967 I Wanna Hold Your Hand
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
967 I Wanna Hold Your Hand
I Wanna Hold Your Hand
On February 9, 1964, the Beatles made their first live appearance on American television on The Ed Sullivan Show, ratcheting up the frenzy of a fanbase whose ecstatic devotion to the band heralded an explosive new wave of youth culture. I Wanna Hold Your Hand looks back to that fateful weekend, following six teenagers, each with their own reasons for wanting to see the Fab Four, from New Jersey to Manhattan on a madcap mission to meet the band and score tickets to the show. With this rollicking first feature, director Robert Zemeckis and cowriter Bob Gale established themselves as a filmmaking team par excellence, adept at mining America's cultural memory for comedy and adventure with a winning mixture of sweet nostalgia and playful irreverence.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Robert Zemeckis and cowriter Bob Gale, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New conversation among Zemeckis, Gale, and executive producer Steven Spielberg
• New interview with actors Nancy Allen and Marc McClure
• Audio commentary from 2004 featuring Zemeckis and Gale
• The Lift (1972) and A Field of Honor (1973), two early short films by Zemeckis
• Trailer and radio spots
• More!
• PLUS: An essay by critic Scott Tobias
On February 9, 1964, the Beatles made their first live appearance on American television on The Ed Sullivan Show, ratcheting up the frenzy of a fanbase whose ecstatic devotion to the band heralded an explosive new wave of youth culture. I Wanna Hold Your Hand looks back to that fateful weekend, following six teenagers, each with their own reasons for wanting to see the Fab Four, from New Jersey to Manhattan on a madcap mission to meet the band and score tickets to the show. With this rollicking first feature, director Robert Zemeckis and cowriter Bob Gale established themselves as a filmmaking team par excellence, adept at mining America's cultural memory for comedy and adventure with a winning mixture of sweet nostalgia and playful irreverence.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Robert Zemeckis and cowriter Bob Gale, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New conversation among Zemeckis, Gale, and executive producer Steven Spielberg
• New interview with actors Nancy Allen and Marc McClure
• Audio commentary from 2004 featuring Zemeckis and Gale
• The Lift (1972) and A Field of Honor (1973), two early short films by Zemeckis
• Trailer and radio spots
• More!
• PLUS: An essay by critic Scott Tobias
- ptatler
- Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:08 pm
- Contact:
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
That was ninja-level topic locking/unlocking.
Did we know this was coming? I don't know anything about it other than a lady I used to work for was an extra in it and told us about her Hollywood Adventure often. She'll definitely buy it on the day of release!
- FrauBlucher
- Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
- Location: Greenwich Village
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
There was a Robert Zemeckis phantom page back in the day. But wouldn’t have guessed for this.
- colinr0380
- Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
- Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
Here's the trailer
It is a fun film though and deserves to be better known in the Zemeckis canon. You can kind of feel its influence on the shenanigans behind the scenes of the Enchantment Under The Sea dance in Back To The Future in this, as the various girls split up and have their own simultaneous adventures surrounding the Beatles performing at the Ed Sullivan show (Zemeckis has always been great as a filmmaker at juggling multiple plot strands at once). Plus all of the usage of pop culture icons as larger than life, but almost untouchable figures always off in the background feels like it anticipates Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Forrest Gump.
There is that sense of a somewhat idealised look back at a previous period in many a Zemeckis film, but an approach which even here seems less about totally wallowing in nostalgia (though there is of course some of that appeal to the familiar to draw audiences in) but more to look at key events tangentially through a side story that provides a more 'knowing' (wry, distanced, even subversive and poking fun) and contemporary perspective. See something like Allied or The Walk more recently (or even the rather gaudy, action-packed entirely motion captured CGI adaptations of classic literature, although that was Zemeckis's least appealing period to me). Even though I am not a fan of Forrest Gump I have to admit that it does that too, although I feel it ends up making some worryingly broad politically conservative pro-down home simple folk going off to war, pro-big business, celeb cameo as shorthand for importance (by contrast in I Wanna Hold Your Hand the Beatles are only important as structuring elements to provide a quest whilst the film itself focuses on the trials the girls face in attempting to reaching their goal of meeting their idols), anti-long haired hippie points by doing so!
It is a fun film though and deserves to be better known in the Zemeckis canon. You can kind of feel its influence on the shenanigans behind the scenes of the Enchantment Under The Sea dance in Back To The Future in this, as the various girls split up and have their own simultaneous adventures surrounding the Beatles performing at the Ed Sullivan show (Zemeckis has always been great as a filmmaker at juggling multiple plot strands at once). Plus all of the usage of pop culture icons as larger than life, but almost untouchable figures always off in the background feels like it anticipates Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Forrest Gump.
There is that sense of a somewhat idealised look back at a previous period in many a Zemeckis film, but an approach which even here seems less about totally wallowing in nostalgia (though there is of course some of that appeal to the familiar to draw audiences in) but more to look at key events tangentially through a side story that provides a more 'knowing' (wry, distanced, even subversive and poking fun) and contemporary perspective. See something like Allied or The Walk more recently (or even the rather gaudy, action-packed entirely motion captured CGI adaptations of classic literature, although that was Zemeckis's least appealing period to me). Even though I am not a fan of Forrest Gump I have to admit that it does that too, although I feel it ends up making some worryingly broad politically conservative pro-down home simple folk going off to war, pro-big business, celeb cameo as shorthand for importance (by contrast in I Wanna Hold Your Hand the Beatles are only important as structuring elements to provide a quest whilst the film itself focuses on the trials the girls face in attempting to reaching their goal of meeting their idols), anti-long haired hippie points by doing so!
