"Well, anybody can be just like me, obviously"

I just saw the new trailer for the upcoming Todd Haynes film I'm Not There. And I'm thrilled. Ecstatic. Positively chuffed. Waiting with bated breath, and whatnot. This "biography" of (as far as this here blog is concerned) the mighty Bob Dylan promises to capture the impressionistic, symbolic and freewheeling (natch) nature of Dylan's best song lyrics, constrained neither by time or logic, but only feeling, memory, image. Dylan is played alternately by Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere as the elder Dylan, (although Adam Sandler in Reign Over Me looks just like Dylan does now), and most astonishingly, Cate Blanchett.

Why not have Dylan played by the luminous Cate Blanchett (god, Kate Hepburn and Dylan and Queen Elizabeth? Is she going for the Gary Oldman Award for the most iconic figures portrayed on film?) That shows the same type of daring and balls that Dylan showed when he decided to follow not Woody Guthrie any longer but (as far as this here blog is concerned) the mighty Arthur Rimbaud, or plugged in at Newport, or tossed out an entire album’s worth of songs and recorded them again (which he did for Blood on the Tracks).

Plus, take one look at Blanchett in character; does she not carry the hipster haughtiness that Dylan exemplified in ’65-’66? The poise, the delicacy, but yet still with the ability to deflect any and all who strove to pigeonhole or predict him? Who's playing Bobby Neuwirth? Sarah Silverman!? No. Not really. But David Cross is playing Allen Ginsberg! Holy holy holy holy shit. Cannot wait to see if they re-enact the evisceration of that poor snaggle-toothed English journalist from Don't Look Back.

I think it's gonna work, and work bad-ass. You just watch. I don't know how it's gonna play in Topeka, Kansas, as the industry wonks are wont to expound, but who is more middle America than Dylan? Wait. Don't answer that. I know he's no Toby Keith, but come on--who'd play Toby Keith? Rosie O'Donnell?

Don't forget to cast your gaze upon the trailer. Is "Like a Rolling Stone" still the most majestic song ever? Well, duh.