So, apparently god/zeus/ the great spaghetti monster doesn't want me to have fun on friday nights as evident in the weather, me driving to the wrong movie theater, and the numerous planning/scheduling conflicts I've experienced in the past couple of weeks. But I showed him. In the face of mounting hurdles on the road to fun, my friend and I decided to just pack it in and rent a movie. Our choice, you ask? Across the Universe. It was quite... trippy.
Now, I will make absolutely no attempt to review that movie. It was unlike any movie I've ever seen, I'm very conflicted about whether or not I actually like it, and I readily admit that I do not have the wealth of knowledge to dissect it in any way that is at all satisfactory. So instead, I'm offering up my opinion on the musical stylings of Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, and the various artists that made this movie what it was.
We'll start with Evan Rachel Wood. The first two songs she sung (Hold me tight and It won't be long) gave her room to belt and that was pretty impressive. However, I was slightly disappointed in her covers of "If I Fell" and "Blackbird". While it's clear the girl can hold a note, a feat that is impressive compared to the crap "artists" disney shells out, the songs dragged on like funeral marches. "If I fell" seemed even worse since it came after T.V. Carpio's cover of "I want to Hold Your Hand." Carpio instilled her own style into her song, revitalizing it a bit. "If I fell," however, just was completely uninspired.
The other lead character was Jim Sturgis' Character (Jude, of course). Now I have a weak spot in my heart for good looking brits, so I may be a tad biased. But I thought he was pretty good. I actually thought they had hired a singer to dub the songs until I looked it up on the internet. "All my lovin" was incredibly faithful to the original. My favorite songs were probably "Across the Universe" and "Revolution." The first song has a sweeping orchestra at times, and a chorus at others. The second is all Sturgis and angry guitars. It was refreshing to me that he could succeed at both the slow songs and the rock songs. He wasn't perfect, but he was at least not notably weak at any point.
Well, I've got a life to get on with... but next time, I'll probably write about the other two notable singers from the movie. Dana Fuchs played Sexy Sadie and Martin Luther played JoJo. Luther's songs were easily the best, but I'll save that for another time.
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The key to deciding whether or not you liked "Across the Universe" is this sort-of-vague notion of what the film's mission was. If it was supposed to be this visual/auditory fantasia celebrating the power of Beatles songs, then it was fantastic. If it was supposed to be a normal musical with a plot and real, dynamic characters and an engaging story, then it was low-grade fluff.
I've personally decided to stick with the more friendly interpretation. My favorites were "Oh Darling" and "Hey Jude/Come Together," though that has a lot to do with "Oh Darling" being my favorite Beatles song to begin with.
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