The Beatles: Eight Days A Week

The story of John, Paul, George and Ringo, their unique and wonderful chemistry, the impact their music and their very existence had on an entire generation of adoring fans, their evolution as artists in a world that was rapidly changing at the same time: it's a mother lode of pop-culture goodness.

Oscar-winning director Ron Howard's documentary The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years, to give it its full, lengthy title, focuses on a relatively brief timespan in the band's heyday, but it's so full of information shared in such a vibrant and joyful way that one can't help but be swept up in Beatlemania all over again.

Eight Days A Week follows the band between 1963 and 1966, when they released a handful of albums that topped the charts for months at a time, shot and released two movies and played 250 shows around the world.

It's a schedule that would exhaust the sturdiest of performers, and it's easy to understand why the Beatles started to feel kind of jaded and burned-out by 1966.

But in the build-up to that point, the Beatles displayed incredible energy, vitality and creativity as both a studio band and a live act.

The live footage in Eight Days A Week is an absolute treat, not only because it shows what a tight, cohesive outfit the band was, but also because it reinforces just what they meant to fans at the time.

Artists had devoted fans before the Beatles, and they've had them since. But Beatlemania, as it's depicted in archival footage of armies of screaming fans and the recollections of celebrity admirers (Whoopi Goldberg's memories are particularly sweet and touching), comes across as something unifying, a happy common ground in a world showing signs of stress fracture during a turbulent period.

Does Eight Days A Week provide new insights into the life and times of the Beatles? To some degree, yes, although die-hard fans will probably be familiar with what's displayed here.

But the movie really works best as a celebration of four friends and their cheeky, charismatic camaraderie, and the way they captured the imagination of the world.

Also, stick around after the end credits of Eight Days a Week for 30 minutes of remastered footage from the band's 1965 show at New York's Shea Stadium. It's as close as you'll get to actually being there.