The Manchurian Candidate

[JackSpratts]

i had seen the original on tape and was wondering why they'd go to the trouble of remaking a movie so out of touch with today's desperately cynical political sentiments. i mean "brainwashed assasins"? been there, done that. well now i know. according to the attached review, the movie makers have positioned it as a fable of republican manipulation, more polemic even than fahrenheit 911.

says frank rich in the times, "With a vengeance that recalls the Clinton-hating echo chamber when it was fantasizing about the "murder" of Vincent Foster, big guns in the culture industry are rousing themselves into a war-room frenzy of anti-Bush hysteria that goes well beyond fielding an inept talk-radio network and producing documentaries for the base at MoveOn.org. Their method for countering the Bush-Cheney monopolization of fear is to turn the administration into an object of fear in its own right. It can be seen at full throttle in Jonathan Demme's remake of the classic cold war thriller, "The Manchurian Candidate," which opens nationally on Friday, the morning after the Democratic convention ends. This movie could pass for the de facto fifth day of the convention itself.

I cannot recall when Hollywood last released a big-budget mainstream feature film as partisan as this one at the height of a presidential campaign. That it has slipped into action largely under the media's radar, as discreetly as the sleeper agents in its plot, is an achievement in itself. Freed from any obligations to fact, "The Manchurian Candidate" can play far dirtier than "Fahrenheit 9/11." Not being a documentary, it can also open on far more screens — some 2,800, which is more than three times what Michael Moore could command on his opening weekend (or any weekend to date).

"The Manchurian Candidate" is a product of Paramount Pictures, whose chairwoman, Sherry Lansing, is a loyal Democratic contributor, according to public records. (So, for the most part, is her boss, the Viacom chairman, Sumner Redstone.) One of the film's stars, Meryl Streep, shared the stage with Whoopi Goldberg at the recent Kerry-Edwards fund-raiser. As Bill O'Reilly will be glad to hear, the cameo role of a cable-news reporter is played by Al Franken."

can't wait to see it.

- js.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/arts/25RICH.html

nic/pass: bobbob

[Heathcliff]

The Giant has been roused from his slumber. There'll be Hell to pay....