|
From:Christian Bale , David Cross , Charlotte Gainsbourg , Richard Gere , Bruce Greenwood , WELLSPRING/GENIUS , Todd Haynes , Weinstein Company, The ,
|
See Product Page
|
User Rating: Amazon Sales Rank:#332 |
| | Page: << 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 17 >> |
 DVD, 2008-09-06
DVD arrived in a very timely manner and was in excellent condition. Exactly as described.
 Enormous letdown, 2008-08-30
I've been a big Todd Haynes fan since Safe and a big Christian Bale fan since the Land of Faraway. What a letdown. "Artsy" doesn't capture the pretentiousness of this film. If you wanna know the 'essence' of Bob Dylan, you'd do much better buying a few albums and reading his bio on Wikipedia. Be warned- it's your money you're spending.
What a yawner!, 2008-08-30
Had high hopes, watched it for about 20 minutes and was bored out of my mind!
No narrative mechanism., 2008-08-29
I just saw "I'm Not There." My conclusion: it fails on multiple levels. For one it is completely imbued with a film-school experimental ambiance that does not translate into what a mainstream biopic should be. And believe me this film's intentions are certainly mainstream, when you account for its handsome budget and roll call of A list celebrities. Second, it embodies no "thread of narrative." Even someone like myself who is well versed on Dylan's history is troubled incessantly by this intentional lack of the narrative mechanism. The film treats all Dylan-philes as dunces who cannot reinterpret episodes of Dylan's career into their own words. It denies individualism within the cloak of a supposed "articulate intellectual work." It is a facade and a caricature of Dylan's past. I cannot even defend the film as an experimental work either. Todd Haynes knew this film would have a wide mainstream release. He then set off to do a "no holds barred" unconventional "art" film in order to rise amongst the intelligentsia with instantaneous street cred. What a sham. The only redeemable qualities present here are if you dropped acid and then saw the film with a new take. Even art films have structure. Even experimental films have a underlying form. Genuine art films present the subject matter with a heavily laden "emotional quotient." They then take on two to three of these "quotients" and tie the film thematically around them. Haynes overburdens the viewer by presenting something like two to three emotional quotients per ten minutes of film with no thematic underlying structure. Not only does this make the film arduous and painful to watch but it makes a mockery of the work done by "real" artists. I can envision film students jeering and laughing at this piece of "eye candy." Each emotional quotient requires the viewer to reflect upon it in a contemplative manner. When you overburden the viewer with excessive quotients then it cheapens all the objectives of the film regardless of how honorable those intentions are. The only way and I mean the only way this film would have been successful is if Haynes adjusted the ratio of emotional quotients to the running time of the end result. That means the film needs either to have three/four of the caricatures removed (i.e. pick say the Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger and trash them entirely) or extend the film to a running time of like thirteen to fifteen hours so that the ratio remains fulfilled. But Haynes being an ardent capitalist understands that his financial backers want a profit therefore a fifteen hour film won't be commercial in his eyes. This is why Haynes has no understanding of the potential this film could have been. All he cared about was the almighty dollar.
1 of 2 customers found the following review helpful:
Waste of time, 2008-08-19
Nothing can save this movie: not a cast of talented actors and not even a good soundtrack. I was confused about this movie from the start. So many of the actors are Bob Dylan - who is not Bob Dylan, but has 16 different names. Is this movie in black and white or is it in color? Does this person try to send a message, or is the screenplay some sort of mumbo-jumbo? Or, do we pretend that we get it - yes Bob Dylan is the great one: he trascends race, gender, country origin (he is American and citizen of the world - or ahem, some sort of Jewish wonderer) - his message is universal, his poetry and music understood by people from all walks of life. Well if that is the message, than I did not need to see this movie. I already knew that.
|
| Page: << 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 17 >> |
|