Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[Ghoulish Delight]

It's by no means perfect, but I thought they did a realloy fabulous job of not creating some literal visual transcription of the songs but rather took meaning from the songs and ran with it. The story is no Pulitzer-winner but good enough to hang everything together, and I thought most of the vignettes stood on their own as little mini stories. The whole thing felt like a good music album in movie musical form.

And I was prepared to hate it after the intro. I really disliked the bit of Helter Skelter at the front, but maybe if I see it again I'll get something different out of it.

[flippyshark]

Mostly loved Across The Universe. A few scenes made me cringe (Dear Prudence was way too literal, and silly, plus that character went nowhere, and the Mr. Kite sequence, oy) I thought the ending worked great, since by then I was blubbering like a teenager.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I liked Mr. Kite.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

We never had a thread about Across the Universe? This board doesn't have boolean search. And there's no way I'm going to read this whole thread again, even though I would love to see others' impressions on this film.

Seriously, people - please start threads about individual new movies.

I thought it was great.

[innerSpaceman]

There was TONS of talk about Across the Universe when it was released. It's in THIS thread, if I'm not mistaken.

[JWBear]

I hated the Mr Kite sequence, as well.

[Gemini Cricket]

Visually, ATU was pretty. I really liked the draft exam sequence. I, too, liked Mr. Kite. But I wasn't moved by the movie. I kind of laughed when these actors started singing the Beatles' songs. I didn't find any of their portrayals to be as deep as the songs are. It felt like the director and the actors got together and said, 'Okay, now we're going to pretend to be hippies.' But because so many people I know adore this movie, I'm going to give it another shot...

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

Visually, ATU was pretty. I really liked the draft exam sequence. I, too, liked Mr. Kite. But I wasn't moved by the movie.

I didn't connect with the characters in the same way I did the sort of similarly-gimmicked Moulin Rouge, for example. But I think Ghoulish Delight got nailed it best as a visual album watched and listened to with 60's/Beatles vignettes strung together by a connective-tissue-paper-thin story featuring appealing actors.

Interestingly, I love all the covers of the Beatles songs as they appear in the visual album of Across the Universe, but dislike them greatly as merely cover songs on the CD from that movie.


So the visual album style is unique and, imo, marvelous. It's not a film I can connect with in the same way as a conventionally plotted or executed musical ... its form is unique and its road to appreciation also unique, and perhaps a little more challenging.


But, sheesh, it's like 2 minutes between numbers ... and I enjoy every single one of the musical numbers, with a handful being fantastically excellent.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

There was TONS of talk about Across the Universe when it was released. It's in THIS thread, if I'm not mistaken.

Like I said, I'm not rereading the entire thread, and there's no good way to search for the posts.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Like I said, I'm not rereading the entire thread, and there's no good way to search for the posts.

If you use the "search this thread" and search for Universe that should get you most of the discussion.