Everybody’s a Critic

[November 28th, 2007]

If you haven’t made it to a showing of I’m Not There at Fox Tower yet, you’ve at least had a chance to read one or two of the countless ecstatic reviews. Now’s your chance to chime in with your own opinion. This Tuesday, Dec. 4, at 7 pm at Kells, I’ll be hosting what I hope will be a vigorous, spirited debate over Todd Haynes’ interpretation of Bob Dylan.

Haynes has made a daring, heady film—and it also happens to be the kind of movie that we critics love to write about, because it makes us feel like we’re solving a puzzle, that we are the shamans of a great mystery—as opposed to being nerdy guys who are willing to sit through Mr. Woodcock . It makes us feel like we’re living in the ’70s again—or, in my case, living in the ’70s for the first time.

But it seems to me that something’s missing from the chatter. Here at Willamette Week World Headquarters, we’ve been anticipating I’m Not There for months and debating it since the release. Heck, even as I’m writing this, I can hear the soundtrack playing from across the newsroom. What we haven’t been able to do, however, is hear what you think about I’m Not There . We haven’t had a conversation about it.

So let’s change that, with our first ever “Everybody’s a Critic” movie-discussion night—just like a book club, except you don’t have to read anything, and there’s beer. (The first round of drinks is on Willamette Week !) You have a full week’s advance notice, which is plenty of time to see the movie. So there’s no excuse to…well, not be there.