list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around The Manchurian Candidate on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/The_Manchurian_Candidate/228731/default.aspx Title: The Manchurian Candidate
Year: 2004
Director: Jonathan Demme
Plot: Jonathan Demme directed this updated remake of John Frankenheimer's 1962 cult favorite The Manchurian Candidate, a pioneering examination of political conspiracy and psychological reconditioning. Major Bennett Marco (Denzel Washington) and Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) are two soldiers who served in the same company during Operation Desert Storm, but their paths following their tours of duty have been very different. Shaw, the son of powerful congresswoman Eleanor Shaw (Meryl Streep), has used his reputation as a war hero to quickly scale the ladder of American politics, and with the help of his mother earns the Vice Presidential nomination. Marco, on the other hand, has been troubled with mental illness, and is convinced that something strange happened to him and his compatriots during the war. As Marco struggles to find the truth behind his nightmares and emotional torment, he unearths some disturbing facts about how his mind and body have been reworked by shadowy forces, as well as those of his fellow soldiers -- including Raymond Shaw. Featuring a stellar supporting cast (including Jon Voight, Miguel Ferrer, Ted Levine, and Dean Stockwell), The Manchurian Candidate credits George Axelrod's screenplay for the 1962 film as its source, as opposed to Richard Condon's 1959 novel from which Axelrod adapted his script. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 25
Number of Lists: 23
Number of blog posts: 7
Number of discussion threads: 3
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:01:41 GMTThe Manchurian Candidate2004Jonathan Demme<a href="/players/P____87470/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Jonathan Demme</a> directed this updated remake of <a href="/players/P____90382/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>John Frankenheimer</a>'s 1962 cult favorite The Manchurian Candidate, a pioneering examination of political conspiracy and psychological reconditioning. Major Bennett Marco (<a href="/players/P____74843/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Denzel Washington</a>) and Sergeant Raymond Shaw (<a href="/players/P___197753/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Liev Schreiber</a>) are two soldiers who served in the same company during Operation Desert Storm, but their paths following their tours of duty have been very different. Shaw, the son of powerful congresswoman Eleanor Shaw (<a href="/players/P____68676/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Meryl Streep</a>), has used his reputation as a war hero to quickly scale the ladder of American politics, and with the help of his mother earns the Vice Presidential nomination. Marco, on the other hand, has been troubled with mental illness, and is convinced that something strange happened to him and his compatriots during the war. As Marco struggles to find the truth behind his nightmares and emotional torment, he unearths some disturbing facts about how his mind and body have been reworked by shadowy forces, as well as those of his fellow soldiers -- including Raymond Shaw. Featuring a stellar supporting cast (including <a href="/players/P___115561/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Jon Voight</a>, <a href="/players/P____23233/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Miguel Ferrer</a>, <a href="/players/P____42114/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Ted Levine</a>, and <a href="/players/P____68385/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Dean Stockwell</a>), The Manchurian Candidate credits <a href="/players/P____80271/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>George Axelrod</a>'s screenplay for the 1962 film as its source, as opposed to <a href="/players/P____85653/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Richard Condon</a>'s 1959 novel from which Axelrod adapted his script. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide25Tag Target (>10)23733http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/t99404mas40.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/The_Manchurian_Candidate/228731/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/10/3/35867.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 10/3/2008 1:01:41 PM
Body: This review originally appeared during the Toronto Film Festival. Rachel Getting Married opens in select cities today. Jonathan Demme’s first fiction film since his 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidatee (and only his second non-documentary in ten years), Rachel Getting Married is orchestrated like an extraordinarily intimate work of direct cinema. Working from a script by Jenny Lumet (daughter of Sidney), Demme shot the dysfunctional family drama on a combination of grainy, handheld 35mm and consumer video––without rehearsal, with a huge ensemble cast made up of actors and musicians, with a soundtrack consisting entirely of diegetic music performed either on or just off camera by the likes of Robyn Hitchcock, New Orleans jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr, TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe (who also plays the key role of the man Rachel is getting married to) and sometime American Idol Tamyra Grey. For a film featuring not only said reality competition castoff but a tour de force performance from a two-time Teen Choice Award nominee, it’s almost unfathomably dark and emotionally tough. It’s