Masked and Anonymous

What do Bad Boys II, The Hulk, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and Masked and Anonymous have in common? They were all released in the summer of 2003. Unlike the first three mentioned, 'Masked and Anonymous' is certainly not an action blockbuster or popcorn flick. It's not the kind of movie that you can sit in the sun all day and then show up for and check your brain at the door. (It does have a limited release, so maybe it will be fall/winter by the time it reaches your town.)

I recently saw this at a deserted mall in Los Angeles with a couple of friends, one proclaiming it the worst movie he'd ever seen. (Usually I'd debate them on the car ride back, but I was too busy absorbing what I had just seen.)

It's been about a week since I saw the flick and I'm still forming an opinion, which counts for something. The biggest thing I'm trying to figure out is if the whole movie is just a big joke perpetuated by Bob Dylan and Larry Charles. Considering Charles' work on "Seinfeld" (The Limo, The Opera, etc.) I have a good feeling it is. But it's a good joke, playing to all sides. Detractors can knock the movie because of lack of plot, while Dylan fans can search to find a deeper meaning. It seems Charles and Dylan are sitting back laughing at both of them. (Just as net geeks can chuckle at Dylan's crack at acting.)

In terms of history, 'Masked and Anonymous' won't make any critics best lists or AFI specials, the film is simply not that great. However, the ideas put forth by it, are certainly worthwhile. No matter how you want to slice it, there are certain parallels between the world of Masked and Anonymous and our current world situation. Does Dylan have the answers to this, no, he clearly states he doesn't. He's just a song-and-dance man after all. No sense getting worked up over questions that cannot be answers, but it's fun trying to, right? (That paradox is the crux of the film.)

In closing, yes the movie borders on pretentious and yes it lacks a solid narrative. But considering that 99 percent of movies are pretty cookie cutter and have as much substance as a marshmallow, 'Masked and Anonymous' should be praised for taking a risk and actually questioning the audience. (Not in the sense that Bruce Willis was actually a ghost the whole time.)

On a final side note, it is disturbing to see Walter and the Dude at each other's throats.

Sure, Masked and Anonymous (or M&A, as I fondly like to call it) is convoluted and pretentious. Sure, it has ridiculously banal dialogue that makes Forrest Gump sound like an intellectual. Sure, there are preposterously-named characters (Jack Fate, Tom Friend, Uncle Sweetheart, et al) and let's face it, no one actually has a coherent conversation throughout the entire proceeding. But it's not predictable - that counts for something in my book, anyway, and it has Bob Dylan (looking more and more like Salvador Dali in every scene - all he needed was the mustache wax), and Jeff Bridges always rocks. Here's the bottom line for me, though: any film that has a bearded, bare-armed and derangedly disheveled Val Kilmer deliver the title phrase (while fondling a bunny rabbit) can't be all bad.

A puzzling, very dark, far-fetched and totally abstract political satire that is revealed through the film's dialogue and the contents in the 7 songs of Dylan's Jack Fate. Fate (supposedly to be a pun?), a faded (looks kind of jaded in his looks,too!) cult-singer gets out of prison to play at a benefit concert for the victims of wars. Fate performs with a band, called Twist of Fate. The film offers an ‘Armageddon' view of an artist's loss of creative freedom to a consumer-consumed corrupted and politically-correct society. Will Fate forgo his freedom of artistic expressions to satisfy the commercial ideals of the corporate world. The themes of government corruption, female deceit, and the need for a messiah are also constantly evoked. It's Fate's concept of a world of madness and perfidy, and the corruption of society. There doesn't seem to be any plot in this film, but it sure feels like it does have loads of messages to pass on! The location (with ‘science-fiction' landscapes of a crumbling society) may be "Somewhere in America" - a notice, at the beginning, seems to suggest so. There are unexplainable groups, rioting or carrying out terrorist acts or even military operations. There are canvas images of a dictator-like "President" (a reminder of Saddam Hussein?) scattered in between scenes. Is the location totalitarian? The film does imply that the location has nothing positive to offer – bringing to mind the Orwellian Dystopia! The viewer does get to see this location turn into a police state.

The relationship between all characters, except for that between Fate and Luke Wilson's Bobby Cupid, seem cold and ugly. Art vs. commerce is metaphorically represented by the roles of John Goodman and Jessica Lange. There are several references to contemporary news. Giovanni Ribisi plays a confused man eager to join the insurgents, and discovers their funding is by the government they are hoping to topple. Perhaps, a John Walker Lindh? Jeff Bridges plays an aggressive journalist. "I'm on your side," he tells Jack. Jack responds with: "That depends on your point of view." Take heed of the wisdom of Ed Harris' blackfaced ‘Al Jolson' minstrel-show character – to avoid Fate's fate! The film's finale occurs as a result of a ‘Pretender' presiding over the location. That strikes me as the most powerful ending I've seen this year!

