Masked and Anonymous

2003 movie that I don't really know how to describe in just one or two words

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Musician Jack Fate is released from prison in some anonymous country where the people say they want a revolution. Well, you know, we all want to change the world. The fat man in the powder blue suit (Mr. Sweetheart) who is promoting the benefit concert promises that this could resurrect Fate's dead career, and the newspaper man keeps asking him for his opinion on everything. But Jack Fate just wants to play music.

90-95% of the music I've heard in 2010 has been Bob Dylan. I'm immersed in Dylan, all greasy and stained because of it, so I figured it was time I give Masked and Anonymous another chance. It still sucks though. Of course, the music is good. Dylan and his band interrupt the "story" (thankfully) to play some originals and standards, and Dylan's songs, sung by him as well as a culturally diverse collection of others, pepper the proceedings. It's great music, recorded right in the middle of Dylan's latest reemergence as a musical force. The movie, directed by Larry Charles (another Curb Your Enthusiasm connection; it's just not a good year for them), looks really good. Wherever-it-takes-place has just the right amount of grime and despair to be a suitable back-drop for whatever-the-hell-is-going-on. But the rest of the movie? Pretty sucky. I've never seen so many talented people (Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, and others) working so hard with such bad material. The dialogue is senseless, making this a land where the characters speak to each other in riddles. Their motivations are unclear, and it's impossible to figure out who the good guys and bad guys are here. It really does feel like these characters are pulled directly from Dylan song lyrics, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but that's just not a good thing at all. Nothing clicks here, and I was frustrated that I couldn't figure out exactly what was going on in this movie. Worse, I actually lost interest in trying to decipher the thing.