Across the Universe

Across the Universe was the biggest anticipated film of the fall season for me. As an avid Beatles fan, the idea of a musical film based entirely on Beatles songs sounded perfect. The film is set in the 1960s during the Vietnam War and deals with historical events of the time, such as racial struggles, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., anti-war groups, the hippie movement, and psychedelic drug use.

After finally seeing the film (after it opened in Chattanooga a few weeks after the release date), it was everything I expected. Jude, played by Jim Sturgess, travels to the United States in search of his absentee father, only to find his father a disappointing janitor at Princeton. While lurking around campus, Jude meets Max (Joe Anderson), a rule-breaking Ivy League student, and befriends him. Max later introduces Jude to his younger sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), an angsty teen whose boyfriend was shipped off to Vietnam only to return as a dogtag and box of ashes. The three characters end up living in the Village of New York with a Joplin-esque singer (Dana Fuchs as Sadie), a guitarist resembling Jimi Hendrix (Martin Luther as JoJo), and a misguided lesbian (T.V. Carpio as Prudence). As the film progresses, Max is drafted to the Vietnam War, Jim and Lucy fall in love, and the cast of characters battle with the repercussions of the current state of the country. The film is packed with Beatles references (such as the name choices), hallucinations (Bono’s magical mystery tour), beautiful costumes, and incredible makeup (the soldiers examining Max are both frightening and amazing).



The film is a musical, so it does include several cheesy scenes, such as business men dancing on the streets, teenagers running through a glowing bowling alley, and bizarre scenery. There are a few guest appearances, like Bono donning a cowboy hat and colored lenses (that’s odd…) as Dr. Robert and Eddie Izzard as the over-the-top Mr. Kite. Some of my personal favorite songs were “Let It Be,” the opening “Girl,” and “Something.” Both Jim Sturgess and Evan Rachel Wood have excellent voices, and I was surprised to find out that most of the musical sequences were filmed live on set. Some songs that were missing (that I would have liked to have seen): “Eleanor Rigby,” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” and “The End.”



Official film website: acrosstheuniverse.com
IMDB: Across the Universe
Trailer: YouTube

In the Shadow of the Moon

I first learned of the film this summer when Entertainment Weekly reviewed the film and highly recommended it to its readers. Later in the fall, trailers for the movie appeared on virb.com (the hipster's myspace).

This film is not exactly one I would have known about prior to dating my boyfriend, an expert on all things Apollo, but I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was refreshing to focus on a screen portraying history and the remarkable feats of scince instead and tuning to VH1 to see which trashy woman the d-list star rejected this week. The documentary, a Ron Howard production, illustrates the space race of the 1960s with particular emphasis on the United States' NASA's Apollo missions. The film combines footage of astronaut training, world news reels, and actual video footage of space with current interviews with the men who lived it all. The former astronauts speak candidly about their experiences with the Apollo program, including botched trials, dangerous situations, and how it feels to be in the expanse of space. The focus surrounds the twenty-four men who flew to the moon and their crews at NASA.

It was interesting to see footage of various Apollo happenings without completely focusing on the famous Apollo 11 mission. I think most Americans see Apollo 11 as the only successful mission to the moon, and even then tend to forget that two men other than Neil Armstrong were also on the flight (Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins). Mike Collins was actually one of my favorites in the film. Collins stayed behind in the ship while Armstrong and Aldrin walked the surface of the moon.

I enjoyed the footage of Apollo 8, the first mission to completely orbit the moon. This flight was manned by Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Will Anders. It is famous for capturing the Earth's rise over the moon while the ship was in lunar orbit. As the Earth rose in space, the astronauts read parts of the Creation story from the Bible.

The film does lack information about what the men did with their lives after their trip to the moon and back. After the hour and forty minutes, I was left wondering why society's moonman, Neil Armstrong, was not in the film. Everyone else, however, did make an appearance: Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell, Al Bean...but Neil was only discussed in commentary.

Overall, I thought In the Shadow of the Moon was an amazing film, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the space program, science, or knowledge in general.