Wonder Bob

I had a mild case of insomnia last night. I just wasn't tired. Possibly from over-stimulation from staring at electronic (computer, TV and movie) screens most of the weekend, or just not being tired from lying around watching golf all day. In any case, I was searching the late night tube for something to ease me off into sleep.

Passing up such terrible offerings as "Ace of Cakes," Fox News' "Redeye" and "Dance Your Ass Off" (or whatever it's called), I landed on a ceremony held to honor Michael Douglas with a lifetime achievement award. This in itself seems so ridiculous as to merit a blog post unto itself. Perhaps I'm just too young to appreciate Douglas's work. I know he's won two Academy Awards before my time, but I know him best as President Andrew Shepard from Aaron Sorkin's "The American President," a movie most distinguished in the fact that its leftovers led to Sorkin creating "The West Wing."

That was actually one of the films they mentioned in honoring him (Martin Sheen made some speech about it, which was fitting as he played Douglas's number 2 in "TAP" and later President Josiah Bartlet in "TWW.") It was an ok film, but not the stuff lifetime achievement awards are made of. Another film of his cited was the 2000 box office flop "Wonder Boys." Now, I have not seen the film, and it carries a more-than-respectable 83 percent fresh rating on rotten tomatoes. Certainly, box office success is not always an indicator of a film's quality, and "WB" may very well be a good one. But after having read a summary of it on wikipedia, I was struck by its similarity to a film I have seen, the critical and commercial flop "Smart People." Both focus on washed up writers on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

While honoring "Wonder Boys," Bob Dylan made a surprise appearance playing his song, "Things Have Changed," which he apparently penned at the special request of the film's producers. The video above is the performance, which at least in my late night stupor, seemed almost incomprehensible. I think I caught a rhyme of the words "shogun" and "son of a gun" in there somewhere, but I'm not sure. I haven't rewatched it to verify. His almost complete lack of annunciation combined with an extra-gravelly growl made it nearly impossible for me to tell what he was saying, which was disappointing, as the director of "WB" said in a taped interview that the lyrics had significant meaning to the film. Oh well. The more entertaining part of the clip is seeing the slumpy old Douglas try to nod his head (side-to-side) in rhythm with the happy-Nashville-hop of the song while his young, pretty wife Catherine Zeta Jones sits comfortably upright next to him. Silly all around.