Made it to Mars

Just watched half of Across the Universe, Julie Taymor's follow-up to Frida, which I didn't see. So far, I've found it a touch trite in places, such as the scene with the kid hiding behind the car singing "Mary come to me".

The choreography tends to be repetitive, and several shots are cribbed from Tarantino and Shortbus, amongst others.

I did find the portrayal of Ken Kesey quite interesting, although at times he did seem like some weird hybrid of Bono and Johnny Depp playing Hunter Thompson. The attention to all the faces of 'the scene' at the time is nice, but often times, during the big musical numbers whose irruption is hardly seamless or understated, the cast come off sounding more like Queen than the Fab Four.

Overall, the movie seems fun, as you would expect from a musical based on a band who's back catalogue features hardly a weak song. The surrogates have held enough of my interest that I would definitely watch the second half, should it surface somewhere.

I will not be compulsively driven to seek it out though, as I am with the fourth season of Lost. I'm convinced that the reason it is best watched in an weekend, as opposed to a couple of months, is that the only emotion inspired by many of the episodes is, plainly and simply, 'more'.