Across the Universe

I saw Julie Taymor's film, Across the Universe, a little while back and I never wrote a review.  I had been eagerly anticipating this movie, but was a little wary too.  Last year, Jeff and I went to go see Love, the Cirque du Soleil Beatles show in Vegas.  It was OK, but I had built it up in my head so much that I ended up being rather disappointed.  I cringed when I read early reviews of the film that mentioned they had some pretty cheesy references like a girl coming through the bathroom window.

Some parts of it definitely were cheesy and cringe-inducing, but I really liked some of their covers of songs (though I certainly would not include Flying or Blue Jay Way in my list of 30 must have Beatles songs), and overall it wasn't as bad as it could have been (ringing endorsement, there).  Guess the key is to go into it with low expectations.  I will note that several of the plot points seemed directly ripped from the mini series on the 60s with Julia Stiles that was on tv back in the late 90's.  Overall, I was glad I saw it, but it certainly won't end up in my personal list of top movie musicals.  I'm still waiting for a "modern" movie musical to match up to some of the classics, like West Side Story, Sound of Music, Guys and Dolls, etc.  The more time that passes with continued movie musical flops (like the movie version of Rent), the more I wonder if the day of the good movie musical is just over.