donut

On the plane back from Korea I watched a couple movies.

Across the Universe

When I chose this movie out of the fifty or so options from Korean Air’s great selection it was out of curiosity. I didn’t even know it was a musical. But it is a musical. But it’s different than any other musical I have seen. Thirty-one of its thirty-four songs are from The Beatles. But, of course, sung by the actors which was really fun since they allowed many different types of voices to sing the songs, not just Beatles posers.

Another interesting thing was how the movie used the songs to progress the story. In many other musicals the songs (and dances) are really just there to be a song and a dance but not always that integral to the movie. A better way to put it might be that these other movies have a greater focus on the song and dance than they have of the story or the characters. But Across the Universe was really focused on the story and the characters and utilized the songs to build the two. It wasn’t that they were singing and dancing Beatles songs, it was that these songs were needed to for the story to progress and make sense. And there wasn’t that much dancing. Just the bowling scene from the trailer—which, like all trailers now-a-days, is spoiler filled and misleading.

The story was good and especially fun as it is being pulled along by the songs. It truly seems to be in the spirit of The Beatles. Though, I don’t know that much about them. It really seemed like a way to honor them.

Over all it was very fun and definitely worth watching.

Shrek the Third

This movie was okay. If you’ve seen the first one then you’ve seen them all. It was still fun, but it seemed as if all of the humor was just recycled in new situations. And of course this one had a message, though it was fairly similar to that of the first one. It was entertaining and I was curious and it’s probably still good for children. But I really wouldn’t suggest it.