NOW AND THEN

“Now And Then – The Last Beatles Song” is now streaming on Disney+! The 12-minute documentary film, written and directed by Oliver Murray, tells the story behind the last Beatles song “Now And Then,” with exclusive footage and commentary from Paul, Ringo, George, Sean Ono Lennon and Peter Jackson. The last Beatles song “Now And Then” itself will be released worldwide at 10:00am ET / 7:00am PT on Thursday, November 2 by Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe. The accompanying music video for “Now And Then,” directed by three-time Oscar®-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson, will be available November 3 on Disney+.

The eventful journey of “Now And Then” took place over five decades and is the product of conversations and collaborations between the four Beatles that go on to this day. The long mythologized John Lennon demo was first worked on in February 1995 by Paul, George and Ringo as part of The Beatles Anthology project but it remained unfinished, partly because of the impossible technological challenges involved in working with the vocal John had recorded on tape in the 1970s. For years it looked like the song could never be completed.

But in 2022 there was a stroke of serendipity. A software system developed by Peter Jackson and his team, used throughout the production of the documentary series “The Beatles: Get Back,” finally opened the way for the uncoupling of John’s vocal from his piano part. As a result, the original recording could be brought to life and worked on anew with contributions from all four Beatles. This remarkable story of musical archaeology reflects The Beatles’ endless creative curiosity and shared fascination with technology. It marks the completion of the last recording that John, Paul and George and Ringo will get to make together and celebrates the legacy of the foremost and most influential band in popular music history.

MONKEY BUSINESS: The Story of George's Curious Creators - Hans & Margret Rey

Curious George has been a part of my life as long as I can remember.  The stories of this mischievous monkey were one of my favorite bedtime stories when I was young and now that I'm a parent the book holds an important spot on my children's bookshelf because my kids love the adventures of Curious George just as much as I did at their age.  I've looked at the covers and flipped through the pages of Curious George books more times than I can count, but I honestly couldn't tell you anything about his creators Hans and Margret Rey.  An upcoming film maker named Ema Ryan Yamazki thinks that it is a shame that so many people enjoy the adventures of George but know so little about the remarkable lives of the husband and wife creative duo who created the children's books featuring the curious little monkey so she is creating a documentary telling the story of Hans and Margret Rey.



To help share Hans and Margret Rey's story with the world, Yamazki is asking for help in financing the completion of her documentary, MONKEY BUSINESS, through a KICKSTARTER campaign. In addition to helping fund a wonderful documentary, supporters of the campaign also will receive thank you gifts depending on their level of contribution that include timeless original Hans Rey prints on items ranging from t-shirts, tote bags and coffee mugs to Curious George inspired kites and beach balls.  Whether you can contribute $5 or $5,000 every dollar helps in bringing this documentary to fruition.

Hans was living in Paris, France with his wife Margret in the late 1930s working as a cartoonist for a newspaper.  A publisher enjoyed Hans' cartoons of wild animals and asked him to create a children's book featuring them.  While the book that resulted Raffy and the Nine Monkeys wasn't very successful it did prompt Margret to begin working with Hans on a standalone book featuring one of its mischievous monkeys named Curious George.  The Reys had just finished their manuscript for Curious George which involved Margret writing the text and Hans providing the illustrations, when the Nazis invaded France.

As German Jews living in Paris, the Reys knew they were in danger if they stayed in France.  Hans cobbled together two bicycles from spare parts and on the morning of June 14, 1940 the Reys fled the city with only warm coats, some food, and the manuscript for Curious George.  The Nazi army entered Paris just a few hours after Hans and Margret had departed heading to Spain.  Making their way to Brazil, they founded Rio de Janeiro's first advertising agency and also had Curious George published in 1941.

The Reys eventually moved to the United States to focus on a career as children's book authors producing six more Curious George stories between 1947 and 1966. The Rey's final story, Curious George Goes to the Hospital, was written after representatives from Boston Children's Hospital contacted the couple asking if they could write a book to help prepare children for a hospital stay.  Apparently, the Reys took a lot of satisfaction from this book because parents would frequently write to them thanking it for easing a child's hospital visit.

In creating MONKEY BUSINESS, Yamazki discovered that astonishing details documenting the Rey's escape from Paris and their lives as children's book authors had been carefully preserved in more than 300 boxes of materials stored at the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi.  These included Hans' wartime journals, photographs taken by Margret, unpublished George sketches, brainstorming notes, and letters to and from the book's publisher.  With the cooperation of the Rey Estate, MONKEY BUSINESS provides a "behind-the-scenes glimpse of how Curious George came to be.

One of the aspects of the documentary that really impresses me is how MONKEY BUSINESS transforms portions of it into animated sequences that mimic the style of Hans' Curious George illustrations.  I found it to be a touching tribute witnessing Hans and Margret both in real life photographs and how they would have appeared if transformed into the pages of one of their books.  MONKEY BUSINESS combines animated sequences that are integrated with archived material from the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection  and interviews of people who knew the Reys personally or have studied the couple's artistic and literary accomplishments.   Add in a narrator and graphical elements like page turns and MONKEY BUSINESS promises to evoke the feeling of flipping through the pages of a Curious George book.