essentially a Dogme 95 film directed by Robert Altman, which will be a frightening proposition for some, and something akin to cinematic ecstasy for others. It’s the latter for me. Anne Hathaway plays Kym Buchanan, a career drug addict who takes leave from her latest stint in rehab to attend the wedding of her older sister Rachel (played Rosemarie DeWitt, who moves from her breakout role as Don Draper’s beatnik mistress on Mad Men to take on what seems like her righful place as a Maura Tierney/Catherine Keener type, a no-nonsense brunette destined to be counter-cast against ingenues). The wedding is set to take place at the Buchanan family’s sprawling Connecticut manse, which, to the externally prickly but internally fragile Kym’s dismay, has filled to bursting with assorted friends and family of the bride and groom, all with a different role to play in the weekend’s festivities under the watchful eye of the girls’ fastidiously caring father Paul (Bill Irwin) and his second wife Carol (Anna Deavere Smith). Kym drops into this swirl and instantly changes its chemistry with her acid tongue and total lack of filter. As she struggles to earn recognition and some modicum of trust and forgiveness from her weary sister, Kym forges a tenuous bond with best man Keiran (Mather Zickel)––who, like Kym, sneaks out daily to attend AA meetings––while also seeking out her mother (Debra Winger), who seems to be conspicuously distant; we soon learn that this is par for the course. Hathaway is given the predictable cosmetic grit (homemade haircut, raccoon eyeliner, fingers constantly twitching for a smoke), but she turns Kym into something much more than a Hollywood cipher of addiction. She’s a bit of a girl who cried wolf: toxic though she can be, especially to those who are less than sympathetic to her struggles, Kym seems to be both serious about sobriety and deeply regretful regarding past, nearly unforgivable mistakes, but she’s made so many plays towards atonement in the past that anyone she’s hurt before is wary of getting fooled again. Hathaway’s vulnerability in this tricky role is stunning, but slyly so: as a viewer you can loathe her presence, as some of the personalities in the film speace seem to, and then with a single cut realize that she’s gone from a scene and not only miss her, but actually, actively worry about where she is and what she’s up to. As the familial conflict builds to a violent breaking point and then becomes somewhat ameliorated by the boundless romance of the wedding and the wild joy of the all night dance party that follows (if nothing else, this is a fantastic example of the Endless Party movie), Kym’s frustration, sadness and sorrow uncomfortably and unignorably seeps in from the margins, like the smoke from her constant cigarette floating over from her solitary corner of the room. The most exciting thing about Rachel may be its refusal to permanently sort out the family’s life-long problems in the space of the film. Even as practical truces are formed and a tentative romance just barely begins to bloom, we get the sense that progress will be slow, leaving a damp-eyed Rachel to smoke alone in a corner at many supposedly fun functions in the future. Despite the presence of star Hathaway, Rachel’s commercial prospects are probably slim, which makes it all the more puzzling that this film is having its North American premiere here in Toronto this weekend and not last weekend in Telluride. Why this film was reportedly rejected by that exclusive festival is a mystery to me. Supremely artful in its formal riskiness and at least as emotionally raw and resonant as a good deal of the Cannes holdovers that did make the line-up, its omission in favor of forgettable domestic products like Flash of Genius and American Violets is inexplicable. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:01:41 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog10/3/2008 1:01:41 PM This review originally appeared during the Toronto Film Festival. Rachel Getting Married opens in select cities today. Jonathan Demme’s first fiction film since his 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidatee (and only his second non-documentary in ten years), Rachel Getting Married is orchestrated like an extraordinarily intimate work of direct cinema. Working from a script by Jenny Lumet (daughter of Sidney), Demme shot the dysfunctional family drama on a combination of grainy, handheld 35mm and consumer video––without rehearsal, with a huge ensemble cast made up of actors and musicians, with a soundtrack consisting entirely of diegetic music performed either on or just off camera by the likes of Robyn Hitchcock, New Orleans jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr, TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe (who also plays the key role of the man Rachel is getting married to) and sometime American Idol Tamyra Grey. For a film featuring not only said reality competition castoff but a tour de force performance from a two-time Teen Choice Award nominee, it’s almost unfathomably dark and emotionally tough. It’s essentially a Dogme 95 film directed by Robert Altman, which will be a frightening proposition for some, and something akin to cinematic ecstasy for others. It’s the latter for me. Anne Hathaway plays Kym Buchanan, a career drug addict who takes leave from her latest stint in rehab to attend the wedding of her older sister Rachel (played Rosemarie DeWitt, who moves from her breakout role as Don Draper’s beatnik mistress on Mad Men to take on what seems like her righful place as a Maura Tierney/Catherine Keener type, a no-nonsense brunette destined to be counter-cast against