They took down the cardboard display for ‘A Complete Unknown’ that I hoped to take a picture with but this one works. I like the AMC display over my shoulder. Accidental but turned out perfectly.

Music history is a little bit of a blind spot for me.

It’s not a lack of interest…it’s just something I’ve never thought to explore more deeply.

I think I could fake it - I have a general idea of, like, when Beethoven was alive and if I had to place him and Bach and Bob Dylan on a timeline I’d figure it out and act confident about it.*

Well, that’s an exaggeration. But…not by much.

Let me not bury the lead here - I saw ‘A Complete Unknown’ earlier this week and I loved it.

And I’m watching it and before they’re revealed in the movie I was thinking of the things I knew about Bob Dylan - Hibbing, Minnesota, for example. Electric guitars at the Newport Folk Festival in the late ‘60s.

I have random facts in my brain - I remember a couple of years ago when I was trying to make up some of these musical blind spots and listening to albums I’d never listened to I looked up some Dylan information and it was really interesting.

(I did not listen to ‘Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’, though, so I need to add that to the list for this year I think.)

So I knew enough to have an idea about where the story was headed, but there was a lot of stuff I didn’t know.

I admit to resisting a Dylan deep-dive because of the singing, which I never really loved, rather than focusing on the songwriting. I acknowledge now that was a mistake. (Also, it turns out, I think, that I know more Dylan music than I give myself credit for. He’s just one of those guys you don’t always know the song just from the title.)

After the movie there was a flurry of texts between me and my brother as he clarified for me which parts were fact and what was fictionalized. (You want to text with my brother for an afternoon? Ask him about Bob Dylan.)

Good movies make me emotional. I don’t know exactly why - I’m not sure if it’s appreciating the art involved, jealousy that I can’t do what they can do, or if it’s just the power of some performances - but I get teared up watching some of these singing scenes. I’ll give the credit to the artists involved and hope that it’s good emotions for the right reasons. But almost every scene you see this guy get up there and sing - and the Joan Baez character too - it’s great.

Biopics like this is are cool - to capture the time someone lived through like that is really amazing. Who doesn’t love an origin story (I very much do) - and especially one that takes place in such a pivotal time and place.

After the movie I was thinking I guess a Billy Joel biopic would be the equivalent for me where I know most of the story and would like to see it in film…but there’s not one in the works because is there really one worth doing? Maybe the Russia trip in the eighties. That’s probably the most interesting segment. (There is supposed to be a Springsteen one and he’s such a strong/dynamic personality there’s probably no need for a seminal moment other than his breakthrough.)

At the very least the movie made me want to read the book it was based on - I think it’s called Dylan Goes Electric. Expect to hear about that later this year. And I’ll listen to ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’ because I feel like I have to now.

And among the many things my brother and I texted about was the fact that he insisted I now see ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ - the 2013 movie about a folk singer from the same era.

A couple of other quick-hit thoughts about the experience:

Funny that the last movie I saw last week (and wrote about earlier this week) was ‘Glass Onion’ - which also featured Edward Norton in a much different role. He played Pete Seeger in the Dylan movie, and was great. Well-deserved Oscar nomination. (Same goes for Chalamet and Monica Barbaro and the Best Picture category. Not that I’m an expert, but I know a good movie/good acting.)
I paid more for the smaller bag of popcorn than I did for the matinee-discounted (plus an AMC reward from Kathy) ticket. Next time I go solo I’ll probably skip the popcorn…better for my wallet and my overall health anyway.
I won’t get into the movie number thing again but you can see what I wrote when I talked about ‘Wicked’ - and I promise I won’t do this for every movie but this one had another cool number - 55225 - and it was just a digit off from being another palindrome!
Also definitely credits worth sitting through - lots of music to read about at the end of the credits. I am officially 100% a credit-appreciator. It’s a little awkward when they come in to clean the theater and you’re the only person sitting there reading the screen, but I like it. I feel like there’s always a little takeaway worth seeing.

*As it turns out, I looked up Beethoven and Bach and would have gotten that timeline wrong. Bach came before Beethoven. Definitely knew where Dylan fell on that timeline though.