What makes the picture fun for Dylan fans--and potentially frustrating for neophytes--is that every album and movie bears an alternate title. Ledger's Robbie, for instance, stars in "Grain of Sand," actually a reference to the Pete Seeger song. As in Haynes' glam rock reverie Velvet Goldmine, the trickery involves the entire cast. While Julianne Moore plays former lover Alice, a dead ringer for Joan Baez; Michelle Williams embodies elusive scenester Coco, i.e. Edie Sedgwick. If I'm Not There is less affecting than Control, the year's other big music film, it rewards repeat viewings like few biographical features. The soundtrack mixes originals with covers, like Jim James's heartfelt "Goin' to Acapulco." --Kathleen C. Fennessy

I'm Not There (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

• There Will Be Blood
• Charlie Wilson's War (Widescreen)
• Juno (Single-Disc Edition)
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• The Savages
• Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
• No Country for Old Men
• Shine a Light
• Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
• Atonement (Widescreen Edition)

When Haynes was interviewed about this movie way before it was released, he said that this was going to be the first movie made about the sixties that really truly captured the sixties, and that no other film previously made had captured it and gotten it rigth. The last one he got right. If someone says yes, they most likely weren't there either. It's like saying Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" was the first film that got the 18th century right. It is also setting himself up for an "Oh really." moment afterwards. How he has become the authority who really knows what it was about is beyond me. For others, it was insufferable. Is this film the first real film about the sixties.

Second, to make such a comment is arrogant, smug, and condescending to other artists (including those who made works about the sixties during the sixties). Okay. First off, let's remember that Haynes was a child during the sixties so whatever authority he has on that decade and what it was "about" is coming from a pre-10 year old's take on a decade and it's society, politics, ethics, aesthetics, etc. For the people who loved this film I'm glad they enjoyed it and had a good time. Is it the first film that really gets the sixties right. Haynes' fantasy about Bob was way too long, way too scattered, and a study in pretention.

There is a dream-like, poetic quality to this film that I thought was incredibly effective, and the direction is amazing. I knew nothing about Bob Dylan going in to this film. However, this film has encouraged me to explore more of his music, and I even did a little research after the film ended. There were things in the film that I didn't quite grasp upon my first viewing, probably because I don't have a vast knowledge of the work of it's subject. Yes, you read that correctly, and she is magnificent.

This film basically explores Bob Dylan at different phases of his life, with a different actor for each segment, including Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, and Cate Blanchett. I plan on watching this film several more times, because I'll learn something new every time I see it. I don't particularly like the songs of Bob Dylan, save for a few of them. It's pretty amazing, and I loved it. It is also very symbolic. If you haven't seen it, or even if you're not a fan of Dylan, check it out.

I am not even a big bob dylan fan, but this film is so well told and creative that it's the best I think of the year 2007 - understood it's non linear and a bit confusing but perfect for those times (and maybe these).

Todd Haynes has proven his talent, and this idea of his was certainly profound and maybe a little TOO complete. Fine female support from Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams were also welcome. At 2 ¼ hours, it gets a little tired. Cate Blanchett won all the recognition, but Carl Marcus Franklin deserved every bit as much. And Richard Gere has always been under-rated: he added a lot.

Regardless, Mr. Dylan's take on his imagined life. (The Indie awards nominated him). In the hands of the gifted Todd Haynes, there is definitely drive and commitment; I was simply a little annoyed after the first 1½ hours of the repetitive aura of sadness that prevailed throughout.

My main problem was that the film was so bleak, almost a eulogy, about an enigmatic character who is very much alive. Christian Bale was exellent, too, and Heath Ledger never looked better, equally as good. Casting the 6 different characters as the various incarnations of some un-named singer was interesting.

Haynes has again shown his maverick side to present a film that is certainly laced with love and sincerity. I wasn't able to watch the second disc, but I'd be interested to know Mr. I'm glad to have seen what the fuss was all about, but I'll likely not want to see it again.

This film includes a lot of later Dylan music, but seems to suggest that the electric songs, for instance, somehow belonged to his pre-electric period (there is a parody of the Montery Pop Festival scene in which Dylan goes "electric"). Then there's the worst persona in the film, the aging outlaw, which seems to be drawn from Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and a line in "Knocking on Heaven's Door". These all have in common the one thing missing in this film: he's there. What I really can't understand is the critics. It's the Dylan part.

You hear songs from 1983 while watching supposed '60s TVs. The exceptions in that TV special and subsequent album were Neil Young and Lou Reed. Read his autobiography, Chronicles. Yes, Cate Blanchett could be Dylan's body double, and I could watch her all the way through the film, but some of the other personae seem complete blanks playing cardboard cutouts. Like the Bob Dylan Thirtieth Anniversary Special, a lot of the players seem stuck in the '60s. Or get the soundtrack from I'm Not There. But a ten second shot parodying the Beatles high during the filming of Help hardly contributes a tribute to Richard Lester. I suppose they have to watch so much drivel that seeing something pretentious and arty is a form of release.

I think Joan Baez comes off worst in the film, although her name is never used. Watch Masked and Anonymous, in which Dylan may be playing someone else, as Jack Fate. One reason is that the film, despite appearances, has no period sense. Let me count the ways. Now you'll just find what's wrong with it.

I would suggest that the actress in question declined to do either. If you want outlaw/ Southern/ Western/ drifter types, Dylan knew millions of them. But he's among those absent. If you sit through this interminable film school experiment, you'll find something good about it at the end. Straight up, this film could not be made without T. One-Three. You hear so many great songs in this film, it makes you want to go to Pandora and start streaming Dylan radio.

It's got "Sam Shephard" all over it, but he's not among those in attendance. Viewers will likely be amazed to hear what are universally ranked among his best songs, "Blind Willie McTell" and "Pressing On", but they will be more surprised to find that these songs date from a period they think they despise, the "born again" era when Dylan was actually incredibly creative, as shown on The Bootleg Series, Vol. Look at the Rolling Thunder Revue. If you sit through this review, you'll find what's good about the film.

But there's so much Dylan available now. Listen to the Bootleg series. Those whose ideas about Dylan only came from this film would get some very wrong ones, with some very wrong emphases, and likely hate him without cause. I said I'd get to the good part, and I am. In the end a parody of a play of an interpretation of not generally known history has a slightly limited appeal. Those stuck in the 'sixties, however, dismiss these songs out of hand, and without having heard them, knowing that Dylan must share their own prejudices, and therefore that nothing good can come of this musical relapse. If the actors want viewers to like Dylan as much as they do, that's what will do it. At least it's Dylan.

The actress playing her says things Joan would never say, for one reason because the vocabulary is from the wrong era and the tone is all wrong, shown by watching extant footage of Baez with Dylan, readily available, or by reading her best-selling autobiography, Daybreak. You'd have to have watched a lot of actual Dylan films, like Renaldo and Clara, and footage, like Don't Look Back, to get any sense of this film at all, and most of its accidental audience likely has not. Late on, it slips into an Across the Universe sort of surrealistic rock video which would have made a good starting point.

That said, there is a parody of the Vineyard, heavily handled, like so much else in the film, but which provides the opportunity for playing "Pressing On" from Saved. This assumes the audience has no sense of Dylan's music, but that undercuts the premise of the film, which assumes that it does. Bone Burnett, the one director who seems to have a sense of pacing this sort of film.

If I had to guess I'd say "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". The Band comes to mind, and there seems to be a brief parody of Rick Danko, Levon Helm, and Robbie Robertson, again likely drawn from one Band song. It's the closing credits, with all the titles of great Dylan songs going by, some of which seem not even to be in the film.