ingenues). The wedding is set to take place at the Buchanan family’s sprawling Connecticut manse, which, to the externally prickly but internally fragile Kym’s dismay, has filled to bursting with assorted friends and family of the bride and groom, all with a different role to play in the weekend’s festivities under the watchful eye of the girls’ fastidiously caring father Paul (Bill Irwin) and his second wife Carol (Anna Deavere Smith). Kym drops into this swirl and instantly changes its chemistry with her acid tongue and total lack of filter. As she struggles to earn recognition and some modicum of trust and forgiveness from her weary sister, Kym forges a tenuous bond with best man Keiran (Mather Zickel)––who, like Kym, sneaks out daily to attend AA meetings––while also seeking out her mother (Debra Winger), who seems to be conspicuously distant; we soon learn that this is par for the course. Hathaway is given the predictable cosmetic grit (homemade haircut, raccoon eyeliner, fingers constantly twitching for a smoke), but she turns Kym into something much more than a Hollywood cipher of addiction. She’s a bit of a girl who cried wolf: toxic though she can be, especially to those who are less than sympathetic to her struggles, Kym seems to be both serious about sobriety and deeply regretful regarding past, nearly unforgivable mistakes, but she’s made so many plays towards atonement in the past that anyone she’s hurt before is wary of getting fooled again. Hathaway’s vulnerability in this tricky role is stunning, but slyly so: as a viewer you can loathe her presence, as some of the personalities in the film speace seem to, and then with a single cut realize that she’s gone from a scene and not only miss her, but actually, actively worry about where she is and what she’s up to. As the familial conflict builds to a violent breaking point and then becomes somewhat ameliorated by the boundless romance of the wedding and the wild joy of the all night dance party that follows (if nothing else, this is a fantastic example of the Endless Party movie), Kym’s frustration, sadness and sorrow uncomfortably and unignorably seeps in from the margins, like the smoke from her constant cigarette floating over from her solitary corner of the room. The most exciting thing about Rachel may be its refusal to permanently sort out the family’s life-long problems in the space of the film. Even as practical truces are formed and a tentative romance just barely begins to bloom, we get the sense that progress will be slow, leaving a damp-eyed Rachel to smoke alone in a corner at many supposedly fun functions in the future. Despite the presence of star Hathaway, Rachel’s commercial prospects are probably slim, which makes it all the more puzzling that this film is having its North American premiere here in Toronto this weekend and not last weekend in Telluride. Why this film was reportedly rejected by that exclusive festival is a mystery to me. Supremely artful in its formal riskiness and at least as emotionally raw and resonant as a good deal of the Cannes holdovers that did make the line-up, its omission in favor of forgettable domestic products like Flash of Genius and American Violets is inexplicable. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/10/3/35866.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 10/3/2008 1:01:28 PM
Body: This review originally appeared during the Toronto Film Festival. Rachel Getting Married opens in select cities today. Jonathan Demme’s first fiction film since his 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidatee (and only his second non-documentary in ten years), Rachel Getting Married is orchestrated like an extraordinarily intimate work of direct cinema. Working from a script by Jenny Lumet (daughter of Sidney), Demme shot the dysfunctional family drama on a combination of grainy, handheld 35mm and consumer video––without rehearsal, with a huge ensemble cast made up of actors and musicians, with a soundtrack consisting entirely of diegetic music performed either on or just off camera by the likes of Robyn Hitchcock, New Orleans jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr, TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe (who also plays the key role of the man Rachel is getting married to) and sometime American Idol Tamyra Grey. For a film featuring not only said reality competition castoff but a tour de force performance from a two-time Teen Choice Award nominee, it’s almost unfathomably dark and emotionally tough. It’s essentially a Dogme 95 film directed by Robert Altman, which will be a frightening proposition for some, and something akin to cinematic ecstasy for others. It’s the latter for me. Anne Hathaway plays Kym Buchanan, a career drug addict who takes leave from her latest stint in rehab to attend the wedding of her older sister Rachel (played Rosemarie DeWitt, who moves from her breakout role as Don Draper’s beatnik mistress on Mad Men to take on what seems like her righful place as a Maura Tierney/Catherine Keener type, a no-nonsense brunette destined to be counter-cast against ingenues). The wedding is set to take place at the Buchanan family’s sprawling Connecticut manse, which, to the externally prickly but internally fragile Kym’s dismay, has filled to bursting with assorted friends and family of the bride and groom, all with a different role to play in the weekend’s festivities under the watchful eye of the girls’ fastidiously caring father Paul (Bill Irwin) and his second wife Carol (Anna Deavere Smith). Kym drops into this swirl and instantly changes its chemistry with her acid tongue and total lack of filter. As she struggles to