A Complete Unknown - Blow in the Wind: The Bobby Dylan Story

In theory, fuck this movie. It looks like the kind of typical music biopic shit that Walk Hard spoofed (and made by the guy who partially inspired the spoof in James Mangold). You have Dylan dressed like his album covers and literally shooting the pictures for his album covers, muttering lyrics, rushing into his apartment to get parts of songs down, etc. It all just appears too plain and unnecessary. Not to mention Dylan himself has always been aloof and downright deceptive about his origin to the point that films about him have been more about how he’s a different person at times (I’m Not There) or his inclusion in a film has to be fictionalized (Hayden Christensen’s underappreciated performance in Factory Girl). In fact, this movie in many ways looks like the film within a film in I’m Not There. Other filmmakers have looked at this idea and thought, “The only way to tell this story is to be meta or complete fiction.” But it works, and works amazingly well. Yes, the cliche moments are all there, but this isn’t trying to explain how Dylan became Dylan (the most you get in that department is that he is shown to always be listening to sounds on the street for inspiration); it’s a snapshot of a few years of his career. And everything here, especially how he handles his relationships, shows who he is more than any scenes from his childhood could.

But more than anything this is a film about music. I suppose it’s a musical, to a certain degree, which made me finally realize that I don’t dislike traditional musicals, I just don’t like show tunes. When I like the music, as I do here, then I’m on board. 

Beyond simply recreating many classic songs, A Complete Unknown is about Dylan’s emergence in the folk scene up to his “betrayal” by going electric in 1965. If I wasn’t already versed in this era, then I might watch this and think, “Who gives a fuck?” But the film does a great job of showing how monumental this was in the music world, and the real world, too. The culture shifted from peace and love to something a bit angrier. 

The culture isn’t the focus, of course. It’s about Bob Dylan, and how he cannot be defined beyond his claim early in the film of simply being a “musician.” He coasts in the world, going wherever it takes him, musically. This may seem like a Dylan fanboy thing to write, but he has written songs that sounded like they always existed and were just waiting for him to come along and reveal them. 

I suppose this is a good time to admit that I am a massive Bob Dylan fan (as if it wasn’t clear already, but for further evidence, I’ve included a picture below of the Bob Dylan-themed hot sauce I made). It’s hard for me to judge this movie on its own because of this fandom. I’m not sure I would care for this movie much at all if it wasn’t about the music of Dylan, Joan Baez, and Johnny Cash (among others). But I am a fan, and I can’t separate that part of me while watching this movie. So I understand why some people will shrug at this movie, and others, like me, will proclaim it the best film of the year. 

Being a fan of the music helped make this film emotionally powerful. I got chills during nearly every performance, and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” scene is possibly my favorite cinematic moment of the year. Once again, if I wasn’t such a fan of the source material, I don’t know if that scene does much for me. (Okay, I’m done apologizing for being a fan; but I did want to make that qualifier clear.)

Of course, this film hinges almost entirely on Timothée Chalamet’s performance. The singing is great, but what made it work the most were the small quirks: the mumbling, the little “yeah”s and “okay”s. A Dylan performance is tricky because he’s like Christopher Walken in that the goofy impression is more famous than the actual way the person talks and acts. Some of it’s unavoidable, but overall Chalamet’s Dylan felt like a person, not a caricature or impression. 

The rest of the cast is solid, as well. Monica Barbaro as Baez deserves plenty of credit, and Elle Fanning as a renamed (at Dylan's insistence, supposedly) Suze Rotolo is great as Sylvie. Her performance is most powerful when she’s just watching Dylan, and she has these perfectly sad eyes that convey everything that cannot be said. Boyd Holbrook continues to impress me this year as Johnny Cash (with this and The Bikeriders I no longer see him as the go-to redneck villain in movies). And Edward Norton is a great calming presence trying to keep folk from being swallowed by rock’n’roll.  

