Dick
“Movies in Frames” is one of my favorite sources for movies. By just seeing screenshots, I might not get a good idea for what the film is really going to be about, but I got intrigued by something showing up in these screenshots which does not come from somebody else’s opinion. At most, it is somebody else’s random choice to use these screenshots to describe a film, but it is largely the film itself which has drawn me to it. In the case of Dick, it was obviously Michelle Williams’ and Kirsten Dunst’s girlish faces in American flag fashion. Words cannot possibly describe how awesome that looks, only a screenshot can do that.
It turns out that “Dick” was neither a commercial nor a critical success. The political incorrectness of the film seems to touch a nerve both for the audience as well as for the critics. They probably failed to find an audience – cult films only become cult amongst young people but these young people seem to not really care about those old Nixon stories anymore. For the people old enough to remember Nixon, “Dick” is probably too stupid and based on jokes for kids. The result is that this film will probably become forgotten within any audience I can imagine.
Not for me. I was looking forward to seeing “Dick” for a long time, and now that I finally saw it, I thought it was an incredibly enjoyable ride. It might have a bunch of silly jokes, but which film does not? As long as I have had a good laughter, I don’t care. I even thought the film was educational, it prompted me to find out about all those details about Watergate which the film has care- and playfully worked into the story. Detail is something that, in my opinion, this film does marvelously. The two girls might never really gotten much character development, and remain oblivious and ditzy throughout the entire film, but their character seemed wonderfully fleshed out to me. Each girl has their own trashy clothing style, which changes towards a more mature style in the case of Michelle Williams’ character because she, uh, fell for Nixon, and everything down to the design of their rooms is full of color and energy. Personally I think this should be more appreciated.
“Dick” might not be a masterpiece of film-making, and it will never make it into the history books. But it’s a great 2 hours spent on a film which I totally loved.