Pop Culture Happy Hour: "A Complete Unknown"

Timmy as Bobby. (Fox Searchilight)

I was less than enthused when I read Timothée Chalamet would be playing Bob Dylan in a biopic set during the most widely-covered period of Dylan’s career, circa 1961-5. But I’m glad to say I was wrong! Placed within the Dylan Cinematic Extended Universe, James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown is not as original as Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There or the Coens’ Inside Llewyn Davis, nor is it as informative as No Direction Home, the 2005 Martin Scorsese documentary that covered this same Dylan era — and takes its title from the lyric that immediately precedes “a complete unknown” in “Like a Rolling Stone.” (I actually like the way this suggests Mangold’s dramatization of the same era as a companion piece to Marty’s fact-based account.)

I was glad to sing the praises of the new movie alongside Stephen Thompson and Bedatri D. Choudhury on today’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, wherein I also sneak in my traditional plug for my latest Christmas mixtape.

The Mileage, but also the Years: "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," reviewed.

Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge are, respectively, alarmed and astonished. (Disney/Lucasfilm)

If octogenarian adventure has a name, it’s Indiana Jones! My Washington City Paper review is here.

Time for Carrousel: Logan, reviewed

The family that hides together, abides together. Dafne Keen, Patrick Stewart, and Hugh Jackman in Logan. (Fox)

I'm looking forward to the argument we're going to have over beers, you and I, about whether Logan is the best comic book movie since The Dark Knight or the best Western since No Country for Old Men. 

Here's my NPR review, where I ran out of space to cite all the things I loved about this movie (Eriq La Salle! Autotrucks!), or to warn you that if you know you will recoil from the sight of an 11-year-old girl defending her life with lethal force, you should skip it. And it would probably be more correct to call it the Rocky Balboa of Rocky movies than the Creed of Rocky movies, but sometimes clarity is more important than pinpoint accuracy.

Bring tissues.