A Complete Unknown is a good movie all around that, depending on your fan status, is possibly an amazing experience. As a Dylan fan, I plan on putting this on in the future to just live in the world for a bit, even though there’s plenty of actual footage and recording of Dylan (and he’s still touring). This condensed version of a few years takes me to a place I just want to hang out in for a couple hours. I can watch old footage of Dylan all day from classic performances, but since I wasn’t there, it’s a bit removed. With Mangold’s staging of some of these performances (even if they never actually happed [Dylan didn't play "The Times They Are A-Changin'" at Newport in 1964, for example]), it made me feel like part of the audience, and it helped me experience something I miss when just watching old videos or listening to records. So yeah, in theory, fuck this movie; but in practice, for me, this was the most exhilarating movie of the year.

Random Thoughts

I'm a big believer in the idea that movies based on real events are still "just movies," but I still like to know what got changed and omitted. This article does a great job in that regard.

As soon as I get a chance, I need to watch Inside Llewyn Davis and this back to back.

Nice touch for the protester outside Seeger’s trial to have a sign with a grammatical error: “Better Dead Then Red.”

Awesome that they had James Austin Johnson in this; his Dylan through the eras impression is hilarious.

I’ve seen it a hundred times: a woman goes off on a school trip and her boyfriend starts banging Joan Baez while she’s gone.

“You want me to make sense 100% of the time?”

“Did you teach yourself to make coffee?” is such a funny line not just because it shows how close he was to being caught cheating, but also that he’s such a dipshit with normal life things that his girlfriend would say something like that as if he were a dog that learned how to make coffee.

Elle Fanning deserves a nomination just for her face during “The Times They Are A-Changin’.”

“It’s not a request-type concert. If you want to do that, go see, go see uh, Donovan. But here, we’re going to play new songs.” This is still accurate for Dylan concerts, for the most part.  

Dan Fogler’s “What…the…fffffffuck?” when Dylan calls him out at the concert is great.

A highlight for me was a high Johnny Cash offering Dylan a Bugle. The corn snack, not the instrument.

I know this is covered territory for Mangold, but I would really like him to make another Cash movie, but with Boyd Holbrook and it’s just the pill years. Maybe recreate that eating cake in the bushes picture.

It was a nice touch to have Seeger’s wife, Toshi, step in like historical accuracy personified and stop him from grabbing an axe.

Why were there multiple axes there, by the way?

I know Dylan insisted on at least one historical inaccuracy (though there were already plenty). I hope it was the inclusion of the “Judas!” / “I don’t believe you.” moment, which happened in England, not in Newport. I just don’t like it shoe-horned into that moment.

Holbrook’s Cash sounds a little like Bill Paxton when he gets excited. 

Norton is perfect as the sad, out-of-touch dad-type.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - Rare, Plain Gems

 

Something I never would have predicted happened to me this summer: a new Indiana Jones movie came out, and I didn’t make a point to watch it. To be clear, this isn’t because Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ruined the series for me (I actually like Skull, but I understand why others hate it). I didn’t watch Dial immediately because of Disney.

I’ve written before about how Disney has altered my fandom of Star Wars. Essentially, I still like the franchise, but there’s so much now (all the movies and TV shows) where there was once so little (six main movies and cartoons and EU stuff that could be ignored, if you like) that it became just another bloated franchise to me. I still like it, but it’s no longer a big deal. 

Indiana Jones is different. This is the first, and supposedly only, project they’ve created for the franchise. Because of this, and the announcement of James Mangold as director, I was initially excited. There weren’t five TV shows or a bunch of recap videos I had to watch to understand who was who and what was going on. This was going to be a simple return to the world of Indiana Jones. 

Then I saw the tepid response from Letterboxd entries and reviews. It was a resounding, “That was certainly an Indiana Jones movie,” or “Well, it was better than Crystal Skull.” Honestly, I would have been more excited if people had been calling it the worst in the franchise. I’ll take total dogshit over “meh” any day when it comes to movies. It appeared, based on the snippets of reviews and responses I read, that Disney had played it safe, so I figured I could wait until this came to Disney+ or was cheap on Vudu (I went with Vudu, but it is now on Disney+.)

