Is it possible that senility has come crashing in on Woody, allowing him to forget that he once made Annie Hall? (I won't even comment on said senility affecting his casting decisions in such a way that they suddenly include Jason Biggs - although, actually, I will comment on it a bit later). Anything Else opens with Woody Allen and Jason Biggs - both comedy writers for nightclub acts - walking the streets and talking of the things that Woody Allen characters tend to talk about (philosophy/art/film/sex/sex/more sex). You see, Biggs has this girlfriend who is mega-charming (it's not Diane Keaton) and she's always late and takes pills and can't seem to hop out of the neurotic turnstile (but, I'm telling you, it's not Diane Keaton) and, get this, Biggs talks to the screen (you'll remember a little film (rhymes with "Trannie Mall") starring Diane Keaton where this is done). I immediately tried to put out this raging fire, suggesting that it was an homage. My wife, who tends to see through all things clouded, suggested that, if it were a legitimate genuflection at the altar of that film, it was certainly a "blasphemous" one. The film further complicates matters with intermittently funny humor and a performance by Christina Ricci that's easily her best work since Buffalo '66 (lost forever inside this film). Which brings me to Mr. Biggs. He's bad anyway, but Allen's latent obsession with finding actors to mimic him has become more of a gamble than anything (see the payoff in films like Bullets over Broadway and Sweet and Lowdown), but Biggs is perhaps just as embarrassingly obvious about aping the Wood-man as Branagh was (in Celebrity) achingly excessive. Biggs has the stuttering down, but none of the mannerisms, giving my previous comment ("Wood-man") the sexy double meaning I never intended. I remember my older brother telling me that, after seeing this film, that if it had been released in the 1970s, it would have been loved by all and, that Allen is held to a far higher standard than other directors. Blasphemy.

In grand, terrific moments of David Lynch style oddity, Northfork zooms in on six men assigned to evacuate the remaining denizens of the title town before it is flooded, and becomes lakefront property for sale. Hanging around them is a gloom the film never quite moved me with. And this downtrodden sensibility permeates the conflicts of a wayward priest (Nick Nolte, in high grizzly mode) who finds himself watching over the final moments of an unwanted boy who, in a dreamy landscape of practical hallucination, negotiates an escape for himself and four fairy tale-esque symbol people (including the eight optic wielding Anthony Edwards, apparently exhausted by taunts of "four eyes"). Trouble is, in Northfork, every ambition is met with intimacy, every chance at sweeping fantasy met with silly designations of theme (the town, much like the lonely boy, is dying, but the lake, as well as the boy's new surrogate family, is just a rebirth into "better" things - or something). Directed with everyone hamming in a different direction, the only bits that don't seem completely washed out by good intentions are the exchanges of James Woods (deadpan drawl) and Michael Polish (flimsy maturity with a constant catch phrase: "It's wrong. It's just wrong on every level").

Washington's mad crack-and-scramble as the slipknot second act (eventually) gets underway may have a lovely B-12 effect on the film, but it rolls back asleep with a big [sic] veil lifting ending, followed by a wacky dénouement that feels more like a dare than an epilogue. When it isn't whored up like a third generation copy of the (near) decade-in-it's-grave resurgence of B-noir sassafras (like The Last Seduction, Franklin's own Devil in a Blue Dress), there's a good thirty or forty minutes there, right smack in the middle, when Out of Time is a goofy, fun framed-cop version of the mini suspense favorite "Mom will be home any minute and the house is a great big mess!" Washington edits phone records and faxes them to himself, makes phony calls of inquiry to "if you'd like to make a call" recordings and, best of all, hangs from the side of a hotel while bitch smacking a baddie only to emerge cool and calm as he is interrogated by a homicide detective, who also happens to be his ex-wife (Whoo-whee, what a predicament that must be! How inconvenient for him!), the DEA (from whom he has recently stolen $485K) and a cheating wife (who - get this - is married to an ex-football player-turned-security guard played by - are you ready - Dean Cain!) There's also a toady sidekick who (in three instances) shows up at the right place and exactly at the right time. (Boy, this guy must have a really good watch!) It feels like a movie whose time has past and will probably show up again twenty years down the road - when it will continue to feel as rabidly generic as it does now (I'm certain).

