Across The Universe

I watched the film 'Across The Universe' for the very first time on Friday afternoon. Wow. What an incredible two hours that was! I immediately wanted to re-start the movie and watch it again, but I had to go to work, so I'm saving my second viewing for sometime this weekend. This film is very reminiscent of Tim Burton's stylistics, yet I don't think it can quite be compared completely to a Burton film because this movie is just so original and unique and visionary. It's fun and whimsical and strange, the acting is superb, the music is absolutely WONDERFUL (what a fun and clever use of classic Beatles songs), and the characters are real and complex and flawed, but I found myself loving them and cheering for them and wanting every single one of them to have a happy ending. For a movie with such an "psychedelic" feel, the love story was refreshingly realistic. This movie made me not only want to fall in love in the midst of the radical hippy movement of the 60's, but to be a part of that era and that time, to live and love freely without social restraint. Up until today I'd always considered myself a fair-weather Beatles fan -- I know all the hits, I'm familiar with their repertoire, and I appreciate their place in pop culture and what they did for the music scene. However, this movie made me want to be a full-on fan: consider this the beginning of my Beatles Revolution. Eddie Izzard and Bono make fantastic cameos in this film. If you haven't seen it, I highly, highly recommend it!

As a bit of a side note, and without giving too much away, my favorite moment of the entire film happens at the very, very end of the movie when the cast is singing one song and then one of the characters chimes in with the chorus of another song in this sort of sonic duet of bliss. Combined, it sends such an incredible message about life and love, I think. Sometimes I really do believe that all you need is love.