HELP! I NEED SOMEBODY!

DVDs:


	• Across the Universe (Two-Disc Special Edition) Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess Sony Pictures, 2008 average customer review:based on 387 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Beautiful and Bizarre

What a beautifully bizarre film that brilliantly uses a catchy and heartwarming Beatles soundtrack to show a tempestuous time in our nation's history. Though the movie is at times so bizarre it's confusing, it is easy to get caught up in the stunning and surreal artistic visuals. For me, the best musicals are those that know how to get in your face with pulse-pounding song and dance scenes and can also stir your heart with songs that are sad or romantic.

Across the Universe does all of this, frequently. The musical numbers are effective and abundant. Trying to tell a story with songs that weren't originally written for a musical isn't a new concept (see An American in Paris) but it also isn't a simple one. I give Julie Taymor a lot of credit for tackling such a difficult challenge.

Unlike some others, I'm not sorry the movie didn't win Best Picture, because it does have its faults that keep it just out of "great movie" range. But it is very, very good and deserves to be counted as one of the best musicals of all time.

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Great, Great, Great...

This film is a creative unpacking of the Sixties. The characters in the film are named after various characters found in music of the Beatles. Each scene builds on the previous integrating a compact history of the counter culture rebellion, the Vietnam War, and the music that defined a generation of activists, dropouts, artists, hippies, and recalcitrant non-conformists. My guess is this is a period piece that those who lived through the age might find interesting, but when I attended the showing of the film, I noted at least half viewing it were young people. My guess is it represents wider sub-group of people simply because its message is as contemporary as it was in the era it speaks for. Great film and highly creative; the music, of course, is nothing to laugh at...

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Six Stars. No, Seven.

A total surprise. The concept begs for derision and kept me away for many months, fearing yet another ham-handed mauling of Beatles material and a clueless painting of the era.

What I got instead was probably the most perfect and realistic portrayal of what it was like to be a young person in counterculture America in the late Sixties that I've ever seen in fictional film...

Four reasons come to mind, the film having just ended five minutes ago.

1) The performances of the uniformly excellent cast are truly superb. No one is TRYING to be a hippie. Nobody is ACTING in the grandest sense.

2) The sets, costumes and hair are right on the money - they look totally authentic - as compared for example with Oliver Stone's "The Doors" which looks like the director ran up big bills at the hippie wig and hippie clothes and hippie poster rental store in Burbank.

3) The music. As a lifelong Beatles fan I usually cringe at cover versions. In this film the songs are treated with such great respect... emphasizing their beauty and emotional impact by keeping the production very spare and (with the exception of Sadie's) the vocals quiet and heartfelt. I'll be buying the CD tomorrow. Some of the performances just tear your heart out.

4) Brilliant direction. I mean brilliant. No excess, no histrionics, no cliches, everything is kept real and muted. This director understands the benefits of silence and stillness, and that the real music is between the notes.

"Across the Universe" is the perfect balance of beauty and horror, fearlessness and fear, joy and ultimate heartbreak, and that's what the Sixties were if you were there. We were all young and innocent, and we grew up very quickly. In just a few heartbeats.

If you're of the age where you lived through the era, you were against the war and you lived near a city, you'll look at this wonderful film and say I knew those people.... I lived in those apartments.... I was at those demonstrations... I wore those clothes... and I sang those songs, those timeless, exquisitely gorgeous songs...

If you want to show someone what the Sixties were really like, show them this film. And as you watch it with them, prepare for a lump in the throat.

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HELP! I NEED SOMEBODY!

Help! I need somebody, not just anybody, but the director!

If you must start with disc 1, comparisons will be made. Like the movie "Hair" made you long for the original play and storyline, the movie "Tommy" made you long for the original album and storyline..."Across the Universe" will actually make you long for, or at least appreciate, Stigwood's "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

One surely wonders why the director chose, out of over 200 songs, most of the drug-induced ones The Beatles wrote. With slight musical changes to all the songs, and the removal of the overly-produced musical backgrounds of the originals, it is very easy to tell the difference between Lennon's wit and intelligence; and the lyrics that make no sense what-so-ever, unless you, too, are on drugs and seeing spiders on your hands and walls. The Lennon/McCartney music originally made up for the nonsense words.

The movie, itself, is full of beautiful faces and lovely voices. Some of the images are excellent, but the movie isn't as cohesive as you would think it would be. Some parts make no sense at all on the surface of a first viewing. Some Beatles' songs are just hinted at in a throwaway line, or the easily recognizable opening chords that just go into a different song. And like all `pretty' movies, the heroes are bashed in the head one day and have their lovely faces back the next.
Now, if you choose to watch disc 2 first, you will discover that the movie becomes more comprehensive and makes a little more sense.

Actually, disc 2 comes off more enjoyable than the movie itself, or at the very least, makes the movie seem better than it actually is.
If you just want to tune in, drop out and watch a movie, this is the one for you. Otherwise, stick to "Hard Days Night" and "Help".

Miss Josh

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Across the Universe from director Julie Taymor is a revolutionary rock musical that re-imagines America in the turbulent late-1960s a time when battle lines were being drawn at home and abroad. When young dockworker Jude (Jim Sturgess) leaves Liverpool to find his estranged father in America he is swept up by the waves of change that are re-shaping the nation. Jude falls in love with Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) a rich but sheltered American girl who joins the growing anti-war movement in New York s Greenwich Village. As the body count in Vietnam rises political tensions at home spiral out of control and the star-crossed lovers find themselves in a psychedelic world gone mad. With a cameo by Bono Across the Universe is the kind of movie you watch again like listening to a favorite album. (Roger Ebert CHICAGO SUN-TIMES)System Requirements:Run Time: 133 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MUSICALS/MUSICALS Rating: PG-13 UPC: 043396194625 Manufacturer No: 19462

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