I Loved It! :)

Rating: 10/10 (25 September 2007)

As an American, I came of age in the late 60's, and when it comes to this film, I will cut to the chase: It was a touching, beautiful film. Of all the films that I have ever seen, and I have seen thousands, this one went by the fastest. Toward the very end, I looked at my watch and thought, "Yikes!" this will end any minute, and 3 minutes later it was over. It left me wanting more.......a lot more. I wanted to see more sequences, about the horror that was Vietnam, and more about the raw, confusing, and slightly naive politics of the young people who thought that they could change the world. Those two issues are very complex, but this film was much more about the love affair between it's two lead characters. I honestly think that if it was thirty minutes longer, with about 15 minutes devoted to each of those topics, and with a few seconds devoted to man's first walk on the moon, (I can't believe they left that out.) it would have been a masterpiece. Obviously, that is not what Julie Tamor, or the writers had in mind.
In most films when they re-do famous songs it always leaves me cold. Not with this film. I am trying to find out who sang for the actors during the dance numbers. (Was it the actors themselves?) If not, there were some truly superb, powerful, clear, honest, on key, melisma free singers who sang for some of the cast. (I kept thinking how they sounded like Ewan McGregor, and Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge - they shocked the producers, who let them try their own singing in that film.) I thought the re-do of the Beetles songs sounded fantastic, except for "Mr. Kite" which I hated. Also the way they synched the songs with what was going on in the story, and the way they synched certain lyrics with a few things on screen here and there was very clever, and refreshing.
I have always remembered the 60's with the Dickens quote from A Tale Of Two Cities "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times......." If you are too young to have lived the 60's, look that entire opening sentence up, and see this film, because it so perfectly captures the awe and turbulence, the artistry and combustion, and more than anything the wonderment and beauty of that controversial time in American history.