I haven't blogged anything about Mark Felt's recent confession that he was Deep Throat, but, of course, I couldn't avoid all the media hoopla surrounding the story.
This article by Sasha Issenberg caught my eye, because it discusses Dick, a movie send-up of the bungled Watergate break-in and the resulting behind-the-scenes machinations that brought down the Nixon administration.
I'd seen part of the film before, but Issenberg's essay inspired me to rent the DVD and watch the movie in its entirety. I highly recommend it. It's not only hilariously funny in places, but it also manages to capture some of the absurdist aspects of Nixon's presidency, the chief one being the fact that all those political hacks and criminals were allowed to run the country in the first place. Dan Hedaya plays Nixon as hopelessly square, in addition to all of his other unsavory characteristics. That is, Hedaya gets Nixon just right.
The film prompts you to underestimate its two heroines, Betsy (Kirsten Dunst) and Arlene (Michelle Williams), from the very beginning, but somewhat unfairly, I think. We shouldn't consider the girls shallow — they're fifteen when the movie begins — just because they blunder their way into the Watergate burglary after mailing a submission to a Tiger Beat contest for a date with Bobby Sherman. As they're returning to Arlene's apartment — she lives in the Watergate with her mother — they run into G. Gordon Liddy (Harry Shearer). If you ask me, there's only one appropriate course of action to pursue when you encounter someone who is as obviously batshit crazy as Liddy: you let out an ear-piercing scream and run for your life. I'm happy to say that the girls pass this character test with flying colors. Consequently, I was on their side for the rest of the film. You go, girls!
The girls make history, all the while looking extremely cute in their 70s outfits. The plot is convoluted, as you would expect. They become friendly with President Nixon — "Call me Dick," he says — but eventually realize that they can't trust him — "You're a bad man," says Arlene — and Nixon sends his people after them. This makes the girls very angry, and leads to the best bit of dialogue in the movie:
Arlene: How dare these people keep treating us like stupid teenage girls!Betsy: But we are stupid teenage girls.
Arlene: No, Betsy, we're human beings, and we're American citizens. And fourscore and seven years ago, our forefathers . . . did something, I don't know what. But I do know one thing: Dick's ass is grass.
The girls then proceed to turn Dick's ass into grass, ultimately managing to deliver enough incriminating evidence to Woodward and Bernstein to force Nixon to resign.
I won't give away the film's final five minutes, but they're perfect, absolutely perfect.
Watch this movie!