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Anton Sirius fills you in on the Beatles love-letter ACROSS THE UNIVERSE and LOU REED'S BERLIN!!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here to present Anton Sirius' new report from Toronto FF. This one is a musical edition of Anton's Toronto Coverage. We have Julie Tyamor's long troubled Beatles love-letter ACROSS THE UNIVERSE and LOU REED'S BERLIN, a concert flick. I am a gonzo Beatles fan (inherited it from my mother), so I will be there with bells on as soon as I can see Taymor's flick. Enjoy!!!
Across the Universe (2007, directed by Julie Taymor)
Let's get this out of the way right now. In the Talkbacks below there are inevitably going to be a few people saying "Oh, the Beatles weren't that great... they sucked", etc. etc. These people are of course entitled to their opinion, no matter how incorrect it is.
The simple facts are that the Beatles are the single most important band of the last 60 years, and their catalogue the single greatest collection of music of the pop/rock era. You can take a calculated stand and dislike them for whatever reasons you choose, but you cannot deny their spot at the top of the pyramid.
How much you're willing to accept those facts will determine how much you like Across the Universe. The plot is a threadbare series of 60s cliches; the characters are fairly two-dimensional as a result of having to conform to those cliches; and the performances, while good, are limited by those characters. But much as it appears to be, the film is not about the 60s, or about the characters. This is a movie about the Beatles' place in the collective unconscious, and the ways in which their music defined both their era and the eras that followed.
The songs chosen for the movie cover the entirety of the band's career, from the early rock 'n' roll cover days through to Let It Be. But the songs themselves are not necessarily used in ways you expect. Some are given extra meaning: Revolution, for instance, becomes far more of a direct polemic than you might have thought. More impressively, some songs are re-contextualized completely. A Day in the Life becomes an instrumental Hendrix-esque blues riff. I Want To Hold Your Hand becomes a sad expression of unrequited (and interracial, and lesbian...) love. And Let It Be becomes a gospel number.
The movie has more going for it than just who wrote its soundtrack though. Taymor's visuals are of course stunning, veering at times into territory Ken Russell wishes he could have visualized on the most creative day of his life. The cameos are hit and miss (Eddie Izzard's version of Mr. Kite might have been worse than George Burns', while Bono karaokes his way through a performance of I Am the Walrus, which at least was better than his acting as the plot's Ken Kesey stand-in) but the hits, particularly Joe Cocker ripping through Come Together, are home runs. The cast is solid both in vocal and acting talent, and Evan Rachel Wood especially is beyond luminous, becoming the perfect blonde American girl-next-door. There are also plenty of in-jokes, from Prudence's first entrance into the apartment (which sadly gets 'spoiled' a few seconds later in dialogue) to a bit of spray-paint on the wall when Jude storms into the faux-SDS' headquarters to sing Revolution at them (umm, yeah, did I mention that pretty much all the main characters have their names taken from Beatles songs? Jude, Lucy, Prudence, Sadie, Jo-Jo... you get the idea. Yes, it's cheesy, but in a good way.)
If you love the Beatles, you'll be able to gloss over the movie's faults and enjoy it for what it is, a celebration of their music and their impact. If you've foolishly and arbitrarily decided you hate them, well, too bad for you. There's nothing for you here.
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Lou Reed's Berlin (2007, directed by Julian Schnabel)
Concert movies are a tricky beastie. So much of the quality of the film is out of the director's hands (moreso than usual) and depends on the onstage performance that it's easy to fall into one of two traps. Either the director does too little, just pointing a couple of cameras at the band and trying to make a film appear in editing, or they do too much in an egotistical effort to impress their own artistic stamp on top of someone else's art.
Amazingly, in Lou Reed's Berlin, Julian Schnabel manages to fall into both traps at the same time.
In the thirty-odd years since Berlin was released to a listening public that at the time mostly wanted nothing to do with it, Reed's collection of bleak character sketches has developed a reputation as a lost classic of sorts, and it's been a group of songs he's rarely revisited in concert. The concerts on film here, featuring pretty much the entire album, are therefore more than just a curiosity. Rather than letting the lyrics of some of the hidden gems of one of rock's great storytellers speak for themselves, however, Schnabel felt compelled to commission short films (some of them by his own daughter) to dramatize the songs. The shorts aren't just redundant, they actually blunt the stark imagery of Reed's lyrics. And when Schnabel isn't hiding a landmark concert behind his own ego and nepotism, he seems to have little idea how to shoot a concert effectively. His camera is more confused than restless, wandering around the stage and around the musicians' bodies like a lost, perverted roadie.
