I have seen the past, present and future of U.S. cinema and it is "Across the Universe."

Rating: 9/10 (18 February 2008)

Words are flowing out Like endless rain into a paper cup They slither while they pass They slip away across the universe
Who knew that the trippy lines from songs of the Beatles could become a hit movie? I know what your saying, they already did with "A Hard Days Night," "Help!," and "Yellow Submarine." No, this is a movie with the Beatles' songs but without the Beatles singing the, and has nothing to do with the Beatles whatsoever.
This movie centers around the northeast in the time of change, yes it's the sixties.
Jude (hey) leaves his home in Liverpool (even more familiar) to go find his father in America. His father was an American soldier who impregnated his mother and is now a janitor at Princeton, that's just a side story. Along the way, he makes friends with a student there named Max (as in "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"), who has a sister named Lucy (like as in the one who's in the sky with diamonds).
Lucy has a boyfriend who's off to war in that place we were in during the sixties, I forgot, oh yeah, Vietnam. She writes him letters and they maintain a good relationship until he gets killed over there and Lucy (played beautifully by Evan Rachel Wood) decides to take a stand and join the peace rallies. That's right Wood is not "Thirteen" anymore she needs to get off her wild side and give peace a chance.
Jude, Lucy and Max move into an apartment with Sadie (yep), Prudence (another) and Jo Jo (get back!) and they come together and go through the sixties like strawberry fields forever.
Sadie is an aspiring singer and Jo Jo (who reminds me so much of Jimi Hendrix, another Beatles offspring) is her very trippy guitarist. They put on gigs at the local go go joints and get by with a help from their friends, and get high with a little help.. OK nevermind.
Max gets called to join the Army and being the hippie that he is, he doesn't want to go. Oh, he goes through the recruitment process, but thats all before he and his friends go to a hippie commune with Bono (yes, that Bono, but he plays the head hippie) to hear Eddie Izzard on his commune. Izzard's character looks a lot like Johnny Depp in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."
Well, there's a lot of other plot to the movie, something about a "Revolution" and everything goes "Helter Skelter" at a college campus. I don't want to give away too much plot.
Julie Taymor (director of "Frida") is a imaginative genius and "Across the Universe" is more evidence of that. She took the songs of the Beatles, with the backdrop of the sixties; and a story of star-crossed lovers and has turned a cinematic masterpiece of a movie.
Oh, of course there's the music, never forget the music. The music tells the story, and it's of the Beatles, the best band ever! Also, the actors sing the songs as the scenes unfold. I never really like musicals before because they always occasionally broke out into song. Well, with "Across the Universe," the actors breaks out into the songs of the Beatles, and that's just fine with me.
See this movie! Watch it over and over and when you're not watching it, because you're sleeping, listen to the soundtrack. Dream of the movie, because if my dreams could be a movie, they would be "Across the Universe."