When Roger Ebert reviewed Bob Dylan’s 2003 box office bomb Masked and Anonymous, he blasted it on almost every front in a vicious one-star review, calling the film a “vanity production beyond all reason” with a screenplay he dismissed as “incoherent raving juvenile meanderings.”
The incredible cast — which included Jeff Bridges, Penelope Cruz, John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Angela Bassett, Bruce Dern, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer, Cheech Marin, Chris Penn, Giovanni Ribisi, Mickey Rourke, Christian Slater, and many more stars — received not a word of praise.
“In a film where salaries must have been laughable, these people must have thought it would be cool to be in a Dylan movie,” Ebert wrote. “Some of them exude the aw-shucks gratitude of a visiting singer beckoned onstage at the Grand Ole Opry.”
But like the great prophet he was, Ebert did notice a single on-screen presence who managed to transcend this mess of a film. “Ironically, the credits do not name the one performer in the movie whose performance actually was applauded; that was a young black girl named Tinashe Kachingwe, who sings ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’’ with such sweetness and conviction that she is like a master class,” he wrote. “If I had been asked to serve as consultant on this picture, my advice would have amounted to three words: more Tinashe Kachingwe.”
It’s taken two decades, but the rest of the world has caught up with Roger Ebert. Tinashe’s eighth studio album, Popstar, came out on Sept. 25, and it’s instantly become one of this year’s most-celebrated pop releases. Singles “Too Easy”, “Crash Out”, “Melatonin,” and “Pillow Fight” have been everywhere, and so has Tinashe herself, memorably interacting with fans online as she reaches an artistic peak she’s been working toward for a while now. Right now, the moment belongs to Tinashe.
“I wanted to create a record that felt very confident and bold in its title, in its taking up space, in its arrival, like announcing that I’m here,” Tinashe recently told Rolling Stone’s Larisha Paul. “Calling the album Popstar, I felt like really claiming a spot for myself. I think that that level of confidence has also created more conversation, perhaps a little more pressure around the whole thing.”
Anyone who could look Bob Dylan dead in the eyes as a 10-year-old and sing one of his most famous songs, as film cameras rolled, is no stranger to pressure. This should also cause some people to give Masked and Anonymous a second look. Sure, the story is incomprehensible, and Dylan is far from a great actor. But the assemblage of talent, including director Larry Charles, is quite remarkable. There are also many great musical moments, even if none quite top that star turn from a young Tinashe.
They left quite a lot of music on the cutting-room floor, and Dylan fans have been clamoring for a Masked and Anonymous Bootleg Series for years to hear the rest. And who knows, maybe there’s some more Tinashe in the Dylan vault. Just imagine what she could have done with “A Hard Rain’s A‐Gonna Fall” or “Masters of War.”