When I finally got around to watching it in late November, I was pleasantly surprised by Dial. The lowered expectation certainly helped, but I enjoyed this final Indy movie. Like others, I didn’t think it reached the heights of the original films, but it was a lot more fun than people had been letting on. But after a rewatch and thinking about it a bit, I realized that Disney had changed my fandom again.

Disney’s treatment of Star Wars has lowered my expectations to the point that average is now great. Yes, Dial is pretty forgettable as a final film in one of cinema’s most beloved action franchises, but it’s not a completely soulless cash grab that sets up a dozen other shows, movies, and games, so…thumbs up?

It saddens me a little that Disney has turned my once fiery fandom into a defeated acceptance of whatever they churn out, but it’s probably for the best. No one wants to read a forty-year-old dude rant and rave about Indiana Jones. (Based on my site numbers, no one wants to read what this forty-year-old dude has to say about anything, but that’s understandable, there’s a lot of us on the internet.)

Still, Disney had a chance to do something a little different here. They claim that the series is over, and no one is taking over the role. Assuming they plan to stick with that plan (and I think they will, at least until Ford and Lucas have been gone for a few years), Dial could have been the rare true ending for a franchise. But instead, it felt like the middle. 

*SPOILERS BEYOND*

They had a chance to either kill off Indy or let him live out his final days in the distant past. Instead, he’s brought back home to experience a Mutt-less version of the ending of Crystal Skull, even down to him grabbing the hat back at the end instead of letting it go. 

I understand why they didn’t want to kill him off; it’s an unnecessary and predictable bummer of an end. But why introduce time travel and not let him stay in the past? The character is arguing to be left there, and as an audience member I was supposed to be on Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s side saying, “No, you have to live!” But instead, I was thinking, “This makes sense for you as a character. Enjoy your final days goofing off with Archimedes.” 

But the Disney machine is incapable of doing something like that. Even with their bullshit about actually ending the series, they still made sure to include a younger version of Indy in the form of the never-before-mentioned goddaughter played by Waller-Bridge. And you know she’s there just in case her character somehow becomes beloved and the film is astronomically successful (neither of which happened), so that Disney has somewhere to go beyond Harrison Ford. 

Perhaps I’m being too cynical, and Waller-Bridge is simply here to inject some young energy into the series. Fine, but that’s also something Disney seems to always try and fail to do. It’s this obvious attempt to placate old fans (“Here’s Harrison Ford, we brought Sallah back! Do you love us yet?”) and new fans (“We know you kids don’t know who these old men are, but what about this lady and this Short-Round facsimile? Do you love us yet?”), and it almost always leaves both sides feeling indifferent. I would rather they just let someone make a true film without having to consider anything like that. But it seems like writers and directors are given a list of shit that must happen in these movies, and they have to try to sneak in a good movie somewhere in the middle of it all. 

But I claimed I liked this, right? I really do. Disney has changed my fandom, but I’m still capable of enjoying Indiana Jones on a surface level. And this film has all the things I want from the series: ridiculous punch sound effects, Nazis as the bad guys, chase scenes, John Williams(ish) music, slightly true historical stuff, some supernatural stuff, etc. And when I wasn’t being taken out of the film by some of the weaker elements (it’s too long, the de-aging stuff is a little distracting, etc.), I had a good time with it. And I’ve watched it three times now, and I still enjoy it each time.

Sure, when I stop and think about Dial of Destiny as the final Indiana Jones film, it doesn’t hold up. But that’s no way to watch a movie like this. When I watch it just to watch it; it’s fun, and that’s it. 

Disney or any other film company is not capable of recreating the magic of the films of my childhood. You can’t replicate the past, and they should stop trying, and we should stop expecting them to be able to do it in the first place. So I know I’m not getting anything special from Disney. But I have come to appreciate the rare, plain gems that they’ve produced over the years, and The Dial of Destiny is one of them.

Random Thoughts

This should have been the No Time to Die of the series (flawed, but at least the character [at least this version] is unequivocally done. Instead, it was more like the Moonraker, not as bad as you’d think, but certainly not special.