earn recognition and some modicum of trust and forgiveness from her weary sister, Kym forges a tenuous bond with best man Keiran (Mather Zickel)––who, like Kym, sneaks out daily to attend AA meetings––while also seeking out her mother (Debra Winger), who seems to be conspicuously distant; we soon learn that this is par for the course. Hathaway is given the predictable cosmetic grit (homemade haircut, raccoon eyeliner, fingers constantly twitching for a smoke), but she turns Kym into something much more than a Hollywood cipher of addiction. She’s a bit of a girl who cried wolf: toxic though she can be, especially to those who are less than sympathetic to her struggles, Kym seems to be both serious about sobriety and deeply regretful regarding past, nearly unforgivable mistakes, but she’s made so many plays towards atonement in the past that anyone she’s hurt before is wary of getting fooled again. Hathaway’s vulnerability in this tricky role is stunning, but slyly so: as a viewer you can loathe her presence, as some of the personalities in the film speace seem to, and then with a single cut realize that she’s gone from a scene and not only miss her, but actually, actively worry about where she is and what she’s up to. As the familial conflict builds to a violent breaking point and then becomes somewhat ameliorated by the boundless romance of the wedding and the wild joy of the all night dance party that follows (if nothing else, this is a fantastic example of the Endless Party movie), Kym’s frustration, sadness and sorrow uncomfortably and unignorably seeps in from the margins, like the smoke from her constant cigarette floating over from her solitary corner of the room. The most exciting thing about Rachel may be its refusal to permanently sort out the family’s life-long problems in the space of the film. Even as practical truces are formed and a tentative romance just barely begins to bloom, we get the sense that progress will be slow, leaving a damp-eyed Rachel to smoke alone in a corner at many supposedly fun functions in the future. Despite the presence of star Hathaway, Rachel’s commercial prospects are probably slim, which makes it all the more puzzling that this film is having its North American premiere here in Toronto this weekend and not last weekend in Telluride. Why this film was reportedly rejected by that exclusive festival is a mystery to me. Supremely artful in its formal riskiness and at least as emotionally raw and resonant as a good deal of the Cannes holdovers that did make the line-up, its omission in favor of forgettable domestic products like Flash of Genius and American Violets is inexplicable. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:01:28 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com10/3/2008 1:01:28 PM This review originally appeared during the Toronto Film Festival. Rachel Getting Married opens in select cities today. Jonathan Demme’s first fiction film since his 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidatee (and only his second non-documentary in ten years), Rachel Getting Married is orchestrated like an extraordinarily intimate work of direct cinema. Working from a script by Jenny Lumet (daughter of Sidney), Demme shot the dysfunctional family drama on a combination of grainy, handheld 35mm and consumer video––without rehearsal, with a huge ensemble cast made up of actors and musicians, with a soundtrack consisting entirely of diegetic music performed either on or just off camera by the likes of Robyn Hitchcock, New Orleans jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr, TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe (who also plays the key role of the man Rachel is getting married to) and sometime American Idol Tamyra Grey. For a film featuring not only said reality competition castoff but a tour de force performance from a two-time Teen Choice Award nominee, it’s almost unfathomably dark and emotionally tough. It’s essentially a Dogme 95 film directed by Robert Altman, which will be a frightening proposition for some, and something akin to cinematic ecstasy for others. It’s the latter for me. Anne Hathaway plays Kym Buchanan, a career drug addict who takes leave from her latest stint in rehab to attend the wedding of her older sister Rachel (played Rosemarie DeWitt, who moves from her breakout role as Don Draper’s beatnik mistress on Mad Men to take on what seems like her righful place as a Maura Tierney/Catherine Keener type, a no-nonsense brunette destined to be counter-cast against ingenues). The wedding is set to take place at the Buchanan family’s sprawling Connecticut manse, which, to the externally prickly but internally fragile Kym’s dismay, has filled to bursting with assorted friends and family of the bride and groom, all with a different role to play in the weekend’s festivities under the watchful eye of the girls’ fastidiously caring father Paul (Bill Irwin) and his second wife Carol (Anna Deavere Smith). Kym drops into this swirl and instantly changes its chemistry with her acid tongue and total lack of filter. As she struggles to earn recognition and some modicum of trust and forgiveness from her weary sister, Kym forges a tenuous bond with best man Keiran (Mather Zickel)––who, like Kym, sneaks out daily to attend AA meetings––while also seeking out her mother (Debra Winger), who seems to be conspicuously distant; we soon learn that this is par for the course. Hathaway is given the predictable cosmetic grit (homemade haircut, raccoon eyeliner, fingers constantly twitching for a smoke), but she turns Kym into something much more than a Hollywood cipher of addiction. She’s a bit of a girl who cried