Deeply satisfying as entertainment with several messages even if said themes are sometimes clumsily and excessively deployed. Flaws and all, this was a great rainy day flick and a great wtf amerikka. I generally like Steven Yuen, but after the earth side backstory his character added nothing substantive. There were other bits and bobs that Bong obviously felt committed to including that felt wedged in but didn't eat up any screen time. Pattinson was fantastic and the satiric balance was just right.

Mangold's Walk the Line made me a Johnny Cash fan because it revealed the man behind the black suit. The "mysterious minstrel," as Dylan is called by a spurned lover, remains no more than that by film's end. He may have been a complete unknown, but somebody knew Bobby Zimmerman. Even if sticking only to the period covered in the film, a skim of Wikipedia shows just how much was left off the table besides Seegar/Guthrie/Baez. Despite excellent mimicry of time, place, and vocal mannerisms, the impact of going electric just doesn't scream traitor the way it used to.

"Women in Iran are prohibited from singing in public, and there are no recordings by female musicians. What inspired me ... was [an] experience I had on the streets of Istanbul, seeing a young, blind woman singing to make a little money; her music was extraordinary and the public gathered uncontrollably around her. I became obsessed w/ how much not having a visible audience affected her music." - Neshat, Bomb Magazine

"I don’t make subversive films. This is a term that stuck to me because I am Palestinian. When you are Palestinian it is easier for people to say you are subversive. I don’t think that there is anything subversive about a movie where a family takes a certain route that is both personal and intimate. Nor is there anything cruel in it, apart from the cruelty of life in a certain locale. What I show in the film is history. It is fact. It is not subversive at all." - Suleiman, interview with Philip Kemp, Sound & Sight.