tavie.com

Steph, Mike and I went to see Across the Universe tonight. Steph had been dying to see it; I had been skeptical about the whole concept. Rightly so. I think.

There were a couple ways I could approach it. I could approach it as a Beatles fan; that would be fine, except I came to appreciate the Beatles relatively late in life, in my late teens, and my knowledge of their ouevre is limited compared to most of my friends. I own exactly two albums (thank you), not counting those orange and blue "Greatest Hits" deals. Basically, I feel that compared to most of my music-loving buddies, my familiarity with many of their songs is not quite up to snuff. Nevertheless, I am a fan. I can't not be. There's something undeniable about most of the songs.

I decided to approach it as a fan of musicals, knowing full well that it was a jukebox musical and that those almost universally suck.

It was, indeed, mostly cringe-worthily cheesy. Literal illustrations of lyrics must be done carefully. In a Broadway musical, they work, because they're directly supporting the story. In a music video, they never work. This movie felt far more like a music video than a Broadway musical.

The cast was pretty to look at, with pretty voices, and the auto-tune, if present, was subtle enough not to annoy me. That was a plus. The lead girl, Blondie McBlondson, sounded pretty in chorus but lame on her own. The lead guy, British McAccentson, was cute as hell, and his voice was pleasant to listen to.

The movie as a whole was beautiful to behold. But the stank of Cheez Whiz was all over it. You could dip a Ritz in this thing. The stank of "I am artsy, look how artsy my shot is! Artsy, artsy, artsy!" was everywhere.

Well, but: why do I like musicals? One reason is that I enjoy when songs are backed up by a story, some narrative that exists outside the actual song. It heightens the emotional impact. So having a story behind some of these oh-so-familiar songs could only increase the pleasure of listening to them, right? Hear something old in a new way?

It worked out that way... sometimes. And sometimes, it was just unbelievably trite, or kind of nauseatingly literal (...she's so heavy, sing the young soldiers as they stagger under the weight of the Statue of Liberty. I want you, screams Uncle Sam. Oh, shut up, it's driving me mad.)

I guess my problem is that the themes of the movie are so... Been Done (at least Hair had original songs) that there's not much point in even watching it. Says one part of me.

While the other part of me says, "But at least she tried something." And it wasn't Moulin Rouge-bad. I never felt the urge to walk out. To laugh, yes, and I did laugh, quite a lot. It kind of works as a comedy. (Except, ironically, when Eddie Izzard was on the screen - that was just, sorry, I love him, but it was too ridiculous to be tolerated. And by "ridiculous" I mean "kind of scary".)

Ultimately, I came out of it feeling pretty good. And also feeling silly for feeling good. Which is what musicals do. And as a musical, it almost kind of worked. The whole "I've Just Seen a Face" sequence made me feel happy. But maybe it's just because I really like that song.

Maybe that's why the movie didn't suck for me. It was real pretty, and maybe I just can't deny those damn songs.

Labels: and there are puppets, of course

Why are you in Tavie's head? 2:57 AM | shower me with attention