Wednesday, January 22, 2014

F This Movie! - Dick Tracy

Patrick and Adam Riske know how you feel. You don't know if you want to hit them or kiss them. They get a lot of that.



Download this episode here. (36.1 MB)

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Also discussed this episode: Ride Along (2014), Life Itself (2014), Diner (1982), The Gauntlet (1977), +1 (2013), Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Four Rooms (1995)

F This Movie Fest 3 is coming February 15th!

23 comments:

  1. Terrific podcast! One of the strangest things to me about Dick Tracy are the Steven Sondheim songs. Now, I am a huge Sondheim fan, and I was thrilled when he won the Oscar for "Sooner or Later." But he is WAY overqualified to be writing songs for this movie. Take "What Can You Lose?" which is the sad, sad song sung by Mandy Patinkin. It's a song about unrequited love, and a man deciding if he should tell his friend that he is in love with her:

    But what if it shows she's had clues,
    That she chose to ignore?
    Maybe though she knows,
    And just wants to go on as before.
    As a friend, nothing more.
    So she closes the door.

    Now that's classic Sondheim, poignant and painful. And it's in THIS movie?? Hiring Sondheim to write for Dick Tracy is like hiring Michelangelo to pain backdrops for the next direct-to-video sequel of The Land Before Time.

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    1. That should be "paint," not "pain," by the way. D'oh!

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    2. The songs are one of the aspects of the movie that are so good we can only dream of a version in which everything is up to that level. Can you imagine?

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    3. Holy shit, there's 12 Land Before Time movies. Are they just following the Bond formula?

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    4. God, I do love the music for this movie. Perfect time to revisit it as I've been listening to lesser known things like "Merrily We Roll Along" after I finally saw "Six By Sondheim," the really interesting HBO doc from last year.

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    5. The music is phenomenal!! I love the "I Am Breathless" album, I still listen to this on my iPod. Just visually this whole movie is amazing -- it has to be the best comic (or any prior work) to screen translation! The colors and everything -- it really just jumps off the page! It's terrific! So glad Disney still recognizes this movie and has put it on #vod on DisneyFamilyMovies.com -- I hope there is a point when the Rocketteer will be more readily available.

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  2. I like Glenne Headly in Paperhouse (1988).

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  3. Adam, I'm curious if you could expound a bit on your problems with BUGSY. It's one of my favorite movies, and my favorite Beatty performance (though BONNIE & CLYDE and MCCABE & MRS. MILLER are definitely up there). I'm not gonna try to force my opinion on anyone, but why are you so wrong about BUGSY?

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    1. First off, I love your last sentence. I don't remember much about the movie to be honest. I saw it once a few years ago. The thing I remember was how I thought Beatty was way over-the-top - like he was channeling James Cagney "playing" a gangster. I may be wrong and the performance is a lot more subtle. I trust your opinion and feel like I might need a re-watch. What do you like about the movie (curious so I can look for those things when I see it again)?

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  4. There was definitely an over-the-top quality to Beatty's performance, but I believe it was purposeful. The movie makes a point of highlighting Siegel's relationship with movie star George Raft and the way the two of them fed off of each other's personae. Raft wanted to bring some real life into his screen gangsters, and Siegel wanted to bring some theatricality into his real-life dealings.

    I definitely agree with you about Beatty being smug, but so was Siegel and the part fits his very particular energy perfectly. It's hardly a flawless movie, but I think there's some wonderful performances and fun dialogue that definitely merit a rewatch. Also, Elliott Gould needs more love.

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  5. Leaving aside everything else, describing Jonathan Rosenbaum as Armond White before it was cool had me howling. God, Rosenbaum...

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  6. I've been thinking about what I wanted to write here for days now. Dick Tracy was one of those movies for me that meant quite a lot to me as a child, but I've been unable to recapture the exact feelings that I had for it as a child. In short, it was one of a few movies that cracked open the door (between summer 1989 and summer 1990) that Robin Hood Prince of Thieves kicked all the way open in 1991.

    I was crazy about this movie. I collected the trading cards (which had a glossy finish that smelled unbelievably good), I had (and still do) all the action figures except for The Blank, which it turns out was never produced in America, in spite of being shown on the back of every carded figure. I read old Dick Tracy comics from the 30s and 40s, I listened to the soundtracks (both the Madonna album "I'm Breathless" that featured her duet with Mandy Patankin AND the actual movie soundtrack), and the ABSOLUTE WORST THING I did surrounding this movie that I never did again was...guys, I wrote Dick Tracy Fan Fiction.

    I would write it out in long hand and my friend's mom, who was a secretary, would type it up for me in her free time at work. They were basically stories of Dick Tracy capturing his villains in ways that were slightly different from the ways that he did in the film. I still have them around here somewhere. They're not great, but they aren't as awful as I'd expect them to be, either.

