Across The Universe: Long-awaited '60s musical as stormy as the
decade it celebrates  James Sanford By James Sanford on October
11, 2007 at 10:50 AM, updated October 12, 2007 at 6:20 PM
"Across the Universe" opens with a young man kneeling on a
beach, looking straight into the camera. He sings: "Is there
anybody going to listen to my story, all about the girl who came
to stay?" A few seconds later, the ghostly image of that girl is
thrashing about in the waves, as riot police seem to rise up
from the sea to subdue her.  Immediately, director Julie Taymor
has given us a hint of what we're in for: a phantasmagorical
flashback to the 1960s, fueled by the music of the Beatles.
Taymor uses 33 songs written by the Fab Four -- some are heard
in their entirety; others, like "Girl," are abbreviated -- to
compose a head-spinning celebration of the era, peppered with
allusions to other films, caricatures of celebrities and acid-
washed sequences that do their darndest to blow your mind.  It
sounds like a truly awful ide