CRY BABY CRY

so... this last thursday, caroline and i went over to the vista to check out julie taymor's stab at...well... essentially converting the psychedelic beatles' songs into a 2 hour plus movie.

(im sure you can tell by how i structured that sentence how i felt about the music video... errr... i mean movie)

so yeah, if you didnt know i LOVE the beatles... then you really dont know me. sorry... thats just how i roll.

anyway, after stuffing our selves in a level of gluttony hardly rivaled (even in vomitorium roman times) caroline and i sauntered on over to the vista. dont get me wrong, we knew this might be a HUGE mistake. long story short--it wasnt as bad as i feared... but not NEARLY as amazing as it should have been.*

*NOTE: the ideas and opinions expressed in this blog are the ideas and opinions of jaime ryan heintz and are of no reflection or bearing on the thoughts, ideas, and/or opinions of caroline do... or any person living and/or dead and/or real/imagined who may (or may not) have seen a movie, talked with, or been looked at by jaime ryan heintz. (cc) jaime ryan heintz 2007 some rights reserved.

i dont know if i can coherently take this film apart, but ill get to the heart of what i thought was the problem.

there was no story.

well, there was... but it was so completely trite, tired, and banal... (and a bunch of other words to make me look smart in putting it down) that i wondered why they even attempted to tell a story. i found my eyes rolling several times. its almost as if they said... its a "musical" it doesnt need to have a "complicated" story. they obviously relied too heavily on the beatles songs to really care about... well, anything. they story moments were OBVIOUS ploys to set up the next song... and dont even get me started about the character names!!! and yeah, i just imdb-ed the writers... and the last project they both did was that lame ass animated film flushed away... yeah, the one about the rats. jesus, save us all.

but my REAL beef?

well, all of the problems with the movie could have been forgiven (well, almost all of the problems) if the movie had one thing... just one...

passion.

there did not seem to be one ounce of passion or heart in almost any aspect of the film. it was FAR too over produced and lacked any true emotion or balls (balls probably being more important... sorry ladies).

the one thing that always stays with me from the beatles is their passion. every song they ever recorded drips with raw emotion. theyre strained almost to breaking. their songs are raw, produced just enough, and are never pretentious... yeah, pretty much the exact opposite of this movie.

its funny, that with most "musicals" these days, the actors that are cast are usually either "actors" or "singers." the films usually seem to suffer becasue the talent sits in one of those two camps... with either actors who cant sing, or singers who cant act. well here, it seems like the filmmakers decided to sit somewhere in the middle. the cast is comprised of neither talented actors nor talented singers.

HOW do you sing oh! darling or happines is a warm gun without screaming your fucking head off in frustrated longing?!?!?!

the songs were so thoughtlessly over produced and dripping with sacchrine voacl honey that i just wanted to tear the seats out of the theater (side note: the seats in the vista are spread way too far apart... you have to be a freakin giant to put your feet up on the row in front of you...).

maybe its just me... but if youre going to do something based around the beatles, you better know and understand your beatles... instead of just having some passing notion of them. (and i dont even want to try and think about the "revolution" or "vietnam" sequences in this film...)

wait... let me modify that. if youre going to do ANYTHING you better know and love it more than anyone else out there... you better die without it... because if you dont, youre wasting all of our time. especially with my fucking beatles.

sorry, had to get that off of my chest.

wait, no.

im not sorry.

BUT, it wasnt all bad. the dance sequences that werent awkward and/or mildly homosexually suggestive in their choreography were pretty ok (the bit for a little help from my friends = ok... the bit for i want you (she's so heavy) = not so much...). but the stand out BY FAR was eddie izzard's rendition of being for the benefit of mr. kite! just go to see the movie for that (or just download it). but its only good because of him. a nice shining diamond in a sky of tripe. mmm, tripe.

sigh... such high hopes. it really could have been worse. right? at least they didnt touch norwegian wood. thank GOD for that.

jesus, im bitter.

eh, ill go see it stoned.