Took me a couple viewings, but I noticed that instead of the Paramount mountain transition that started the first four entries, we get the Lucasfilm logo transitioning into a lock on the back of a truck…lame.

Aside from the foreboding music at the very beginning (and the iconic flourishes here and there), the score is a bit of a letdown.

I don’t mind the de-aging, but the voice is definitely still aged.

After Mikkelsen survived that hit to the head on the train, I expected there to be a supernatural twist, like he had already used the dial to go back and save himself or something (I know, I know, paradox blah blah blah, but that’s time travel for you). For him to have simply survived it is crazy, even for this series.

The chase scenes are okay, but way too long. Trim those down and maybe this thing gets closer to two hours, which would be a vast improvement.

What is up with the one CIA dude on crutches? Holbrook even asks how he broke his ankle. Did I miss something, or is this an even lamer version of C-3PO's red arm?

Like Star Wars, so much has happened between movies. Mutt joined the military to piss Indy off? First off, they seemed to be on pretty good terms at the end of Crystal Skull. Second, Mutt didn’t seem to be a big fan of authority. Sure, he was nineteen in that movie, but I don’t see how you go from rebellious (as in literally dressed like Marlon Brando’s character in The Wild One who is a rebel just for the sake of being one) to joining the military when you hit thirty. 

I’m typically not a fan of underwater diving sequences…and I’m still not.

“My friend was just murdered!” Thanks, Indy, I was thinking the same thing.

“They’re not going to hurt him.” You mean the Nazis who have literally killed everyone in their path so far? Yeah…

“Bring him.” But why? I get that the movie can’t just let Indy lie there and die in the cave, but at least have Mikkelsen explain why they need to bring him. Just have him say something like, “I may need help with the calculations” or something equally generic to justify it.

The Ear of Dionysus is no Petra, but it's still a cool real world location. 

They really fucked up not leaving Indy in the past. Why do basically a repeat of the Crystal Skull ending even down to the hat fake out? I just don't get it.

Cop Land - "You Blew It!"

This was covered by The Rewatchables podcast a couple weeks back because of Ray Liotta’s passing. I watched it then, but I’m just now getting around to writing my full article.

Cop Land is one of those movies that I thought I should love but always thought was okay. But I keep returning to it, thinking, “This will be the time that it clicks, and I love it.” But it never happens. Instead, it’s just a movie I like. I blame expectations.

Cop Land isn’t the first movie to be hyped for awards and then be a disappointment, but it is the first time I noticed this happening with a film. This came out when I was just starting to appreciate movies and pay attention to industry news and whatnot. So when this movie went into production with this insane cast (Stallone, Keitel, Liotta, De Niro, etc.), the Oscar buzz was immediate. Then the movie came out, was decently received but was shutout of the awards season (except, according to IMDb, for Stallone winning Best Actor at the Stockholm Film Festival, and the film being nominated [though not winning] Best Foreign Film at the Turkish Film Critics Association Awards [The Ice Storm won]). 

Despite my disappointment, I still like this movie. And once you adjust your expectations and stop thinking this is going to be Goodfellas 2, it ends up being even better. Stallone was, and still is, the standout in the film. It was like his last attempt to be a serious actor before retreating back into his franchises and mediocre action movies. He gives a great understated and unexpected performance. 

Aside from that, I’ve developed a love for angry corrupt cop movies lately. So I’m just happy seeing drunk and/or high guys with mustaches yelling and punching each other. 

Those were my complete thoughts about this film, but when I was looking it up on IMDb I realized that I had watched the theatrical cut on HBO Max, even though I owned the director’s cut on DVD. So being the idiot completionist that I am, I immediately watched it again to compare. Before I get into that, I just want to point out that I have to be the only dipshit to watch Cop Land twice in a 24 hour period since it was originally edited.

I’m not one to do an extensive comparison of theatrical and director’s cuts, especially since another website already does that. Instead, I like to focus on tonal shifts or specific scenes that change the movie in a meaningful way.