Freaky Friday - a film whose very framework (two characters change bodies for a day) is a constant pillar for disaster - is written with an unwelcome verve of eexplicitness. In a film where subtly is not on your side to begin with, its hard to imagine two more terrific performances wasted in a film wrought, for some reason, in the same patronizingly duh fashion Disney still has yet to abandon when pandering to the family market. A film about a teenager and her mother is practically geared towards (for lack of a better analogy) the baby-sat, not the baby-sitter. In the interest of draining any confusion, there is a stale artlessness to it which makes the focus of the film - the two women's exchanged bodies - often so independent of anything else tthat's going on, that dumbfounded tolerance of their babbling by other characters feels awfully played until, eventually, it just feels implausible. Again, at great expense are the actresses who really are the lifeblood of the few lighter stunts of pep, which satisfy the film's zany, seemingly insatiable appetite for putting both mother and daughter into "interesting" situations. Intermittently, though, it is wicked entertaining.

The constant references to the TV program will likely be lost on the generation of moviegoers it is meant to appeal to - - but S.W.A.T. feeling like yourr typical big budget homage to a seventies' show (right down to its vacuum sealed crusty ol' Police Captain) probably won't be lost on many. That odd ring of how-to echoing in its ears, the first half of S.W.A.T. looks very much like The Recruit, another film starring Colin Farrell in the hero/together guy role (clearly, there's no coincidence - or irony - there). Unfortunately, the rest of it looks a great deal like that film, too; Foreshadowed red herrings and turncoats - - every movie is a guessing game, you'll remember - - take over any semblance of narrative interest that might occur. Johnson's direction isn't exactly mind-blowing, either; The movie moves along at a clip, but so often spins its gears with mindless, boring chatter (or, worse - - using big personalities like LL Cool J,, Samuel L. Jackson and  Josh Lucas to throw around not-so-shocking outbursts of machismo and, in the case of Rodriguez, testosterone.) Pace aside, no amount of excitement or star power can distract from how uneven it feels: Why mix a bunch of far-fetched action set pieces with long researched regurgitation of method speeches by police consultants; Why make part of your movie factual to a fault and still consider airplanes landing on bridges, people being allowed to come through customs knives on them (and customs officials telling them, "It's okay as long as you mail it home") and detailed footage of the many entrances to a plane during a hi-jacking simulation? Why sabotage your own shit? Doesn't matter. Best part of the movie is - as it was in the trailers (and ever shall be, world without end) - Eurotrash gangsta Oliver Martinez fuckin' shit up old school and screaming up and down about OO-WUN UN-DRED MEE-LL-YUN DOLL-UHS!

Engrossing - and terrifically satisfying - but is it true that Civil War-era North Carolina women had perfect teeth and wore makeup on every occasion? The endless internal debate of whether to forgive the film's obvious vanity clause (taken advantage of by both Nicole Kidman and - inexplicably (because she plays a hillbilly) - Renee Zelwegger) is kept at bay long enough during the cut aways to Jude Law's long journey, that the story begins to take place in a wonderful movie landscape, one we're often rather comfortable in. It's also the rare film that is a parade of high profile, recognizable cameos - but doesn't make that a fault (this includes Natalie Portman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Giovanni Ribisi and Melora Walters, all stellar - Brendan Gleeson and Jack White feel more pivotal). Jude Law proves, once again, why he's worth employing: He upstages everyone (except a painfully out-of-place Donald Sutherland - who can't seem to Stop...talking...likee...this). Civil War scenes are as vicious and disturbing as any war footage put on screen in the last ten years. Certainly not the Miramax-tailored Oscar vehicle that it may appear - but a worthwhile melodrama for sure.

