Julie Taymor
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As Beatles jukebox musicals with people other than the Beatles singing the songs go- and its flaws notwithstanding- "Yesterday" is a significant improvement over 2007's "Across the Universe."
And unlike its contemporary, Across the Universe , the film never comes off as an attempt to fully recapture the spirit of the Beatles and what their songs truly mean in context.
Instead, I was left confused, thinking of all the songs they didn’t bother including, and asking myself why I suddenly wanted to go home and watch Across the Universe instead.
Taking the most recent crack at this Shakespearean black sheep, Julie Taymor, perhaps best known for directing "The Lion King" on Broadway, pulls out all the stops.
Screenwriter and director Taymor -- the Tony-winning, micro-managing visionary behind the extravagant Broadway adaptation of Disney's "The Lion King" -- gives 110-percent in bringing this ambitious, catastrophic drama to the screen.
Best known for her fantastic staging of Disney's The Lion King, Taymor has bitten the bullet.
Award-winning theatre director Taymor (The Lion King) adapts Shakespeare's first play, the gruesomely funny and violent Titus Andronicus, for the big screen with an ambitiously unusual production design that mixes the classical and the modern.
If that's not bizarre enough, the film was directed by Julie Taymor, who staged Disney's "The Lion King" on Broadway.
American director Julie Taymor won acclaim for her stage direction of "The Lion King" on Broadway and in London, but this is something else again.
In fact, in terms of production design, this neo-modernist piece looks like it could have been inspired by oddball filmmaker Terry Gilliam ("Time Bandits," "Brazil"), while its content (which includes murder, rape, sex and cannibalism) recalls the work of Peter Greenaway ("The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover").
Having made an impression on horror audiences way back in 2002 in Lucky McKee’s May , this is a role that seems built on the strengths she has to carry a feature, which is matched by a game supporting cast.
Feeling directly lifted from the prologue of Julie Taymor's Titus (or maybe "St.
Harry Lennix ("Titus") is on hand for an Obama drone jab.
With the action scenes playing like production numbers in some high-concept musical, you'll be reminded of Julie Taymor's Beatles fantasia, Across the Universe.
A need for armor repair on account over currency adds female blacksmith Kate (Laura Fraser, "Titus") to William's entourage.
Period and contemporary mixtures of speech and behavior are also given to the characters played by Mark Addy ("Down to Earth," "The Full Monty") and Alan Tudyk ("28 Days," "Wonder Boys") as the comic relief squires, Laura Fraser ("Titus," "Cousin Bette") as a liberated female blacksmith, and Shannyn Sossamon (who makes her feature film debut) as the obligatory fair maiden.
Lending adequate support are Mark Addy (1997's "The Full Monty") and Alan Tudyk (2000's "28 Days"), as William's lovable sidekicks; Paul Bettany (1998's "The Land Girls"), very funny as writer Geoffrey Chaucer, who becomes William's spokesperson; Laura Fraser (1999's "Titus"), as a canny, resourceful peasant girl who befriends William; and Rufus Sewell (1998's "Dark City") as the token bad guy, and William's competing nemesis.
And besides all that, it's so good to see Jessie doing comedy again, after the long drought since Tootsie, and after all those waspish meanies from Hush and Titus .
Television producer Nina Veronica (Jessica Lange, "Titus") and entertainment manager Uncle Sweetheart (John Goodman, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?") are desperate people in a fictional country in the throes of civil war who join forces to produce a television special benefit concert for the government's network.
Kill Your Darlings (2013)
Directed by John Krokidas
influenced by Across the Universe (2007)
Visuals
Say what you will about Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby or Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe, but for as messy and flawed as they clearly are they remain artistic visions of periods long gone.
There's not a single laugh to be had in Next Friday, and while that aspect didn't really hurt the first movie, it's especially noticeable here.
From “Across the Universe” to “21” to “One Day” to “Upside Down,” this guy repeatedly contributes nothing (or less) to movies that are, at best, extremely challenging to endure.
