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Masked And Anonymous [DVD] [2003]
 
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Masked And Anonymous [DVD] [2003]

DVD ~ Bob Dylan
2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Masked And Anonymous [DVD] [2003]
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Product details

  • Actors: Bob Dylan, Jeff Bridges, Penélope Cruz, John Goodman, Jessica Lange
  • Directors: Larry Charles
  • Format: PAL
  • Language English
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 12
  • Studio: 2 Entertain Video
  • DVD Release Date: 10 May 2004
  • Run Time: 102 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B0001MIQ7Q
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 25,736 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

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Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review

Sometimes surprising, often baffling and occasionally entertaining, Masked and Anonymous is another in the long but not necessarily distinguished line of rock-star movie vehicles. Bob Dylan stars in this BBC Films coproduction as an alter ego of himself, ageing rocker Jack Fate, released from jail to play a benefit concert in an alternative America that is run down and ruled by a military dictator. When not singing he makes little impression, so it's fortunate that director Larry Charles surrounds him with a galaxy of excellent supporting players, including John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Penelope Cruz, Jeff Bridges, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Dern, Luke Wilson, Giovanni Ribisi and Val Kilmer--all of whom gave their services for free.

The screenplay, cowritten by Dylan, is full of the kind of cryptic aphorisms familiar from his song lyrics: "What's bugging me?", remarks Jeff Bridges' character, "The absurdity of a lifetime of human labour, that's what's bugging me." "They have no ideology. They push both Jesus and Judas aside," says an anonymous bus driver, and there are plenty more didactic, speechy comments that even these veteran actors can't make sound natural or spontaneous. Better to focus on the music--both the songs Dylan performs on screen and those on the soundtrack, which consists mostly of foreign-language covers of Dylan classics.

On the DVD: Masked and Anonymous on disc comes with a commentary track from director Larry Charles, who is good on the details of the shooting schedule, but vague about the movie's aspirations. There are some deleted scenes (none of which shed any more light on the plot), another Dylan performance, and a 20-minute "making of" featurette, with the many supporting stars waxing lyrical about the freewheeling shooting style and semi-theatrical staging. The anamorphic widescreen picture is unexceptional, as is the Dolby 5.1 soundtrack, which naturally enough works best with the music. --Mark Walker



DVD Description

In a fictitious America caught up in a civil war that is tearing the nation apart, a benefit concert is being organised. A travelling troubadour named Jack Fate is sprung from jail by his scheming former manager, Uncle Sweetheart, to headline a concert with the expectations to bring peace to a country that is entrenched by chaos, lawlessness and pandemonium.

Directed by Larry Charles, with the black humour he brought to Seinfeld and starring Bob Dylan as an aging rock legend. The film also stars John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Jeff Bridges, Mickey Rourke, Luke Wilson, Penelope Cruz, Angela Basett, Giovanni Ribisi, Val Kilmer, Cheech Marin, Ed Harris, Christian Slater and Bruce Dern.

