The story of how these two girls lick Dick

I could try to bullshit you and play it like I got dragged to Dick by my girlfriend or something, but the fact is, from the first time I saw the trailer for this picture about a couple of bubble-headed (i.e., average) teenage girls who help bring down the Nixon administration, I was intrigued. I'm no fan of teeny-bopper movies, but I am a fan of political satire. Also, I knew the director/co-writer, Andrew Fleming, is pretty reliable. He's a graduate of my alma mater and has made some decent pics before, like the smart, funny Threesome starring the tasty Lara Flynn [oh my God . . . spontaneous orgasm . . .] Boyle, and the 80's schlock-horror classic Bad Dreams starring the delicious Jennifer [oy . . . there's another one] Rubin. He also, I forgot until I looked it up, has previous teeny-bopper experience, having helmed The Craft, which although it doesn't feature any treats quite so edible as above, isn't a terrible pic. But in general, Fleming's dedication to making movies about sexy teenage girls makes him A-OK in my book. So I was willing to give Dick a chance.

I wasn't disappointed. From its first scene, a TV talk show featuring Bob Woodward (played by Will Ferrell, who's no Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (played by Bruce McCulloch, who's no Jew), Dick delivers a hilarious send-up of the familiar personalities involved in the Watergate scandal. The premise is that two ditzy 15-year-old blondes accidentally stumble on the Watergate break-in in progress when they bump into G. Gordon Liddy (Harry Shearer) in a stairwell. Later, on a school field trip to the White House, they spot Liddy again and keep a memorandum that was stuck to his foot as a souvenir. The memorandum in question is a list of payoffs from Committee to Re-Elect the President funds, but the girls aren't bright enough to realize what they have. They think it's just a list of Creeps, and they think that's really cool.

Bob Haldeman and the rest of the White House staff realize that the girls know something about the Watergate break-in, and in order to keep them quiet, the President (he tells the girls to call him Dick) hires them to be official White House dog walkers, and later secret Youth Advisors, which they think is just the biggest honor like, ever. As this clever premise progresses, the girls change the course of history, first by unknowingly feeding the President marijuana-laced cookies which mellow him out enough to pull out of Vietnam and lead to a peace accord with Brezhnev, then later, after they've soured on Dick, by providing evidence to Woodward and Bernstein under the guise of Deep Throat.

The whole cast is superior. As the two girls, Kirsten Dunst (Interview with a Vampire), and Michelle Williams (who would grow up to be Natasha Henstridge in Species . . . good for her!) are quite funny as a pair who never seem to realize the import of any of the events transpiring around them. Dan Hedaya is fantastic as the over-confident Dick Nixon (between this and Clueless, he's becoming something of a deacon of teeny-bopper movies). The most visually uproarious scene in the film is a fantasy sequence where he rides in on a white horse to romance Michelle Williams on a golden beach. The ensemble, including several Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live alums, is uniformly strong--I was particularly amused by Saul Rubinek's Henry Kissinger.

Dick may look like your average teen movie, but it's a whole lot smarter than that . . . in fact, your average "Dharma's Creek" viewer is probably going to have very little idea what's going on. They may like the giggly girls, but the satire, and the ingenious way this film combines fantasy, history, and, yes . . . cooking, should most appeal to a more sophisticated crowd.

Oh, and a special note for you drooling perverts out there: throw on your raincoat and be sure to stick around for the closing credits. The final shot of the film is Dunst and Williams lasciviously and gratuitously licking a couple of lollipops with the word "Dick" written on them [oh my God, that's three!]. Yes, Fleming is definitely a filmmaker with his heart in the right place.

You know, his lap.