** "The Twilight Zone has lasted as long as it has, because my dad dealt with the human condition - and he would be writing up a storm even now..."

Rod Serling On His 100th Birthday Christmas Day Anniversary - A conversation with the late one man trailblazer's daughter Anne Serling and her memoir 'As I Knew Him,' along with 'The Twilight Zone Companion' author Marc Scott Zicree. And how the horrific race murder of Emmett Till and the CBS blocking of Serling's Emmett Till drama led to the creation of The Twilight Zone, during the alleged 'Golden Age Of Television...'

Plus how Serling dodged TV censorship during a dark time in US history in the mid-20th century, with his groundbreaking, enduring and still relevant as ever The Twilight Zone - at a time when Jim Crow, McCarthyism, political repression and censorship ruled. And Serling the first ever writer on the small screen, for the first time defying the suits in the back room with subversive stories cloaked in science fiction and horror...

** "The masks are off - the US is pretty much hanging out with the bad guys..."

'I'll Put It Like This... - Pacifica Host Garland Nixon on the election losers, and how 'the veneer of morality slips away.' And what it all has to do with the Vikings, Ukraine, Taiwan, contradictions, overthrowing countries and stealing their stuff, the knuckle draggers, the Cold War and everybody's a communist - and 'democracy, blah, blah blah...'

** "Ramsey takes us on a journey through the lives of artists, who like us, grappled with what it means to be human..."

UK Desk. 'Van Gogh Has A Broken Heart: What Art Teaches Us About The Wonder And Struggle Of Being Alive.' Nashville pastor, philosopher, author and storyteller Russ Ramsey delves into the art and mind of Van Gogh - and his significance as 'a very heightened version of what a lot of people experience, that 'I want my life to matter, I want the work that I do to be meaningful to other people.' With connections to Michelangelo, Scorsese, Kafka, Edward Hopper and Dostoevsky...

** "More than a poet, Joma was known as the Fidel, Mao and Che of the Philippines..."

'My Friend The Terrorist: A Tale Of Love And Revolution.' A conversation with filmmaker Malcolm Guy about the late revolutionary, poet and author Jose Maria 'Ka Joma' Sison, and how he led the New People's Guerrilla Army in the Philippines for 35 years from exile in the Netherlands.

With Guy filming those thousands of revolutionaries in secret in the mountains and many islands - capturing 'the depths of the movement...a totally secret underground movement, and one of the major armed liberation struggles in the world today...' 

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN REVIEW: AN UNINTENTIONAL TITLE

More a mainstream idea of Bob Dylan than the other way around, anticipate co-writer/director James Mangold's Hollywood notion of the iconic rebellious sixties musician than what really went down. In other words, what matters most personally to a blockbuster action hero filmmaker - character motives of fame and ambition marginalizing art.

A Disney/Fox production playing out blandly like a made for television movie - shallow, anecdotal, and women as primarily an afterthought, the dramatically diluted production raises its initial red flag when it comes to biopics - nervously skirting controversy whether personal or political when the protagonist is still alive. But even worse in this case, where Dylan was reported to be acting like a kind of shadow figure directing the proceedings behind the scenes literally - reviewed the script, provided feedback, has an executive producer credit on the film, and even demanded the inclusion of material that was admittedly not true.

Producer Peter Jaysen, who was essential in securing the rights to Dylan’s music and story for the film, shared insight into Dylan’s role in the production, “He met with Jim Mangold multiple times. At one point, they sat there, and they read the entire script out loud, with Mangold reading every part and stage direction, and Bob Dylan only reading lines of dialogue for himself.” Not only did Dylan essentially act out the entire film, he also made extensive notes on the script. “At the end of the last session with Mangold, Dylan signed the script and said, ‘Go with God.’

And with a hunch that audiences embracing the film may be bringing their own sentimental memory baggage into the theaters, perhaps turned on more by a perception that this is a musical than otherwise, Timothee Chalamet's performance of Dylan's songs is impressive, though possibly digitally enhanced in this age when so much is. On the other hand Chalamet's  impersonation of Dylan mumbling his way self-consciously through the movie, is endlessly distracting if not irritating, to say the least.

Just as problematic if not more so, is the casting of Elle Fanning as Suze Rotolo (fictionalized here as Sylvie Russo), Dylan's first love as a performer. Though Fanning is among the most talented young actresses today, as a patrician personality compared to how the earthy, passionate Rotolo with Italian roots has been described by Dylan himself ('She was the most erotic thing I'd ever seen..'), Fanning seems to be directed to wander through the movie sulking and tearful.

In reality, Rotolo was a dynamic, radical activist, the daughter of CPUSA parents. And who is credited in real life with having influenced Dylan in the political turn impacting his music in the first place, and inspired by the rebel mass movements all around. Speaking of which, don't expect to find those impassioned political and cultural explosions all around them - reminder that this is a Hollywood movie where individualism rules.

And a footnote politically - Dylan did not contribute any of his own music to the film. But he did to another movie out in release, the controversial right wing Ronald Reagan biopic, Reagan - and Dylan's cover of Cole Porter's 'Don't Fence Me In' that plays over the end credits.

So what might a movie that pays homage to a groundbreaking music, say to the present time in which it's being released. Sad to say, essentially nothing as the film title would ironically seem to indicate. And oblivious to a furious generation at the moment in rebellion against the shocked establishment and its health insurance billionaires, regarding the rumblings of a Luigi Mangeone movement.  You might say, contrary to the film's complacency, 'the times they are a-changin...'

And an inevitable sad indictment of everything this movie might have been - more accurately and insightful, is a look back at my NYC radio station WBAI, with the authentic Dylan's early visits there for great political talk and music.

          Dylan Stopping By At WBAI Back Then

https://alldylan.com/jan-26-bob-dylan-wbai-studios-with-bob-fass-in-1966/ 

Prairie Miller
Read The Review At Rotten Tomatoes HERE