It's a complex film that cries for opinionated answers – even harder to analyze than Jean-Luc Godard's ‘60s movie or Fellini's La Dolce Vita – or even Mulholland Drive! One would see it as a brilliant attempt, or hate it without any ‘buts'!

I actually hated the movie at the end of it, but given time, discussion and re-thinking, I've found this film excitingly interesting and clever!

Yes, the dialogue was unrealistic and heavy-handed. Yes, the conversations were often one-sided. Yes, it was preachy at times. And yes, there is something caught in Bob Dylan's throat. I feel fortunate not to have read any of the reviews of this film before I saw it, because otherwise my experience may have been tainted. I lost myself in this movie. In it's poetry. It's power. The music, alone! I found it moving, compelling, and beautiful. I'm not saying everyone is wrong who gave it a bad review. In fact, a lot of the points they made are very valid. I just think that the points they made make a stronger case for why the movie is good, not why it is bad. It's not a blockbuster, it's not an action flick, it's not a chick-flick or a romantic-comedy. It's not really like anything. The only movie I know of to compare it to, other than maybe an Ingmar Bergman film, is "Big Bad Love", with Arliss Howard. Now THERE is a slow, sparse, pretentious and indulgent film. But it works. It's poetry. It's not reality, and neither is "Masked & Anonymous". In fact, the filmmakers go a long way to make sure you know it isn't reality--or at least any particular reality. It's an allegory. It's a metaphor. Just look at the scene where Jessica Lange hears the news report on the radio saying that scientists dug the deepest hole in the world and heard the wailing of thousands of lost souls. If you think that's not supposed to be poetry right there, then you have got the wrong notion about the film as a whole. I encourage you to take another look at it from another perspective and see if your opinion changes. If it doesn't, there's nothing wrong with that, but at least you will have given it a chance.

This movie will mean little to you if you aren't my age (late fifties). That's because you actually had to be there when Bob Dylan was the most powerful man in the west, exchanging leadership with the merged Lennon and McCartney. Together they led us like no one had or has since in terms of immediacy.

I'm talking about the period between his protest singing and his collapse into fundamentalism. From "Tambourine Man," to "Twist of Fate," with the John Wesley Harding period being his most profound. His method was simple, to let himself go and trust what he saw on the edges of his vision. It wasn't that he engineered himself to be at the front of us. Instead he advertised a small bit of conceptual thinking for the pop mind and we grew into it, in his direction almost as if by accident.

The point is that he was important, but never knew why. His insights and art were far more intelligent than he was. And when he fell into the fundamentalist stupor it probably seemed like a reinvention following all the others.

This business of not knowing is crucial to whether you should actually listen to him when he tries to say something.

So go and watch "Renaldo and Clara" which he co-wrote with one of our two greatest living playwrights. It has a grand shape, multiple people playing the same character; multiple characters played by the same person. Scintillating realities, shifting fundamentals. That's the Sam Shepard part. The Dylan part is so juvenile, so obtuse, so plain artless it carries its own message.

And that's what we have here too. Except this time, the grand shape is by a cartoon writer instead of a master playwright. So we start with vapid notions of profundity. This writer believes that Dylan is still the man most thought he was 25 years ago. Even that was wrong: he simply saw rather than understood even then.

Well, so we have this vast stroke of fate, Jake Fate (Twist of Fate, see?), this notion of the son of a broken God (John Wesley Harding, get it? nudge, nudge) and along the way scads of characters drawn to illustrate the various ways mankind has broken itself.

The good news is that many of these are played by first rate actors. Sam Shephard's wife has the role of "presenter." But they are drawn so cartoonishly they miss any target they could have hit. They are not cinematic. This guy has no cinematic skills. They are not Dylanesque. Dylan has a very specific and consistent imagination that is more "Hitchhiker's Guide" than "Seinfeld" and "The Tick."

We could have gotten an ensemble piece where talented actors synthesized their impressions of Dylan. Now that would have been cool, but they are kept separate.

So what we end up with is a lost soul who once was king, playing a lost soul who once was king, tries to recover — thinks he succeeds, fails miserably in front of our eyes and doesn't know it.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.