Masked and Annoying
I am a huge Bob Dylan fan – have been for almost 20 years. But unfortunately no amount of sympathy or enthusiasm could carry me through the 110 minutes of Masked and Anonymous without frequent groans of disappointment and boredom. There’s no point in saying what the film is about. Even if I knew, it’s the kind of film that is much more interesting in the description than in the watching. On the visual side, there’s some decent camera work, although the set-piece of post-revolutionary somewhere (America, perhaps?) seems to end at the edge of the frame.
The music is great, of course – both the well-selected songs and offbeat versions used as background music and the electrifying (and all too brief) clips of Dylan performing with his band. Former Hollywood A-listers (Val Kilmer, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Lange, Christian Slater, etc. etc.) pop up all over this film and add nothing to it, with the conspicuous exception of John Goodman. In fact, for his performance as the sleazy promoter, I nominate Goodman for finest actor in the land. If he could find some way to be convincing in a picture where there is not a comprehensible line of dialogue spoken by anyone, he is surely a talent to be reckoned with.
But alas, poor Bob, who deadpans his way though this weird mess with nary a shred of recognizable humanity, seems to have lost his compass (yet again). In the midst of a career revival with a recent series of great albums and concert appearances, he appears to have let ambition and pretension get the better of him yet again when approaching the medium of cinema. Long-time followers know that frustrating audience expectations is page one of the Dylan playbook, and his missteps occasionally look better in the fullness of time than they do at the moment. Still, it’s hard to see what Masked and Anonymous will do for his legacy, other than confirm some stereotypes that Dylan is, and remains, a very strange guy.
11:27:49 AM 
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