Monday, November 26, 2007

"Do Your Early Stuff!"


I'm Not There. I've asked five other Matthews to help me review this movie. Here's what we think.

CRAZYLEGS MATT: When it's not the movie version of a tribute album, it's the film version of a bunch of Greil Marcus footnotes.

LIBRARIAN BOY: It's a movie for anybody who's ever looked at Bob Dylan's life and wondered "What if he died after that motorcycle accident?" (Cate Blanchett supplies the answer, and it ain't a pretty one, but man does she nail the Tarantula Dylan--complete with tarantulas.)

NINETEEN FOREVER: The best Beatles cameo ever. An unrecognizable Michelle Williams as Edie Sedgwick with Madonna's survival instinct. Love Julianne Moore's Baez avatar calling Christan Bale's troubadour a little toad. Adore archival footage of the Village bleeding seamlessly into recreated footage of the Village. And that's really Allen Ginsberg up there, don't let anyone tell you any different.

THE RANDOLPH KID: Will somebody tell me why you hear Kristofferson in the opening voice-over, but you don't see him playing Billy The Kid?!? How. Cool. Would THAT have been.


THE PLAYWRIGHT: The only real question is, will Cate Blanchett win for Best Actress or Best Actor?

MATTHEW: A totally refreshing antidote to every musician biopic ever made, it's a movie that does to Dylan's legend what Dylan does to a song when he's performing it live--attacks it from the side, does a riff on the melody, garbles this and growls that, and forces you to see and hear something you not only didn't expect, but couldn't expect, and can't get out of your head.

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