time in The Beatles, as a solo artist, his Eastern religious/philosophical interests and even his stint a movie producer (his Handmade Films gave us Monty Python's Life of Brian and Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits). Scorsese is producing with Olivia Harrison (George's widow) and his No Direction Home producer Nigel Sinclair, and filming will begin with some interviews later this year. It will take awhile to finish, of course. The untitled pic will again be edited by David Tedeschi, who also cut the other two Scorsese music docs.

Maybe if time permits, Scorsese can do more '60s icons after he's done with Harrison. Neil Young may not be worth another film, and The Doors doc would probably be better suited to Oliver Stone, but surely we could use a Scorsese-directed film about Eric Clapton or any of the girl groups (The Shirelles, The Ronettes, The Marvellettes, The Crystals, The Shangri-Las) he likes to use for his soundtracks. Hey, he could just do a doc on girl groups. It's so good to see Scorsese getting back to music docs so long after working as an assistant director on Woodstock, and later as director of The Last Waltz, and I can't wait to see what else he's got planned. Anyway, there's no use thinking so far ahead. I'm still simply waiting for Shine a Light, which doesn't come out until April, and I'm definitely looking forward to the Harrison film, which will feature a ton of archival footage provided by his family and is expected to feature surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.