[blessingx]

Personally, I already trust these two directors quite a bit (Todd Haynes & Julie Taymor), but everything I read makes me even more excited about the 6 "Bobs" (including Cate Blanchett - talk about an interesting casting choice) in the Bob Dylan "biopic" I'm Not There and the 33 track Beatles "visualization" in Across the Universe. There are only a handful of fictional music films that are good enough to really comment on outside their real bands fans interest. Most are like surfing docs. I think we might just be lucky enough to add two more to that handful this year. My only concern in a possible reedit on Universe without the directors approval.

So anyone else excited?

 

[redshifter]

The Beatles one sounds dreadful, but I have seen some of her work and it might just be interesting. The Dylan is a harder sell for me, not knowing the director and not being a huge fan of Bob.

Where is our Frank Zappa epic?

 

[Wodgy]

I'm really hyped for Across the Universe. I'm glad Taymor's cut of the film finally prevailed over the studio's (Joe Roth's) cut. Though I suspect she didn't get everything she wanted and we'll still end up seeing a Director's Cut release of the film.

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by redshifter /img/forum/go_quote.gif The Dylan is a harder sell for me, not knowing the director and not being a huge fan of Bob.

I'm still trying to get a hold of his Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (told with Barbie dolls), but he gets a "get out of jail" card from me (which he used on Velvet Goldmine) for the Sirk tribute Far from Heaven and especially Safe. Actually some clips of both There and Universe look awful, but I'm optimistic from the positive and negative reviews they're going to be good.

 

[redshifter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm still trying to get a hold of his Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (told with Barbie dolls), but he gets a "get out of jail" card from me (which he used on Velvet Goldmine) for the Sirk tribute Far from Heaven and especially Safe. Actually some clips of both There and Universe look awful, but I'm optimistic from the positive and negative reviews they're going to be good.

Oh, he did "Safe"? I'm there. That was a great film, very frightening.

 

[Foshizzle]

The one I'm REALLY waiting for is Control (Joy Division).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421082/

 

[lmilhan]

'Across the Universe' is very appealing to me. Saw the trailer for it and I was intrigued. The Dylan story... not so much. I think I will wait and see what the masses and critics have to say about each of the films, and then I will make a decision from there as to whether or not I think either will be worthy of my time and money.

 

[sebascrub]

I'm really excited the go see Across the Universe... if nothing else, I'll just listen to Beatles songs in a new medium, which is always exciting!

 

[Capital R]

Oh you better believe I'm excited for both I'm Not There and Across the Universe! Control is on the list as well.

 

[blessingx]

Check out these reviews.

Damn... I'm sold.

Quote:

... the one film at Toronto with a possible claim on masterpiece status is the one that managed to generate the greatest intensity of feeling through the most preposterously complicated means. It's amazing enough the way Todd Haynes splinters his Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There across six different, equally inspired performances, with Marcus Carl Franklin as the apprentice, Christian Bale as the born-again Christian, Cate Blanchett as the electric rebel of the '60s, Heath Ledger as an actor playing Dylan, Ben Whishaw as the poet . . . Rimbaud, and Richard Gere incarnating Dylan incarnate as Billy the Kid. More amazing still is how harmoniously Haynes arranges and sustains this semiotic free fall through the Dylan history and myth without losing dramatic momentum or indulging the hagiographic impulse. But the deep wonderment of this strange and wondrous picture is how language so aggressively mediated, so insistently postmodern, and so apparently nostalgic can speak with such eloquence about the world right now. A movie about the struggle to negotiate freedom, creativity, and political integrity in a media-addled culture at a time of war, I'm Not There has everything and nothing to do with Bob Dylan.

Quote:

Generally, the depth of the film's referentiality is kind of astonishing—more so when you consider the artists covering the Dylan songs on the soundtrack ([Cate] Blanchett opens her mouth, but Steve Malkmus comes out of it)...

 

[chadbang]

The Beatles one, and I'm the biggest Beatle fan, looks fairly insipid. A bland love story cooked up around Beatles songs. There no really cohesiveness inherent to that idea. It could have been a sci-fi pic or a thriller or a damn Bill Gates biopic created to incorporate Beatles songs. It looks basically like a "Moulin Rouge" ripoff, without the visual panache. I just watched the Across the Universe trailer again...zzzzzzzzzzzzz I've always said, if you can't pull an interesting 2 minutes out of a two-hour movie, forgetaboutit.

The Dylan one sounds very interesting and I like that director. I'm probably one of the only people in the world who thought Velvet Goldmine was an excellent film...with an even better soundtrack. Haynes is extremely inventive and risk taking. The Beatles film looks like pure pablum. Like Cirque du Solei for yuppie teens. Then again, people liked Dreamgirls...

 

[blessingx]

There's a very interesting I'm Not There article in tomorrows NYTimes magazine.

 

[DLeeWebb]

I would be interested in seeing both films, but I'll probably wait until they're on subscription cable or pay-per-view.

 

[humanflyz]

I saw Across The Universe and hated it. It's so gimmicky. The Dylan movie, on the other hand, is excellent. It's worth seeing for Cate Blanchett alone.

 

[LawnGnome]

I saw across the universe a week or so back, thought it was very interesting.

Started a bit slow, but after that it was good. The storyline was actually fairly decent also.