Masked and Anonymous

Masked and Anonymous (2003) — watch online on iFILM. Bob Dylan co-wrote the screenplay under a pseudonym and stars as Jack Fate, a musician sprung from prison to headline a charity concert in a country mired in civil war. Larry Charles directed from a script that never quite bothers to explain itself.

The cast reads like a fever-dream call sheet: Jeff Bridges, Penelope Cruz, John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Ed Harris, Mickey Rourke, Val Kilmer — each turning up for a scene or two, delivering an opaque monologue, then vanishing. Critics in 2003 found it impenetrable, and that's not entirely wrong. But Dylan's live performances of the songs cut through the deliberately murky everything else, and the film works less as narrative than as a long, fractured statement about myth, fame, and what happens when the world keeps demanding an artist mean something. Stream Masked and Anonymous online on iFILM.