A Complete Unknown (2024)

 

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: James Mangold

    Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning,

    Monica Barbaro, Scott McNary, Boyd Holbrook

Bob Dylan, the early years, tracking the life and career of the shape-shifting trubadour from his arrival in New York City in 1961 to his electrified performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Timothée Chalamet plays the evasive, elusive Dylan, tousled hair, shades, cigarettes and all, and he's good. So is Edward Norton as Pete Seeger. Both do their own singing, along with Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez and Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash. The week after I saw the movie, I was at a party where somebody suggested that you can't really appreciate Dylan if you're not at least in your 70s, and there might be something to that. For anybody who was around and remembers the period, the film will have an extra edge. At the same time, the art direction perfectly captures the era - check out the old Studebakers - recreating a time that seems like prehistory now, when, starting out at least, nobody knew who Bob Dylan was, and nobody cared. 

Chasers (1994)

CHASERS  (1994)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Dennis Hopper 

    Tom Berenger, William McNamara, Erika Eleniak,

    Crispin Glover, Gary Busey, Dean Stockwell,

    Seymour Cassell, Frederic Forrest, Dennis Hopper

A broadly played but deadly dull comedy about a couple of Navy shore patrolmen assigned to escort a prisoner to the brig. The hitch is that the prisoner in question is a woman played by Playboy model Erika Eleniak. It's like "The Last Detail" played for laughs, or it would be, if there were any.

Backtrack (1990)

 

BACKTRACK  (1990)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Dennis Hopper

    Dennis Hopper, Jodie Foster, Vincent Price,

    Joe Pesci, Dean Stockwell, John Turturro,

    Fred Ward, Catherine Keener, Charlie Sheen,

    Helena Kallianiotes, Julie Adams, Bob Dylan

An oddball gangster romance starring Dennis Hopper as a hit man and Jodie Foster as an artist who's witnessed a gangland murder. He's supposed to kill her, but she turns out to be more than he bargained for, and the two of them end up on the run together, trying to elude both the mob and the law. When Dennis gets stressed, he blows a few notes on a phallic saxophone, while Jodie, choosing life over death, tags along, not sure if she's being kidnapped or what's going on. Joe Pesci, Dean Stockwell and John Turturro play the gangsters trying to track them down. (Check out Turturro's shoes.) Vincent Price plays the godfather. Catherine Keener checks in for a minute or two as a truck driver on her way to Canada, and Bob Dylan has an uncredited cameo as a chainsaw artist. It's all pretty crazy, and that seems to be the point: Dennis Hopper with his demons (apparently) under control and his tongue buried deep in his cheek.

The Top Ten Movies of 2025

MOVIES I LIKED A LOT: 

"Eddington" (2025)

"Nouvelle Vague" (2025)

"Sinners" (2025)

"The American Revolution" (2025)

"Begonia" (2025)

"Companion" (2025)

"I'm Still Here" (2024)

"No Other Land" (2024)

"Overlord" (1975)

"American Ultra" (2015)

MOVIES I MIGHT WATCH AGAIN SOMETIME:

"Weapons" (2025)

"A House of Dynamite" (2025)

"F1" (2025)

"I Really Hate My Job" (2007)

"One Battle After Another" (2025)

"Never Let Me Go" (2010)

"The Congress" (2013)

"Joe" (2013)

"Womb" (2010)

"Triangle" (2009)

SECRET TREASURES:

"Otley" (1969)

"Cattle Annie and Little Britches" (1980)

"Just Visiting" (2001)

"Seven Footprints To Satan" (1929)

BACK ON THE BIG SCREEN:

"Dogma" (1999) 

"Linda Linda Linda" (2005)

FOUR FROM THE VIDEO VAULT:

"Blazing Saddles" (1974)

"Breathless" (1960)

"Return To Glennascaul" (1952)

"The Battle of the Century" (1927)

TOXIC WASTE:

"I Was a Teenage Strangler" (1997)

Hardcore (2004)

 

HARDCORE  (2004)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Dennis Iliadis

    Katerina Tsavalou, Danae Skiadi, Ioannis Pappazisis,

    Omiros Poulakis, Andreas Marianos, Dimitris Liolios

A Greek movie about the dreary, fucked-up lives of two young prostitutes, one adventurous and outgoing and the other guarded and morose. There are some unexpected (and unlikely) turns in the story and occasional bits of animation, suggesting that some of what you're watching might be fantasy, but overall it's pretty depressing, and it comes with an implied teen safety advisory: If you're a kid who's burned down your parents' house and run away from home, a brothel in Athens might not be where you want to end up.

High Maintenance (2006}

HIGH MAINTENANCE  (2006)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Phillip Van 

    Nicolette Krebitz, Wanja Mues

A woman becomes bored with her male companion and decides to trade him in on another model, but there's a switch. Literally.

Gorp (1980)

GORP  (1980)  1/2 ¢

    D: Joseph Ruben

    Michael Lembeck, Dennis Quaid, Philip Casnoff,

    Fran Drescher, David Huddleston, Lou Wagner

    Richard Beauchamp, Julius Harris, Rosanna Arquette

A witless slob comedy about the supposedly riotous antics of the kitchen help and waitstaff at a Jewish summer camp. To call the humor in this sophomoric would be an insult to all sophomores. Oy.