Masked and Anonymous (2003)
Directed by Larry Charles
A nation wracked with civil war and social unrest anticipates a giant charity concert, organized by deceptive promoter Uncle Sweetheart, who plans on raking in huge sums for himself from the event. Headlining is legendary musician Jack Fate, whose prison time is cut short with Sweetheart's help. Meanwhile, journalist Tom Friend investigates the corrupt concert and sets out to unmask the truth to the public.
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Like Cassavetes' Shadows or Altman's The Long Goodbye, Masked and Anonymous feels a little ramshackle in conception, but the more powerful impression made by the movie, at least for me, is that its bold inconsistency as a total work simultaneously frees the movie to shape flamboyant, libidinous characters and vivid, isolated anecdotes that would necessarily be dulled by any movie that needed to wrest them into a generic format.
At times, watching a Jodorowsky film is liking seeing the images in a Bob Dylan lyric come to life (something that would happen almost literally in 2003, when Dylan starred in "Masked and Anonymous").
It plays a little like Altman's Nashville as directed by Spike Jonze from a script by Amy Goodman, or some other National Public Radio hard-lefty.
At times, watching a Jodorowsky film is liking seeing the images in a Bob Dylan lyric come to life (something that would happen almost literally in 2003, when Dylan starred in "Masked and Anonymous").
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Besides that fantastic scene where Lange begs for mercy from the Lava Flow producers, Lange has a great, throwaway moment where she has to describe the "plot" of "Jailhouse Rock" for Jack Fate, who's been assigned to perform the song during the telecast.
And besides all that, it's so good to see Jessie doing comedy again, after the long drought since Tootsie, and after all those waspish meanies from Hush and Titus .
Television producer Nina Veronica (Jessica Lange, "Titus") and entertainment manager Uncle Sweetheart (John Goodman, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?") are desperate people in a fictional country in the throes of civil war who join forces to produce a television special benefit concert for the government's network.
Her complete indifference as to whom is being "benefitted" would be even more scandalous if it didn't seem like such a refreshingly honest testimony—one of several moments where Masked and Anonymous feels like a corporate-Hollywood satire at least on the level of The Player.
When he arrives he delights the assorted crew, stagehands, fortune tellers and ventriloquists with tunes like "Down in the Flood" and "Dixie" and is honored by Mrs. Brown's (Susan Traylor, "A River Runs Through It") daughter (Tinashe Kachingwe) who sings "The Times They Are A Changin'" acapella (the film's loveliest scene).
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Meanwhile, Jack (Dylan, looking like a Jewish Jack Palance in an oversized Stetson and toothpick of a suit) leaves jail (to the strains of "Like a Rolling Stone"), calls upon his pal Bobby Cupid (Luke Wilson, "Alex & Emma") to meet him and travels through a country of counter-revolutionaries. (A disillusioned soldier (Giovanni Ribisi, "Heaven") jumps off Jack's bus to confront them and is shot by the side of the road.)
Art director Bob Ziembecki, who's already proved his mettle on projects like Boogie Nights , is wonderfully cheeky and inventive with his work here.
Production designer Bob Ziembicki ("Boogie Nights") creates an unnamed country that looks a lot like Mexico and Central America - the presidential palace is actually Casa del Mexicano in East LA which features the colors of the Mexican flag on its dome.