Sturgess has gained a dubious reputation for phoned-in leading-man roles in expensive flops ( Across the Universe , Upside Down , Cloud Atlas ) and contributes another pallid performance here, not helped by the unfortunate juxtaposition with Caine and Kingsley's barnstorming turns.
But then you notice that the stars are Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe) and Kate Beckinsale (Underworld), which is certainly interesting enough to make one look a little closer, and note that the supporting cast includes people like Michael Caine (Get Carter), Ben Kingsley (Gandhi), Sinead Cusack (V for Vendetta), Brendan Gleeson (28 Days Later), Jason Flemyng (Below), and David Thewlis (The Big Lebowski) … and if you’re any sort of film fan, you then peer in for an even closer look.
The women are beautiful, there's some toilet and sex humor, they talk about their feelings, and there's a love interest (note: Chris O'Dowd rules the school as the most charming, crush-inducing object of affection since Michael Shoeffling in Sixteen Candles, or Jim Sturgess in Across the Universe).
However, in the wake of “Moulin Rouge,” “ Hairspray ,” “ Chicago ” and “Across the Universe,” the movie’s old-fashioned approach just feels old-fashioned.
Mamma Mia! mostly avoids the pitfalls that tripped up Julie Taymor's Across the Universe .
No one doubts the songwriting ability of Lennon and McCartney and yet no movie that features cover versions of their work--even Across the Universe really does justice to the original songs.
It's only necessary to think back a few months, to Julie Taymor's " Titus ," for a film set in ancient Rome that's immeasurably better to look at.
Here, he constructs a place and time that never were and never will be a setting as synthetic as that in Julie Taymors Titus , only less hyperbolically fashionable or playful in its wild amalgamation of time periods.
There’s beautifully lit cinematography by France’s Bruno Delbonnel, who lensed stylish efforts like Amélie and Across the Universe.
The film also features John Hawkes (A Perfect Storm, Rush Hour, From Dusk Till Dawn), Amanda Peet (Igby Goes Down, Changing Lanes, The Whole Nine Yards), Alfred Molina (Murder on the Orient Express, Frida, Magnolia ), John C. McGinley (Stealing Harvard, Any Given Sunday, Scrubs), Jake Busey (Starship Troopers, Contact, The Frighteners), William Lee Scott (Gattaca, October Sky, Gone in Sixty Seconds), Clea DuVall (Girl, Interrupted, But I'm a Cheerleader, She's All That), and a very bitchy Rebecca De Mornay (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Backdraft, The Trip to Bountiful) to remind us that she's still a star.
Alfred Molina ("Frida," "Chocolat") and Pruitt Taylor Vince ("Trapped," Simone") play a psychiatrist and his patient in a subplot that eventually connects back in with the main story thrust.
The Cell outdoes every cinematic extravaganza of recent years, even The Matrix and Julie Taymor's bold, underseen Titus , in mounting dense, opulent spectacles that defy description.
Sir Anthony Hopkins ("Titus," "The Mask of Zorro") gives the film some dignity as the story's occasional narrator and Jeffrey Tambor ("Meet Joe Black," HBO's "The Larry Sanders Show") appropriately plays the town's conceited mayor.
Picked up by dad Paul (Bill Irwin, "Dark Matter," "Across the Universe") and stepmother Carol (Anna Deavere Smith, "The Human Stain," "The Kingdom"), Rachel acts like a rock star, demanding a soft drink from a soda fountain, constantly lighting up and airily noting she'll handle her bags as dad struggles with them in her wake.
When revelations are finally uncovered and the viewer is given the full picture of what has happened in this family's life to damage them so badly, the results are devastating, performed to perfection from Rosemarie DeWitt (2005's " Cinderella Man "), as wearied sister Rachel; Bill Irwin (2007's " Across the Universe "), heartbreakingly trying in vain to keep peace with everyone while unraveling himself as father Paul; and a very welcome, rarely seen anymore Debra Winger, a cage of silent grief and resentment as mother Abby.