Towards the end of the concert Schnabel does achieve one worthwhile moment. Lou is singing The Rock Minuet, a more recent track from the Ecstasy album (maybe as dark a song as anything in his whole catalogue) and his image grows hazy and dreamlike. Rather than dissolving into another indulgent short, though, Schnabel summons another figure to take Reed's place: a young, blonde Lou, thick black shades likely hiding bloodshot eyes, from another concert held a long time ago. The younger Reed disappears and the older, weathered singer snaps back into focus, just as the artist he was and the disillusionment he probably felt at Berlin's failure to find an audience has faded away. He is here, now, singing a song about how impotent you can feel when you're trapped by your own past, and that young blonde hellraiser is just a phantom haunting the stage.
Musically the movie is fine. Reed sounds like he's doing more than going through the motions, and his backing band (which includes a somewhat awkwardly arranged horn section and a girl's choir that creates some goosebumps) is as tight or as ragged as each song demands, with Steve Hunter (the original session guitarist on the studio album) returning to Reed's side. But those are reasons to buy the live album, not watch the film.
And aside from that one brief moment I mentioned above, I can't think of a single damn reason to actually watch this thing, as opposed to just listen to it.
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And you know it.
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Really...
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I'm real excited to see this film.
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Highlight of the movie being the use of 'I Want You' as a military recruiting song with creepy 3d Uncle Sams reaching out of posters and GI Joes come to life with barracks floating in from the sky in real-time to cover them. This is Moulin Rouge as directed by Ken Russell - maybe a little too surreal for the Dreamgirls crowd.
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...was the next Beatles? And where are they now? I think one has a job at KFC... The Beatles defined an era and changed the way we listen and perceive music - another group or individual may redefine music yet again in such a profound way, but the Beatles will always have their place... RIP, John and George - long life, Paul and Ringo.
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...are fucking awesome. I'm there, and I don't give a shit if the movie's good or not. I just want to hear the song renditions. Although the fact that Bono covers one of my favorite songs is pretty disturbing...
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This is a movie that uses Beatles songs to tell a story, without any approval orinput from any surviving Beatles. Writer/Director Julie Taymor didn't need approval from The Beatles... she only needed the permission of SONY, who currently own the rights to the songs. She has taken someone else's music and lyrics and changed the meanings to fit her story. F--k her.
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She should have saved the Beatles' songs for the Spider-Man musical.
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Ringo & Paul were 2 of the first people to see the movie and both gave their approval and said they loved the movie. I doubt your approval is quite so coveted by Julie Taymor.
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It really is the worst thing I've seen in years. The thing about Beatles' songs is that they sound unbearably cheesy when covered. This has some real stinkers, Bono singing Walrus as if the words have real meaning, Eddie Izzard's "improv" on Mr.Kite - the annoyance factor of having both of those "artists" in the same movie is almost too much to take. It does start off quite well, the cheerleader bit and a sprightly It Won't Be Long, but it rapidly and drastically becomes way too literal. Taymor's visuals are incredibly obvious, for the reviewer to even mention the great Ken Russell in the review is quite disturbingly wrong. They should rename this movie A Hard Day's Shite and be done with it.
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FUCK this movie (AtU).
The Beatles may or may not be my favorite band of all time. In fact, I've often recommended that, instead of going to church to be lied to, more people just stay at home, light up a fattie and throw on 'Abbey Road.' The experiences are very similar.
To see somebody going all (Bee-Gees) Sgt. Pepper's again sends uncomfortable shivers up my spine. -
Nah, I'm just kiddin'. They were great.
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The preview for this movie has been showing for so long. Litterally for the last 8 months I've seen the preview before at least 3/4 of the films I saw over the sumemr. I love The Beatles, and think it looks not only cool, but very Beatlesque. I have to admit, when I was a kid and HBO used to play Sgt. Pepper's Bee Gee Band I used to love that film... hey, all of us have one or two of those in our closet. Watched it recently and, man what a pile of crap that was. This can't be anything close to the blemish on Beatles history than that one.
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Somehow the trailer totally blew me away when I saw it. Before that this wasn't even on my radar. I'm not the biggest Beatles fan but I like them. I love the Sgt. Pepper's movie with the BeeGees. That's just my style. And speaking of style Julie Taymor's got that in spades. From this review it does sound like something I will like. I love musicals and music heavy movies so this would have to be very messed up for me not to like it. All I worry about now is the release schedules because there's a deluge coming. I hope it's not against too many things.