Gap stud vampires versus dive rocker werewolves - or is it? Wiseman's film is convoluted to the point where you begin to feel pummeled with the overelaborateness of the story, and the simplistic exposition used to hammer it home. Rarely has an actress seemed so lost in a world of comic book lore as Kate Beckinsale, whose character remains impenetrable. That drained blue look (along with a number of interesting setpieces) manages to be completely wasted, as does the stultifying setting: Why does it feel like a British movie that takes place on an American film set?

For some reason, nearly all the characters are either completely different than usual or, worse, merely in existence to restate plot points from earlier Rugrats or Wild Thornberrys adventures. The songs sound as if written on a casio minutes before being put in the film (or, Land Before Time quality) and nearly everything that happens pretty much defies the formula that worked so far for the Rugrats gang: Nothing happens in their imagination and, therefore, carries with it a completely different sort of vibe, one that isn't nearly thrilling enough to sustain an eighty minute movie, let alone suspend a cartoon crossover. In short: It stinks.

Hardly a blip - but not exactly a wash of out-and-out delight, either. The Burton touches are few and far between (Not to say that the film is required (by law) to stink of His Weirdness, but he's obviously straining the fanciful swoops of imagination into a less playful, somehow more adult (for lack of a better term) context; toiling in the Oscar Bait mines, you might remark). When showcasing these larger-than-life tales, he never seems content to allow the characters just to be - - they all have attached an explicit modus operandi (to be fair - if it had been directed by pretty much anyone else, I probably would have found it to be much more trite, so, uh, forget nearly everything I just said.). Bottom line: Big Fish is a very eventful movie with precious little variation between said events, leaving them to stand for themselves and to, time after time, serve the same exact purpose. (Also, though we enjoy the actors in it, we are overwhelmed by their volume; an ensemble piece weighted by far too many like/gigantic personalities that can't seem to get itself airborne). The strange Gump echo is unsettling, too, as everything is told from the bouncing knee perspective (as in, to a child on said appendage), and ends up either feeling too simple or too colorful/wholesome ("Filmed in Pleasantville-vision!", you might say, in spots) - - or, worse, it's the bad-things-lead-to-good-things/it-was-meant-to-be mentality over-ruling the fun out of each story.

Then, after all my nitpicking, it goes and scores the big points among films this year by (practically) erupting with the most surprisingly genuine ending. (Bastard!) Terrific: Finally, a seed of sentimentality that doesn't feel artificially fertilized.

Obvious of me to state that it's a film structured, angled and marketed around a single performance, and that this performance, on its own (as with other staggering displays in mediocre films), makes the film (grumble) worth seeing; Not so obvious of me (or not) to tell you that Monster shows up hopelessly dumbed down all over, constant rib jabbing in tow, carefully leaving nothing for the audience to glean from but Theron's performance-as-a-train-wreck (Why the train analogies all the time, Ben? What's that about, anyway?). For example: I'm sure Wuornos didn't explicitly spell out, each time she was offing a john, the exact demon she was exorcising; Here, it's as if she's toting a list around, informing each of her victims, one-by-one, that she was: Raped at 8 (check), beaten at home (check), hates, distrusts, and loathes all men (check) and, uh, that she's having a wee bit of trouble getting her life together (double check). Patty Jenkins - whose direction is more often merely proficient rather than interesting - seems to stop the creative train (there we go again!) at using Journey to spearhead the spirit of Wuornos (Don't Stop Believin' plays so prominently, there's almost a title card that reads: Take literally). "There's good in her" and "wounded animal" are phrases that have been kicked around in most notices - - and it's Theron who communicates that, not the filmmaking or [sic] the script. It's a numbing experience, just the same, watching this horrible set of circumstances unravel. It left me feeling very much as I felt watching Bully - horrible murders in Florida, unrepentant characters, white static techno booming over the conclusion - but I didn't leave with a sense that Wuornos was a real life character or that anything that occurred in the film could have taken place on a plane outside a filmic context. It's all raw, and extremely unpleasant - especially the moments where things seeem to be going okay for the characters (because the bottom can always be seen collapsing) - but aside from the ridiculous voice-over narration (cut the line about that explains the duality of the title, I'm beggin' ya), Monster never really plays both sides with any card but the Theron ace. In the end, we completely empathize with a main character who decided to quit hooking and start murdering instead. It's not a question of morality so much as it is a question of painting the portrait without a whole hell of a lot of objectivity. Didn't help that I had already seen Broomfield's first Wuornos documentary. (Quick: Who would play Nick Broomfield if the movie went past the courtroom verdict sequence?)
 

