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Tom G. - 2006-07-18 12:53:51
I thought KK2005 was a pretty joyless spectacle, completely overblown given the subject matter, and like you I kept wondering why he felt compelled to remake a classic? (Apparently just because he could.) The CGI was awesome though. Just not awesome enough to carry the picture.
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Paula - 2006-07-18 13:35:38
I do remember feeling compelled to say "Aww" at several points in the movie, but, ya know, if I see a stick figure of a chimp, I get misty, so that's no indicator of a great movie.
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Greg - 2006-07-18 14:29:05
Re: KK2005 -- They took up way to much time and money to have said absolutely nothing, except "We can make the biggest spectacle you've ever seen." Was it entertaining? Sure, but so are hot air balloon shows.
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Greg - 2006-07-18 14:35:22
A Dylan musical... Oy! But what do I know... I still can't believe that people paid to go see Tommy on Broadway.
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Michael - 2006-07-18 15:33:30
Wish you'd waited and watched it in a theatre during some eventual screening at MoMA or somewhere, Paula. You still haven't seen it.
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Paula - 2006-07-19 07:52:20
Michael: I appreciate what you're saying, and I think it was quite gorgeous and big and spectacular and all that, even having seen it on a TV screen. I'm saying the story itself didn't move me.
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2fs - 2006-07-19 08:55:43
And I must add: no. No. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.
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Michael - 2006-07-19 11:45:20
Seeing an actual 35mm projection is usually a totally different experience from watching a mere DVD; there are all sorts of nuances and subtleties (in an extremely good film) lost in the translation and the effect is entirely different, especially in dealing with a movie like this, which requires the scope and the grandeur for the full effect (otherwise, what are all those little people on the screen so excited about?). A subtly wondrous work of art in a theatre often looks like a cardboard cutout of itself on DVD. I would never say the same thing about "Superman Returns," however; sadly, it was shot digitally to save money and will look better on a video iPod than it does in a movie theatre, which was probably the whole point. There is nothing present to lose in the translation, so those unable to tell the difference will not be shortchanged in any way.
As for the Dylan Broadway show, I don't see how that can debase his image more than his serial bouts with religion already have.
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2fs - 2006-07-19 23:58:03
"As for the Dylan Broadway show, I don't see how that can debase his image more than his serial bouts with religion already have."
Oh come now. I'll state up front that I'm an atheist - but that doesn't mean I can't recognize the genuineness of the religious impulse. Bob Dylan *always* had a religious component to his music: go ahead, look at all the metaphors and figures of speech he used from the very beginning. But a Broadway show? Even if you don't buy in to the notion of authenticity often heard in conjunction with Dylan's music, even if you're aware of the play with image that Dylan himself quite cleverly (and at times cynically) made use of, the whole artifice of glitter and glitz, the mendacious crowd-pleasing, the need for "entertainment": the values of Broadway generally are nearly diametrically opposed to those of Dylan. That's true even if you like both, hate both, or hate one and love the other. There's nothing fundamentally incompatible between "Dylan" and "religion." There is between "Dylan" and "Broadway show." 'Course, what we don't know is the extent to which Dylan thinks the show's a good idea. Now, a traveling circus based on Dylan's songs and characters - that would make sense...
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Michael - 2006-07-20 12:48:19
Dylan's very early songs always struck me at the time as fundamentally anti-religious, indeed exactly "fundamentally incompatible with religion," but I can't say I've examined or thought about them for many, many years. Personally, I had the same "say it ain't so, Joe" feeling when he found "God" that I did when the Beatles briefly became disciples of the Maharishi, only a little more so, but in retrospect I suppose I deserved it. After all, "don't follow leaders, check parking meters." I never thought of Dylan as a leader but the later religiosity did disappoint me a little bit in spite of myself for about two minutes. None of this is important enough even to discuss, though, of course.
As for "the values of Broadway," that's a complex question in itself. The economics of it are like our health care system, completely out of whack to a catastrophic degree, but that's not to say that there aren't some sincere and talented artists doing what they can under difficult circumstances, Twyla Tharp certainly among them. As for Dylan's values being diametrically opposed to Broadway's, that's a pretty audacious assumption to take so emphatically for granted, and I'm not at all convinced it's true at this juncture, nor do I believe it's worth thinking about one way or the other. If Dylan somehow found himself in dire enough need of money, I'm not so sure we wouldn't see him turning up in this show or another one if he found himself unable to sell CDs or draw crowds at personal appearances (of course if he did appear on Broadway, his doing so would be seen by his fans as a masterfully clever send-up of show-business venality, like his TV commercial; for many, he can simply do no wrong no matter what).
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2fs - 2006-07-20 20:01:03
It's true that Dylan himself might well have no problem with selling off his legacy, and his image, to Broadway: that doesn't make it any more palatable to his fans, or truer to his art. As for your first paragraph: I'd draw a distinction between individual religious thought and organized religion.
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Paula - 2006-07-20 20:34:49
Incidentally, my distaste for the Twyla Tharp Dylanmania thing is in no way about preserving the sanctity of Saint Bob. I think Bob Dylan is, while a fantastic songwriter and trendsetter (in his day), also one of the most overrated songwriters of all time.
I just think musicals are generally awful, and these new musicals based on pop songs strung together are pointless.
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Michael - 2006-07-21 09:42:14
''these new musicals based on pop songs strung together are pointless.''
I wouldn't know, I've avoided them like the plague myself.
As for the distinction between individual religious thought and organized religion, I don't know how much there is when you come right down to the heart of the matter, but I didn't mean only organized religion in the first paragraph, I definitely meant individual religious thought as well.
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2fs - 2006-07-21 11:41:07
Paula: I'm not sure he's overrated, if only because it's pretty much universally acknowledged that his work since, oh, 1969 or so (with a couple of clear exceptions) has been spotty at best. In other words, his "rating" pretty much is based on his being a "fantastic songwriter and trendsetter (in his day)." But you're right about the whole musical thing - it seems a desperate, dying art, that it can't even find people to write actual songs anymore and most string together others' pre-written songs.
Michael: the distinction between individual religious thought and organized religion is that organized religions tend, inevitably, to privilege their own power and authority over whatever message their founders might have had, and thereby lend that power and authority to true believers. While it's true that individualized true believers can also persuade themselves to do things that, were they steering by their own moral compass, they otherwise wouldn't do, one lone nut can never do as much harm as an army of them. The only way that lone nut can increase the harm is by, well, organizing his religion (see: David Koresh, etc.). I also think the difference is that (nearly by definition) an individualized religious belief is arrived at via self-examination, etc., organized religions often stamp received information upon their believers, who seldom question or doubt but merely follow blindly. (Yes, I'm oversimplifying because this isn't an encyclopedia: but what I describe is a clearly legible trend, among others.) Example: right-wing Christianity in the US today seems arguably motivated primarily by fear, distrust, and a need for exclusion, thereby creating an in-group, than it does by any profound examination of values on the part of its adherents. (It also seems notably more Old Testament thunder-and-retribution-God than New Testament - but that's another argument...)
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Paula - 2006-07-21 11:44:33
In other words, his "rating" pretty much is based on his being a "fantastic songwriter and trendsetter (in his day)."
Good point, 2fs, and a bit of a relief that I don't have to defend this position again, a girl gets weary.
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Michael - 2006-07-21 12:40:28
Gosh, 2fs, thanks!
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