Across The Universe

Like I promised, here's what a good "musically enhanced" movie should be like. I'm just not comfortable with the term "musical" anymore. It's sounds too…  I don't know. It just evokes an image of Oliver Twist in my mind, singing "Food, Glorious Food!" and kids in rags dancing in choreographed lines, swinging their bowls around, and the whole concept makes me roll my eyes and usually seek a sharp object with which to end my life. Nobody spontaneous erupts into song in real life. Just me. And only in the grocery store, when the in-store music is good. That's how you know you're officially old. You dig the Muzak in Hy-Vee. Moving on…

 -ACROSS   THE   UNIVERSE-

 

Theatrical Release: October 2007

 

Genre: Drama/Beatles Musical

 

Sub-genre: Beatles Enthusiast Wet Dream

 

Starring: I couldn't name a single actor in this movie. Probably because not all actors should sing, Pierce Brosnan. Fortunately, this film is loaded with good singers who can act convincingly. Cameos include Joe Cocker, Bobcat Goldthwait doing his spot-on Bono impression, and Eddie Izzard who's almost unrecognizable when NOT in drag.

 

The overview: 1968. A young Liverpudlian (less-than-sexy name to be called) crosses The Pond to America and gets wrapped up with a girl in the most progressive year in American history. All set to the timeless music of The Beatles.

 

I don't even know where to begin with this movie. It's so good for so many reasons. Obviously, the music is the focal point of the film and when I initially heard that the songs were "re-done" to match the mood of the movie, I was more than a little skeptical. But all the covers and re-mixes for this movie were amazing, which is a feat in itself. And to weave a feasible love story into a musical that's also nearly a chronicle of the Fab Four is a monumental feat. If you weren't a fan before this movie, you will wanna get all the Beatles albums (Word Of Advice: get everything from Rubber Soul and after.) As a testament to director Julie Taymor's talent, all the imagery, characters, places, plots, all elude to something in the Beatles history. You don't have to be a Beatles historian to appreciate these but some of the more obscure references might be lost until you dig a little deeper. Some obvious ones include...

• The characters names: Jude, Lucy, Prudence, Jojo, and Sadie. 
• There's also an appearance by Joe Cocker, famous for his covers of "A Little Help From My Friends," among others. 
• Prudence crawls through a window and when someone asks who she is, Jude says, "I don't know. She came in through the bathroom window." 
• Jude smashes some red and green paint on a canvass, creating a cool abstract strawberry, referencing "Strawberry Fields Forever."
• The closing scene of the film is a rooftop concert by Sadie's band, which of course is paying homage to the final public performance of the Beatles, on top of the Apple Studios building. In the film, the building is the Strawberry Jams studio.
• The Blue Meanies from Yellow Submarine also make an appearance in the surreal, psychedelic trip to Mr. Kite's (yet another Beatles nod)

As a Beatles fan, there's so much cinematic winking happening in this movie that it's hard to compile my complete thoughts. Were it possible, all 4 Beatles would certainly give their approval, if only because musicals are rarely done so well. The songs in the movie are woven into the dialogue, sometimes substituting for it, sometimes easing into it, other times the lyrics are just spoken. From the first song, you can tell the music is included as a way to drive the plot as well as being the focus of the film (but not entirely.) If you've ever enjoyed a music video and thought, "The song and this video are terrific, independent of one another, but having them together like this enables one to benefit from the other." The best example I can think of is the Fatboy Slim video where Christopher Walken dances around the empty hotel... Check it out...

All in all, you won't be dissappointed with this movie, whether you like musicals or not, whether you like the Beatles or not. Sorry the review is so short this time. I'm speechless, it's such a good movie. I can see why it's Sean's favorite.

 

Overall: 10 out of 10. What a great movie. You'll buy the soundtrack but I recommend skipping that and like I said before, buy the Beatles albums from Rubber Soul through Let It Be.

 

Best Scene: There are so many well done songs in this movie, it's hard to pick which one was best represented as live action. I'm leaning towards "Happiness Is A Warm Gun", where Salma Hayek gyrates around for a bit in a nurse's outfit but I think Sean hit it on the head when he talked about the montage for Max's military enlistment, "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." All the military personnel are square-jawed and nearly inhuman and look like Kirk Douglas, and the enlistment process is cold, unemotional, machinsitic, and efficient. The dancing is forceful and more reminiscent of the enlistment physical than anything really choreographed (i.e., spin around, slap your back, bend your elbows, grab your ankles, spread 'em, etc.)  Anyone who's ever been in the service has gone through this process (not the grabbing your ankles and spreading 'em part, hopefully) and will  understand the humor in this scene. Max is one of hundreds of troops, his personal life is inconsequential and he's simply a number. Plus, the military caricatures in this scene look like my old drill sergeant so it was especially funny to me.

 

What my wife said: "I don't have anything clever to say. It was just good."

 

Who would enjoy this movie: Beatles fans, duh. I think it might be hit or miss with anyone else. If you're not so much into the Beatles, this is a nice introduction to their music, even if the songs have been retooled slightly. And if you don't like the Beatles at all, what's wrong with you? You probably hate puppies, too. And sunshine.

 

Watch it if you like: Grease (for the record: I hate Grease); Tommy; The White Album

 

Next in the Q: Forgetting Sarah Marshall…

 

**Thanks to Google, Wikipedia, YouTube and IMDB for various bits of reference**