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I saw "Dick" the movie tonight.
If Stone's "JFK" and "Nixon"
expressed the height of paranoia over the boomer generation's
fate being changed by dark and mysterious forces, then "Dick"
is the opposite swing away -- teenage girls were Nixon's undoing.
It's hard to mock Nixon, because he did it to
himself ("your president is not a crook"). But the
funniest scenes in this movie are the send-ups of Woodward and
Bernstein and the movie "All the President's Men."
Bernstein playing with his hair, Woodward trying to keep
Bernstein out of the story, the scary underground parking garage
scene with Deep Throat (who was really the teenage girls who only
got in this mess because one of them lived in the Watergate and
the night of the robbery, they were trying to mail a letter under
deadline to the I deserve a date with Bobby Sherman contest). I
particularly enjoyed the send-up of the Post newsroom set that
was used over and over in ATPM.
While historical facts got second billing to
having a good time in "Dick," all the iconic pictures
of the time are skewered: Nixon waving his arm across the sky at
the top of his helicopter steps, Pat's hair, and especially the
18 minute gap. Silly movie with a couple of funny scenes.
Of course, satire is getting harder by the
minute. Can you imagine anything more odd than the reality of a
chunky intern getting past the usual wall around the president
because of a budget shut-down, and her flipping her dress to show
her thong underwear to the big Creep, and then they starting an
affair, the dumb gifts, and the tantrums at the Secret Service
gate? |
