![]() ![]() Sheryl Lee nails the Germanic cool that Astrid needs to be at the center of so many things at once. What makes Backbeat hold up is an amazing cast. He was there because he looked cool on stage and was friends with the lead singer. ![]() Sure he was on stage playing bass, but he was not a musician. In a strange sense, Stu is the original Sid Vicious. But this was not really the story of how the Beatles came together. Supposedly Paul McCartney is not a fan of the film since he didn’t like how he was portrayed and the songs his character sung on stage. What will be Stu’s fate that leads us to never talk of The Fab Five outside of college basketball? Everything seems on the verge of imploding right when they’re happening for the band. As much as things are going good for Stu, he’s being overcome by massive headaches that nobody can properly diagnose since it’s 1961. But this isn’t merely a lover’s triangle because there’s also Klaus dealing with his longtime girlfriend dumping him for a member of the band he likes. He also seems to take a bit of a fancy to Astrid. This creates a major bit of tension as John doesn’t want to lose his friend. Among them are Klaus Voormann ( Little Sharks‘ Kai Wiesinger) and Astrid Kirchherr ( Twin Peaks‘ Sheryl Lee). Even with the rough and tumble crowd listening to their early rock and soul covers, a few cool West German kids arrive. Although they were switchblade holding sailors and not screaming teenage girls. But this is where the band truly learned to play and deal with out of control audiences. Shea Stadium was not on the horizon for the band. It’s in the port city’s version of The Combat Zone. It’s not the most fancy of clubs for the early Beatles. The two teens don’t have much time to recover since they must sail off to Hamburg for their band has a longtime gig in Hamburg. Seeing how this is 1961, a time before an MRI, Stu merely walks off his beating. This leads to a flight that ends with Stu and John being beaten up in an alley. One of the thugs loses it when Stu has drawn a naked picture of his girlfriend. The two are hanging at a bar when a couple rough Liverpool guys get offended that John and Stu are seeming too chummy with arms around each other. Stu Sutcliffe ( True Detective‘s Stephen Dorff) is an art school pal of John Lennon ( Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone‘s Ian Hart). Haven’t heard of him? Well luckily enough Backbeat is out on Blu-ray and gives the story of Stu’s short tenure in the band during a seminal moment in the Greatest Band in the World’s creation. The Fifth Beatle will always be Stu Sutcliffe, the original bass player for the band. Was it their manager Brian Epstein? How about DJ Murray the K that broke them in New York City? Perhaps keyboardist Billy Preston who jammed with them during their final sessions? Some will even label it on Pete Best, but he was the original drummer. BACKBEAT shows that talent does not guarantee wisdom.Music critics love to debate who was the real Fifth Beatle. Postman.” However, the soap operatics, grungy strip dancing, amoral sex, and abusive language (when it can be understood through the thick Liverpudlian accents) are all a major turnoff. Much of the acting is very good, and Ian Hart, Gary Bakewell and Christy O’Neill convincingly resemble the young John, Paul and George, especially during their slick and energetic lip-syncing of pre-Lennon/McCartney rock tunes such as “Twist and Shout” and “Please Mr. As a sad coda to this decision, he dies of a cerebral hemorrhage shortly thereafter. After much tempestuous carrying on, Sutcliffe leaves the band for Astrid and his art career, just as the Beatles’ popularity is taking off. However, the affair greatly disturbs John Lennon and raises questions about a homosexual bond–which was vigorously denied. Sutcliffe spies the beautiful Astrid across a smoke-filled bar, and it is lust at first sight. A stormy triangle involving John Lennon, his best friend, Stuart Sutcliffe (the “fifth Beatle,” who did not stay with the group) and a beautiful German photographer, Astrid, generate a lot of soap-operatics, not to mention abusive language and steamy sex. BACKBEAT is a thin and raucous vignette about the early days of the Beatles when they played the sleazy strip joints of Hamburg, Germany. ![]()
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