After watching this film today, i feel like Bob Dylan and Larry Charles owe me at least two hours of my life back as all the underlying metaphors, ambiguous aphorisms and religious symbolism in their Masked And Anonymous world isn't enough to make me realize any higher truths.
I have never been a big fan of Robert Zimmerman's musical works and i don't think that matters a jot with regard to this film and that argument is nothing more than an arrogant and presumptuous cop-out if you are in favour of this film.
There are a few performances in this film that are adequate but nothing more than haughty and forced - Jessica Lange's cigarettes are more convincing than Jessica Lange herself, John Goodman displays the usual sweaty-browed histrionics as we've become accustomed to in other roles he's acted in, Penelope Cruz gets to light a few candles and turn down a swig of whisky or two from John Goodman, Val Kilmer gets to lay off a speech that sounds like it was rejected from the final cut of Oliver Stone's The Doors, Giovanni Ribisi does nothing more than mumble cynically about what really motivates freedom fighters and insurgents in civil wars, Luke Wilson soliloquises about nothing in particular in order to get John Goodman to disagree with him or Bob Dylan to stare at him, Christian Slater and Christopher Penn look like they need to be somewhere else fast, Jeff Bridges' peripatetic journalist lurches from each scene to bully and goad Bob Dylan into actually saying something any of us can bother to be interested in and Bob Dylan himself is so wooden in this film that his performance needn't be criticised by humans but by Ikea or lumberjacks.
I don't really care if Bob Dylan is meant to be enigmatic or aloof or mystical or even Messianic, making the character both religiously and politically ambiguous and his dialogue ambivalent and introverted doesn't make for good plot development and instead makes the entire movie lumpen and entirely meaningless.
To be honest, i'd rather listen to Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin or Blowin In The Wind if i need to know Mr. Zimmerman's choice political rhetoric or personal polemic.
The only performances that are of any noteworthy content are Mickey Rourke, who isn't on screen enough as his performance is without doubt one of the only saving graces as the duplicitous politician, and Ed Harris doing a turn as a eulogising minstrel.
Sorry for all the Dylan fans or art-house lovers who love this movie but this film truly is nothing more than a horror film for all the wrong reasons, its a piece of snuff art-house where we literally watch various talented actors - Lange, Goodman, Bridges, Slater, Penn and Kilmer all dying horribly on screen.
All i can say to anyone about this film is that Bob Dylan is a far better songwriter than he is a scriptwriter.
Don't let the ensemble cast and critical plaudits, the two things that made me rent this movie out, fool you.
It really is a load of pretentious bilge.
I have never been a big fan of Robert Zimmerman's musical works and i don't think that matters a jot with regard to this film and that argument is nothing more than an arrogant and presumptuous cop-out if you are in favour of this film.
There are a few performances in this film that are adequate but nothing more than haughty and forced - Jessica Lange's cigarettes are more convincing than Jessica Lange herself, John Goodman displays the usual sweaty-browed histrionics as we've become accustomed to in other roles he's acted in, Penelope Cruz gets to light a few candles and turn down a swig of whisky or two from John Goodman, Val Kilmer gets to lay off a speech that sounds like it was rejected from the final cut of Oliver Stone's The Doors, Giovanni Ribisi does nothing more than mumble cynically about what really motivates freedom fighters and insurgents in civil wars, Luke Wilson soliloquises about nothing in particular in order to get John Goodman to disagree with him or Bob Dylan to stare at him, Christian Slater and Christopher Penn look like they need to be somewhere else fast, Jeff Bridges' peripatetic journalist lurches from each scene to bully and goad Bob Dylan into actually saying something any of us can bother to be interested in and Bob Dylan himself is so wooden in this film that his performance needn't be criticised by humans but by Ikea or lumberjacks.
I don't really care if Bob Dylan is meant to be enigmatic or aloof or mystical or even Messianic, making the character both religiously and politically ambiguous and his dialogue ambivalent and introverted doesn't make for good plot development and instead makes the entire movie lumpen and entirely meaningless.
To be honest, i'd rather listen to Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin or Blowin In The Wind if i need to know Mr. Zimmerman's choice political rhetoric or personal polemic.
The only performances that are of any noteworthy content are Mickey Rourke, who isn't on screen enough as his performance is without doubt one of the only saving graces as the duplicitous politician, and Ed Harris doing a turn as a eulogising minstrel.
Sorry for all the Dylan fans or art-house lovers who love this movie but this film truly is nothing more than a horror film for all the wrong reasons, its a piece of snuff art-house where we literally watch various talented actors - Lange, Goodman, Bridges, Slater, Penn and Kilmer all dying horribly on screen.
All i can say to anyone about this film is that Bob Dylan is a far better songwriter than he is a scriptwriter.
Don't let the ensemble cast and critical plaudits, the two things that made me rent this movie out, fool you.
It really is a load of pretentious bilge.