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A Complete Unknown


wild_turkey

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This movie deserves its own thread. Looking at the Oscars thread, a lot of people aren’t familiar with it, and there isn’t a dedicated place for discussing. It has 8 Oscar nominations.
 
Timothée Chalamet plays young Bob Dylan as he rises to fame in the early 1960s. Incredible performance from him including singing Dylan’s songs. Monica Barbaro was stunning as Joan Baez and the rest of the cast was also really good. And the music is obviously great, unless you don’t like Dylan, in which case disregard this thread.
 
If you like movies and get frustrated by a lack of quality movies, I think this one is worth your time.
 

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So I want to be fair here and I always try to preface the things I say about movies with this statement. Too often I see movies that are written off here by other posters as being terrible just because they did not like it. I did not personally enjoy watching this, but that does not mean this is not a well done movie.

I feel that people who really like Bob Dylan will enjoy this one. What got me to finally leave early on watching this is that his personality in the movie was very off-putting and I just never have really connected with his music. There are plenty of people here who have connected with his music and that’s cool. If it wins some awards they will be well deserved. This was a movie I had reservations about watching, but that is just me. 

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8 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

got me to finally leave early on watching this is that his personality in the movie was very off-putting and I just never have really connected with his music. There are plenty of people here who have connected with his music and that’s cool.

You left the theater before the end of the movie?

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13 minutes ago, JohnnyRage said:

You left the theater before the end of the movie?

Not a Dylan fan, but stopped in to see the movie. I pay a monthly membership so leaving a movie isn’t throwing 20 dollars down the drain. I probably watch three movies a week. If a movie does not necessarily connect with me I am not going to see it through. I do think this movie will be good for a lot of folks to see though.

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Finally got around to seeing this today. I'm a big Dylan fan, so take this with a grain of salt, but I thought it was one of the best movies I've seen in a while.

Chalamet did an amazing job with the role. It would have been easy to do the cartoonish caricature of Dylan, like Rami Malek did with Freddy Mercury, but Chalamet played it perfectly. Ed Norton was fantastic too.

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Saw it yesterday w/ my wife. Similar to many couples it seems, I'm the Dylan fan & she's never been able to tolerate much of his work.

She thoroughly enjoyed the film & came away w/ a deeper appreciation of his music, and was asking me to play specific songs when we got home. That's a successful movie in my book.

Norton as Seeger was wild. Damn if he didn't nail Pete's melodic, poetic dialect.

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We both loved it. I remember walking out and wondering how anyone could boo Like a Rolling Stone.

One interesting thing I came across later (and maybe this is only interesting to music nerds) - Like a Rolling Stone was originally written in 3/4 time. Wikipedia has a clip of Dylan singing it like that and it's so strange. It definitely feels more folk in that time signature. It's amazing how changing that one aspect turned it into a rock song.

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8 hours ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

She…was asking me to play specific songs when we got home.


There are many inaccuracies and amalgamations in the movie used to tell a good story. But doesn’t Pete Seeger’s character claim to have written ‘This Land Is Your Land’ and on trial for trying to sing it? Or was I high? Seems an odd choice with Guthrie in the script. 

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I don't think it's the best movie I've ever seen, but I think Chalamet hit it out of the park.  I don't consider myself enough of a movie buff to judge "best film of the year" any more, because I miss too many of them, but his performance was one for the ages, and I totally expected to be put off.

Full disclosure:  I can't stand most 60's folk music.  It's far too precious for me.  This includes all Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Peter Paul & Mary.  I've never held that animus towards Dylan's music, mostly because the lyrics were SO un-precious.  He seemed to have something to say at all times.  What I came away with after seeing this film was a reset on my thoughts that all his songs were musically the same.  No, they aren't.

I agree that it topped the Queen/Elton/Beatles pseudo-reality flicks (to varying degrees) by a wide margin.  Best of the bunch, by far.

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I love Dylan but have grown a little tired of these biographical music type movies. So I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy it much


I have similar feelings about music biopics but this on was very well done. I think for anyone who likes Dylan’s music or even feels neutral towards him, it should be an enjoyable film.
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Similar to most here.  Definitely not a Dylan fan.  I've found most of his music to be like fingernails on a chalk board.  That said, I thought all of the performances were fantastic, and Chalamet nailed it (not just with his with his acting but also singing/harmonica/guitar chops).  I'm also a big Scoot McNairy fan so I particularly enjoyed his portrayal of Woody Guthrie.

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