wolf: toxic though she can be, especially to those who are less than sympathetic to her struggles, Kym seems to be both serious about sobriety and deeply regretful regarding past, nearly unforgivable mistakes, but she’s made so many plays towards atonement in the past that anyone she’s hurt before is wary of getting fooled again. Hathaway’s vulnerability in this tricky role is stunning, but slyly so: as a viewer you can loathe her presence, as some of the personalities in the film speace seem to, and then with a single cut realize that she’s gone from a scene and not only miss her, but actually, actively worry about where she is and what she’s up to. As the familial conflict builds to a violent breaking point and then becomes somewhat ameliorated by the boundless romance of the wedding and the wild joy of the all night dance party that follows (if nothing else, this is a fantastic example of the Endless Party movie), Kym’s frustration, sadness and sorrow uncomfortably and unignorably seeps in from the margins, like the smoke from her constant cigarette floating over from her solitary corner of the room. The most exciting thing about Rachel may be its refusal to permanently sort out the family’s life-long problems in the space of the film. Even as practical truces are formed and a tentative romance just barely begins to bloom, we get the sense that progress will be slow, leaving a damp-eyed Rachel to smoke alone in a corner at many supposedly fun functions in the future. Despite the presence of star Hathaway, Rachel’s commercial prospects are probably slim, which makes it all the more puzzling that this film is having its North American premiere here in Toronto this weekend and not last weekend in Telluride. Why this film was reportedly rejected by that exclusive festival is a mystery to me. Supremely artful in its formal riskiness and at least as emotionally raw and resonant as a good deal of the Cannes holdovers that did make the line-up, its omission in favor of forgettable domestic products like Flash of Genius and American Violets is inexplicable. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/9/6/34835.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 9/6/2008 12:00:58 PM
Body: Jonathan Demme’s first fiction film since his 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate (and only his second non-documentary in ten years), Rachel Getting Married is orchestrated like an extraordinarily intimate work of direct cinema. Working from a script by Jenny Lumet (daughter of Sidney), Demme shot the dysfunctional family drama on a combination of grainy, handheld 35mm and consumer video––without rehearsal, with a huge ensemble cast made up of actors and musicians, with a soundtrack consisting entirely of diegetic music performed either on or just off camera by the likes of Robyn Hitchcock, New Orleans jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr, TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe (who also plays the key role of the man Rachel is getting married to) and sometime American Idol Tamyra Grey. For a film featuring not only said reality competition castoff but a tour de force performance from a two-time Teen Choice Award nominee, it’s almost unfathomably dark and emotionally tough. It’s essentially a Dogme 95 film directed by Robert Altman, which will be a frightening proposition for some, and something akin to cinematic ecstasy for others. It’s the latter for me. Anne Hathaway plays Kym Buchanan, a career drug addict who takes leave from her latest stint in rehab to attend the wedding of her older sister Rachel (played Rosemarie DeWitt, who moves from her breakout role as Don Draper’s beatnik mistress on Mad Men to take on what seems like her righful place as a Maura Tierney/Catherine Keener type, a no-nonesense brunette destined to be counter-cast against ingenues). The wedding is set to take place at the Buchanan family’s sprawling Connecticut manse, which, to the externally prickly but internally fragile Kym’s dismay, has filled to bursting with assorted friends and family of the bride and groom, all with a different role to play in the weekend’s festivities under the watchful eye of the girls’ fastidiously caring father Paul (Bill Irwin) and his second wife Carol (Anna Deavere Smith). Kym drops into this swirl and instantly changes its chemistry with her acid tongue and total lack of filter. As she struggles to earn recognition and some modicum of trust and forgiveness from her weary sister, Kym forges a tenuous bond with best man Keiran (Mather Zickel)––who, like Kym, sneaks out daily to attend AA meetings––while also seeking out her mother (Debra Winger), who seems to be conspicuously distant; we soon learn that this is par for the course. Hathaway is given the predictable cosmetic grit (homemade haircut, raccoon eyeliner, fingers constantly twitching for a smoke), but she turns Kym into something much more than a Hollywood cipher of addiction. She’s a bit of a girl who cried wolf: toxic though she can be, especially to those who are less than sympathetic to her struggles, Kym seems to be both serious about sobriety and deeply regretful regarding past, nearly unforgivable mistakes, but she’s made so many plays towards atonement in the past that anyone she’s hurt before is wary of getting fooled again. Hathaway’s vulnerability in this tricky role is stunning, but slyly so: as a viewer you can loathe her presence, as some of the personalities in the film speace seem to, and then with a single cut realize that she’s gone from a scene and not only miss her, but actually, actively worry about where she is and what she’s up to. As the familial conflict builds to a