Across the Universe

When I first saw the trailer for "Across the Universe" I was pretty sure that I was going to like it. I have dozens and dozens of covers of Beatles songs, having put together playlists for each of the Beatles albums, in many instances having been able to find cover versions of all of the songs on a particular album. Also, in my youth, I contemplated a stage musical that would use the songs of Stevie Nicks to tell the story of the Welsh witch Rhiannon, so I appreciate the inclination. Besides, with 200-plus Beatles songs, the problem would not be finding enough songs for an entire musical but rather drawing a line and getting the finished movie in at under 2 hours.I would have said that using the music of the Beatles as the soundtrack for a movie is a fool proof idea, but that was because I was taking the idea at face value and had forgotten about "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Then I remember that "I am Sam" used contemporary covers of Beatles songs, but that example is really not on point since they are used in the background, the way Simon & Garfunkle's songs were used in "The Graduate." "Across the Universe" is a more traditional musical, even if it is, in Roger Ebert's memorable phrase, a musical "where we walk into the theater humming the songs."Before we are a minute into this 2007 movie I knew it was going to work, as soon as Jude (Jim Sturgess), sitting on a stormy beach, turns to the camera and sings: "Is there anybody going to listen to my story, All about the girl who came to stay?" I was reminded of the beginning of "William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet" when the newscaster does the whole "Two households, both alike in dignity..." prologue and I knew this "modern" version was going to work. It is not often when a movie is able to convince you in the prologue that it is going to work, but when it does (e.g., "Beauty and the Beast," "Sleepless in Seattle"), you tend to remember them.Because the characters all have names from Beatles songs, from Jude and Lucy to Sadie, Jo-Jo, and Prudence, there is an expectation that the songs from which they get their names are all going to pop up during the proceedings (or the end credits). But that does not prove to be the case. Sometimes a single line from a song pops up, so Beatles fans need to pay attention even when characters are not singing. The plot is basic boy (Sturgess's Jude) meets girl (Evan Rachel Wood's Lucy), boy loses girl, on to the requisite happy ending, played out against the turmoil of the 1960s, which means the War in Vietnam, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the like. Part of the fun is seeing the new contexts in which these familiar songs pop up, both in terms of the times, as with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Strawberry Fields Forever," and "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," and in terms of relationships, like with "I Want to Hold Your Hand."Julie Taymor previously directed "Titus" and "Frida," it is not surprising to those relatively few souls who have seen both of those films that she pulls this one off. A major treat here is seeing how Taymor makes specific lyrics work so well, from the "Won't you come out and play" from "Dear Prudence" to the "Jude, Judee, Judee" part of "Hey, Jude," and even a "duh" moment when she works in "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." I can also add to the list the nice use of the final chord from "A Day in the Life."The cast are relative unknowns, with Evan Rachel Wood the most familiar fact (but when Taymor suggests on the bonus disc that nobody knew Wood culd sing I have to respond that everybody who saw the final episode of the second season of "Once and Again," where Wood sang "Red Red Robin" after the wedding was well aware Wood can sing). It says something of the quality of the singing if I say that Wood might be the weakest vocalist in the cast and I have no complaints regarding what she does on . Dana Fuchs' Sadie was my overall favorite, belting out "Helter Skelter," "Oh, Darling," and "Why Don't We Do it in the Road?" But I could listen to Sturgess sing just anything, and it was great to have Joe Cocker show up for "Come Together." Some of my favorite parts here are the harmonies, most notably on the gorgeous version of "Because" the cast sings laying en masse in a field.Yes, I know all of the songs are available on the soundtrack, and that is fine for driving around in the car, but listening to these songs on the DVD is way better. Despite all the visual treats, "Across the Universe" is a great movie for playing in the background.

Best use of Beatles music.

