A Complete Unknown

I went last night. I think there is special mention needed here to the cast for absorbing their roles, particularly Chalamet,who i generally don't appreciate but deserves credit for learning and singing the songs. I will acknowledge that I am not the target audience for this on a number of levels(and I have yet to see a biopic that i actually enjoyed). You really need to go into this with an open mind as far as the facts are concerned since there was a lot of timeline shifting and embellishment along with some things that didn't happen. All things I expected going in. But that aside, it was decent enough that I don't have anything particularly bad to say about it...I'm glad that it exists for those who enjoy these things although I probably wouldn't watch it again 

I heard there is a scene of a busker playing a tamborine and Chalamet says - "Hey Mister"   

oy

> if they go in thinking fictional entertainment

Rolling Thunder Revue gave us that and the real thing. I'll take a pass on the Timmy Zimmy.

Sounds about like that bob marley movie from a year or two ago

The scene where  Cash tries "unparking" his car was the highlight, imo.  

"You're an asshole, Bob", then kicking him out was the other highlight.  Not a very endearing legacy of how he treated JB.

Saw it yesterday and enjoyed it...   it was suppose to be done before the pandemic, but got put on the back shelf, which was likely a good thing, as it was well acted, well paced, with a great soundtrack.  As to accuracy, I couldn't say, but I thought it did accurately demonstrate the fickleness of fame, and the industry's need for redundancy...       

The first thing I did when I got home, was play the actually Newport Folk fest from 65, and it compared quite excellently with the movie.  

There's a cam rip torrent up at torrent galaxy 

The entire biopic genre tackles the "turning point" catalyst moments exactly the same way. This scene from Buddy Holly Story is essentially the exact same thing that was the entire build up of the film

https://youtu.be/4adm2eAwuJE?si=HigpHqMT1mM_nmrU

Here's an excellent review from youthful Merry Prankster Brian Hassett, enjoy!  

https://brianhassett.com/2024/12/a-complete-unknown-movie-review/?fbclid...

It was really good. 2 hrs 20 min that just breeze by, very well paced.
I went in with doubts, and prepared to be disappointed, and it actually delivered.
I would say comparing it to the marley movie is like night & day.
The Marley movie was just awful, and struggled to march down the timeline.
This movie flowed , and really portrayed each mark of Dylan's success in that period, and just how uncomfortable he got with each step-up in fame.
We saw it Christmas eve in a nearly empty theater. Recommended for any fan, skeptics included.

I think the acting was good(possibly some Oscar worthy candidates), the music exceptional(including a few songs I didn't expect)  I didn’t care about the embellishments and inaccuracies but the story itself was just not interesting. And for a man who was on the forefront of the risk taking train, the movie didn't take any

what if i'm a mere genexer?

i didn't even need to read that whole review to convince my genxrated ass to *go to the show*

*gittmo (RIP)

I thought the movie was great!  Lost count of how many time the music made tears swell up in my eyes.   The acting was really good.  The theater was packed.  Go see it, you won't regret it.

I think this stuff interests me more than the film itself…

Matt is joined by producer Peter Jaysen to discuss his latest film, ‘A Complete Unknown,’ and how he managed to get a movie about Bob Dylan made. He details how he secured the rights to Dylan’s musical archive and life, how they chose Timothée Chalamet, how much Dylan was involved, and secrets to finding and developing top-tier IP



“Bob Dylan had approval over the script. He had meaningful input. He met with Jim Mangold multiple times.

At one point, they sat there and they read the entire script out loud with Jim Mangold, reading every part and stage direction, and Bob Dylan only reading the lines and dialogue of himself. Through that process, he sat there writing notes on the script, and at the end of his last session with Jim Mangold, he signed the script and said, go with God.”

From The Town with Matthew Belloni: Turning Music Rights Into a Bob Dylan Biopic, Dec 25, 2024
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-town-with-matthew-belloni/id16...

Thanks, I'll check it out... I think I have that one

here's 2 hours of badass Dylan stories in return...

https://youtu.be/uTWJvlcvy98

Saw it yesterday and was good. Sold out theater. Better than the sanitized Marley movie.  The acting and cinematography was great, especially all the early 1960s NYC scenes.  Now will be scouring the tomes of rock history to see what stuff actually happened and how much was the product of artistic license.

And yes, the scene where Johnny Cash tries to drive off was a hoot.

But guess it doesn't matter much and the movie sets it up that way early on with the Dylan character explaining to his girlfriend how people can make up stories about themselves and their past however they want.

even tho it was more performance related than a nod to me,  I was still flattered that Ray Padgett listed my Buffalo recording in the top ten "must hear" list for 2024 on his Flagging Down blog

Glad to see people enjoying this film as much as I did.

Next up for me in the theater is Nosferatu. Seems like a film to be viewed in a large, dark movie hall rather than on a TV......anyone see this yet?

Nosferatu - went and saw with my wife on Christmas and too me it was just ok. The story was a little bit incomplete but the scenery and the audio made up for it.

If your looking for a good movie, Queer was much better and I would strongly recommend. 