violent breaking point and then becomes somewhat ameliorated by the boundless romance of the wedding and the wild joy of the all night dance party that follows (if nothing else, this is a fantastic example of the Endless Party movie), Kym’s frustration, sadness and sorrow uncomfortably and unignorably seeps in from the margins, like the smoke from her constant cigarette floating over from her solitary corner of the room. The most exciting thing about Rachel may be its refusal to permanently sort out the family’s life-long problems in the space of the film. Even as practical truces are formed and a tentative romance just barely begins to bloom, we get the sense that progress will be slow, leaving a damp-eyed Rachel to smoke alone in a corner at many supposedly fun functions in the future. Despite the presence of star Hathaway, Rachel’s commerical prospects are probably slim, which makes it all the more puzzling that this film is having its North American prmiere here in Toronto this weekend and not last weekend in Telluride. Why this film was reportedly rejected by that exclusive festival is a mystery to me. Supremely artful in its formal riskiness and at least as emotionally raw and resonant as a good deal of the Cannes holdovers that did make the line-up, its omission in favor of forgettable domestic products like Flash of Genius and American Violets is inexplicable. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:00:58 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog9/6/2008 12:00:58 PMJonathan Demme’s first fiction film since his 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate (and only his second non-documentary in ten years), Rachel Getting Married is orchestrated like an extraordinarily intimate work of direct cinema. Working from a script by Jenny Lumet (daughter of Sidney), Demme shot the dysfunctional family drama on a combination of grainy, handheld 35mm and consumer video––without rehearsal, with a huge ensemble cast made up of actors and musicians, with a soundtrack consisting entirely of diegetic music performed either on or just off camera by the likes of Robyn Hitchcock, New Orleans jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr, TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe (who also plays the key role of the man Rachel is getting married to) and sometime American Idol Tamyra Grey. For a film featuring not only said reality competition castoff but a tour de force performance from a two-time Teen Choice Award nominee, it’s almost unfathomably dark and emotionally tough. It’s essentially a Dogme 95 film directed by Robert Altman, which will be a frightening proposition for some, and something akin to cinematic ecstasy for others. It’s the latter for me. Anne Hathaway plays Kym Buchanan, a career drug addict who takes leave from her latest stint in rehab to attend the wedding of her older sister Rachel (played Rosemarie DeWitt, who moves from her breakout role as Don Draper’s beatnik mistress on Mad Men to take on what seems like her righful place as a Maura Tierney/Catherine Keener type, a no-nonesense brunette destined to be counter-cast against ingenues). The wedding is set to take place at the Buchanan family’s sprawling Connecticut manse, which, to the externally prickly but internally fragile Kym’s dismay, has filled to bursting with assorted friends and family of the bride and groom, all with a different role to play in the weekend’s festivities under the watchful eye of the girls’ fastidiously caring father Paul (Bill Irwin) and his second wife Carol (Anna Deavere Smith). Kym drops into this swirl and instantly changes its chemistry with her acid tongue and total lack of filter. As she struggles to earn recognition and some modicum of trust and forgiveness from her weary sister, Kym forges a tenuous bond with best man Keiran (Mather Zickel)––who, like Kym, sneaks out daily to attend AA meetings––while also seeking out her mother (Debra Winger), who seems to be conspicuously distant; we soon learn that this is par for the course. Hathaway is given the predictable cosmetic grit (homemade haircut, raccoon eyeliner, fingers constantly twitching for a smoke), but she turns Kym into something much more than a Hollywood cipher of addiction. She’s a bit of a girl who cried wolf: toxic though she can be, especially to those who are less than sympathetic to her struggles, Kym seems to be both serious about sobriety and deeply regretful regarding past, nearly unforgivable mistakes, but she’s made so many plays towards atonement in the past that anyone she’s hurt before is wary of getting fooled again. Hathaway’s vulnerability in this tricky role is stunning, but slyly so: as a viewer you can loathe her presence, as some of the personalities in the film speace seem to, and then with a single cut realize that she’s gone from a scene and not only miss her, but actually, actively worry about where she is and what she’s up to. As the familial conflict builds to a violent breaking point and then becomes somewhat ameliorated by the boundless romance of the wedding and the wild joy of the all night dance party that follows (if nothing else, this is a fantastic example of the Endless Party movie), Kym’s frustration, sadness and sorrow uncomfortably and unignorably seeps in from the margins, like the smoke from her constant cigarette floating over from her solitary corner of the room. The most exciting thing about Rachel may be its refusal to permanently sort out the family’s life-long problems in the space of the film. Even as practical truces are formed and a tentative romance just barely begins to bloom, we get the sense that progress will be slow, leaving a damp-eyed Rachel to smoke alone in a corner at many supposedly fun functions in the future. Despite the presence of star Hathaway, Rachel’s commerical prospects are probably slim, which makes it all the more puzzling that this film is having its North American prmiere here in Toronto this weekend and not last weekend in Telluride. Why this film was reportedly rejected by that exclusive festival is a mystery to me. Supremely artful in its formal riskiness and at least as emotionally raw and resonant as a good deal of the Cannes holdovers that did make the line-up, its omission in favor of forgettable domestic products like Flash of Genius and American Violets is inexplicable. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/9/6/34834.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 9/6/2008 12:00:49 PM
