Across the Universe

Amazon.com Given a track record littered by misfired oddities like the Bee Gees starring in the 1978 movie version of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, successfully transforming The Beatles' epochal oeuvre into film musicals has been an elusive alchemy. Yet director Julie Taymor's 1968-centered, socio-political romance is more than just a stunning visual achievement. Its soundtrack brings a crucially intimate, emotionally engaging sensibility to its rich catalog of Beatles source material. Using an approach she rightly dubbed "organic," Taymor never gets too ambitious with the original arrangements, balancing the plaintive, often stark performances of central young stars Jim Sturgess and Evan Rachel Wood with equally compelling turns by supporting players Carol Woods and Joe Anderson. The stars successfully evoke early Beatlemania via the energetic charms of Sturgess' "All My Loving" and Wood's "It Won't Be Long," then get straight to the canon's often melancholy heart on his take of "In My Life," and her gentle cover of "Blackbird." Taymor's use of star turns--the entire point of too many Beatles-rooted projects--is as sparing as it is deft. Eddie Izzard's effusive "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" is the product of several edited improvisations, while U2's Bono and Edge re-imagine "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" by way of Pink Floyd. Joe Cocker's swamp-dirge "Come Together" shows why he's long been one of the best interpreters of the Lennon-McCartney catalog, and Dana Fuchs alternately evokes the heavenly and hellish via her tender "Dear Prudence," as well as her manic, Joplin-channeling burn through "Helter Skelter." Elsewhere on the CD, Bono teams with Secret Machine for the straightforward "I Am the Walrus," while the Dallas indie rockers also take dream-pop turns on the instrumental "Flying" and George Harrison's haunting "Blue Jay Way." Remarkably, Taymor claims the bulk of the performances here were not lip-synced, but recorded live as the cameras rolled. --Jerry McCulley Product Description Across the Universe, from director Julie Taymor, is a revolutionary rock musical that re-imagines America in the turbulent late-1960s, a time when battle lines were being drawn at home and abroad. With a cameo by Bono, Across the Universe is "the kind of movie you watch again, like listening to a favorite album." (Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES)
ASIN: B000ZLFALI
VSKU: HBSV.B000ZLFALI.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:Evan Rachel Wood|Jim Sturgess|Joe Anderson (VI)|Dana Fuchs|Martin Luther (II)|T.V. Carpio|Spencer Liff|Lisa Hogg|Nicholas Lumley|Michael Ryan (VI)|Angela Mounsey|Erin Elliott|Robert Clohessy|Curtis Holbrook|John Jeffrey Martin|Matt Caplan (II)|Timothy R. Boyce Jr.|Aisha De Haas|Ellen Hornberger|Amanda Cole (IV)|Carol Woods|Julie Taymor
Binding: Dvd
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Condition Notes: Dvd comes in original case and case has original artwork. Disc may have some minor scratches but is in good condition.Case may have some general wear. Be sure check out thousands of our other dvds on this platform. If dvd came with digital code, code may be used.