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
2.7 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars seeing the real Bob at last !, 13 May 2004
By K. L. Smith (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
The billing of this movie plays down Bob's part, but Bob is nearly in every scene. If you are a fan you will enjoy this, the sly references etc...Bob looks cool as hell, and the musical performances are neatly shot so you see Bob without the ever present shades, I mean up close, it's great to see him this up-front. You never know what is going to happen next in the movie..There is a great line where Goodman says to Bob.." you are all skin and bones"...and Bob shoots back " ain't we all "...classic Dylan !. This is Bob's film. There is a hilarious scenne where the promoters insist on Bob singing all the classic protest songs..ie. Revolution ( Beatles )...Street Fighting Man ( Stones )...Eve of Destruction ... so funny. I enjoyed this film a lot and I think you will too...nice one Bob !.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Mysterious, 13 May 2004
Bobcats will love this. They are a hardy bunch and will be prepared to stick with this often inscrutable, sometimes bizarre film. Although co-written by Dylan (under a hopeless pseudonym) it is no mere vanity project and features a truly great cast. While John Goodman, Val Kilmer, Jeff Bridges and Penelope Cruz do their best to not act Bob off the screen, he does a good job of lending wisdom and mystery to the ageing character of Jack Fate. Fate has to play one last benefit concert for the victims of post revolutionary America, which looks just like Dylan's Desolation Row. The entire film weaves dream like images around some great song performances from Bob and his band. It's like being lost in some of your favourite Dylan albums. There is little plot to speak of, rather an almost non-linear sequence of scenes recalling nothing less than an Empire burlesque and a World Gone Wrong. It doesn't reveal any obvious truths about Dylan, it's not autobiographical, and it's certainly not an easy view. However, it is witty and deeply human in places, and there are snatches of dialogue worthy of the best Dylan lines. This should be seen, not just by Dylan fans, but by fans of brave and individual cinema making.
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2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Wasted opportunity,, 18 Jun 2007
By David Butler (Devon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Bob Dylan made an observation early on in his life, perhaps on the way to New York from Minnesota, perhaps in those early years while working in the folk clubs, perhaps even while he laboured in his daddy's hardware store. What he observed affected him in a way that was only fully realised when fifteen years after he was famous for the song 'Blowing in the Wind' he found Jesus. The kind of madness that Bob has grappled with is one that visits all of those who see the mechanics of society revealed to them in painful, excruciating detail and absolute meaning, a vision that exceeds words, and which it takes all their effort to reduce into words. They become mad if they don't realise that they musn't share it with ordinary folk in its naked form, but can only use it, to create art, or create evil. Dylan chose art and the good, and he is a good man because he made that choice, and his art is great because he understands mystery.

This film takes on that essential idea with a great tongue-in-cheek (but never ironic) view of what it is like to be Bob Dylan. It's highly unrealistic in the sense that it draws the real person of Dylan in the characters he meets, and keeps him aloof, as he plays the character of Jack Fate.

It doesn't really work as a film, in that the allusions are orientated to Dylan's own particular iconography, his own symbolic landscape, which you kind of have to be familiar with to get it, but its fun to spot the allusions and the references to Dylan's own reputation. The problem is that it presents itself as a straight movie with an illusive and allusive narrative structure, but what it needed was something more coherent in the narrative and a director who really understood what the point was that Dylan was trying to make. But how do you make a movie in which the point is to be mysterious and to reject logical coherence, without utilising thie filmic properties of film. Perhaps they should have had Joss Whedon from Buffy the Vamnpire Slayer do script and direction.

The film has a very slim narrative, it is mostly concerned with putting across a series of set pieces, which try to synchronise Christian or relgious thruths, with contemporary reality, and present those with a kind of mystical form of old fashioned wisdom. It tackles the big ideas, or human values on a unviersal scale. Nothing is less than fundamental, everything must be taken withn a pinch of salt. In other words: proper human values. If you are looking for an easy ride forget it, but you can enjoy yourself along he way.

My one fundamental criticism of this disjointed and too complex, virtually incomprehensible tale (in any normal sense of what a film is supposed to be) is that Dylan did not take his hat off in the last scene.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Is Dylan that poor ?
Bob Dylan is not always very well inspired these days. To invest his song and music in a fictitious Latin American situation with a dying general dictator, a civil war without any... Read more
Published on 13 Jul 2007 by Jacques COULARDEAU

1.0 out of 5 stars OUCH
Hey dont get me wrong I like Bob Dylan. I think that he is a good singer/songwriter. I have enjoyed many live concerts and own a lot of the mans records. Read more
Published on 17 Jul 2004 by Dr. Duncan J. Anderson

1.0 out of 5 stars Beyond bad.
A terrible film. The story is drivel. The overacting is ubiquitous. Dylan's singing is awful. Why did they bother? Read more
Published on 9 Jun 2004

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