hyped garbage

Excellent adaptation.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There's a very good reason this movie is so obscure: It's not great.Before you leap down my throat, let me assure you I'm a Monty Python fanatic and a Beatles fan. I love a good mock-biopic (I think "Dewey Cox" is about the best movie ever made).But those of us who turn to "The Rutles," expecting the kind of side-splitting laughter easily found in The Holy Grail, The Life of Brian, Spinal Tap, or Dewey Cox, are going to be pretty disappointed.Is the movie worth watching? Definitely. It's worth an hour of your time just to be amazed by the all-star cast ("Hey, was that John Belushi? Was that Bianca Jagger? Was that George Harrison?") It's really an astounding collection of 70s-era comedy and rock royalty.Additionally, it's worth watching because the music is so amazing. It's amazing how you can subtly combine, retool, and revamp the Beatles' songbook and come out with music that's very appealing in its own right.But in the end, the parody of the Beatles playing live and being all campy starts to wear a little thin, and you begin to see why this movie is so obscure. Go ahead and watch it, but keep your expectations in check.

Oh I love this film. It is very very silly indeed, with plays on words that no longer seem original, but somehow it just doesn't matter. I love Eric Idle. His take on Paul McCartney is gorgeous and he is also wonderful as Stanley J Krammerhead the third, and the presenter himself. Wonderful comedy performances like Gwen Taylor's mother of Leggy Mountbatten, and Jerome Greene's Blind Lemon Pye arguing with his wife - wonderful! I love the songs, which almost seem not like pastiches at all sometimes, and rather wonderful in their own right. Am I dead - or alive? Will my poor heart - survive? I just love it. Wonderful wonderful wonderful! (yes that word again). The perfect cheer-you-up film. And my, wasn't Mick Jagger beautiful once.

After years of reading about this movie, I finally saw The Rutles: All You Need is Cash on YouTube just now. Monty Python member Eric Idle created and wrote this mockumentary about a Beatles-like group originally as a filmed sketch on "Rutland Weekend Television". That sketch would eventually make its American debut on "Saturday Night Live" when he hosted the show during its second season. Lorne Michaels, producer of that show, liked what he saw and agreed to help produce a television special of this group for a 90 minute prime time spot. So with Idle and Gary Weis-"SNL" filmmaker at the time-directing and Rutles member Neil Innes writing the tunes-inspired by the Beatles songs, of course-and cameos by the likes of Mick Jagger, Paul Simon, fellow Python Michael Palin, and "SNL"ers like Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, along with writers/bit players Al Franken & Tom Davis, and Michaels himself, oh, and also former Beatle George Harrison who I didn't recognize in his makeup, this was quite a funny and entertaining show that I enjoyed highly especially when they played with certain happenings like having their manager quit to go to Australia for a teaching position instead of killing himself or mentioning Bob Dylan introducing them to a strange substance-called tea! There's plenty more funny stuff but I'll just now say that I loved The Rutles: All You Need is Cash and highly recommend it if you love The Beatles and great comedy.

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.