Dark Whimsy Favorites #16-20
Rick Retro’s Realm, Project #3: 40 Dark Whimsy Favorites in 80 Days, 1982-1984, Dustin Hoffman, Steve Martin, Michael Douglas, Robert Redford and... Lenny Von Dohlen?
The countdown to my next review project continues. I’m doing an overview of 40 of my Dark Whimsy favorites!
The first fifteen are:
#1 (1944) Arsenic and Old Lace
#2 (1959) The Mouse That Roared
#3 (1963) The Pink Panther
#4 (1965) The Sound of Music
#5 (1965) The Great Race
#6 (1968) The Love Bug
#7 (1973) The Sting
#8 (1975) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
#9 (1979) The Muppet Movie
#10 (1979) Being There
#11 (1980) Airplane!
#12 (1980) Oh! Heavenly Dog
#13 (1980) The Gods Must Be Crazy
#14 (1981) Arthur
#15 (1982) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Five more 80s films. Five more movies that I’ve seen at least twice. Five more reviews that will probably award A+ grades:
#16 (1982) Tootsie
Might not be quite Dark enough to qualify as Dark Whimsy, but the Whimsy is there. We will see.
#17 (1983) The Man With Two Brains
There’s no shortage of Steve Martin films in the Dark Whimsy genre, but this one probably puts up the highest DW score with high readings on both scales. On the other hand, this is Dark Whimzy, so the Whimsy Scale will take a little penalty.
#18 (1984) Romancing the Stone
Not a typical Dark Whimsy movie, but not really typical of any genre. I think it will qualify.
#19 (1984) The Natural
Definitely Dark enough, but will there be enough Whimsy to qualify as Dark Whimsy?
#20 (1984) Electric Dreams
Another under-appreciated gem. With a great poster:
#21-25 will be revealed tomorrow!
Originally posted to text group 2025-01-12
Last updated 2025-07-02
Text Group Comments:
W: Is Electric Dreams from the same Philip K. Dick source material as Blade Runner? Haven't heard of it!
Rick Retro:
No it is not. Completely unrelated. You're referring to his novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" But there is a 2017 TV anthology series called Electric Dreams, based on 10 of his short fiction works, so not a bad guess.
Rick Retro:
You will like this movie. It also boasts one of my all-time favorite movie posters and one of my all-time favorite soundtrack albums.
W: What a darkly whimsical poster!