When is a hit not a hit? This is a question that has long dogged the legacy of Dick Tracy, a film that had the biggest opening weekend in Disney history, made about $103 million in the US alone, ended the year as the #9 film of 1990, and tied with The Godfather Part III as the second most-nominated film at the 63rd Academy Awards - yet still awaits a sequel. Now, you and I know a studio, especially Disney, will greenlight three sequels and a spin-off TV show if they make a penny's profit. So what happened with Dick Tracy?
Money, honey. Director-producer-star Warren Beatty was infamous for budget overruns and this was no different, as he went about $20 million or so over budget. Additionally, Disney, inspired by the marketing blitz for 1989's Batman, spent millions on toys, tie-ins, and other products, like Dick Tracy watches, Dick Tracy clocks, Dick Tracy coloring books, and so on: they sold, but not as much as Disney had hoped (though, as a child, I inherited my older cousins' Dick Tracy and Mumbles action figures, which I later gifted to my younger cousins; where are they now, I wonder?). Variety reported the total cost of making and marketing the film was about $101 million...and it is said that a movie has to make twice its budget to earn a profit. It's since gained a kind of cult status, thanks to its style and its run on television (can you believe they used to allow Madonna's nipples during the day on network TV just because they were behind negligee in a PG-rated Disney flick??).
Was it any good though? I'll get to that somewhere down below, amidst the other Spring 1990 releases.
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
release: April 6
dir/scr: Peter Greenaway
pr: Kees Kasander
cin: Sacha Vierney
This movie had its hooks in me from the very beginning. I love the bold theatricality, its setting established behind a red curtain amidst a stage, each set so specific in color that characters change costume mid-scene with no explanation, part of a whole. I love how that then makes its way into a movie about food, the cook meticulously planning every dish, the wife and her lover silently appreciating the little elements that complement each other and make a whole meal, visually and gastronomically, the surprising twists and turns the artist in the kitchen offers. I love that this art is backed by a thief, a gangster, a crude crook who wants to be respected for having Taste, so besotted with how he appears that he's missing the best parts of the meal, dismissing the sublime while insisting everyone else is the swine. It's about the creation of something, the compromise with who allows one to create, the pleasure one takes in an appreciative audience. It's also about mad hot sex. Great, great, great.
Cry-Baby
release: April 6
dir/scr: John Waters
pr: Rachel Talalay
cin: David Insley
Squeaky clean sub-deb and rough ridin' rebel fall for each other - but their worlds try to keep them apart! Possibly the most beautiful Johnny Depp has ever looked in a movie (though this is helped by Edward Scissorhands coming out the same year). A tame John Waters. Terrific cast, terrific sets, terrific musical numbers - but feels more sketched out than fully realized.
I Love You to Death
release: April 6
dir: Lawrence Kasdan
pr: Jeffrey Lurie / Ron Moler
scr: John Kostmayer
cin: Owen Roizman
A devoted wife plots her adulterous husband's murder. It's a comedy! A very good one, too, the main conceit being not just the murder, but that Kevin Kline's lothario, for all his transgressions, genuinely loves his wife, puts her on a pedestal, worships her...just that he also believes that, as an Italian man, he has to satisfy his appetites. Weird register that works because you believe it, you believe this is a nice, happy enough family who, in their anger, get in over their heads. Joan Plowright almost steals it as the acidic mother-in-law, though of course, William Hurt is not to be outdone as a spaced-out hitman (he makes for a great comic duo with fellow spaced-out hitman Keanu Reeves - they should have done more together!). I liked it! Kooky in a way that only a true story could be.
The Guardian
release: April 27
dir: William Friedkin
pr: Joe Wizan
scr: Stephen Volk and Dan Greenburg and William Friedkin
cin: John A. Alonzo
I talked about it already, I'm not wasting any more words on it.
Q&A
release: April 27
dir/scr: Sidney Lumet
pr: Burtt Harris / Arnon Milchan
cin: Andrzej Batkowiak
Deputy D.A. takes on a corrupt cop with ties to organized crime. Sidney Lumet once again delivers a story of corruption, prejudice, and power in the big city, with this film's characters plagued not just by the lies they tell themselves, but by the truths about themselves that they don't even know, whether it's Timothy Hutton's deputy D.A.'s learned racism or Nick Nolte's macho cop's sexual preferences. It's a movie about truth, about stripping away the cover-ups, the excuses, the alibis, the lies, and facing accountability. Nolte's a real force of nature.
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
release: May 4
dir/scr: Pedro Almodóvar
pr: Enrique Posner
cin: José Luis Alcaine
Disturbed young hottie kidnaps his favorite porn star, trying to convince her she loves him. Another one we discussed a little, though I didn't get to talk about the qualities of the film itself, aside from Victoria Abril's performance. If you're familiar with Almodóvar, than you should already expect the excellence in production design (such colors! such unexpected use of religious iconography!), the shock of lurid romance, the complexity of its characters' choices (yes, complexity - some critics pushed back at what they saw as romanticizing or excusing kidnapping, but Abril and Almodóvar do not make such a clear-cut choice), and, of course, the unvarnished humor apparent in sexual relations and bodily functions. Sexy, funny, provocative.
