A different way of telling a story

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Yellow Submarine (1968): Dir: George Dunning / Voices: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Dick Emery: Outstanding and brilliant animated musical masterpiece that seems to symbolize bizarre forms of joy and peace within one's mind. Peaceful Pepperland has been invaded by the ruthless Blue Meanies who are out to turn everything blue. Help is on the way as the Beatles sail through aboard a yellow submarine amidst several striking musical numbers, some pointless while others interlock themes that all deal with feel and emotion. Pepperland is made up of various images that don't make any sense yet somehow add to its mind reference. The Beatles are perhaps the most famous band in music history. They are John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison, all of whom are heard singing in animated form although voice talents are provided by other actors who give fine imitations of the foursome. Besides the Beatles there are other strange looking characters including the Blue Meanies and the Nowhere Man who has no sense of direction. Excellent directing by George Dunning as a great tribute to the mannerisms of the Beatles as well as present very colourful animated scenery and a world created out of the bizarre. This film is a striking greatness about the feelings of joy, love and a celebration of music and animation. Score: 10 / 10

I saw this at the time of its first release. There was some contention with the British distributors not liking the movie and it was in danger of being pulled from the cinemas. They reckoned it was confusing and no-one knew what if was supposed to be about. So as soon as it premiered in Liverpool my cousin and I went to see it immediately at the first-run cinema The Gaumont in Liiverpool City Centre. There it was paired with a gung-ho action movie called "Mozambique" and the sound was not up to standard for the start of the movie, but even these shortcomings could not detract from the fabulous experience of seeing this film. We knew all the Sgt Pepper songs off by heart and it seemed to encapsulate what the Beatles were all about at that moment in time. As for those cinema bosses in London well they were just "blue meanies". Zoom to 1999 and the Liverpool re-release of the remastered film at the Philharmonic Hall. Tribute bands were playing outside the town hall and a character dressed as a Blue Meanie was walking around. I went to see the film again. It had survived all that the cinema bosses could throw at it and was louder and more colourful than ever. It is another revolutionally piece of cinema under the Beatles name and is an absolute animated classic.

The first time I saw this movie was in 2007 when my middle school art teacher put it on for us to watch instead of taking a final exam. Admittedly, I had no idea what to make of it. I knew nothing of '60s culture or of psychedelic artwork, and I CERTAINLY didn't know about the Beatles. The one thing I remember from the movie was the really strange, surreal story in which nothing made sense and my mind cracked a little.Now that said crack has expanded into a sizable fracture, I can tell you that Yellow Submarine is perhaps one of the greatest animated movies of all time. It tells a lot through its combination of magazine cutouts and elementary school style of art. The animation is strange and the characters' outlines are ever-shifting, like the animators completely disregarded what they drew for the previous frame and went solely on memory.The writing for this movie is EXCELLENT. Nearly every line of dialog spoken has a touch of comedy, if not more, and practically every joke is a bullseye. One of my all-time favorite zingers appears in this movie, when Ringo is accounting for what his friends are doing in the crazy apartment-hotel-flat that they may or may not live in:Old Fred: What are your friends doing here?Ringo: Displaying.Old Fred: Displaying wot?Ringo: Displayin' around.BUM BUM BA-Dumb *TSS*.Even though it's not the Beatles who play themselves, the voice actors they got mimicked their inflections as perfectly as Maurice LaMarche mimicked Harold Ramis in "The Real Ghostbusters". They changed the pitch of each voice a bit to help differentiate the Beatles from each other, even though George sounds nothing like he does in real life.The villains are… Crazy. The Chief Blue Meanie is kind of like a psychotic and totally out-of-his- mind Queen of Hearts from Disney's Alice in Wonderland (the GOOD Disney's Alice in Wonderland), and his henchman, Max, plays a good straight man to the Chief's obnoxious and high-pitched screaming. Oh, and Mel Blanc a.k.a. The Voice of Every Single Looney Tune EVER has an uncredited voice cameo as one of the Blue Meanies.And, of course, this movie has Beatles songs. My GOD does it have Beatles songs. Forget Beatles Rock Band: if the Beatles' songs were psychedelic drugs, THESE sequences would be what hallucinations would spring to mind while we experienced them. Not only do we have the four, count em' FOUR original songs written for the movie, as well as Yellow Submarine and the greatest rendition of All You Need is Love ever recorded, but we also have renditions of Eleanor Rigby, When I'm Sixty-Four, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Nowhere Man, and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, though not necessarily in that order.Overall, I'd recommend getting into the spirit of the Beatles before watching this movie. Speaking as someone who knew nothing about the Beatles when he watched it, this movie actually made me like the Beatles LESS due to the fact that I didn't understand them. But if you're a person who loves the Beatles and hates whenever American Idol and the X Factor butchers one of their songs, then this movie will please you to know end.All together now...

Until now, this is the best film which I have ever seen. It contains almost everything that interests me: friendship, humour, science, the world, and peace. It maybe looks like Alice in Wonderland, yet certainly goes deeper in your heart. Perhaps it is the function of music. Although I am not a fan of The Beetles, I am quite impressed by the songs in this film. Unlike other films that talk about perceptions, this one doesn't make your head burst with gloomy thoughts after watching it; instead, the little jokes in it make it a pleasant thing to think, just like many other British films. I feel I am in a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies now.