Julie Taymor's musical, Across the Universe, featuring 34 Beatles' songs plus cameo appearances by Bono, Eddie Izzard and Joe Cocker is a film I did not think I would manner that would usually be improbably quick - but the cultural layering is both subtle and not so subtle, and the audience enjoys this phantasmagoria of a ride.Max soon receives a notice from - you guessed it - The Selective Service - and promptly tries to think of ways with his friends to get out of appearing before the draft board. The song I Want You is layered with a poster of Uncle Sam and Max's appearance before the draft board. You have to see this scene to believe what happens next.One of the flat mates, Prudence (T.V. Carpio), suggests that Max tell the board that he 'wants to pillage the towns and rape all the girls and women who look like her ' (she is Asian) and whammy - the painful reference to the My Lai Massacre has just been thrown.Sadie channels Janis with her booming voice, and then, in a huff - Sadie walks off stage, leaving singing and bed partner Jo Jo (Martin Luther McCoy) alone on stage, as she channels Tina leaving Ike.JoJo's story in the movie is worthy of a mention. JoJo (who is channeling a softer Jimi Hendrix), arrives in New York after his younger brother was killed in the Detroit race riots. JoJo's younger brother is seen, open coffin, in a deliberate reference to the 1955 murder of 14-year old African American Emmett Till by white men in Mississippi.It is exactly these types of references layered in with the magical mystery tour of singing, dancing and special effects that makes Across the Universe more than just another song and dance movie or much more than another pop movie or another movie referencing the Fab Four.The dance numbers themselves are worthy of big-time Broadway attention.Lucy, (Evan Rachel Wood) is the high school student who lives in (a tony Connecticut suburb, the backyard to NYC) and who takes up with the leader of the student radical group SDR - Students for a Democratic Republic, as the group channels the radical SDS - Students for a Democratic Society.What starts out seemingly innocent enough for Lucy and the SDR does not end innocently at all. The protest movement is alive and well.Yes, Lucy and Jude fall in love. And no, the love story is not simple. They break up at one point, and Jude later finds Lucy at a Columbia anti-war demonstration in which both are arrested. The complication of course, is that Jude is a British subject.By the time we see Bono - we are now post mid-1960s in the plot timeline - somewhere around 1967 - having heard such songs as Girl, Helter Skelter, Hold Me Tight, All My Loving, It Won't Be Long,(performed by Evan Rachel Wood) Let it Be(performed by Carol Woods and Timothy T. Mitchum), Come Together(performed by Joe Cocker and Martin Luther McCoy), and Why Don't We Do It in the Road? (performed by Dana Fuchs.)Max, Lucy, Jude and others board a 'magic bus' with Dr. Robert, a shaman, (played and sung by Bono, who - with an American accent, channels Ringo and is even Dylan-esque in his cultural references) who sings I Am the Walrus.Joe Cocker appears as three separate street characters: Tramp, Pimp, and Hippie.Selma Hayek appears as 5 digital representations of a nurse in the song Happiness is a Warm Gun. Another stunning set of images of song, politics, dance.Even though the 34 songs are all songs originally written by Lennon and McCartney between 1963 and 1969, all are redone here as original compositions for the movie. The pace is slower, the songs are all sung live, with only a couple of exceptions.If you are such a die-hard Beatle fan that seeing a newer treatment of Beatles material seems anathema to you, then I still think you will enjoy this movie. I don't know of one person of the generation who lived this who hates this movie.If you are a fan of musicals and if you enjoy clever 1960s references, then you will enjoy this movie. The famous song featuring Lucy only appears in the credits with Bono singing it.Other featured songs include Revolution, While My Guitar Gently Weeps (as a tribute to MLK), Strawberry Fields Forever. In the DVD, Jullie Taymor mentions that Strawberry Fields forever was shot live, not as a digital composition, something that surprises all viewers of this fantastic footage, graphic and realistic as it is, like a newsreel.Stunning. Simply stunning. Art, culture and politics interwoven.

This has been my favorite movie since the first time I watched it as a kid and didn’t even understand most of the plot. Now as an adult, I watch it every year notice new details every time. Trippy, beautiful, insightful, and powerful. The art styles are gorgeous, the cast soundtrack is something I listen to weekly… can’t recommend enough