2016 is the 75th anniversary of the original publication of Curious George.  Bringing MONKEY BUSINESS to completion would be a wonderful way to celebrate this milestone year for a character who has meant so much to so many people since his inception in 1941.  Let's help share the story of how this curious monkey came to be by supporting Ema Ryan Yamazki's KICKSTARTER campaign today. CLICK HERE to make a contribution to support MONKEY BUSINESS.

HE NAMED ME MALALA

As a father I want my daughter to have limitless potential to excel at whatever goals she wants to pursue in life.  Fortunately we live in a country where females can attain an education and have societal freedoms which don't restrict her ability to engage in the life she wants to lead.  The ability to get an education is so important for opening opportunities for both professional and personal development, yet even in today's day and age more than 60 million girls are not able to attend school around the world because of societal restrictions or safety concerns.  In my view that is unacceptable!

Ziauddin (Zia)Yousafzai believed in the merits of every female getting the same education as a male would get and opened a chain of schools that allowed girls to attend in rural Pakistan even though there was societal undertones against such things.  Then the Taliban invaded their valley and things got worse.  Yet Zia still encouraged his daughter Malala to attend school and stand up against repression.  She began to blog against the societal restrictions against women dictated by the Taliban and advocate for girls to have the right to go to school.  At the age of 11, Malala was writing a blog for the BBC detailing her life under Taliban occupation, their attempts to take control of the area where she lived, and promoting education for girls living in the Swat Valley.  After a few years her public profile expanded from the blog to doing local, national, and international print and television interviews advocating for peace in her community and women's rights.  Malala's advocacy began to get attention not just in her own community but throughout her country drawing the wraith of the Taliban upon her.

On October 9, 2012, while her father was out of town advocating for more local assistance from the Pakistani government against Taliban repression, 15 year old Malala boarded a bus after school to head home.  A Taliban gunman boarded the bus, asked for Malala by name, then fired three shots at her.  The attack left her in critical condition.  She was eventually able to be be transported to England for treatment and after intensive rehabilitation has made an incredible recovery.  In 2014, Malala was named as a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle against suppression and work in promoting the right of all children to get an education making her the youngest ever Nobel Prize laureate at 17 years old.  With her family now permanently residing in the United Kingdom, Malala and Zia continue to advocate for access to a good education for every girl around the world.

Having just returned from the annual DAD 2.0 SUMMIT conference where more than 400 fathers from across the United States and Canada met to discuss the changing voice and perceptions of modern fatherhood, Malala's story reminded me that while there have been great gains over the last decade by men like Zia to promote equality for our daughters there is still so much more work to be done.  A common denominator between conversations I have with other dads in my hometown and the fathers who attended the DAD 2.0 SUMMIT is a desire for our daughters to excel in school and use that education to achieve whatever personal and professional dreams they may have.  I've noticed a growing trend in the last decade of more fathers across the U.S., U.K. and Canada becoming more active in the parenting responsibilities of family life and an uptick in stay-at-home dads being children's primary care-gives while their wives are working moms financially supporting the household.  As gender roles and stereotypes continue to dissolve in the future, I believe that men will be more relatable to women having experienced a more in-depth relationship through the parenting of their daughters.  This hopefully will lead to more opportunities for equality among the sexes when it comes to the freedoms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just in the United State but across the globe.

How do you think the role fathers play in raising and inspiring their children, as Zia did, has changed in the past decade?  How do you think this role will continue to change?

To help Malala and Zia raise awareness of the plight of girls being excluded from obtaining an education and advocate for every child to have the right to attend a safe school, the National Geographic Channel and 21st Century Fox are engaging in a social media initiative to garner attention and raise money for the Malala Fund.  Timed to the exclusive global broadcast television premiere of Academy Award® winner Davis Guggenheim's feature documentary HE NAMED ME MALALA on the National Geographic Channel, 21st Century Fox has committed to donating up to $50,000 in response to people standing #withMalala through social media.

From February 18 - March 10, 2016, 21st Century Fox will donate $1 to the Malala Fund for every tweet on Twitter using the hashtag #withMalala up to $50,000.  Additionally, Facebook users can utilize a custom application that allows profile pictures to be transformed into a yearbook photo.  The yearbook photo then adds animation that dissolves female users' photos from the page as a powerful metaphor that sheds light on the 60 million girls out of school worldwide and meant to further inspire people to learn about Malala's mission.  For more information about engaging in this social media campaign, visit www.supportmalala.com.

HE NAMED ME MALALA will premiere commercial free on Monday, February 29, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT on National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo MUNDO in the United States with a global roll out following shortly afterward involving 171 countries and 45 languages.



Tune in to the National Geographic Channel's showing of HE NAMED ME MALALA on February 29th, tweet out, and stand #withMalala against the subjugation and repression that too many of our world's daughters face everyday.