For this week, I chose the movie They Came Together (2014). This movie is a cute satirical rom-com with a star studded cast. I went in with no expectations and my girlfriend and I had a wonderful movie night at the house with it. This movie is over the top ridiculous in a good way. It’s an entire story being told while Joel (Paul Rudd) and Molly (Amy Poehler) on a double date with some friends (Bill Hader and Elly Kemper) of how they met.

Joel is a big wig at a corporate candy company that is opening a new location in New York City, while Molly owns a small candy shop called Upper Sweet Side. Joel’s company, CSR, is opening across the street from Molly’s store. As part of his job, he is supposed to inform her that they are going to make her go out of business.

In addition to this, Joel’s girlfriend, Tiffany (Cobie Smulders) is actively cheating on him with his coworker Trevor (Michael Ian Black). Joel comes home one day, ready to propose to Tiffany and finds her in bed with Trevor. This sets off the events of Joel’s friend and coworker, Bob (Jason Mantzoukas) to set him up on a blind date at the halloween party he’s hosting. The meet cute of Joel and Molly is completely ridiculous, and where the title comes from. They quite literally bump into each other on the street and get into an argument, then end up walking to the party together. When Bob opens the door, his girlfriend and him proclaim “They came together!” 

Overall, this movie is fairly hilarious and absurdly cute. We were laughing almost nonstop. I’m having a hard time deciding how much I liked it, because the ending was kind of odd. The story finishes up while at dinner with their friends, and they tell them that “that’s why we got divorced.” which was a direction I was not expecting the film to go, and I think the comedy in this bit went over my head and or fell flat to be honest. I was enjoying it up until that point, and I think that’s why I’m going to knock half a point off of my score at the end.

The writing style in this with the jokes and dry humor was right up my alley though. The jokes keep on going, being repeated, and told again and again. As someone who grew up on comedy like Portlandia, Arrested Development and Napoleon Dynamite, this type of humor was for me. This movie also does a great job of poking fun at all of the classic Hallmark Romance and rom-com tropes of every movie that came previously. There’s a great scene where Molly’s friend, Wanda (Teyonah Parris) tells her “If Joel is the one, change something about yourself and see if he notices.” A trope that comes with cheesy Hallmark movies where the main love interest gets a haircut or dyes her hair and hopes the man notices. Molly handles this by donning some Groucho Marx glasses the next time she sees him. He immediately notices, the music swells, and Molly beams at Joel. 

Of course, as with any rom-com, there comes a point where they get into a pointless argument and break up temporarily. During this time, Molly ends up engaged to Eggbert (Ed Helms) because she wants that perfect married life, despite not really being in love with him. The day of the wedding comes, Molly has cold feet, so she once again dons the Groucho Marx glasses before walking down the aisle. When she gets to the altar, she asks Eggbert if he notices anything, to which he replies “No honey, you look just as beautiful as you always do.” so she runs away, leaving him alone at the altar. While all this is going on, Joel is running across town to try and stop the wedding. He arrives after Molly has left the venue, and he gathers all the guests to follow him to find Molly and proclaim his love for her. 

3 mallards/5

-Seann

Do you remember in my E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial review when I railed against movies based on comic books? Well, this is a movie based not on a comic book, but on a comic strip. Dick Tracy (1990) is a movie based on the 1930’s noir comic strip of the same name. That’s about where this movie and the modern MCU-esque films end their similarities. Dick Tracy (1990) is an artistic, meritorious interpretation of a beloved comic strip, and is an earnest attempt to bring a comic strip to the screen. How does it do this? In many ways, which I’ll describe below.

