STMedia

There is a reason why this film was a massive box office flop. People saw it once (often leaving before it was over) and told everyone they knew how horrible it was. Perhaps if you removed any connection to an actual, living, historical person it could be interesting? Maybe, but if you know anything at all about American popular music, and particularly Bob Dylan, watching this film makes you think someone is trying to gaslight you into thinking everything you know is is true is false. It's like dropping acid but only in the sense of a bad trip you feel you are never coming out of. Fiction is a wonderful medium. Biography as pure fiction is not. If there had already been a great biopic about Dylan, then maybe, just maybe, there would be a place for a weird arthouse film like this that explored Dylan's music and ethos in an alternate universe context. But to produce a film like this in the absence of that is just annoying. It's a little like having your kid brother mock something he knows nothing about in a sing-song voice.

It's interesting to look through the negative reviews of The Man Who Would Be King. Those submitted twenty years ago reflect the range of subjective response you might expect from any film. Move forward to those submitted in the last few years and a common theme arises. The film is "unwatchable" because it portrays people in a colonial era with a colonial perspective. Somehow it's assumed that the writer casting forth this judgement somehow from birth knew all that is right and just and can, without a shred of arrogance or hypocrisy, see clearly the sins of the past and guide the rest of us as to what is correct and incorrect for us to allow our weak eyes and ears to take in or avoid so that we can also live a similarly enlightened life.

Someday I hope those who so arrogantly seek to cancel or at least condemn any film from an earlier era that did not by some miracle anticipate what would be politically correct in 2022 will gain some humility. Hopefully they will then finally come to recognize that they too suffer from the flawed human condition and are blind to what the next generation will someday condemn them for.

If you want to see how great filmmaking was done before digital technology made it easy to create any setting, this is a great film to watch. If you want to see how people viewed the world in the colonial era - and - of you want to understand how those who lived through the Great Depression and WWII sought to portray the colonial era, this is a great film to watch. It's also a well told story if you have the ability to follow a story that unfolds slowly and doesn't flash from one action scene to another.

However, if you are like those who led the cultural revolution in China and believe that history must be eradicated or revised, I guess this is one of the cultural artifacts that must be destroyed. If that's you, I'll save you the time. You can add this to your censor list.

Longmire is a modern take on the western. Its refreshing to watch a series with interesting characters and compelling stories that isn't saturated with preachy messages.