    It's hard coming back to this movie as an adult. Some things work for me, like some of the more over-the-top performances. I still think Pacino is really enjoying himself, and I love how so many A-list and award winning actors completely covered themselves in makeup. Dustin Hoffman as Mumbles is crazy, but I think it's crazy in a good way. I'm sure he had a lot of fun. Glenne Headly is amazing to me. She's a dame to kill for: so sympathetic and sweet, but tough as nails and not in need of protection at the same time. I love the set designs more than just about any other movie EVER. All those reds and blues and greens and yellows are beautiful. It's a hyper-realized version of a comic book that never had any color at all. It's something that I feel like Sin City and The Spirit attempted via computer years and years after Dick Tracy pulled it off.

    But then there are a lot of things that don't work for me at all anymore. I'm not sure what Warrren Beatty was going for, and it's a shame there's no commentary on the blu-ray. He feels flat, as he does in most of his movies, but his flatness doesn't lend itself to what he's trying to do here. He's surrounded by such large characters that he gets completely eaten up by the backgrounds and his co-stars.

    But still, this is a sentimental favorite for me, and probably always will be. Sometimes I can put it on early in the morning and watch it by myself; then it's possible to go back to 1990 and keep my cynicism in check, and then there's no one there to laugh at me when I raise my watch to my lips and quietly say "I'm on my way."

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    1. I'm with you, Heath. Did you read the Max Alan Collins' novelization? I remember it being pretty edgy(especially its descriptions of Breathless Mahoney).

      Maybe I'm weird but this is how I want to remember Madonna. She was(is) still not a great actress but she will always be Breathless to me.

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    2. You bet I did, Shannon! he also wrote other Dick Tracy stories that I read, as well. In fact, I think that was first exposure to his writing, years before Road to Perdition. I also had and read this anthology, which he co-edited:

      http://www.amazon.com/Dick-Tracy-The-Secret-Files/dp/0812510100/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1390666288&sr=8-15&keywords=dick+tracy+max+allan+collins

      I agree with you on Breathless as being how you want to remember Madonna. I thought she was so sexy in this movie. She was at the peak of something back then, and I don't think she's ever been as great to me as she was back then. I still like her now, but back then she was probably the most famous female pop star on the planet. Dick Tracy really knew how to use her and did just what it needed to with her in it. She's better when she's not given too much heavy lifting to do and she can just stand there and look sultry. She does that in spades here.

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    3. I do see what you're saying, and I can't argue with that. When I watch it now she comes off kind of awkward and out of her depth in some scenes, but there are other things that bother me a lot more. I actually think Beatty is the weakest link here, not Madonna. He's like watching an accountant play action hero. We're supposed to believe that he loves the dangerous life, but he looks bored ALL THE TIME. If you substituted a salmon for Warren Beatty, I'm not sure I could tell the difference. If Madonna hijacks the movie, it's because the Beatty allowed/wanted her to. I think he was pretty infatuated.

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    4. And of course, that hijacking is one of the things that makes this movie less than it could have been. They did probably give her too much to carry, but I do think she's lookin' good here in pretty much every scene as a conflicted seductress. The role between her character and what was going on with her and Beatty in real life at the time is pretty interesting. She definitely had him my his Dick (Tracy).

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  7. I like how this episode was a back door pilot for "The Impersonation Hour, featuring Bromley Jnr". I say, green lit!

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    1. That finale was a total surprise. It was really funny and testament to the magic of F! This Movie.

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    2. Totally agree. A Hilarious ender. Put your son at the end of every podcast. Pasta pasta pasta....

      I want to know Adams 15 point movie review system. I should put it to use on American Beauty. Actually that's probably a really bad idea. I don't think I would enjoy the results

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  8. Dick Tracy is one hell of an interesting mess of a movie just like you guys said. When it comes to Al Pacino in the movie I kinda agree with Adam AND Patrick, his performance is somehow spectacular and also terrible. Madonna though ugh just the whole movie ugh, even when I was a kid I remember thinking "I'd rather be with one of the backup dancers or bar girls"

    Also great cameo by Bromley Jr, personally I think he should close out EVERY podcast preferrably with a line from the film, example Total Recall- "Hey Benny screw you!!!" Don't tell me that wouldn't be adorable.

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  9. As someone that genuinely enjoys the movie (I'm a sucker for creative usual a even when they're in bad movies) I can tell you it didn't feel like you were being overly critical. The ending was lovely. Your discussion about Tarantino was maybe the best part, for better or for worse.

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    1. That should say "I'm a sucker for creative *visuals* even when..."

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