This one had the stink of a wankfest from Day One. Fifteen minutes in, I turned it off, my sense of smell proven still sharp, and I think only the music got me that far in. Collecting a bunch of tinny aphorisms and cheeseball film school tricks does not actually add up to a worthy tribute to Bob Dylan, his songs or his life. Whatever potential surreal poetry might have been had in Todd Haynes’ stupid idea of having umpteen actors play Dylan is completely lost in witless direction that had me bored at hello. A clodhopping screenplay, which seems to have been written by clipping out the least interesting parts of His Bobness’ liner notes and pasting them into a bad newspaper essay on the Pop Culture Impact of Bob Dylan. No wonder the mainstream press lapped it up when they threw away Dylan’s own restless, interesting, and genuinely feverish Masked and Anonymous. Haynes has long been near the top of my list of incredibly overrated critics’ pets, and now he takes the crown. Factory Girl was stupid, but at least it was modestly stupid.
