Welcome to this year's Christmas special in which we, the fearless investigative journalists that we are, refuse to be silenced and meet head-on the issue the mainstream media doesn't want us to: can Paul McCartney make mashed potatoes?

On 17 December 1998 Paul took part in a live webcast to promote Wide Prairie, a compilation album of Linda's songs, released six months after her death in April 1998. In it he fronted a cookery segment in which he made mashed potatoes as part of a promotion for her book: Linda McCartney on Tour: Over 200 Meat-free Dishes from Around the World. We ask: does his addition of raw onions into the dish represent a bold embrace of the avant garde, betraying the influence of Stockhausen? How significant is it that Paul chose the DIY ethic of a webcast whose content he could control when he was grieving for his wife? And how else did Paul and George Harrison interact with the early internet from the late nineties?

Merry Christmas and thanks as always for your support this year. We'll be back with season six in January.

• Watch the whole webcast (this link will also take you straight to the mashed potatoes segment): https://youtu.be/plrN81ISkh4?si=XM2FPqDxsQzdmxdv&t=3768
• Some info about The Fireman webcast from 2 October 1998, although no footage is available (unless you've got some?): https://lostmediawiki.com/The_Fireman_(lost_live_Youth_and_Paul_McCartney%27s_band_internet_webcast;_1998)
• Watch Grateful Dead: A Photofilm by Paul and Linda McCartney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m7NkYfJCYc
• An example of The Big Breakfast, the 1990s UK TV show with a similar crew-participation ethic: https://youtu.be/LFqPHv7nh1A
• The clip from Sleepless in Seattle we mention: https://youtu.be/BHs6iLRvAQM

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

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ANOTHER new Beatles film. It's almost as if the runaway (for which read: very underwhelming) success of a podcast on the subject has led to a surfeit of new releases.

And underwhelming is the key word here: yes, Peter Bradshaw can somehow write a five-star review in the Guardian without once mentioning whether the actual film is good or bad, but for those of us at the coalface of Beatles films appraisal it's a bit more nuanced. What is the film actually trying to say? How much work have Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr put into this official Apple release? Fair enough, they're in their eighties, but still. And does the mention of Martin Scorsese suggest more prestige than the film actually delivers?

• You can watch Beatles '64 on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/beatles-64/mxZO6yBpYWOq
• Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/XLzMtQJnH8k
• See Paul's Instagram story which was definitely shot on the same day he did his interview for this film: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6gxsThsAOV/
• Leonard Bernstein talking about the Beatles in the 1967 documentary Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution: https://youtu.be/v32U0mjGz6g
• Elaine Kim's cover of All My Loving, as used in the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrFx2LZB7D4

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

• Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpod
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's taken a while to get here, but Brian Epstein biopic Midas Man, starring Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, is released on Prime Video today, 30 October 2024. We got a chance to see it at an advance screening and we think there's lots in there for Beatles fans to enjoy. Among the items up for discussion here: the performances as the Beatles by Jonah Lees, Blake Richardson, Leo Harvey-Elledge, Campbell Wallace and Adam Lawrence are all excellent. Did being less central characters free the actors up to focus more on mannerisms and delivery? Could you transplant them straight into the Sam Mendes biopics on this basis? How well does the film get around not being able to use Lennon/McCartney songs?

• Watch Midas Man on Prime Video. We understand this is a release in the UK only for now, with international release to be confirmed: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/Midas-Man/0L8KQBPKMK7JQHBNO8K7KBOK2K
• Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzDYxAwoUWk
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12627606/
• Jacob Fortune-Lloyd's article about finding the character of Brian: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/understanding-brian-epstein
• The story of Dizz Gillespie, represented in the film as Tex Ellington, is told both in The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines, and by Devin McKinney at https://www.heydullblog.com/brian-epstein/the-dizz-gillespie-story/
• IMDb and trailer for 2021's Creation Stories, with a clip of Leo-Harvey Elledge (George in Midas Man) as Liam Gallagher: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5693182/
• Vanity Fair doing the Lord's work and writing up the Hanks/Fonz beef from Turner & Hooch so we didn't have to: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/01/tom-hanks-henry-winkler-feud

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

• Twitter https://twitter.com/beatlesfilmpod
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.