Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Director: Arthur Penn

Cast: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Michael J. Pollard

Have I Seen it Before: Never. I know. I’m behind.

Did I Like It: There’s a problem with coming up in a generation outside the film that in many ways defines it. When it premiered, Bonnie and Clyde was the vanguard of a new Hollywood. It shocked sensibilities and redefined not just the content in films, but what films could be…

Then, ten years later Star Wars (1977) came out and we all decided to go in a completely different direction. It feels like that might be a point for a different review, but Star Wars is the movie that defined my generation’ sensibilities, like it or not. there’s a debate to be had as to whether or not that’s a good bad thing, but here I feel lost. The movie is so tame. 

It is violent, and in what I can only imagine is a realistic manner, but not nearly as violent as anything Quentin Tarantino would come up with in subsequent years. 

It is, I suppose, brazen about sex for its time, but not in any way more scintillating than what you would find on a primetime network procedural now.

It strives to take the sheen off of Hollywood phoniness. The performances are largely naturalistic, but you can blindly stab at your Netflix queue to find films that toil in its shadow, and for all of its grittiness, it’s hard to believe people that look like Beatty and Dunaway are anything other than movie stars.

All of this is not the film’s fault, aside from the fact that I am expected to do the work of imagining what a visceral experience it must have been fifty years ago. I just wish I had seen it when it felt like the beginning of something new, not when it had long since become something quaint.

Dick Tracy (1990)

Director: Warren Beatty

Cast: Warren Beatty, Madonna, Al Pacino, Glenne Headley

Have I Seen It Before?: The film underperformed at the box office in 1990, negating the possibility of future sequels*. That always seemed unusual to me, as the film was everywhere that summer. Toys, McDonalds, TV… And everyone seemed to see it. Including me.

Did I like it?: There’s no denying that Beatty managed to amass all of the best ingredients to accomplish this film. The cast—especially where the villains are concerned—are an absolute wish list for a film like this. There aren’t a lot of movies that feature new, original songs by Stephen Sondheim, but Beatty somehow managed to make it happen, the score is pure Danny Elfman, even when it seems like it was leftover bits from his score for Batman (1990).

There is little doubt that the production design by Richard Sylbert and set decoration by Rick Simpson (which won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction) is sublime, and deceptively simple in its execution. The stark primary colors of nearly every item on display brings the classic feeling of a comic strip to life far more directly than any other film before or since. The matte paintings might age a little, especially whenever the film attempts to merge them with two separate live-action shots, but they still do have a blinking, glitzy life to them that other films of the era could never hope to achieve.

One wants to say that film may not work as well as it could. Beatty clearly has Madonna on the mind, lingering on her for long stretches that leave the film unfocused. The comedy is hit or miss. Ultimately, Tracy is just too square of hero, and probably benefits from police privilege just a bit too much to enjoy in 2020. But that art direction, though. It’s an impressive achievement, even when it fails to fully excite.

*A fate I think it kind of deserves after it took Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) out at the knees. It should also bear mentioning that Beatty’s clutching onto the rights to the character have prevented much of anything to be done with the character in the last thirty years.