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This will undoubtedly bomb and flop. I've seen the horrible trailers way too many times and want nothing more than to see this go belly up. On the other hand, since it's The Beatles' music, I'm somewhat interested in it. But...then I'm reminded to remember that Taymor is a complete hack. Need proof? This story is old, but it gives you some good insight into how crazy she is. http://tinyurl.com/3ycsll
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Depends where you live. Of course since MTV doesn't play them, they aren't so big in the states (your go-to source I'm sure). Those boys are still selling huge in the usual countries. To this day they are still one of the top acts in Britain, side-by-side with U2. And last year they sold out Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl within a couple hours. No they weren't the next Beatles, but they certainly arent working at KFC. But I suppose you're a Green Day fan for what that's worth. Or shall we call it Dashboard?
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It's actually a good idea because it will introduce them to a whole new modern day MTV audience, even if isn't their own versions of the songs. Hopefully these covers will persuade younger people to go seek out Beatles albums.
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Seriously, wear an ipod to the theater and listen to the new Aly and AJ cd. Because anything would be better then the way they butcher some of the greatest songs of all time. The film looks great, I'll give it that. But the plot blows and is a thinly veiled excuse to get from one horrible rendition of a beatles song to another. Not sure how you can fuck up a movie with 20 beatles song in it, but she does.
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i don't know why she thinks she's such an untouchable film auteur. her visual talents are inarguable and her theatre work is unparalleled but her skills honestly just don't fit into film - she's not a movie director.
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the beatles are my favorite band. second only to radiohead. and this movie sucked.
go watch A Hard Day's Night, people. -
.......that noone, and i mean NO-FUCKING-ONE, should be allowed to cover beatle tunes. the simple fact of the matter is that whoever you are, however good a musicial you think you are, or how good your intentions may be, you are going to fuck it up. i'm sorry, but thats just how it should be, everyone who tries to cover the beatles ends up sounding like shit, (including joe cocker) because, well....they aren't the beatles. and thats the truth, no one has ever done it better, no one will ever do it better, so just let it be allready.
as much as i can appreciate trying to bring the beatles to a new generation, there really isn't a need to do that. it's always gonna come back around to the beatles no matter what. kids 100 years from now are gonna "discover" the beatles music and they won't need a movie with shitty cover versions of their songs to do it. trust me. -
What part of 'collective cultural unconscious' don't you get? The point is that these songs now go way beyond their original time and context - they haunt us, they creep into our dreams, they affect us in countless ways. There's nothing inherently wrong with covering a good song, if you have something to say about it or can work it in an interesting way. In some ways, a good cover can capture an aspect of the original song that was only latent in that original version. I definitely like the feeling of horror behind Siouxsie and the Banshees' cover of 'Helter Skelter', especially in a post-Manson context. I also think the Chameleons' cover of 'Tomorrow Never Knows' surpassed the original in terms of raw energy.
Using Beatles' songs to tell a story, not only about characters, but about our culture and our cultural history is a brilliant idea. The trailer looked awesome - I'm interested to see how well it does in execution. It's not about the songs, it's about their place in our dreamlife. -
I get collective cultural unconscious and all that intellectual bullcrap. What I don't get is why it should be subjected to Taymor's snobbish tendencies. This flick will probably wow high school and college freshman art students, but from the trailer, which I've had to suffer through a few times already this summer, you can see this will be crap from miles away. Hi-ho contrived imagery - AWAAYYY!
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typos don't lend much to credibility, i know, but trust me, i know what i'm talking about in my comments
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I live on Abbey Road. Really, I honestly do. I didn't move here because of the Fabs, just thought I'd mention it.
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sure, i get that. it's a type of code-word people use when they are standing on the shoulders of someone or something greater then themselves to make their own "artistic" statment. sorry, but i just don't see how throwing together a "musical" using the songs of the beatles is very original or "brilliant", for that matter. to me, it seems like a concept any 13 year old could come up with after their first time listening to the "white album" while doing a few bong hits.
and sure, every once in a while someone does a pretty good beatles cover. but the problem is that for every half-way decent beatles covers you get 10 pieces of shit like taylor hicks destroying "a day in the life". to me, thats just a trade off i'm unwilling to make.
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