In Tribute to Across the Universe: Forgive Its Flaws and Go See It — Part 2

One of the strongest numbers of the movie Across the Universe is “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” sung by Prudence (T.V. Carpio).  The truck carrying army soldiers like newly departed Dan passes by Prudence’s high school in Ohio, where she’s a cheerleader.  The warm song arrangement complements her light and passionate voice perfectly.  The camera zooms in on the star football player and another cheerleader, and Prudence reveals she has a crush.  What starts as one of the more touching scenes in the movie quickly evolves into one of the funniest, as Prudence walks and sings through a field of football players doing drills and throwing one another to the ground as if they were practicing for an upcoming World Wrestling Federation match.

In Tribute to Across the Universe: Forgive Its Flaws and Go See It — Part 1

Across the Universe is a beautiful movie that reminds us why we go to movies at all: to escape our reality and enter another. With Julie Taymor directing, the movie looks back to the 1960s with psychedelic musical sequences in a way that is rarely jarring.  What’s so special about this musical is the unique manner in which it was put together, seamlessly combining fantasy with reality while an imaginatively arranged Beatles soundtrack became an integral part of the visuals and sound.

Take a Quick Trip to Adventureland

All it took for James Brennan to appreciate his job at Adventureland was a pretty young woman named Em, a knife and a giant-ass panda.

Film Review: Don’t Think Too Hard About Duplicity, Just Watch It

You don’t need to fully understand Duplicity to enjoy it. The film piles enough layers of potentially deceptive behavior atop one another you’d be forgiven if you can’t keep up with stars Clive Owen and Julia Roberts, who play an ex-MI-6 and CIA agent, respectively. Baked into those layers, though, is a mix of intelligent humor, cinematography and suspense that keep it fresh and tasty from the first bite to the last one 125 minutes later.

Film Review: Everlasting Moments and the Gift of Patience

“Not everyone is endowed with the gift of seeing,” a photographer tells Maria Larsson in Everlasting Moments.  Maria’s aptitude for photography serves as an escape from her busy home life and, as long as we’re patient, the dive into Maria’s early-20th century Swedish life is worth taking.

Film Review: Don’t Spit Venom on Watchmen

Watchmen isn’t bad considering it’s based on a graphic novel whose author, Alan Moore, said to the Los Angeles Times, “I will be spitting venom all over it.”

Film Review: Crossing Over is Too Ambitious

Harrison Ford does not want his family back in Crossing Over, which is written and directed by Wayne Kramer.

Ford’s character, Max Brogan, is terribly unsuited for his job, which involves deporting illegal immigrants working in Southern California.  He is a one-dimensional divorced middle-aged man whose daughter is “26, no 27.”  With so many other seemingly unrelated stories and characters introduced during the first 30 minutes of the movie, we never get the chance to really understand Brogan but then, by the end of the movie, we still don’t care about him.

Crossing Over is structured like Crash and Babel, with a number of different narratives that start to connect as the movie progresses.  Unfortunately . . .