Body: Jonathan Demme’s first fiction film since his 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate (and only his second non-documentary in ten years), Rachel Getting Married is orchestrated like an extraordinarily intimate work of direct cinema. Working from a script by Jenny Lumet (daughter of Sidney), Demme shot the dysfunctional family drama on a combination of grainy, handheld 35mm and consumer video––without rehearsal, with a huge ensemble cast made up of actors and musicians, with a soundtrack consisting entirely of diegetic music performed either on or just off camera by the likes of Robyn Hitchcock, New Orleans jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr, TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe (who also plays the key role of the man Rachel is getting married to) and sometime American Idol Tamyra Grey. For a film featuring not only said reality competition castoff but a tour de force performance from a two-time Teen Choice Award nominee, it’s almost unfathomably dark and emotionally tough. It’s essentially a Dogme 95 film directed by Robert Altman, which will be a frightening proposition for some, and something akin to cinematic ecstasy for others. It’s the latter for me. Anne Hathaway plays Kym Buchanan, a career drug addict who takes leave from her latest stint in rehab to attend the wedding of her older sister Rachel (played Rosemarie DeWitt, who moves from her breakout role as Don Draper’s beatnik mistress on Mad Men to take on what seems like her righful place as a Maura Tierney/Catherine Keener type, a no-nonesense brunette destined to be counter-cast against ingenues). The wedding is set to take place at the Buchanan family’s sprawling Connecticut manse, which, to the externally prickly but internally fragile Kym’s dismay, has filled to bursting with assorted friends and family of the bride and groom, all with a different role to play in the weekend’s festivities under the watchful eye of the girls’ fastidiously caring father Paul (Bill Irwin) and his second wife Carol (Anna Deavere Smith). Kym drops into this swirl and instantly changes its chemistry with her acid tongue and total lack of filter. As she struggles to earn recognition and some modicum of trust and forgiveness from her weary sister, Kym forges a tenuous bond with best man Keiran (Mather Zickel)––who, like Kym, sneaks out daily to attend AA meetings––while also seeking out her mother (Debra Winger), who seems to be conspicuously distant; we soon learn that this is par for the course. Hathaway is given the predictable cosmetic grit (homemade haircut, raccoon eyeliner, fingers constantly twitching for a smoke), but she turns Kym into something much more than a Hollywood cipher of addiction. She’s a bit of a girl who cried wolf: toxic though she can be, especially to those who are less than sympathetic to her struggles, Kym seems to be both serious about sobriety and deeply regretful regarding past, nearly unforgivable mistakes, but she’s made so many plays towards atonement in the past that anyone she’s hurt before is wary of getting fooled again. Hathaway’s vulnerability in this tricky role is stunning, but slyly so: as a viewer you can loathe her presence, as some of the personalities in the film speace seem to, and then with a single cut realize that she’s gone from a scene and not only miss her, but actually, actively worry about where she is and what she’s up to. As the familial conflict builds to a violent breaking point and then becomes somewhat ameliorated by the boundless romance of the wedding and the wild joy of the all night dance party that follows (if nothing else, this is a fantastic example of the Endless Party movie), Kym’s frustration, sadness and sorrow uncomfortably and unignorably seeps in from the margins, like the smoke from her constant cigarette floating over from her solitary corner of the room. The most exciting thing about Rachel may be its refusal to permanently sort out the family’s life-long problems in the space of the film. Even as practical truces are formed and a tentative romance just barely begins to bloom, we get the sense that progress will be slow, leaving a damp-eyed Rachel to smoke alone in a corner at many supposedly fun functions in the future. Despite the presence of star Hathaway, Rachel’s commerical prospects are probably slim, which makes it all the more puzzling that this film is having its North American prmiere here in Toronto this weekend and not last weekend in Telluride. Why this film was reportedly rejected by that exclusive festival is a mystery to me. Supremely artful in its formal riskiness and at least as emotionally raw and resonant as a good deal of the Cannes holdovers that did make the line-up, its omission in favor of forgettable domestic products like Flash of Genius and American Violets is inexplicable. