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Across the Universe
"Is there anybody out there, listen to my story? All about the girl who came to stay..."
From the first shot of Julie Taymor's Beatles' musical, that of Jude singing the line above, a promise of a grand visual and musical experience, and Across the Universe delivers unwaveringly.
Julie Taymor has established herself as the Queen of Artistic Imagination. Her Broadway adaptation of Disney's The Lion King created a new standard for on-stage visualization and effects. Less acclaimed, but nevertheless wonderful, is the creativity she showed in her brutal Titus, the film version of Shakespeare's most violent play. Across the Universe exceeds even her lofty visual aspirations. Not only does she have her normal surreal use of color and puppetry (which seem to fit better in the drug riddled, avant-garde tradition the movie glorifies than most of her work), but she seems to have matured in terms of her basic skill with a camera.
Unlike the other major musical this year, Sweeney Todd, Taymor used train musical theater actors. The affect is a wonderfully melodic tribute to the Beatles, as many of the actors in the film sang these songs better than Lennon and McCartney ever could have.
8/10
"Is there anybody out there, listen to my story? All about the girl who came to stay..."
From the first shot of Julie Taymor's Beatles' musical, that of Jude singing the line above, a promise of a grand visual and musical experience, and Across the Universe delivers unwaveringly.
Julie Taymor has established herself as the Queen of Artistic Imagination. Her Broadway adaptation of Disney's The Lion King created a new standard for on-stage visualization and effects. Less acclaimed, but nevertheless wonderful, is the creativity she showed in her brutal Titus, the film version of Shakespeare's most violent play. Across the Universe exceeds even her lofty visual aspirations. Not only does she have her normal surreal use of color and puppetry (which seem to fit better in the drug riddled, avant-garde tradition the movie glorifies than most of her work), but she seems to have matured in terms of her basic skill with a camera.
Unlike the other major musical this year, Sweeney Todd, Taymor used train musical theater actors. The affect is a wonderfully melodic tribute to the Beatles, as many of the actors in the film sang these songs better than Lennon and McCartney ever could have.
8/10