One of the things that always left me disappointed with Cop Land was the story. I found a lot of it hard to follow. Yes, almost every cop was corrupt, but what exactly was their corruption? The director’s cut (or maybe just watching it twice so close together) makes it a bit more clear that mob money helped Keitel set up the titular Cop Land in Jersey, and he keeps killing any cops that get into trouble with internal affairs out of fear that they will rat him out. 

Even not completely understanding the story the first time around, I still found one moment completely baffling. Stallone goes to Keitel and tells him that he knows Rappaport is alive, and he wants everyone to go into the city together to clear things up. Why the fuck would he tell Keitel this when Keitel has clearly made up his mind about he does things? In the director’s cut, this scene occurs after Stallone has found Rappaport rather than before. He also explains that he’s telling Keitel about this because he feels like he owes it to him. I still think that’s pretty stupid, but I can accept it since Keitel is responsible for Stallone having his job. In the theatrical cut, this scene ends abruptly, but in the director’s cut Stallone is given a hero moment when he stands up to Keitel and tells him that he doesn’t like what’s happened to their city. Keitel eventually agrees with him and agrees to go in, though the music makes it clear that he’s not going to honor this.

The changes in this scene make the movie quite a bit better, and it reinstates a moment that Stallone’s character desperately needed. It’s not that much longer than the original cut, so I don’t understand why it ever happened in the theatrical cut as it did. 

If the movie then ended exactly the way the theatrical cut did after this change, then this would be a truly great director’s cut. But for some reason, James Mangold (the writer and director I have failed to identify until now…oh well) decided to end the movie with the newscast footage rather than with Stallone back on the job. This baffled me. That ending is important for multiple reasons.

First, it solidifies that this is Stallone’s movie. It was about him waking up to the corruption around him and doing something about it. The ending moment shows him staring at New York City. He’s done this throughout the movie with sadness because he’s never been able to join the force because of his hearing. When he looks at the city at the end, it’s not with regret. Instead, he seems happy for the first time to be on this side of the river. To cut that out and end with newscast audio makes no sense. In the words of De Niro: “You blew it!”

The director’s cut is still a bit better, it’s just that losing the original ending is tough. Because of that, this isn’t one of those clear cut cases of recommending the director’s cut over the theatrical. Most people don’t have this on DVD, so you’ll probably end up watching this on a streaming service if you ever watch it again, and that’s fine because that last Stallone moment kind of makes up for any earlier confusion.

Overall, no cut of this film was going to make it the classic I wanted it to be. But watching it in today’s TV landscape made me realize something: this would have been an amazing TV show. The story could breathe a bit more, and there could have been a season or two of all the shit that happened before the events of this movie, which could have been the final season. Unfortunately, this movie was made right before TV became so much more respectable. This is one of those rare moments in which I truly wish this will get remade as a TV show.

Random Thoughts

After finishing We Own This City (the HBO series no one is watching but you’ve been told is amazing), I still had a hankering for corrupt cop drama. Thankfully, The Rewatchables decided to cover Cop Land because of Ray Liotta’s passing. 

Fucking mustaches, drinking, yelling, throwing punches, everybody pissed off, cheating. I don’t know why, but sometimes I like watching these movies about complete trainwrecks at the end of their ropes.

With a cast like this at this time, it was impossible for this movie to meet expectations. It’s a good movie, but people were expecting a classic.

Nice touch to have the pinball machine tell Stallone he has “no authority.”

Robert Patrick is the most corrupt looking cop I have ever seen.

Peter Berg definitely looks like a dude who would cheat on his wife.

Oh shit, I forgot I own the director’s cut of this. Now I have to watch this twice.

“It’s like you’re the sheriff of Cop Land.” 

(Pitch Meeting executive guy voice): “That’s the name of the movie!”

Damn, Superboy, I know you're hiding out, but you can eat something other than canned soup. There were about two dozen cans in that hideout!

Why is Liotta always wearing an oversized untucked shirt in this? Is that just how cokeheads dressed in the '90s?