People comparing it to In the Bedroom are a bit off base, as that film would likely have picked up where this one leaves off; Also, less literary than the former, deeply naturalistic Todd Field film - House of Sand and Fog makes no bones about its essential tie to the source medium: Parallels upon unified themes upon impossibly two sided complications, underlined to invoke a sense of chaos within the viewer (or, to divide the viewers down the center; picture that car ride home for the older couple sitting next to you, one who agreed Connelly deserved her house back no matter what the cost to others, the other believing that Kingsley was the supreme victim here, and shouldn't be penalized for the County's wrongdoing). My biggest problem is with Ron Eldard's character - almost too carefully placed as the foill for nearly everything that happens to everyone (which we could chalk up, partially, to the author, Andre Dubus, III, if only Eldard wasn't so clumsy and impossibly forceful as the philandering cop). It's being touted as Connelly's attempt to battle the Supporting Actress Oscar curse, but the film so belongs to Kingsley from minute one. Always better when he is playing the hell out of the ambiguous side of unscrupulous, never better than when he's playing a foreigner - - - and, par for the course, brilliant at playing a paean of unbending will (Don Logan, ten years later - - - and Iranian?). Watching it unfold is probably its strong point, as it seems to be endlessly floating towards complete and utter disaster (sometimes quite literally), but finds stock in the old adage of twisting: An audience never tires of a moving target. (Well, almost never; I'm sure there was plenty of snoring on opening day [in 1989], when Moving Targets, starring Ernest Borgnine and Linda Blair opened.)

Holy shit, for about thirty minutes, this thing was definitely the best thing I saw all year. Then, much to my dismay, everything exciting and cubist about it quickly devolves into an impossibly before-and-after structure - - - the scenes get longer, leaving the focus on the somewhat strained plot line about man consoling woman about dead family with a complex "thank you" that, then, turns completely around, offering her the chance to do the same. (The focus, I think, would have better served this viewer, were it purely on putting this whole mess of emotions together in my head as the film pretty much collage'd the story). But that heart, oh, that heart...there's so much that depends on that heart. And so much that just seems too careful and perfect to be true. Luckily, all three performers - the consoler (Penn), the woman (Watts) with the dead family  and the ex-con (Del Toro) who accidentally killed them - are in terrific, giving performances thhat complement Inarritu's (now?) trademark use of reality in a box (read: hand-held) on a surface of pure, unadulterated grain. In short - it hints at how powerful the storytelling could have been (were it fragmented) and supplements this tease-and-lack with heavy gravy. (And just for the record, I think Songs: Ohia's "Translation" would have made a much better end credits tune than anything bellowed through Dave Matthews' pop-gash of a throat).

Originally - in my head, at least - I graded Cabin Fever much higher but, upon recollection, I've realized that, uh, I...have...no...recollection. Movie is expressly divided from other teenage horror films because it appears, immediately, to be unable to take itself seriously and (dare I say) almost feels like the stuff of a great lampoon. Unfortunately, very little of it is memorable (however entertaining); Roth almost seems to be having a good time keeping his film within the current horror film-packaging laws (gore, sex, constant use of the f-word, partying, etc.), almost too good a time - which keeps everything coasting somewhere between too dumb to possibly be intentional and too bland to actually be interesting. Not nearly as bad as suggested by the long, almost thirty minute rant a co-worker of mine went on after seeing it one weekend. (Though not nearly as good as my older brother inferred - the firm believer that it's one of the best send-ups of horror films ever made, and is truly a masterwork. Well, maybe he didn't say masterwork...)

