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Opinions on Dick Tracy

post #1 of 17
6/14/02 at 1:41pm
Thread Starter 
I watched it last night on HBO. I remember hating it when I saw it in a theatre, but I actually enjoyed a good bit of it this second time around. It's still an ass-ugly looking movie with it's bad makeup jobs (you could never really believe in any of these characters, the obviously fake and overdone prosthetic pieces glued to their faces is just to distracting not to pay attention to in most cases) and the use of only primary colors is only more annoying to the eye than interesting or original. Some bad acting here and there, too, especially a too old and bland for the title role Beatty and a vapid Madonna. But, I don't know, on the small TV screen I can be more forgiving. Al Pacino is having a great time as Big Boy and he's really pretty funny and the the big tommy gun shoot out in the streets is a nice lift from the old Warner Bros. gangster pictures. Anyody else got their two cents they care to share about this one?
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post #2 of 17
6/14/02 at 7:01pm
This is the only film I have ever been tempted to walk out on, and would have if I hadn't gotten a ride to the theater with the friend I saw it with. If I saw one more "spinning newspaper/dance number" montage I was gonna scream, and the really classic Tracy villains are reduced to mere cameos to make room for Pacino's over-acting.
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post #3 of 17
6/14/02 at 7:33pm
Like everyone else, I HATED it when I saw it on opening day.

A year later when the parents rented the video, it wasn't so bad.

Ten years later when I bought the DVD...I actually enjoyed it. A lot. I think there's a lot of good stuff in it, but of the kind where you need to be older or maybe a little wiser to appreciate them.

Now I think it's one of the best comic book films ever made. Certainly my favorite Beatty film.

I only wish goddamn Disney would release a special edition of it.

It made more money than TRON and Tombstone after all...
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post #4 of 17
6/14/02 at 7:49pm
I hated it like a shit-piss sandwich when it first came out, but I too watched it on HBO the other day and *POW* I thought it was pretty good. Pacino is terrible in this, but everyone else does a good job. As for the make-up, it doesn't look real, but rather almost cartoonish, which I think was the desired effect. The film is set up to look like a big comic book with flat, bright colors.
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post #5 of 17
6/14/02 at 9:25pm
I saw this film in the theaters when I was very young and I liked it alot(I was young and I didn't know any better). I just watched it a few weeks ago and I really had alot of fun watching it.. I liked Pacino in it and I thought the make-up was pretty good for it's time, but that's just my opinion.
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post #6 of 17
6/15/02 at 12:54am
Thread Starter 
I disagree on the makeup. Looking cartoonish doesn't mean you have to slather the latex on an actor's head like your spreading concrete. A perfect example is Dustin Hoffman as Mumbles. Why put prosthetic lips on him that make him look like he's talking out of the corner of his mouth when he simply could just talk out of the corner of his mouth when he delivers his garbled lines? Or poor William Forsythe as Flattop, a character with the top of his head as flat as the Frankenstein monster's. This is an actor who already has a rather cartoonish face, pie plate round and fat cheeked. Why not just stop with the flat head; why did the makeup team go so far over the top and bury his whole face in latex nose, cheeks complete with painted on freckles and a false dimpled chin? And if this much makeup was so damn important in Beatty's look for the movie, then why didn't he himself wear a prosthetic lantern jaw?
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post #7 of 17
6/15/02 at 3:52am
You've never seen the comic strips, have you Shank?

Cause the make-ups are spot on...
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post #8 of 17
6/15/02 at 12:47pm
Thread Starter 
Yeah, I have read the comic strips. I really think a little less would have been more in this regard.
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post #9 of 17
3/24/04 at 8:18am
I saw this today, I hadn't seen it in years and thought it was pretty good. The set design was great and the colours were abit distracting but they somehow 'fit'. Madonna's performance was average as you'd expect, Glenne Headly never looked lovelier and, man, could she throw that baseball. Beatty was ok and Pacino took overracting to new levels.

It's always good to see Charles Durning turn up and the Dick van dyke cameo was great. This film was just fun to watch, even if Madonna wasn't.
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post #10 of 17
4/5/04 at 10:48pm

Re: Opinions on Dick Tracy

Maybe I was ahead of everybody else. I liked it the first time I saw it in the theatre. Good recreation of the comic strip in its sets and costumes. A good gunfight at the end. And there was an earlier thread on unusual casts, besides the actors already named, the cast included . . .

Charlie Korsmo, Seymour Cassell, James Keane, Charles Durning, Allen Garfield, John Schuck, Charles Fleischer, Mandy Patinkin, Paul Sorvino, Arthur Malet, James Tolkan, R. G. Armstrong, Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates, Dick Van Dyke, Colm Meany, Henry Silva, Estelle Parsons, Frank Campanella, Bing Russell, Michael J. Pollard, James Caan, Ian Wolfe, Henry Jones, and Mike Mazurki. And look for David Bowie. It is said that he has a role in the film under an alias.
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post #11 of 17
4/6/04 at 12:50am
Don't forget Dustin Hoffman as Mumbles. Never knew that was him. Then agian, I've seen the movie twice and couldn't stand it either time, so it may just be bad memory.

This movie is a contender for strangest Oscar nomination ever: Al Pacino for Best Supporting Actor. I was pretty young back then, was there some sort of hoopla over his role in the film?
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post #12 of 17
4/6/04 at 2:43am
Liked it then.

Like it now. A really entertaining film.

Anyone remember the McDonalds game that summer? Collecting characters from the film off drink cups to win prizes or what not.
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post #13 of 17
4/6/04 at 9:47am
I remember that game. I won lots of Jack Shit. Remember the NES game?

I loved this when I saw it in the theatre and for some reason I love it even more now. The design is fantastic. I love every costume, set, and prop. Madonna is pretty good for Madonna, and she sings songs by Stephen Sondheim. This was and is a great comic book movie that always gets left of lists of "Great Comic Book Movies."
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post #14 of 17
4/6/04 at 11:29am
has always been and will always be one of my guilty pleasures...
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post #15 of 17
4/7/04 at 12:45am
It's a lot less psychotic than the comic strip was.

Then again, every Batman movie ever made is much less psychotic than the original Kane comics (where Batman carried a gun and shot guys, occasionally choking guys with a noose and so on).
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post #16 of 17
4/7/04 at 1:03am
Any movie in which Madonna doesn't do a craptastic job at acting has got something going for it.
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post #17 of 17
4/8/04 at 2:13pm
I was obsessed with Dick Tracy when it came out. I saw it 3 times at the theatre. I was 9. But I actually still like it, too!
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