Soundtracking: "Across the Universe"
We're talking the 10th anniversary of Across the Universe in Chris Feil's weekly column on music in the movies!
Across the Universe came to the screens just as jukebox musicals were becoming especially grating on Broadway, but more of a curiosity for the big screen. The film promised stunning Julie Taymor-directed imaginative images set to a massive catalog from The Beatles - and delivered us something a bit more uneven than the creativity explosion that sounds like. Perhaps the high bar already set by invoking the biggest band in the history of popular music was an impossible goal, but the film does provide at least a fun reimagining for some of the best music of the century. A Beatles musical in any context? Yes please (with trepidation)!
The film plays best when it side-steps the plot in its musical sequences...