Phoenix plays Elwood, who is meant to fit the mold of total badass, but never seems to spend enough time reveling in his prankster deeds - especially when they veer on terroristic during the rivalry with Glenn. It seems almost redundant, then, to make him into a rebel without a cause, and constantly observe the character cooking (sometimes with heroin) and scheming, but never, essentially, owning his destiny by the end of the day. Luckily, Buffalo Soldiers is mostly a comedy - with dark elements occasionally overstaaying their already thin welcome - that wrangles an hilarious performance out of Elwood and his boss (Ed Harris, a sad sack colonel hell bent on promotion and subsequent vineyard purchase). Dimestore Dr. Strangelove with political innuendo of the same vein as Wag the Dog or The Contender, deftness falling somewhere in between the levels of those films. I can see where the U.S. military might take offense but, you know, the film doesn't feel absurdist or over-the-top in any fashion - - - could it be that Jordan & Co. touch a nerve? (Oh, and it's no M*A*S*H, people. Come on, now).

The rare documentary that is told with objectivity as a goal, but still demands that we take a side almost from the opening moments. Using home movies (whose existence can only be called miraculous), the contrast between painterly, familial bliss (on film) and the outbursts and last nights (on video) - all of it shot before any sort of documentary was conceived - makes the genuine quality of the family's long road from happy to chaotic the most precious. Jarecki's use of present day interviews adds another dimension to the contrast, giving us the principles, refining their words, sometimes clearly erecting a completely different picture than the video footage would bely. Patriarch Arnold and youngest son Jesse's possible involvement in mass child molestation fronted as a computer class is uniquely disturbing, but so are the methods of the police and the seeming mass hysteria that uprooted the upper class neighborhoods of Great Neck, New York. Like the best seemingly unbiased documentaries (it reminded me of both Paradise Lost and Daughter from Danang), Capturing the Friedmans is not only compelling, but mentally pressing: You really feel like you have to choose sides to avoid getting a migraine in attempts to decipher the complexity of its actual - however illogical - outcome. Like Irreversible, it's not really all that pleasant to watch, but you have to admire the way it confronts you.

Upgraded from an F because the chick from Ginger Snaps is topless (albeit, from an overhead angle). The rest is a complete failure of crossover and self-deprecation (it feels like its merely pretending to poke fun at itself). Watch this and Rugrats Go Wild on a double bill for a lovely evening of completely marring the originality of characters by herding them into a detention area with other somewhat original characters and, subsequently, poking them with the money stick.

Some of Paltrow's most dubious sequences (particularly the lamp-staring session at close) are often merely hilarious distraction from this wholly dull reading from the book of the dummies' guide to intellectualist highs and lows. Patently idiotic title shouldn't allow you to believe that one second of Sylvia penetrates the character of Sylvia; Miss Plath could have gone by pretty much any name. It is a great feat watching Daniel Craig (unconvincingly) attempt to reconcile a relationship whose very inclusion seems like the very thinnest attempt at lightening up her life story. The very moment when Paltrow's shit-sulk face catches up to her daffiness (pre-suicide lamp gazing alert!) should be the moment where the film begins. Instead of being buried in the last three minutes, I mean.

