Beatles

What Janet DiGangi recalls most vividly about the day the Beatles came to town is eating cake and ice-cream with furious impatience. It was 12 September 1964, and DiGangi was 12, living in Boston, Massachusetts, the oldest of seven siblings. The Beatles were about to play Boston Garden but the family couldn’t leave until they’d celebrated her brother Peter’s second birthday with candles and presents.“I was furious, because I didn’t want to be late,” recalls DiGangi, now 72. She had saved up all her babysitting money to…

Natasha Bedingfield, singer, songwriterMy brother Daniel had three No 1s at the start of the noughties. In every interview, bless him, he’d go: “Listen to my sister – she’s great too!” It helped me get a foot in the door. I got a record deal by singing over some demos I’d done. “We don’t like your songs,” the guy said, “but we like you.”I was whisked off to Los Angeles to work with songwriting mentors, which upped my game but meant I missed my younger brother Joshua’s 14th birthday. I hadn’t had a moment to send him a…

When the Beatles broke up in 1970, they figured it was the end of the story. But they got that wrong. Over 50 years later, John, Paul, George, and Ringo are more influential, famous, beloved than ever. That means the world is finally catching up with one of the weirdest chapters in the Beatles’ saga: their solo music. All four Fabs kept making music, on their own eccentric terms. All four dropped classic albums. All four released total garbage. The solo Beatles story is a gloriously messy, crazed,…

Welcome to the Beatles Cinematic Universe. Continuing the current wave of music biopics — which just saw its most recent box-office triumph with Bob Marley: One Love —  director Sam Mendes (Skyfall) has signed on to helm not one, but four separate Beatles biopics, all due in 2027. The movies, set to begin production next year, will each focus a single Beatle’s perspective, so John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and even Ringo Starr each get a turn in the spotlight. Trending…

I’ve been a fan of The Beatles since birth, or probably even before I was born on account of my dad being obsessed with the “Fab Four.” I was raised on a healthy dose of Beatles music and stories, and so like my dad, I’ve become what some would consider obsessed with the band and their impact on music and society in general.When I found that Sam Mendes, the director of the Best Picture winner American Beauty, was developing not one but four movies about The Beatles (one dedicated to each member of the band), I was…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeAdam Sandler has revealed he still gets star-struck around Taylor Swift, admitting he is a little “jumpy” when he sees her. The Grown Ups star talked about the celebrities he grew up idolising, and how newer stars don’t typically have the same effect on him. However, the actor and comedian admitted there’s one 21st-century pop star that still leaves him in awe. Speaking on SiriusXM's…

The Beatles legends John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr will be the subject of an upcoming feature film. The four separate films will tell the stories of each of them in standalone narratives. The films will be directed by the Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sam Mendes. He plans to make four separate movies, one from each Beatles member’s point of view. They will intersect to “tell the astonishing story of the greatest band in history,” leading up to their 1970 breakup, according to a…

By Jake Coyle | Associated Press NEW YORK — The Beatles are getting the big-screen biopic treatment in not just one film, but a Fab Four of movies that will give each band member their own spotlight — all of which are to be directed by Sam Mendes. For the first time, the Beatles, long among the stingiest rights granters, are giving full life and music rights to a movie project. Sony Pictures announced Monday a deal that may dwarf all music biopics that have come before it, with the stories of Paul McCartney, John Lennon,…

Just when we were getting sick of the Marvel Cinematic Universe … Sam Mendes comes along with the Beatles Cinematic Universe. It’s a quartet of interlocking movies about the Fab Four, each centred on one band member, and with the fascinating promise of overlaps and POV shifts, perhaps inspired by Lucas Belvaux’s triple-decker Trilogy pictures or Joao Canijo’s mirror image films Bad Living and Living Bad. Mendes’s moptop movies may tag quadrilaterally around key moments … Shea Stadium, the Maureen Cleave interview,…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeRoll up, roll up for the Beatles Cinematic Universe. Sam Mendes, the Oscar-winning director behind films like American Beauty and Skyfall, has announced plans to make four separate movies about the biggest band in history, one from the perspective of each member. He’ll presumably be working eight days a week to pull it off.According to Mendes’ producing partner Pippa Harris, the films…