Firstly, and what this film is most remembered for (and for which it also won a few awards), are the set design and models. This movie feels like it takes place in a fantastical version of 1930’s New York City, as opposed to a set that is designed to look like a fantastical version of 1930’s New York City. The film starts out very strong with large city-scape panoramics of the city, which is clearly drawn and modeled two-dimensionally, and the effect is absolutely charming and quite beautiful. It looks like a moving comic strip. Next, the characters themselves are cartoonish to the point of disbelief…but not all of them. This was one sticking point for me in the movie. Half the cast (the bad guys) are wearing prosthetics that give them other-worldly appearances (including friend of the blog Al Pacino), while the others, like perhaps potential friend of the blog Madonna, are unmasked and very humanlike. The film goes 80% into the fantastical comic strip world that inspired it, but leaving the other 20% behind leads to an odd juxtaposition. 

The next thing for which I’d like to commend this movie is the score. Specifically, I’d like to highlight the incomparable Danny Elfman (hopeful future friend of the blog). This film was nominated and in fact won multiple awards for the soundtrack, and songs from this movie are featured in many different soundtrack compilations. The songs are sung by Madonna, who of course performs them expertly in a cabaret style (would you believe me if I told you that she plays the femme fatale?). The soundtrack overall fits perfectly with the setting and other set design elements mentioned previously, as well as becoming at various points one of the plot elements, without taking too much attention away from the rest of the movie. This isn’t really a musical in the traditional sense of the word, but the music in it is important and effective.

The last aspect I’m going to praise this film for is the acting and cast. Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, the aforementioned Madonna, Glenne Headly, Dick Van Dyke, Kathy Bates, Dustin Hoffman, Catherine O’Hara…the list goes on and on and on. There’s real starpower in this movie, and all the performances are excellent and believable. The comedic characters are pretty comedic, and the serious characters (all two of them), are able to play it straight in a way that doesn’t feel forced. I would honestly say that because of the lack of cartoon-ish intrigue in his character, Beatty as the titular Dick Tracy is the least interesting of the lot. The best would have to go to Al Pacino, in my estimation, who plays the main antagonist, Big Boy. He’s great at playing crazy people, and this really worked, unlike the film I watched him in previously, Misconduct, which was shit. 

At this point you’re probably thinking I liked this movie a lot, but I’m afraid you’ve fallen victim to one of time’s classic blunders – I’ve actually led you, intentionally, to a false conclusion. I found this movie to be merely okay-ish. While there are certainly aspects of it that are great, overall it just…wasn’t very interesting. Noir is one of my favorite genres of both film and literature, so maybe I’ve just saturated my mind with the themes and plot points to the effect of numbing myself to any kind of intrigue or interest, but this film struggled to hold my attention. I found myself looking at the characters and the set, listening to the music and oggling the cars and guns rather than being invested in the action or what was happening to the characters.

About 60% of the way through the movie I realized that the plot had become so convoluted that my grasp on it was tenuous at best, but that I also really didn’t care that much. I knew, again from watching so many films like this, what would happen. I easily predicted who the “faceless” character was that was lurking behind the shadows. I easily predicted how Tracy would get his way out of jail and win back both the girl and the orphan. It was just kind of a yawn, ya know? It’s a shame, because there really was so much potential and great style in this. I think it was unable to shake free of the shackles of the out-dated plot of the source material. I think it would have been better as a comic strip.

Dick Tracy (1990) has a score of 6.2 out of 10 on IMDB, a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score of 63%, and a Letterboxd score of 3.2 out of 5. Additionally, Ebert famously gave this movie a 4 star review (out of four). It’s kind of difficult for me to justify giving this movie as low of a score as I’m going to. The set design is immaculate, character make-up and prosthetics are cool, and the soundtrack is excellent. I just don’t like the movie as a whole. I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it again, and probably wouldn’t point anyone else in this direction either. That being said, this movie did quadruple its budget – it cost around $45million and made over $160million. Maybe this is an example of a film that hasn’t aged well, or an example of a film that just doesn’t resonate with me the way that it does with most. I don’t think this is a bad film, I think it’s just not for me. And that’s okay(-ish).

2 mallards/5

-Max