Gorgeous widescreen cinematography vast enough to encapsulate an era, the sacred pop of the fab four, and a surprising amount of restraint (musicals suffer when lazily milked for irony) made Across the Universe one of the most expansive and unabashedly spectacular yet overlooked and divisive films of the year.

The Beatles were a band that no other band can rival. From 1963 to 1970, they released 13 albums in their “core catalogue”, made five movies (A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, and Let It Be), released countless other popular singles that never appeared on one of their major albums (“Hey Jude”, “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Revolution”, “I Wanna Hold Your Hand, etc.), and they toured consistently for a number of years, until deciding to stop in 1966 to focus more on making music. And that’s really just the bullet points.

The latest movie that I've watched is Julie Taymor's Across the Universe, based on the songs by The Beatles.

Like most writers, I feel as though my works are never
finished and often I wish I could go back and rewrite reviews after I’ve been able to appreciate the films on aricher level with additional viewings.