Thursday, January 29, 2009

Current Movie Online for a Younger Crowd

My most recent online movie watching was Across the Universe. A current movie with a plot line built around Beatles tunes. I have to believe that meant nothing short of a huge royalty fee right off the bat. Good thing Michael Jackson sold those worthless songs to Sony!

The last time I watched a movie that was based on the famous catalog, it was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Universe was a better movie than that. Paint drying is a better movie than that. The talent was there, but the story was too weak and never really made much sense.

Across the Universe does not suffer from the same problem. It is more in the realm of Moulin Rouge. Rouge was an excellent film and one I may to go watch online when I get this post finished.

Universe is still in the same family idea, but it is not quite eating at the adult table, yet. It tries and at times does a great job. Unfortunately, like the Sgt. Pepper's, it suffers a bit from too many convenient setups and namings. Not too much, just a bit.

Julie Taymor directs this tale of a young lad from Liverpool named Jude. Will that lead to a song? You bet it will. Who falls in love with an American lass named Lucy. Will that lead to a song? You bet it will.

They live in New York with a local talented singer named Sadie and another friend one who is named Prudence. Will that lead to a ... you get the idea, don't you?

Not much in the way of pop talent singing in this, but the cast does a good job with the soundtrack and some of the covers are very enjoyable. You can listen to those online too if you happen to have a Rhapsody account.

I don't just hang around my computer and watch older and current movies online. I like the tunes too.

The pacing of Universe is where they lost me. I enjoyed the singing and the arrangements of the songs. I could live with seeing the set up coming from about 3 miles away.

What bugged me was that the movie was about 30 minutes too long. Who knows? Maybe they got a deal when they bought the rights.

Take Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and we'll throw in For the Benefit of Mr. Kite at no additional cost. What a deal! Actual, since Kite was played by Eddie Izzard, it was a deal and quite a bit of fun.

From a visual stand point it was not as pleasing as my recent viewing of Pan's Labyrinth, but I enjoyed watching it just the same.

In the end, I may have been just too old to have thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I understand that the daughter of a family friend loved the movie so much that she went out and bought it and watched it constantly for several days.

Silly girl. It was a good movie and if I saw it again, it would be OK by me, but doesn't she know she could have watched this current movie online?

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