IslandGuru Who payed the critics

Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

NikkoFranco Loving the Beatles, loving George Harrison and his individual music and him as the separate artist from the Fab Four and loving Martin Scorsese and his method of directing is what this documentary sums up to me. There is such awe in watching old clips of George and the Fab Four sewn together with some never seen before footages to produce this special . But this also clearly shows that George , like many old school rocker is past the money and fame wagon but is more on to a higher ground of spiritual search for enlightenment. On a parallel level, the story about the evolution of the FF4 is also told, with recollections from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Indeed in one part, the narration has focused on the lyrics of the song While My Guitar Gently Weeps, because for me it is a bullseye description of how the four of them must have felt for each other when they tried to pick up where they left., as I tried imagining being in their shoes countless times. There is no turning back and two of them FF4 are long gone. For documentaries, rock and roll nostalgia and legendary music lovers, this is a highly recommended watch.

sergelamarche The tidbits about the Beatles are always interesting. Not just because the Beatles were so popular and ground breaking but also because it's unusual lives. Here, Scorsese assembled quite the cast to retell stories about George to fill two films. And still there are some blanks. Fun and enlightening.

classicsoncall When all is said and done, the viewer comes away from this documentary knowing more about George Harrison than one did before, but I couldn't help thinking that there was just too much of a stream of consciousness approach to getting it all down on film. I can't tell you how many times the narrative got muddled with clips of Harrison presented in no semblance of chronological order. You would see him alternately with a beard, clean shaven, mustache with no beard, lean in appearance and then heavier with age, all within a short time span as he reflected on his role with The Beatles and discussing other areas of his life.But even for long time Beatles fans, there are probably enough nuggets of new information to make the nearly four hour effort worth your while. Most of the first disc in the two disc set talks about the Beatles years, but with somewhat of a superficial gloss to a handful of topics that in some cases seemed to apply more to Paul and John. What particularly interested me was how George entered the post-Beatles phase, delving into Indian philosophy and spirituality. I was happy to see the transition to The Traveling Wilburys period. To this day, I think it's some of the finest music one can listen to from an incredibly talented assemblage of performers.When I think back upon my own life and recall the history of The Beatles as they first emerged on the music scene, I feel kind of bad for those who missed that experience simply by being born too late. It's easy enough for seasoned citizens like myself to pick out contemporaries in the documentary like Donovan, Twiggy, Petula Clark, Billy Preston and Leon Russell, but because their appearances are so fleeting without being identified, they become just nameless faces in the crowd for casual viewers. For some reason it makes me a little sad.One thing I had long forgotten about was the attack on Harrison's home in England by a deranged 'fan'. Harrison's wife Olivia opines on that event in frightful detail. Other folks who have things to say about Harrison throughout include Paul and Ringo, Eric Clapton, other Harrison family members, and a whole host of performers who shared the stage with the former Beatle. I found it particularly ironic, only due to my timing in watching the film, to hear Tom Petty speak about the phone call he got from George the day after Roy Orbison died. Harrison's only words were "Aren't you glad it's not you?" With Petty's own death a mere month or so ago as I write this, it won't be long in the grand scheme of things for all these musical icons to eventually move on to a better place. Quite sadly, those that have passed on are already terribly missed.

italo505 may seems like a sad song to you, a song about a man that laments everything. But into looking through George Harrison's soulful deep dark stare, I realize the man was lamenting what he had become and the man he could potentially be, while everyone around him told him he should be one way or another. He was a very different Beatle. He was not as big as John Lennon or Paul Mc Cartney but he was a little hidden talent who worked behind the scenes more than anything, he was the man behind the curtains who liked to look from aside, or look at the Beatles as an outsider, very self conscious of where his life was headed but having a strong sense of self, a strong sense of what he wanted his music to carry: this sweet, spiritual side of him that could not be contained inside this phenomenon that was the Beatles.In the opening scenes of Living in the Material World, the new HBO documentary directed by Martin Scorsese we take an unusual look at the most enigmatic Beatle, the one that was not always in front of the newscasts, the reporters, he was no newspaper headlines material as John and Paul were which helped him create his own sound and his own songs that graced some of the Beatles albums such as Revolver's Taxman, White Album's While My Guitar Gently Weeps or Abbey Road's Something and Here Comes The Sun which became some of The Beatles' most recognizable and beloved songs of their careers. We also meet a man who became more spiritual and embraced Indian culture and Hinduism with his friend and sitar player Ravi Shankar, who appears in the documentary numerous times and was such an influence in both his music and his own life gave a complete twist. He saw something deeper than any of the Beatles had, something that he was searching for, something so unique and exquisite that he spent many hours listening to Ravi play his sitar and teaching him the techniques to perfect the art. George Harrison was like a sponge absorbing every little essence he could from Ravi and the Indian culture that he even introduced some of this music into The Beatles with songs like The Inner Light, Revolver's Love You To and Tomorrow Never Knows and the incredibly ahead of its time Sgt. Pepper's Within You Without You which, in my opinion, brought The Beatles to a status that had never achieved before. At least first time I heard Within You Without You I thought to myself: what does it mean? How does it come into play into my life? It didn't need translation, it transcended everything and the answer was always there: look inside yourself and there you will find peace, you didn't need no temple, no clergy, no middle man: just you and God.George Harrison was idolized by the hippie movement of the 60's which in this documentary he admittedly despised, one weekend he spent with them was all he needed to realize it was not what he was looking for, this world of drugs, peace and love was not what he was searching for and he knew he had to meditate more as to where he wanted to go spiritually and artistically.It's funny that he said that in this documentary himself since I thought for the longest time that he was a hippie himself, a man who took to drugs and experimented with a sitar and period, that was it. In Living In The Material World I have re-discovered why I've always loved The Beatles so much: they're not just four lads from Liverpool that created the best singles of the 60's and were musically talented but now also I see a side of them I hadn't really come to think about before. There was something very interesting that was said during this doc, he basically says for a man that has everything, they handed him anything he wished for, anything he ever wanted, anything within his reach he could have but if you have emptiness in your heart and soul then you're still not a rich person and you cannot take it with you. In life everything we own that is material is worth nothing when we leave our bodies and what George Harrison did constantly was to prepare himself mentally and spiritually for that moment in which he had to leave his body for his next adventure. I'm sure that wherever he is, he's playing his sitar contemplating how much he'd accomplished, how much he's left behind: his legacy, his family, his garden. Boy, was he ever so proud of that garden.