Cate Blanchett to play Bob Dylan in an upcoming film.

pretty damn good, a must-see unless you HATED Velvet Goldmine (or Dylan); like that, its ambition exceeds his grasp, and hooray. Cate and the young kid are most mesmerizing. Billy the Kid (Gere) and Heath-Charlotte plot least rewarding. Looks, sounds great -- see it on the biggest screen possible (assuming that's even an option in yr town).

Malkmus sings for Blanchett!

i am pretty much 100% with you there morbs.

dylan hanger-on who gets dressed down by blanchett and hick type on the side of the road gere talks to are both local actors and friends of mine.

I really want to see this, but it's not showing anywhere near me.

This is why torrents are good?

NYT Magazine piece running tomorrow

pretty damn good, a must-see unless you HATED Velvet Goldmine (or Dylan); like that, its ambition exceeds his grasp, and hooray.

that sounds very much what i expected and makes me happy to hear. todd haynes + dylan is like a movie genetically engineered just for me.

I didn't know that it had been largely shot in and around Montreal til that Times Mag piece.

Also, Harvey Weinstein thinks Gere segment doesn't work. Even a porcine grubby mogul is right once in awhile...

Soundtrack has usual hip rockers (Calexico, Yo La T, Sonic Youth) a la VG, only this time they're doing actual Dylan songs instead of glam pastiches.

it's not showing anywhere near me.

It doesn't even open in NYC til Nov 21.

she tells Charlie Rose she heard he drives a yellow Hummer with a "World's Greatest Grandda" bumper sticker

btw, Julianne Moore kills w/ Joan Baez caricature

I'm guessing it's not gonna help that he picked someone annoying to play someone annoying

yes, David Cross is good too

Collection of related links thus far, including Ann Powers chasing down every biog reference that appears in the film that she can:

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/004883.html

What the hell happened to Cate Blanchett?

I had NO idea this was going to open in so many theaters. Suburbanites better brush up on those semiotics.

Tony Scott, gibbering with excitement

Not surprisingly, this hasn't opened here yet; I'll have to watch No Country For Old Men tonight.

Also: can Morbz confirm whether Christian Bale (coiffed like John Fogerty) is as hot as he looks in that picture?

purty hot

no one had this for T'giving dessert?

It opened today -- will go tomorrow.

My local daily's tepid review.

i liked this as much as i expected to, which was a lot. i didn't like it more than i expected to, which is mildly disappointing. but only mildly. (and i actually liked the richard gere sequence fine; the heath ledger segments were the ones i thought droned on a bit, finely decorated tho they were.) i can't really imagine the effect on dylan novices (much less dylan-haters, but i guess they're not going to see it anyway).

looked great, all of it. sounded great too of course.

i'm something of a dylan novice (ie i like the handful of songs i've heard but have never listened to an entire album of his in one sitting)* and i thought this was really awesome. like morbius said, ambition exceeds grasp slightly but i'm willing to award it points for its sheer audacity. i agree also about the heath ledger bits** dragging on somewhat but cate blanchett was stunning and the movie as a whole just looks really beautiful. haynes really has a knack for making semiotics seem sexy.

*correcting this ASAP btw
**nb not "ledger's bits" which i thought were well-worth the $10.50 hem hem

haha I loathed Velvet Goldmine (and hate the soundtrack to this movie) yet I think I'll see it anyway, just 'cause

i love velvet goldmine and i think the best parts of it are more fun than i'm not there. but this one's put together more sturdily. (feels less made-up-in-the-editing-room.)

Seeing this tonight.

now i would like to see a movie about bob dylan's use of helvetica please

this looks like six kinds of awful movie all rolled up into one. i completely don't understand why anyone would finance, write, film or desire to see this.

this looks like six kinds of awful movie all rolled up into one.

otm. but in a good way.

i liked this as much as i expected to, which was a lot. i didn't like it more than i expected to, which is mildly disappointing. but only mildly

OTM. I liked the Ledger-Gainsborough sequences a lot, actually; his surly Heath Ledgerness and "Dylan's" create a nice tension in those domestic scenes.

Was that Wilco performing "Goin' to Acapulco" in the Gere sequence?

i think it's jim jones from mmj

All the supporting performances are wonderful, especially Bruce Greenwood as "Mr Jones" and Julianne Moore.

I thought the Black Panthercentric 'video' for 'Ballad of a Thin Man' was a bit much, but sort of in a good way.

I watched Dont Look Back for the first time in eons this weekend, and forgot how little music is in it; a must for Dylan novices along w/ the PBS Scorsese doc.

Eonline: $757,385 for Friday-Sunday at 130 theaters. per-screen average of $5,826.

dylan hanger-on who gets dressed down by blanchett and hick type on the side of the road gere talks to are both local actors and friends of mine.

-- s1ocki

Yeah, I know one of the guys who was in the band that played The Band, although I haven't been in touch for a while.

i thought this was pretty great

kim gordon lol!

What's hilarious is that her lines would have worked as a spoken-word bit on A Thousand Leaves.

"Do your early stuff!" (Beyond looking like him Cross not very Ginsberglike tho)

the heath ledger segments were the ones i thought droned on a bit

I thought the Christian Bale parts were the weakest, he played Dylan like a half mute zombie hunchback

xpost - that scene was serious lols

^that's not a bad description of Protest Singer Dylan!

this was a lot of fun. altho the overall portrait it paints is one of a very unhappy person.

He's a person?

xp

or who is unhappy in public. the Ledger role is the only one with much 'interiority'.

Every scene suggested that "Bob Dylan" is a nullity.

unhappy maybe in a sort of myth of sisyphus way. i have a hard time thinking of dylan as happy or unhappy. i get the sense he's managed to enjoy himself more than your average tortured genius.

sure - which begs the question why someone would want to BE a nullity

x-post

"Those are yuppie words, happiness and unhappiness. It's not happiness or unhappiness, it's blessed or unblessed."--Bob Dylan, 1991, Rolling Stone

but HE (Robt Zimmerman) is not a nullity

I get the feeling that he just follows his enthusiasms and synthesizes them into his own art

just because he cultivates mystery and doesn't put his private life out there doesn't mean he's soulless

the negative reviews of "I'm Not There" that I've read (Edelstein and Lane) have focused on the fact that you don't get to know "the real Bob Dylan" but the main thing I take away from the movie is that Haynes is saying that the art is the life -- all the info that Dylan wants you to know about him or about "America" is in the work

that paragraph I wrote sounds pretty hack, sorry