What Is and What We Would Like to Be
Dick Tracy (1990)
directed by Warren Beatty
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Carnegie Library
Speed Racer (2008)
directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats (at heart, anyway)
on DVD from Carnegie Library
Man of Steel was such a depressing experience that I was glad I'd seen Speed Racer and Dick Tracy only the week before. Otherwise I'd retreat into a summer cycle of A Good Marriage and Days of Being Wild and then you'd really have a hard time drumming up the patience to check in with this ratty blog.
Every time I sit down to watch a movie, I wish I owned a nicer television. My fuzzy right speaker rattles and even A Good Marriage could benefit from a bigger screen. But I should have gone to the theater for Speed Racer--no TV could do it justice. I think its faults would be muted there, or irrelevant. There is a visual flatness to the in-between stages of Speed's story: uninspired green screen exposition, small-stage setups of corruption and graft.
Petty complaints. The best thing about Lost was watching Matthew Fox and Josh Holloway deliver lines about regret. Fox wears a mask for most of Speed Racer, so all you see are those terrific, unmistakable, crooked teeth of his. When he finally removes the disguise, the people he loves aren't there to be happy for him. They still think he's dead, killed years ago in an ugly crash, his once-respected name tarnished forever in the public eye.
"Do you think you made a mistake hiding the truth from them?" asks the man beside him.
"If I did," Fox replies, "it's a mistake I have to live with."
I can't think of when a blockbuster last phrased the high cost of living quite so succinctly. Disaster never lasts long in Speed Racer--there's always a new race to win--but the whole movie is pervaded by the loss of Speed's brother and the last angry words that Speed's father said to his oldest son. The pop and pull of dreamy colors and fantasy Italian race cars in motion only complement the sentiment. All this, they say--rainbows and oceans--but what's done is done.
There was so much to love. When Christina Ricci wears a cute dress on a date with Speed, he tells her how much he likes it, but it isn't an excuse for the camera to ogle an actor in skimpy clothes. The Wachowskis stay on Trixie's face, and then Emile Hirsch's, and then Trixie and Speed kiss. And then the camera leaves them alone.
Dick Tracy is a better movie that makes the critical mistake of killing the woman who complicates the hero's old-fashioned romance. Breathless Mahoney doesn't need to die, and it's cruel of Warren Beatty to do her in. But maybe that's the sort of heartthrob that Beatty always was--an irresponsible, spiteful lothario.
Both Speed Racer and Dick Tracy feature young, rebellious kids, but I like Dick Tracy's better. He likes eating food instead of just candy; you can set your watch by the slices of pie he shares with Dick and Tess at the diner. And what a diner! What a nightlife! What women!
I knew I'd fall in love with the colors of Dick Tracy after twenty-odd years away from it, but I've learned some new faces in the meantime, like R.G. Armstrong's and Seymour Cassel's. James Caan's Spud Spaldoni is the best-dressed villain in history, so good in half a minute onscreen it's as if he was born for the role. This and Dracula within two years of each other? Pre-teen Kid K never knew he had it so good!
But I know now.
directed by Warren Beatty
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Carnegie Library
Speed Racer (2008)
directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats (at heart, anyway)
on DVD from Carnegie Library
Man of Steel was such a depressing experience that I was glad I'd seen Speed Racer and Dick Tracy only the week before. Otherwise I'd retreat into a summer cycle of A Good Marriage and Days of Being Wild and then you'd really have a hard time drumming up the patience to check in with this ratty blog.
Every time I sit down to watch a movie, I wish I owned a nicer television. My fuzzy right speaker rattles and even A Good Marriage could benefit from a bigger screen. But I should have gone to the theater for Speed Racer--no TV could do it justice. I think its faults would be muted there, or irrelevant. There is a visual flatness to the in-between stages of Speed's story: uninspired green screen exposition, small-stage setups of corruption and graft.
Petty complaints. The best thing about Lost was watching Matthew Fox and Josh Holloway deliver lines about regret. Fox wears a mask for most of Speed Racer, so all you see are those terrific, unmistakable, crooked teeth of his. When he finally removes the disguise, the people he loves aren't there to be happy for him. They still think he's dead, killed years ago in an ugly crash, his once-respected name tarnished forever in the public eye.
"Do you think you made a mistake hiding the truth from them?" asks the man beside him.
"If I did," Fox replies, "it's a mistake I have to live with."
I can't think of when a blockbuster last phrased the high cost of living quite so succinctly. Disaster never lasts long in Speed Racer--there's always a new race to win--but the whole movie is pervaded by the loss of Speed's brother and the last angry words that Speed's father said to his oldest son. The pop and pull of dreamy colors and fantasy Italian race cars in motion only complement the sentiment. All this, they say--rainbows and oceans--but what's done is done.
There was so much to love. When Christina Ricci wears a cute dress on a date with Speed, he tells her how much he likes it, but it isn't an excuse for the camera to ogle an actor in skimpy clothes. The Wachowskis stay on Trixie's face, and then Emile Hirsch's, and then Trixie and Speed kiss. And then the camera leaves them alone.
Dick Tracy is a better movie that makes the critical mistake of killing the woman who complicates the hero's old-fashioned romance. Breathless Mahoney doesn't need to die, and it's cruel of Warren Beatty to do her in. But maybe that's the sort of heartthrob that Beatty always was--an irresponsible, spiteful lothario.
Both Speed Racer and Dick Tracy feature young, rebellious kids, but I like Dick Tracy's better. He likes eating food instead of just candy; you can set your watch by the slices of pie he shares with Dick and Tess at the diner. And what a diner! What a nightlife! What women!
I knew I'd fall in love with the colors of Dick Tracy after twenty-odd years away from it, but I've learned some new faces in the meantime, like R.G. Armstrong's and Seymour Cassel's. James Caan's Spud Spaldoni is the best-dressed villain in history, so good in half a minute onscreen it's as if he was born for the role. This and Dracula within two years of each other? Pre-teen Kid K never knew he had it so good!
But I know now.
posted by NPK at 7:11 AM
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