Masked & Anonymous

the sections where dylan and his band played were great. some good new songs.

i got a kick out of dylan's acting, even if the part was pretty contrived. fun to hear him pontificate as his pseudo-self.

Is no one going to jump on this ridiculous statement? Why do I always have to be the bad guy?

> Is no one going to jump on this ridiculous statement? Why do I >always have to be the bad guy?

Agreed, "Punch-Drunk Love" was one of the BEST movies of the last 15 years.

as for bobs movie -- sounds like the cinematic tarantula II. besides, bob gave up the ghost a long long long time a go. he's been running on empty since the seventies.

Wait, Mickey Rourke plays the president in this?

Maybe this deserves a re-evaluation.

should I watch this y/n

y

it looks too ridiculous to not be fun

i mean, i'm not gonna make any crazy claims for it, but if you're in the mood for a weird dylan experience, it'll do the trick.

find it hilarious that Larry Charles' filmography is basically this + Borat

Kind of endearingly terrible, but worth seeing for the performance footage and Dylan's delivery of "Ever heard of cellulose? It’s in the grass.... Cows can digest it, but you can’t. ...And neither can I." It's also more concise than Ranaldo & Clara!

*Renaldo & Clara, that is....

sort of feel like a dylan commentary track might be make M&A better actually. just where he's rambling about the civil war or something.

John Goodman is so good in this.

I always thought this movie was like a lot of Dylan's peak songwriting - overblown, self-mythologizing, highly entertaining if you're into the aesthetic but probably impenetrable and infuriating if you're not. Genius and crap self-consciously coexisting, lots of portentous red herrings to keep stoned armchair critics busy. I want to make claims that it's "structurally" the same as a song like "Desolation Row" but that'd be pushing it.

So yeah, classic.

"Endearingly terrible" just about nails it. The band performances are amazing. I can't believe that the out takes haven't been bootlegged! Apparently they recorded like 20 songs for this.

The making-of featurette on the DVD is hilarious, everyone is trying to avoid saying outright that they have no clue what the fuck this movie was about or who their characters even were.

I just found Ebert's review:

That Dylan still exerts a mystical appeal, there can be no doubt. When “Masked and Anonymous” premiered at Sundance 2003, there was a standing ovation when the poet entered the room. People continued to stand during the film, in order to leave, and the auditorium was half empty when the closing credits played to thoughtful silence. One of the more poignant moments in Sundance history then followed, as director Larry Charles stood on the stage with various cast members, asking for questions and then asking, “Aren’t there any questions?”

Somewhere, maybe one of his Mikal Gilmore interviews for Rolling Stone, Dylan said Cate Blanchett should have played him in this too: "I had no business being up there," think was the exact quote.

Never have seen all of it, but what I heard of the newly-released soundtrack---bouncing around a mostly glass CD store---was amazing.

just saw that Tinashe is in this??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGkANKAOiy0

Although she was uncredited in the poorly received Masked and Anonymous, Roger Ebert observed at the film's 2003 Sundance Film Festival premiere "the one performer in the movie whose performance actually was applauded; that was a young black girl named Tinashe Kachingwe, who sings 'The Times They Are A-Changin'' with such sweetness and conviction that she is like a master class." He concluded his review of the movie: "If I had been asked to serve as consultant on this picture, my advice would have amounted to three words: more Tinashe Kachingwe."[14]

awesome

That band with Larry Campbell and Charlie Sexton was such hot shit.

On the DVD commentary Larry Charles says that they filmed and recorded 20 songs of that band for the movie. There’s been a lot of fan hope that it will be released as a Bootleg Series.

Man, if they wanted to break some brains they could do a combo set of the Pat Garrett outtakes (have those gotten an official release? I lose track) and that Masked & Anonymous stuff for a Like Dylan At The Movies collection.

Albums That Never Were presented a plausible Renaldo and Clara soundtrack---and of course the Wizard always explains why he picked each version and what he did to make the whole thing cohesive, usually just adjusting volume levels etc---keeps getting notices for all his stuff, but you might well find a working link way down in the comments.

I’m dying for the entire M&A sessions to be released — the 4(?) songs on the soundtrack are such a tease. That Cold Irons Bound is maybe my fave Dylan performance ever.

I love this movie — it’s like a 2-hour Visions of Johanna: faux-profound, funny, half come-on, half put-on, and strangely moving. Maybe the most Dylan thing Dylan ever did really.