Last edited by colinr0380 on Sat Sep 29, 2018 5:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
Member AftertheRain mentioned back in 2016 that he remembered another member heard from Bob Gale that it was coming from Criterion, so I vaguely recalled this was forthcoming. Pretty long gestation period, but I guess Zemeckis is always busy
- What A Disgrace
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:34 pm
- Contact:
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
This is my favorite newsletter clue so far.
- dustybooks
- Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 10:52 am
- Location: Wilmington, NC
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
I agree with everything Colin says above; I still think it's one of Zemeckis' best films and it's a great example of the comic energy he used to be able to dredge up in tandem with Gale. And to also echo Colin, as a Beatles fan it's fun but the Beatles themselves are nearly beside the point because the film is really about fandom, and youth. Wendie Jo Sperber's performance is just note-perfect to me; whenever there's some anniversary retrospective about the Beatles on Sullivan her flipping out in the elevator is what I always picture, and makes that moment seem so much more present to me than any talking-head going about the world changing or whatever.
The existing DVD has an excellent commentary by Zemeckis and Gale.
The existing DVD has an excellent commentary by Zemeckis and Gale.
- Roger Ryan
- Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2010 12:04 pm
- Location: A Midland town spread and darkened into a city
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
I was a big fan of the film when it was released forty years ago (!) and saw it twice theatrically. One's appreciation may be determined by how tolerant the viewer is toward the Eddie Deezen character (nonetheless, it's a better showcase for the actor than 1941). Part of the charm of the film is that it takes its lead from American Graffiti and inter-cuts the various escapades in, more-or-less, real time. The previous comments are correct in that the Beatles' appearance is really only the MacGuffin to build the story around. I'm not even sure the film relies much on nostalgia for its effectiveness and it never approaches the pandering nostalgia or crass sentimentality of Gump.
- Gregory
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
Forrest Gump is the highest-rated Zemeckis film on IMDb, higher even than Back to the Future.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
You surely know perfectly well what Romano's character means, though
- Gregory
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
That he doesn't want to see anyone criticize it?
This is from a film I haven't seen, and it seemed like an odd example to pick for the joke, like if he'd said "they hate The Shawshank Redemption."
This is from a film I haven't seen, and it seemed like an odd example to pick for the joke, like if he'd said "they hate The Shawshank Redemption."
- Kirkinson
- Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 5:34 am
- Location: Portland, OR
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
Practically the same joke shows up in This is the End, only directed at "hipsters" rather than "the internet." I've heard this a couple times in real life, too. It seems a little odd to me, as well, since I never used to have the impression that people felt quite that strongly about it, but for whatever reason, Forrest Gump seems to have become the go-to example of a supposedly widely beloved movie that toxic snarky people like to put down.
- hearthesilence
- Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
- Location: NYC
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars are probably my favorite two Zemeckis films by a good margin, and I think the 35mm prints screened at MoMA not too long ago were actually brand new. [EDIT: My memory is at fault - I came across a post I made here shortly after the screening, and I noted that they were DCP's.] As much as I love the Beatles, I'm always wary of things that are clearly made with the idea that "the fans" will go see this no matter what - it usually means it's disposable. But I finally saw this due to good word of mouth and it's quite good. It helps that we don't see a re-enactment of the Beatles played by actors - it's all focused on their impact on youth culture.
Last edited by hearthesilence on Mon Mar 11, 2019 12:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
Nancy Allen said Criterion will be releasing this in March, so there's one title we can all add to our predix in a week
- flyonthewall2983
- Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:31 pm
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- Contact:
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
Posted on their social media today
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
- Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
- Location: SLC, UT
- dustybooks
- Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 10:52 am
- Location: Wilmington, NC
Re: 967 I Wanna Hold Your Hand
Ira and Georgia from Yo La Tengo introduced a screening of this several years ago. Longshot but since they have an existing relationship with Criterion I idly wonder if they could be commissioned to participate in the "more!"
- PfR73
- Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:07 pm
Re: 967 I Wanna Hold Your Hand
I'm really excited about the inclusion of Zemeckis' early short films!
- whaleallright
- Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2005 12:56 am
Re: Forthcoming: I Wanna Hold Your Hand
Evidently for several decades running Zemeckis has no one in his life to tell him how terrible his hair plugs look.
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- cdnchris
- Site Admin
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:45 pm
- Location: Washington
- Contact:
Re: 967 I Wanna Hold Your Hand
Spielberg's pretty good about participating in supplements but I'm actually a bit surprised he was able to make time to do a group conversation. I'm actually looking forward to watching that.
- dwk
- Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:10 pm
- FrauBlucher
- Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
- Location: Greenwich Village
Re: 967 I Wanna Hold Your Hand
Bluray.com Sounds like the picture quality is a mixed bag.
- hearthesilence
- Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
- Location: NYC
Re: 967 I Wanna Hold Your Hand
That's disappointing. I did a search and found a post I made shortly after catching this at MoMA in 2015 - they did indeed screen a DCP, and it looked quite good. FWIW, this was part of a retrospective that was launched in conjunction with the premiere of The Walk, and a really good-looking DCP was also shown for Used Cars (which was also released on Blu-Ray since that screening). There's no indication on MoMA's site that these were 4K restorations, but regardless, if the DCP for I Wanna Hold Your Hand looks that good, it's frustrating the same can't be done for a Blu-Ray version of the film.