Susan Ward Movie:

Editorial Review:
Masked and Anonymous is a mesmerizing experiment in surreal drama with lyrical content, a cinematic approximation of an epic Bob Dylan song on the order of "Desolation Row." Not coincidentally, Dylan is a co-writer and star of this 2003 film, playing an enigmatic folk-rocker named Jack Fate, a political prisoner in an unnamed, civil war-torn country. Set free to headline a benefit concert organized by an unscrupulous promoter (John Goodman) and television executive (Jessica Lange), Jack embarks on a fateful journey through a battle-scarred land. Taken literally, Masked and Anonymous proves bewildering, even exasperating, but as a feverish act of unrestrained political satire the film has a lot to offer, including some of the best recent performances by Goodman, Lange, Jeff Bridges (as a cynical journalist), Val Kilmer (a babbling prophet), Luke Wilson (a musician), and Giovanni Ribisi (a haunted soldier). Dylan himself proves a stiff cipher, but fun to watch. --Tom Keogh

Masked and Anonymous Reviews:
Dylan Movie
2009-11-16 - This is a very odd and confusing movie. There's alot of good people in it. But this movie is valuable because of Dylan's singing performances and getting his image on film once again. Mostly this is for the true Dylan fan, which I am.

maybe recognizable
2009-07-15 - So, I'm sure you loved it if your a Dylan fan. But something isn't automatically great because so and so is in it, is it? Well to some it is, clearly! If you dig Bob Dylan, I highly recommend the movie. Now I'm going to ramble on about the movie and Dylan and politics...

Dylan in character as "Jack Fate" says he "was always a singer and maybe no more than that".

Do you buy that?

Fate says he "stopped trying to figure everything out a long time ago".

I don't know if I buy that either, whatever that means. A "song and dance man" he's called himself. Sure, that's what he does. I any case that is what he's telling us and seems to me he's pretty much playing himself. There definitely isn't any "acting" going on. Bob Dylan likes masks and long ago transformed from what he first appeared as to the general public. He has successfully mystified many observers since. Why wear masks? He needs his space, needs to stay in a state of becoming as an artist. He doesn't trust the public and certainly not the press. Who could blame him? He's been doing somethan right because he's survived the 1960s -a major accomplishment in itself- and is still globe trotting with a band well into his late 60s.

If your a Dylan fan and don't mind an unusual movie in which Dylan mostly stares at the camera and sits around, as one critic observed, "like a toad" with a bunch of famous actors and utters no more than one line at time, you'll dig this. He also plays some tunes with the touring band he had at the time of production, so there's that too.

The quirky plot has got to do with, if you will, "dylanesque" themes. Director Larry Charles's ("Borat", "Religulous") helpfully remarked that "I wanted to make a Bob Dylan movie that was like a Bob Dylan song. One with a lot of layers, that had a lot of poetry, that had a lot of surrealism and was ambiguous and hard to figure out, like a puzzle". After being as bewildered as apparently most critics and feeling this was a fiasco of a film and an almost embarrassing vanity project --knowledge of the director's intent served me well in a subsequent viewing. I was more at ease just sitting back and going along for the ride into a wacky, circus-like, confusing, corrupt, decaying, dystopia. But see, that makes the film sound more interesting than it is.

Couldn't a much better film have been made with Charles's same goal is what I can't help think?

I'm going to digress somewhat here: Hate to say it but it doesn't seem irrelevant -as regards politics and Bob Dylan I find him a very dubious figure. Yes, yes the government can't be trusted and politics is dirty business and so on. There was a young man a long time ago that was maybe no more than a singer BUT that wasn't averse to trying to figure things out. I would hope people in America keep the country from heading even further down the path to the world depicted in this comical, cynical, bleak film and never feel "above something so trivial as politics". The "up-wing" isn't apolitical.(Dylan's words, not Fate's, I should say.) There is no such thing as being above politics. In trying to escape labels and allude would-be disciples whoever this masked man is still seemed to be more than just another singer in the minds of many. (By the way, giving utterly bizarre, drug-addled, cryptic responses and gibberish to the press (1965-66) and your going to really get attention and attract the crazies. "What's he mean, man?" Like the Dennis Hopper character in "Apocalypse Now" But I'm digressing here! Back to the movie...)

Anyway, worth mentioning to would-be consumers is the big star-studded cast! Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Penélope Cruz, Mickey Rourke, Fred Ward, Luke Wilson, Jessica Lange, Val Kilmer, and also Christian Slater who said he'd do anything to be in it. It was utterly predictable this film would become somewhat of a cult classic and it richly deserves that status.


the best whacked-out movie ever
2009-03-01 - I love this movie. I am also dumbfounded at many commercial reviewers who don't seem to get it at all. Bob Dylan & Larry Charles wrote the screenplay together - and created a powerful social commentary on where America could be headed. The primary cast is perfect, plus there are quite a number of short appearances by another group of actors with powerful little scenes.

The central theme is the state of government, the TV network, and a varied & diverse group of stressed individuals who are trying to make their way through a society that has crumbled into half-collapse.

Put Granny & the kids to bed, crank up the surround sound system, and let the movie take you on a wierd, creative, Dylan-esque song experience........on film.

"See the arrow on the doorpost, saying this land is condemned; all the way from New Orleans to Jerusalem."

the levee breaks.
2009-02-05 - trip'd out film, cameo by cheech marin. a cast of heavyweights, a bit verbose at times but for all the right reasons. highly recommended.

Yet another disastrous Dylan-related film project
2009-01-22 - Bob Dylan is undoubtedly a musical genius but his film projects usually operate at the other end of the quality spectrum and "Masked and Anonymous" is no exception. A terrible script (co-written by Dylan) with pretentions way above its low budget and Dylan's non-acting wreck this film. That some reviewers give this film five stars is hard to understand to say the least. Maybe, like Dylan appears to be doing, they are playing some kind of joke on the public. You have been warned!