IN: Review: I've seen this film criticized with the statement, "If you can get past the moralizing..." That misses the point. Moralizing is in the conscience of the beholder, as it were. This is a decent film with a standard murder mystery, but with a distinct twist that surfaces midway through. The resolution leaves the viewer wondering, "What would I have done in this position?" And I have to believe that's exactly what the filmmaker intended. To that end, and to the end of entertaining the audience, the film succeeds. I also like the way that the violence is never on stage, but just off camera. We know what has just happened; it's just not served up in front of us, then rubbed in our faces, as it would be today with contemporary blood and gore dressing. Besides, the violence is not the point. The point is the protagonist's moral dilemma, which is cleverly, albeit disturbingly, resolved.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: I knew my summary would get you. How is this movie like a Pet Rock and Disco?! Well, unless you lived through the 1970s or 80s, you probably can't understand WHY anyone would like a New Coke or own a Pet Rock (and frankly, at least in the case of Pet Rocks, I STILL don't understand it completely). They're just a couple things that seemed to make sense at the time but really baffle the younger generation. The same can be said for Kay Kyser and his band. At the time (the 1940s mostly), they were very popular and had enough clout that the studio starred them with Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi AND Peter Lorre in this film. Yet, if you didn't live at that time (it was well before my time), you wonder why anyone liked this sort of "entertainment". After all, Kyser and his band mates are incredibly obnoxious and their humor is very, very broad (i.e., unsophisticated and cheesy). Frankly, I couldn't stand their antics nor did I appreciate that there were just too many musical numbers in the film. Because of these factors, the great supporting cast was given a back seat and fans of these actors will probably be disappointed.

The film involves Kyser and the band coming to a mansion where a young lady and her wacky aunt live. Once there, the bridge is washed out and strange happenings begin. Eventually, it culminates in some attempts on Sally's life and a seance (of sorts). It's all played for laughs--and it's really not a horror movie despite the cast.

Overall, it's passable entertainment at best. As a Lugosi and Karloff fan, I sure felt cheated having to watch Kyser and his knuckleheads.
What is this review like?
OUT: negative

IN: Review:

In 1970, after a five year absence, Kurosawa made what would be his first film in color. Dodes' Ka-Den is a film that centers around many intertwining stories that go on in a small Tokyo slum.

The title comes from the sound a mentally retarded boy makes as he imagines he is operating a train. We slowly get to know more of the people in the small community, the two drunks who trade wives because they are not happy with the ones they have. The old man who is the center of the town who helps out a burglar that tries to rob him. The very poor father and son that cannot ever afford a house, so they imagine one up of their own. By the end of the film, the stories all come full circle, some turn out happy, others sad.

Since this was Kurosawa's first color film you can see that he uses it to his advantage and it shows. Maybe too much. This movie goes in many different directions and it's hard to settle down and get into it. But don't get me wrong, Dodes' Ka-Den may not be Kurosawa's best, but coming from the greatest director of all time, it's much better than 99% of today's films.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: At one end of the Eighties Warren Beatty created and starred in the literate epic Reds about the founding of the Soviet Union as seen through the eyes of iconoclast radical John Reed. It was a profound film both entertaining and with a message presented by an all star cast. At the end of the decade Warren Beatty created another kind of epic in Dick Tracy that makes no pretense to being anything other than entertainment with a whole bunch of the best actors around just having a great old time hamming it up under tons of makeup.

That both Reds and Dick Tracy could come from the same individual speaks volumes about the range this man has as a player. In this film Beatty managed to get all the famous cartoon characters from the strip and put them in one original screenplay.

The city's top mobster Big Boy Caprice is making a move to really eliminate competition. The film opens with him rubbing out Lips Manlis's henchmen in a Valentine Massacre style shooting and then Lips himself being fitted for a cement overcoat. But Caprice's moves are making him a target for Tracy.

In the meantime a third mysterious and faceless individual is looking to topple Caprice himself. Will our hero sort out this thicket of crime?

The spirit of fun this film has is truly infectious. When people like Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Paul Sorvino, William Forsythe, R.G. Armstrong get themselves outrageously made-up to look like the cartoon creations of strip author Chester Gould and then indulge in an exercise of carving the biggest slice of ham, you've got to love this film.

Al Pacino got a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but any of these guys could have, it's only that Pacino as Big Boy Caprice gets the most screen time. Only Beatty plays it completely straight, the others all seem to play off of him. Dick Tracy won Oscars for Best Art&Set Design, Best Song written by Stephen Sondheim and introduced by Madonna, Sooner Or Later. The fact he was even able to get somebody like Sondheim to write a score for this film only shows Sondheim wanted to get in on the fun. As for Madonna, the Material Girl does more than hold her own with all these acting heavyweights as club torch singer Breathless Mahoney.

Before this film, Dick Tracy movies were consigned to the B pictures and worse as Saturday afternoon serials. The only thing that rivals this all star extravaganza is a radio broadcast done for Armed Forces Radio during World War II that got to vinyl. Can you believe a cast like Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Jimmy Durante, Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, and the Andrews Sisters? Try and find a recording of that gem.

Until then Warren Beatty's classic comic strip for the big screen will do nicely.
What is this review like?
OUT:
positive