Just saw Nosferatu, enjoyed it too...     wanted to see Queer, but was getting over a bug, and missed it at the local indy theater.

Just saw the Dylan movie and thought it was excellent. They def took some poetic license , but that's a must to fit 4 years into 2+ hours.

FOR Some Reason, Joan Osborne's LONG review popped up on my FB page. Joan hasa lot to say.....

<<<

Joan Osborne 

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Here’s my take on “A Complete Unknown”, the Bob Dylan biopic out now:

I am happy it exists, even though all biopics of musicians I love are problematic for me, with the possible exception of “Ray”. Unless the filmmakers use the original recordings, as they mostly did in “Ray”, any actor trying to sing like the icon they are portraying will fall short of the magic no matter how well they do, and I think Timothee Chalamet does a wonderful job of approximating Dylan’s squirrelly, charismatic manner in the film. But only Dylan sings like Dylan, only Joan Baez has the exquisite voice of Joan Baez, and clearly no one in the known universe can portray Johnny Cash in all his monumental singularity. The Elvis biopic compensated admirably by focusing on people’s explosive responses to the King and on Elvis’ presumed mental and emotional state in performance, but still nobody else sings like Elvis.

I also know there are a lot of historical inaccuracies in “A Complete Unknown”, (and I dutifully whispered the correct biographical details into my sister’s ear as they went by), but who can fault the filmmakers for doing their best to pack a huge, sprawling story into a multiplex-friendly time slot? No, Pete Seeger wasn’t at Woody’s bedside when Dylan visited him, nor was Suze Rotolo (given a different name in the film) at Newport in ‘65 when Dylan went electric, but I’m not bothered by that. I could complain that the hundreds of nights playing gigs in the Village, the hard work of Dylan becoming who he was through trial and error and hard work, were not acknowledged and that it seems in the film as if he were born like Athena out of his own skull completely formed. As someone who knows about the years and years of effort that go into an ‘overnight success’, that was a disappointment. But I like that Suze Rotolo’s influence on Dylan, the political and artistic consciousness he absorbed from her, was given its due. And I love Ed Norton’s heartbreakingly earnest Pete Seeger, his subtle rendering of the thrill of witnessing Dylan’s genius unfold as those early songs were born, his quiet paternal grief as he watches Bob slip away from the folk scene into the wider world (was he getting intravenous infusions of Jimmy Stewart’s DNA into his bloodstream during the shoot?) That to me is the film’s great pleasure: to imagine yourself a fly on the wall at the moment this musical phenomenon detonates. If I let Norton’s Seeger be my guide, if I squint and suspend my disbelief, I’m happy to be led by the hand down a fantasy MacDougall Street for a couple of hours.

The main reason, though, that I’m happy about the film, that I’m glad it has at least one Oscar-bait performance and is doing well at the box office, is that it will likely lure a lot of folks into the Wonderful World of Real Bob Dylan. Sixty years on from the events of the movie, there are a lot of people who live in ignorance of this titan still in our midst, and of why music was so important then, and they will be all the better for knowing. Teen girls (or boys or genderqueers) who moon over Chalamet can swoon afresh over how beautiful and sexy and compelling the real young Dylan was as they listen to those lyrics or mine YouTube. Folks unfamiliar with the incredible lives and tireless activism of Pete Seeger and Joan Baez and of the ideals of the folk movement can educate themselves. People who love or hate the movie will dive into their Dylan albums or streams. Personally, I’m going to use these quiet days at the turn of the year to go back and revisit some other Dylan material that’s out there, and if you want you can join me. My first stop will be “Chronicles”, Dylan’s own poetic memoir of his early years. Maybe next I’ll watch the Scorsese documentary “No Direction Home”, a longer and more faithful view of Dylan’s rise. “I’m Not There”, the Todd Haynes movie in which Dylan is played by six different actors including Cate Blanchett, is also in my queue, as is “Masked and Anonymous”, the deeply weird fiction film starring Dylan himself and featuring some musical performance footage which should not be missed by anyone who cares about art or beauty or depth. I’m not kidding.

If you have any other suggestions please pass them along to me, and please enjoy this time. I hope you are with people you love, or contentedly alone, and I hope you can rest and relax a bit on these short days and long nights.

xxoojoan

>>>

Nardwuar vs. Timothée Chalamet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcThqNPKKgw

I saw Joan duet Tears of Rage with Bob once

What Do Dylanologists Think of ‘A Complete Unknown’?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/02/arts/music/bob-dylan-a-complete-unkno...

(Gift article that gets you around the paywall.)

We Dylan fans are certainly ok with misappropriating the facts for the sake of the story, Bob has been doing it all along, himself. We can read Chronicles, listen to/ watch Shadow Kingdom, watch Rolling Thunder Revue, or here’s Bobs take on including Leonardo DiCaprio in his song about Titanic “People are going to say, ‘Well, it’s not very truthful'. But a songwriter doesn’t care about what’s truthful. What he cares about is what should’ve happened, what could’ve happened. That’s its own kind of truth"

I think Cate Blanchett is the definitive take on him though