Lennon Legend - The Very Best of John Lennon (2003) Review

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(More customer reviews)I have so many mixed feelings about this DVD. While I welcome and look forward to all John Lennon releases, this particular collection has both great features and some stumbling points.
To begin with, the sound is stunning. Most of the songs have been remixed in 5.1 and are almost revelatory in their clarity and power.
The only problem I have with the release are some of the actual videos themselves. It should be noted that all of the video used itself looks fabulous, considering it was primarily sourced from obsolete analog formats. Here goes:
1. Imagine: More or less the same footage we've all come to know and love, with much greater clarity.
2. Instant Karma: This is a live performance, and really great to watch.
3. Mother: A simple montage of photos, but effective. Can someone explain the strange addition of Brian Epstein in this video however?
4. Jealous Guy: Footage of John singing the vocal track in the studio, mixed with the boat rowing footage from Imagine.
5. Power to the People: A truly bad video visually, it looks like a seventh grade slide-show presentation
6. Cold Turkey: Another live performance synched to the studio version.
7. Mind Games: This has some really wonderful footage of John wandering around NYC mingling with people, dancing, and such. One of the better videos, and only marred by a quick shot of John from the morgue. I found that element really distasteful.
8. Whatever Gets You Through the Night: This video is superb. It features a number of John's drawings animated and colorized.
9. #9 Dream: This is an interesting video with footage from one of John and Yoko's short films called Smile. Something about the footage of John really struck me, as he appears so natural and relaxed. It's kind of amusing that May Pang's vocals on the song are made to appear to be Yoko's in the video.
10. Stand by Me: Live footage previously seen on "The Old Grey Whistle Test"
11.(Just Like) Starting Over: This is initially a very, very emotional and harrowing video. It begins with the premise of where John would be now had he lived, which is a terrific and powerful concept. However, rather than sticking with that idea, the video degenerates into cheesy looking graphics of the photos flying around everywhere. It's ultimately redeemed, but I think they bungled the chance for something truly great.
12. Woman: Footage of Yoko...the same video that was released by Yoko in 1981.
13. Beautiful Boy: This is a home video of Sean playing and talking with Yoko, and John sort of sitting there and talking to other people. I think this video was in really poor taste as it's a song that John wrote about how much he loved Sean. Shouldn't the video focus on--maybe I'm crazy--him and Sean?? Especially considering ALL the footage of the both of them available?
14. Watching the Wheels: Okay, there's some redemption to the above as this video features mostly footage of John and Sean together. Very nice to watch.
15. Nobody Told Me: A compilation of old Imagine footage and clips of John with Andy Warhol, Miles Davis, etc. It's ok, but not really anything we haven't seen before.
16. Borrowed Time: Has lots of home footage and outtakes from previously unavailable sources...
17. Working Class Hero: A really good video filmed at Strawberry Fields and John's childhood home. It's nice to see that footage, but again, the phantom of John's death is paraded out again. Sadly, these images are prevalent throughout the DVD. It's just not something I think John would want drawn so much attention, too. Why not focus on the positive aspects of his life, and message more?
18. Happy Xmas (War Is Over): This is a brilliant video, and while some have critized it as Yoko politicizing, I think it's artistically great and I think John would have completely approved.
19. Give Peace a Chance: Includes the Bed-in footage, various protests, and--again--vigils for John in 1980.
Overall, it's a must buy if you're any kind of John Lennon fan. It's good in that either the beginning John Lennon fan, or the long time devotee is going to find something good to see. My main points of contention are not that it was bad, but that it could have been even better than it was.

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LENNON LEGEND - DVD Movie

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Across the Universe (2007) Review

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(More customer reviews)Julie Taymor once again uses her considerable innovative magic to create a film that not only is mesmerizingly beautiful to watch, but also a 'semi-documentary' about the world changes that occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s as young people for the first time spoke out against the war in Vietnam, the death of Martin Luther King, and the senseless mayhem that extended from the battlefields of Vietnam to the streets of America, all set to the significant, timely music of the Beatles. It sounds like an impossible juxtaposition of themes and ideas, but in Taymor's hands it succeeds.
Opening in Liverpool, England (where the Beatles began their impact on music and thought) we met Jude (Jim Sturgess), a working class boy with the gifts of an artist who decides to set off on a sea journey to meet the father he has never known. Once in New York he meets Max (Joe Anderson) and Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) who represent the wealthy class, but who both show roots of rebellion against the comfortable norm and an objection to the war that is festering like an abscess in the rice paddies of Vietnam. Jude meets his janitor father in a union that is anticlimactic, and in disappointment he falls in with Max, living the artists' life in the Village with free-wheeling singer Sadie (Dana Fuchs), her beau/guitarist JoJo (Martin Luther) and their newest tenant Prudence (T.V. Carpio), an Asian girl trying to find her place in a confusing world. The group eventually bond with music and rebellion mixed with free love and the passion that they can make a difference, while around them racial crises are at a peak and the draft tags many of the young men (including Max) for the war they cannot condone. From all of this turmoil the story builds to a climax leading to some very touching scenes that convey the spirit of the times and the overriding importance of love and understanding in a world torn apart by political and racial crises.
The cast is strong with each of the actors singing their own versions of various Beatle songs very well (the division between singing and spoken dialect favors the former). But the real magic comes from Julie Taymor's mixture of hallucinogenic visuals, wonderfully choreographed crowd scenes, and ingenious movement from reality scenes displayed on the television to the reactive scenes of the world as viewed through the eyes of the youths and the lyrics of the songs. It is at once touching in its ability to recreate a particular period of history and wholly entertaining in the inventive use of music/dance/visual effects/drama. This film is important now and will only increase in stature as a document of that troubled but exciting time in the history of the world. We can only wonder why the youth of today are not responding to the Iraq War in a like manner, or, more uncomfortable to consider, why we, now as adults, can't muster the same degree of distress about the myriad traumas that are still happening 'Across the Universe'. Grady Harp, April 08

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Across the Universe, from director Julie Taymor, is a revolutionary rock musical that re-imagines America in the turbulent late-1960s, a time when battle lines were being drawn at home and abroad. When young dockworker Jude (Jim Sturgess) leaves Liverpool to find his estranged father in America, he is swept up by the waves of change that are re-shaping the nation. Jude falls in love with Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), a rich but sheltered American girl who joins the growing anti-war movement in New York's Greenwich Village. As the body count in Vietnam rises, political tensions at home spiral out of control and the star-crossed lovers find themselves in a psychedelic world gone mad. With a cameo by Bono, Across the Universe is "the kind of movie you watch again, like listening to a favorite album." (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times)

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