Worst Beatles song fanfic movie ever made? YOU make the call
Hey Jude, make it bad, take the Beatles discography and make a shitty movie. Bono stars as Dr. Robert and sings "I Am The Walrus". Here's the trailer, and various song snippets. Please join me in talking about how terrible this movie is going to be.
Comments
Even the ones about acting. "And the award for best actor goes to...Across the Universe!" and then the movie walks up to the podium, while playing that bowling scene. Fucking awesome.
"'I Want You'... hey, that's what it says on Uncle Sam posters! Let's roll with it!"
I think one of my friend's actually saw the movie though, and he said it was stupid.. but it was someone else who told me that he had seen it, so maybe he was just talking about a trailer or something. I dunno. In any case, this thread has not convinced me to avoid the movie... I still want to see it just as much as I did when I saw the first trailer.
Jakey, I'm allowed to pass judgement based on a trailer! This is the highlight material they deemed appropriate to convince me that this is a movie worth watching, so it is absolutely open to my criticisms. As it stands, the movie looked to be of the laughably bad MST3K-ish quality that I get a kick out of, so I very well may enjoy it... just not in the way the creators intended. To put things in perspective, I thought Fight Club was gonna be the stupidest movie in the world when I saw the trailer, but I was proved delightfully wrong. But my judgments on the trailer and sample songs stand.
Don't worry moviegoers, I won't heckle it out loud (or at least not too loudly) if I see it in theaters.
Ok, the movie was just alright. The plot was trite in places, and while visually the film was well done, it just didn't cohere together very well. I suppose having everyone drop acid is a good way to introduce the various effects, but it was uneven. Also the ending, for a brief moment, seemed like it was going to be refreshingly original...but promptly fell into predictability. Thanks a lot, Middle America. No one takes risks anymore because of you.
However, a major strong point was that some of the music arrangements are extremely well done...I don't think this gives anything away, one of my favorites was a black gospel choir singing Let it Be at a funeral. Although, some of the songs were taken out of context (yes, "I Want You" doesn't mean what they want it to mean, Mario), others were sort of ridiculously crammed in (I think Prudence was a character only so they could sing "Dear Prudence") and others yet could have been used very effectively but sort of fell flat ("Revolution" was right were I expected it to be, but could have been set a lot better).
Overall, I think it's worth a viewing. It's fun to sing along at times, and see what sort of Beatles reference they'll make next. A series of interesting scenes that isn't quite held together, but amusing.
Some of the Beatles references are very forced (an old guy reminiscing about what he thought life would be like "when he was sixty-four" stood out in my mind), but I actually found myself enjoying this film a great deal, so I was able to overlook most of them. Apparently being able to sing along with the characters makes a big difference to me when watching a new musical.
Bono's role was cringe-worthy and mostly pointless, but he was onscreen for a blessedly short amount of time.
What the hell was Prudence's deal? I sort of got a sense that she was gay (wanting to hold the blonde cheerleader's hand, wanting Sadie so bad it was driving her mad, then getting together with Rita WHO WASN'T A METER MAID TALK ABOUT LOST SONG OPPORTUNITY), but I agree with Jakey that she seemed to be there mostly for having a Dear Prudence number. On the bright side, I thought they sung that particular song quite well.
There was one aspect of the movie that profoundly bothered me. Lucy's role as super-activist, Jude's jealousy over all the time she spends with Paco, and Paco's eventual turn to extremist and his accidental bomb death were exactly what happened in the excellent TV miniseries The '60s. I really liked The '60s, so this lifting of plot felt contrived in comparison. That said, I was not alive in the sixties, so it's entirely possible that both stories are based on common occurrences in that time period.
In conclusion, I'm not entirely proud to admit this complete turnaround, but Across the Universe defied almost all of my expectations and ended up being entertaining. Some absolutely beautiful imagery, really good singing, and of course the fine choice of source material made this a film I enjoyed from start to finish. I particularly got a kick out of references not directly related to Beatles songs, like the rooftop concert at the end and some of Jude's artwork resembling John Lennon's distinctive style (I even caught a glimpse of a drawing of two full-body nudes in reference to Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (NSFW)). So yeah, this movie didn't actually suck like I thought it would. Again, not happy to fess up to my error, but recognizing our shortcomings is how we grow as individuals. Go watch this movie for a good time... and try to ignore Bono.
Also, I saw it, and though I am a bit biased (being some one who sees hardly any movies and therefore has no grounds on which to judge things... oh and also I'm a Beatles fan) I liked it... I liked it a lot. My favorite bits were the "I want you" and "For the benefit of Mr. Kite" .
I told you on AIM already, if you drink more whiskey, we'll understand you better.
I think the most common complaint I heard about the movie was about the lame plot they put together around the lyrics, and really I think that shouldn't even be a real complaint-- those people just had the wrong expectations for it, haha. I thought the whole point of the movie was to throw in different renditions of Beatles songs and to actually make something slightly meaningful out of it. In any case... I loved it. The character Jude has a lovely voice!
Or they're not real and mario (should I capitalize your name or not, because your name is uppercase but your screen name, though eerily similar is the same but lowercase) has very poor reality to insanity coordination.