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Anton Sirius fills you in on the Beatles love-letter ACROSS THE UNIVERSE and LOU REED'S BERLIN!!!

The Beatles ripped off The Monkeys by Virtual Satyr	Sep 12th, 2007 12:39:28 AM
And you know it.
Who Cares? by vettebro	Sep 12th, 2007 12:41:57 AM
Really...
I heart Lou Reed by damagedinc	Sep 12th, 2007 12:43:04 AM
I'm real excited to see this film.
Great Movie by cookiepuss	Sep 12th, 2007 12:50:51 AM
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.
Remember when Oasis... by OtisSpofford	Sep 12th, 2007 01:46:19 AM
...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.
The Beatles.... by lovethatjoker	Sep 12th, 2007 01:52:34 AM
...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...
If you love the Beates, you'll hate this movie by Brendan3	Sep 12th, 2007 02:16:34 AM
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.
I saw Lou Reed perform Berlin in Berlin. by idonotseekabanning	Sep 12th, 2007 02:30:35 AM
It was very nice. Oh, Honey, it was paradise.
Julie Taymor by Spiders and Zombies	Sep 12th, 2007 02:53:40 AM
She should have saved the Beatles' songs for the Spider-Man musical.
Brendan 3 by jpdisco	Sep 12th, 2007 04:15:44 AM
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.
Love the Beatles, hate the movie by Shoegeezer	Sep 12th, 2007 04:16:10 AM
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.
I'm with Shoe & Brendan by GiveMeAnFinBreak	Sep 12th, 2007 07:16:49 AM
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.
Oh, the Beatles weren't that great... they sucked by Lurking Evil	Sep 12th, 2007 07:27:17 AM
Nah, I'm just kiddin'. They were great.
WAnt it to be good... worried a bit though. by Rando Calrisian	Sep 12th, 2007 09:08:47 AM
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.
I want to see Across the Universe by CherryValance	Sep 12th, 2007 09:20:23 AM
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.
Across the Universe by PDepew2181	Sep 12th, 2007 10:39:34 AM
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
Oasis is still huge around the world by EjkoUSC	Sep 12th, 2007 10:50:17 AM
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?
Covering the Beatles by Spiders and Zombies	Sep 12th, 2007 11:46:48 AM
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.
If you like the Beatles, You'll hate this movie by Kilgores Doubt	Sep 12th, 2007 11:47:36 AM
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.
taymor's a genius...a THEATRE genius. by occula	Sep 12th, 2007 12:14:21 PM
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.
on the contrary by FakePlasticGuava	Sep 12th, 2007 01:32:07 PM
the beatles are my favorite band. second only to radiohead. and this movie sucked. go watch A Hard Day's Night, people.
it should be a law.... by sonnyhooper	Sep 12th, 2007 02:05:00 PM
.......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.
Purists by oisin5199	Sep 12th, 2007 02:56:56 PM
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.
Taymor's = your archetypal NY art snob by strosmer	Sep 12th, 2007 04:21:52 PM
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!
oops, scratch that apostrophe "s" in previous headline by strosmer	Sep 12th, 2007 04:26:01 PM
typos don't lend much to credibility, i know, but trust me, i know what i'm talking about in my comments
Oh, by Shoegeezer	Sep 12th, 2007 06:53:38 PM
I live on Abbey Road. Really, I honestly do. I didn't move here because of the Fabs, just thought I'd mention it.
"collective cultural unconscious" by sonnyhooper	Sep 12th, 2007 07:01:00 PM
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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Anton Sirius fills you in on the Beatles love-letter ACROSS THE UNIVERSE and LOU REED'S BERLIN!!!

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