Sets and period milieau are often exactly as I'd hoped: Dark, unclean and humble. When it abandons the inexplicably obvious digi-exteriors, Girl With a Pearl Earring is just the 17th- century world I wanted to experience. Unfortunately, it has been reached through a host story that makes the one in Gangs of New York look practically competent by comparison: Girl is maid, she maids around with a painter, he has strife, they maid without maiding, he paints her, unnecessary gasping and scandal ensue; Dialogue written, often, to cause uncontrollable mass wincing. The performances are too often diluted by contrasting attitudes (prudish and sleazy ones),  but somehow the indelible joy of seeing the wallflower blossom is still owned lock, stock and so forth by Scarlet Johanssen (a character wisely kept, often, silent). Somewhere in the background an underdeveloped raised eyebrow at both class and religious discord is completely wasted. Humming in the foreground is Alexandre Deplat's dreamy, Oscar-nominated music - - - also one of the most obtrusive scores of this past year (a year that saw a whopping 4 James Horner credits!) Ultimately, its still a made up story about a painting: dimensionless and, uh, made up.

Gets the film student in me partially excited. Sustains that part while making valid, screaming social message. Still manages to keep me excited even though, down in my heart, I know that Meirelles has studied a number of other films that most film students were (or still are) excited about (Goodfellas, Boogie Nights, etc.) It's the rare (rather badass) trick to glean from films you know people will know you gleaned from and still make your own film every bit as good and as now as those films were in their times without looking like an out and out thief.

It starts out promising and continues to promise - practically right up to the last five mminutes. There's some eerie bits of twist scattered throughout (Rampling's old lady bitch demeanor as a front for a more vicious fantasy, for one), but for any moment charged with suspense, there's about ten more that fizzle horribly (the Charles Dance character, it is barely inferred, is slimy - why exactly? If the whole thing is a commentary - on what I couldn't really say, exactly - then why does it seem to wink as if it has pulled off some sort of artful feat? It's kind of like Adaptation. but instead of it being a joke, it seems sort of preachy: Something in the "entertainment must be trashy or no one will like it" vein). If, underneath, it is commentary, then Swimming Pool is a sort of pretentious blunder, as I don't feel the least bit guilty about enjoying it solely for the nudity.

This year's most original work (even for animation). Lean, witty and exceptionally drawn, The Triplets of Belleville is easily the best animated film I've seen since Spirited Away. Its throwaway cartoon-isms and utterly bizarre Yellow Submarine edge make it feel like something so special, so unique as to be worshipped rather than seen. I'm going to stop right here before I have to clean off the keyboard.

So, Jane Campion is making elongated music videos, now? (As The Piano gets further and further from memory, I reflect: Let the blur technique go already, lady). In the Cut, despite itself, is recommendable on the strength of Mark Ruffalo's mind blowing performance, his first shot at leading man-dom since You Can Count on Me. I love this guy. It's no secret. Now, if he could just resist the temptation to hang out in films that make him the male foil to a "go-girl" vibe, reached only through strange sexual encounters (see also: xx/xy). I still enjoy the way characters in Campion's films seem to interact as if they're actually people, a talent she fumbles (but doesn't drop) here, putting it - predominantly - in the hands of Meg Ryan, whose performance can only be called "brave" from the standpoint that she actually allowed them to sell this film on her full nude body (um, really, who cares?) As Ryan navigates around her slinking half sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh playing the Jennifer Jason Leigh character), a completely untrustworthy male character (Ruffalo, so aptly making lemons out of a lemonade-ish character, if I ever saw one) and the tic-y Kevin Bacon "obsessive" character (three out of every four movies, now for Bacon). In other words, everyone but Ruffalo seems to be floating on their usual routines, which makes it such a crime that this film even exists; What a tease: a great performances constantly obstructed by a bunch of mediocre ones. And serial killer plots where characters are all calm and normal around savage murder circumstances should be retired. Seriously.

