Watch The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash For Free

A lot of fun.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

A TV reporter (Eric Idle) presents an overview of the Rutles. It's a parody of the Beatles. Dirk McQuickly (Eric Idle) is a parody of Paul McCartney. Ron Nasty (Neil Innes) is a parody of John Lennon. It has a few real life stars like Mick Jagger and Paul Simon playing themselves. It has some 'real' people and uses old footage. It's the history of the Beatles at a different bent.Unlike Spinal Tap which came 6 years later, the band members are not too outrageous. They are the Beatles slightly off-kilter. Maybe they are not crazy enough for the American audience. Eric Idle and Neil Innes have been producing the TV parody band in the 70's. There is lots of SNL involvement. This is great for Beatles fans, Monty Python fans, and early SNL fans.

Yes we've seen these type of movies of wannabe copycat bands or solo artists. Just look at all the Elvis's. Yet this film otherwise, known as The Rutles (I was quite surprised this film had another name) is ostensibly a film of initiative, enthusiasm, and color, but falls flat, where it failed to humor me at all, but it wouldn't many others. To be blunt, I found it quite disappointing when it's steered by some of the Monty Python team who are capable of much better stuff. The Rutles are of course a copycat band of The Beatles, and yes there is that copycat Abbey Road crossing cover, also made fun a little bit of in Trainspotting. The Rutles seemed to be this kind of famous, struggling and under appreciated band, with many a bad critique. Actually the presence of Mick Jagger commenting on them, brought some sanity to this overindulging misfire of a film. Eric Idle is great though, not only doubling as a pesky reporter, and Rutles star, but about three other + roles, really showing us what character acting's about, it's disappointing he was wasted in this forgettable show. Jagger was the best thing about it, the other attributes being Idle's versatile performances, and the presence of Paul Simon. Too, one scene with the unforgettable, John Belushi, just made me realize, we lost a king the day the guy died. This was just one of those films, that had a thank god it's over thing going, while being forgettable too. Watch punk Idle just near the closing, wearing the biggest safety pin, you'll ever see in your life.

The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978)This might be a necessary rite of passage for those who love the Beatles, or those who love "This is Spinal Tap" and other mockumentaries. Because this set the pattern, and a rather low bar of professionalism, for all that followed. It's not a great movie but it has great moments.Those moments include the extended interviews with Mick Jagger (and to a lesser extent Paul Simon). When each of these people first appear it's a thrill, when the reappear the surprise is gone and you realize the surprise is most of it. That the famous real stars were willing to get in on the gag is a great twist of fictional history.There are also other little snippets--not enough of them, but good ones, like Bill Murray being a crazy (typically) radio announcer, and an odd and overacted scene with John Belushi. Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner show up and so even does Bianca Jagger. These are quick and fun cameos, and the more of these the better.Central throughout is Eric Idle, the director and writer, and the one consistency in it all as the traveling reporting telling the documentary tale of the Pre-Fab Four. Some of the camera tricks are really funny, and the general dead pan delivery is good.All of this is great stuff and it's a lot, and if you could make a shorter mockumentary with the cream of the movie you'd have a pretty solid film. What drags it down is partly avoidable, party not: all the songs. We hear a good 15 or 20 Beatles-style homages or send-ups with these four mimics, and it's always interesting for ten seconds, hearing the slight twists to the famous riffs or melodies, seeing how they set the stage (with a little real footage now and then to make it even more real). But it wears thin after a minute, and sometimes the full three minutes is played out and it's just too long. And it happens a lot.It's a fun ride and if you can chill or chitchat during some of the drawn out parts you'll quickly be jerked into attention by some new twist.

When this was first shown on television I was amazed and impressed. The quality of the music and the visuals and the story appeared to be so good. So, that was on my small screen black and white and with the standard television sound of 1978. Find a low cost DVD, I was not expecting it to have aged well, though several user comments here made me start to feel optimistic. I found that some of the music worked well, particularly at the start. The visuals did not seem as true to Beatledom as in 1978, but I could accept them. I found the Foot song to be scary. Big chunks felt blatantly sick. For me, it has not aged well. * I gave it a second viewing, but only because I was writing this comment. More of the music became okay or more tolerable. The bits that I had considered to be sick, I now used them as a key for considering what the storyteller was saying about those times. I found the end of Beatledom, Apple and Double White and such, to need a more sympathetic interpretation than the storyline gives. Maybe not Double White. If there was disaster there was also good intentions. At the time it felt wrong to consider this as part of a road to Hell that a large chunk of UK society, at all levels, was chained to be moving on. I can say that I vastly prefer the treatment of The Rutles to the vomit of A Hard Day's Night, just as I prefer the music of A Hard Day's Night. Personal view, cuckoo talk. I also link this more globally, with the flow of history in the twentieth century, with women being allowed to show themselves capable of carrying out men's work in the two world wars only be sent back to the kitchen sink, sack dress, afterwards. Spock. 1960's long hair often did not show itself as being as capable as those working women, for me it really was a trapped fantasy time. You need feet. There must have been loads of amazing opportunities for a better history that ended up getting blocked by the ways that get things blocked. This is cuckoo talk, just a personal view.