Longtime Companion
release: May 11
nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Bruce Davison)
dir: Norman René
pr: Stan Wlodkowski
scr: Craig Lucas
cin: Tony C. Jannelli
A group of gay men deals with loss and fear during the AIDS epidemic. Extremely important, especially in 1990, to have this story, one that emphasizes how the people being affected are not just some deviant subgroup, but someone's friend, someone's brother, someone's partner; a lawyer, a writer, a young club kid. Its narrative conceit of only visiting one day a year for ten minutes is sometimes frustrating but also sobering - one segment opens with the funeral of a character we never even see cough, much less diagnosed, just gone, quickly. Cathartic ending. Bruce Davison got the nod, though his partner Mark Lamos gives my favorite performance.
Back to the Future: Part III
release: May 25
dir: Robert Zemeckis
pr: Neil Canton / Bob Gale
scr: Bob Gale, story by Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale
cin: Dean Cundey
Marty McFly and Doc Brown finds themselves in the Old West. Always had a soft spot for this one: I think the way it parodies and recontextualizes our ideas of frontier history, from the modern drive-in that's reduced it to kitsch iconography to the illustration of why one would drink whiskey instead of water to acknowledging that this gritty, down-to-earth setting is contemporaneous to Jules Verne's speculative visions of the future that would influence actual science, is illuminating, even if it is mostly in the form of visual gags. Real sparks between Mary Steenburgen and Christopher Lloyd.
Monsieur Hire
release: June
dir: Patrice Leconte
pr: Philippe Carcassone / René Cleitman
scr: Patrice Leconte & Patrick Dewolf
cin: Denis Lenoir
A man witnesses a murder but maintains his silence for the woman he loves. Another version of Georges Simenon's novel M. Hire, which also inspired the film Panic. This is a more melancholy adaptation, quiet, underplaying M. Hire's interest in psychic phenomena in favor of a character study of a lonely man and the woman who takes advantage. Honestly, it's such a different approach, even in terms of setting, that I didn't realize its relationship to Panic until after. The cinematography, Michael Nyman's score, and a gloomy, barely sympathetic but still heartbreaking performance by Michel Blanc all bowled me over.
Total Recall
release: June 1
wins: Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects (Eric Brevig / Rob Bottin / Tim McGovern / Alex Funke)
nominations: Best Sound (Nelson Stoll / Michael J. Kohut / Carlos Delarios / Aaron Rochin), Best Sound Effects Editing (Stephen Hunter Flick)
dir: Paul Verhoeven
pr: Buzz Feitshans / Ronald Shusett
scr: Ronald Shusett & Dan O'Bannon and Gary Goldman, screen story by Ronald Shusett & Dan O'Bannon and Jon Povill
cin: Jost Vacano
In the future, a construction worker unlocks repressed memories of his secret agent past. Verhoeven's usual brand of over-the-top action, violence, sexuality, all with tongue firmly in cheek, complemented by expert sets, makeup, and special effects, as well as perfectly calibrated performances and score that don't wink at the audience but nevertheless invite them in on the fun. Funny how this and Kindergarten Cop poke fun at the idea of Arnold Schwarzenegger playing a "regular guy" a full year before True Lies and six years before Jingle All the Way.
Dick Tracy
release: June 15
wins: Best Original Song ("Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)" by Stephen Sondheim), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Richard Sylbert / Rick Simpson), Best Makeup (John Caglione, Jr. / Doug Drexler)
nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Al Pacino), Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design (Milena Canonero), Best Sound (Thomas Causey / Chris Jenkins / David E. Campbell / Doug Hemphill)
dir/pr: Warren Beatty
scr: Jim Cash & Jack Epps, Jr.
cin: Vittorio Storaro
Comic strip copper Dick Tracy takes on Big Boy Caprice and a menagerie of caricatured crooks. It pops, it's a lot of fun, and you can't believe the quality of some of these performances: Glenne Headly, Charlie Korsmo, Mandy Patinkin, Madonna, and Al Pacino all show up like this is the last performance they'll ever give, the one they must be remembered for; Headly's understated portrayal of patience and frustration - of a true heart, if you will - is the best. I'm more agnostic on Beatty than a lot of people, but his limitations as an actor work for the black-and-white ethos of the character, and while the film often feels chaotic, what with its distractingly all-star ensemble and a second act comprised almost exclusively of montages, it comes the closest to capturing the breakneck sprawl and plotting of a daily comic strip serial. Also, my God, those visuals, how perfect are they?
Tomorrow, a look at our first Best Picture nominee of 1990: Ghost!
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