Just like Island of Lost Dreams, the first Spy Kids sequel, Game Over starts out incredibly strong, with goofy cracks and imaginative landscapes that seem to echo the fun, hallucinatory success of the first film. And just like Island of Lost Dreams, Game Over plummets minutes into its second act. It isn't that I mind the dimestore effects - quite the opposite, in fact: Pieces of the video game world looked uncommonly well transplanted from the video game consciousness to a virtual reality space, as if the hybrid couldn't be envisioned as anything but a 2-D video game system where 3-D players have carte blanche; As a bonus, it looks a great deal like Attack of the Clones on acid. Unfortunately, it devolves into a series of dumb sight gags (Sly Stallone talking to his alter egos) and the inevitable teen beat Carmen trotting out the tough girl one-liners (the ones that make you wince with embarrassment for you and her). Also, don't get me started on Ricardo Maltaban learning the true meaning of humility from his wheelchair and the usual sappy pro family message that Rodriguez seems to slap onto the ending without actually incorporating anything that came before it. Though I liked this film better than Island of Lost Dreams, they both lack the momentum to see their characteristically formula driven save-the-world narrative work as well as it did in the first film. (Salma Hayek's in it though. That's worth a smidgen of forgiveness, no?)

It is a great big whopping deal that we hear certain "truths" from the horse's mouth. However, as we watch McNamara spill his beans, refuse to apologize and  illustrate the terrifying quality of his character (that is, he still stands by his former role as the manager of a corporation - the USA - hell bent on murder and domination), it's almost the very tack of self importance that seems to deflate the film; It's obvious that Morris has something very special here, but it's all he can do not to insert the same brilliant sense of objectivity that makes him the foremost creator of documentary films in the very same USA. This is easily Morris' most homogenized, mainstream film; a seemingly genuine portrayal of a man whose very life is dotted with his experiences behind the scenes of  some of the most notoriously heinous acts in our history (The firebombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities, the Cuban missile crisis and the debacle in Vietnam and, hell, he even picked out the spot where JFK was to be buried). Stylistically, The Fog of War is most easily Morris' sole Oscar contender for a very palpable reason: It is his least wiry, least harebrained, least eccentric - and most accessible film to date. The eleven lessons are a moderate framing device (they seem to come from and extend through McNamara as a whole, but also feel like about ten too many overall). The film doesn't have the power of Morris' earlier films, the sort of hazy big picture at close wherein Fred Leuchter or Stephen Hawking represent some sort of terrifically unanswerable question about humanity, (or a mind-blowing catharsis like Randall Dale Adams going, uh, free). The 88 year old McNamara, a huge personality with a scratch-tastic voice that sounds as if it is speaking from beyond the grave is an easy read. And he tells us at the end what some (me included) consider him: A sunavabitch.

"Sometimes its not enough to know what things mean, but to know what they don't mean as well". Come again? When Masked and Anonymous isn't trotting out useless cameo after useless cameo, or setting up the ambiguity of a "civil war" taking place in the background, it's carefully betraying itself with its star: Dylan couldn't look more annoyed to be part of the film and, surprisingly, he couldn't look cooler, either. Rants and raves from meatier players like Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange seem to play like endless loops of mentally unsound movie character blather, building their "characters" from their madness (to boot, every woman in the film is, ultimately, victimized). John Goodman, as Uncle Sweetheart (sloppy double takes as every other character calls him "sweetheart" may give you neck trouble), splits his time between praising the Dylan character (who seems neither mythic nor recognizable to anyone in the film), abusing Luke Wilson (who abuses himself with a porno mustache that's constantly distracting) and drinking JD (you'll love the scene where he tries to get devout non-drinker Penelope Cruz - yes, Penelope Cruz is in this debacle, too - to guzzle from his bottle). Dylan performs a bunch of tunes from "Time Out of Mind" (preferable to his most recent album, "Love and Theft"), while others - including a pitch perfect little girl - perform some of his older songs. When it follows the bitter, mumbling Dylan's internalized casualness, and keeps from wedging him into the context of the film (these are rare moments, btw), Masked and Anonymous is a nifty double image of the singer-songwriter and his reclusive aura. Unfortunately, most of the film is about how much cleverspeak can be volleyed about among the celebs, and how the minuscule budget can appear more bloated by having twice as many cheap looking interior sets as are necessary or - worse - by having everyone act as if they showed up for the script and not to work with Dylan (you'll see right through that inside five minutes).