Hey Jude

I recently watched Across the Universe and what an amazing experience. Granted it was on a Divy-x player on my computer and while it was really good quality it's just not the same as a theater experience. Anyway, this movie has been out since 2007 so I'm a little late in checking it out but I'm glad I finally came around. It took me a while longer than usual to view this movie, mostly because I was really afraid to check it out.

The overall synopsis of this movie is that it's about a boy named Jude from England that meets an American girl named Lucy during the Vietnam war and they have a tumultuous relationship ranging from obsession to love to dislike back to love again. Hope I haven't ruined it for you. The movie is pretty much a musical based on Beatles songs written during that time.

Have you ever watched Yellow Submarine? Okay well if you haven't you should...it's like Pink Floyd's The Wall everyone should watch it at least once in their life. The movie Yellow Submarine is one really ridiculously long, animated, acid trip without the drugs (unless you are on drugs and then well it's just a really long acid trip). So, after having seen that movie you can understand why I would be skeptical to try again with another movie based around The Beatles music, but I gave it a shot. While Across the Universe wasn't nearly as trippy as Yellow Submarine, it did have it's incredibly trippy moments when you're just sitting there going WTF? But overall the movie had a really great balance.

Most anti-war movies are very one sided but this one presented both sides of the argument, and I guess that was easier to do with a character so far removed from the propaganda of the US during that time. Jude had nothing to do with the war he was an outsider looking in and Lucy had a brother in the war and had lost a boyfriend to the war so she was the extremist character. I think the reason I really liked this movie was, well the music was utterly fantastic!, but it was so well balanced. Lucy hated the war and began protesting and Jude couldn't understand why she felt laying down in front of tanks was going to help anyone? As the movie goes on Lucy realizes just how extreme the group she's dealing with really is and removes herself from them.

Anyway, I just loved the movie and wanted to share my thoughts on it with you. If you haven't seen it you really should. I fully intend to buy the Deluxe Edition Soundtrack, it has every song from the movie, and will probably do so before I actually get the movie. These new versions of the original songs are so amazing and powerful.