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:00:49 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com9/6/2008 12:00:49 PMJonathan Demme’s first fiction film since his 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate (and only his second non-documentary in ten years), Rachel Getting Married is orchestrated like an extraordinarily intimate work of direct cinema. Working from a script by Jenny Lumet (daughter of Sidney), Demme shot the dysfunctional family drama on a combination of grainy, handheld 35mm and consumer video––without rehearsal, with a huge ensemble cast made up of actors and musicians, with a soundtrack consisting entirely of diegetic music performed either on or just off camera by the likes of Robyn Hitchcock, New Orleans jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr, TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe (who also plays the key role of the man Rachel is getting married to) and sometime American Idol Tamyra Grey. For a film featuring not only said reality competition castoff but a tour de force performance from a two-time Teen Choice Award nominee, it’s almost unfathomably dark and emotionally tough. It’s essentially a Dogme 95 film directed by Robert Altman, which will be a frightening proposition for some, and something akin to cinematic ecstasy for others. It’s the latter for me. Anne Hathaway plays Kym Buchanan, a career drug addict who takes leave from her latest stint in rehab to attend the wedding of her older sister Rachel (played Rosemarie DeWitt, who moves from her breakout role as Don Draper’s beatnik mistress on Mad Men to take on what seems like her righful place as a Maura Tierney/Catherine Keener type, a no-nonesense brunette destined to be counter-cast against ingenues). The wedding is set to take place at the Buchanan family’s sprawling Connecticut manse, which, to the externally prickly but internally fragile Kym’s dismay, has filled to bursting with assorted friends and family of the bride and groom, all with a different role to play in the weekend’s festivities under the watchful eye of the girls’ fastidiously caring father Paul (Bill Irwin) and his second wife Carol (Anna Deavere Smith). Kym drops into this swirl and instantly changes its chemistry with her acid tongue and total lack of filter. As she struggles to earn recognition and some modicum of trust and forgiveness from her weary sister, Kym forges a tenuous bond with best man Keiran (Mather Zickel)––who, like Kym, sneaks out daily to attend AA meetings––while also seeking out her mother (Debra Winger), who seems to be conspicuously distant; we soon learn that this is par for the course. Hathaway is given the predictable cosmetic grit (homemade haircut, raccoon eyeliner, fingers constantly twitching for a smoke), but she turns Kym into something much more than a Hollywood cipher of addiction. She’s a bit of a girl who cried wolf: toxic though she can be, especially to those who are less than sympathetic to her struggles, Kym seems to be both serious about sobriety and deeply regretful regarding past, nearly unforgivable mistakes, but she’s made so many plays towards atonement in the past that anyone she’s hurt before is wary of getting fooled again. Hathaway’s vulnerability in this tricky role is stunning, but slyly so: as a viewer you can loathe her presence, as some of the personalities in the film speace seem to, and then with a single cut realize that she’s gone from a scene and not only miss her, but actually, actively worry about where she is and what she’s up to. As the familial conflict builds to a violent breaking point and then becomes somewhat ameliorated by the boundless romance of the wedding and the wild joy of the all night dance party that follows (if nothing else, this is a fantastic example of the Endless Party movie), Kym’s frustration, sadness and sorrow uncomfortably and unignorably seeps in from the margins, like the smoke from her constant cigarette floating over from her solitary corner of the room. The most exciting thing about Rachel may be its refusal to permanently sort out the family’s life-long problems in the space of the film. Even as practical truces are formed and a tentative romance just barely begins to bloom, we get the sense that progress will be slow, leaving a damp-eyed Rachel to smoke alone in a corner at many supposedly fun functions in the future. Despite the presence of star Hathaway, Rachel’s commerical prospects are probably slim, which makes it all the more puzzling that this film is having its North American prmiere here in Toronto this weekend and not last weekend in Telluride. Why this film was reportedly rejected by that exclusive festival is a mystery to me. Supremely artful in its formal riskiness and at least as emotionally raw and resonant as a good deal of the Cannes holdovers that did make the line-up, its omission in favor of forgettable domestic products like Flash of Genius and American Violets is inexplicable. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/groups/Weekly_Theme/Re_Weekly_Theme_for_August_11_The_Secret_Society/625/33902/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: unclefestering
Post To: Weekly Theme
Post Date: 8/12/2008 10:35:55 AM
Body: I think that The Parallex View has been largely forgotten, but it is a really great movie with Warren Beatty as an intrepid reporter getting way over his head when he investigates the secret forces behind a Kennedy-esque assassination. The best scene is when the group, disguised as a corporation, strap him into the chair for programming. It is much better than the similarly themed updated version of The Manchurian Candidate. I still love the creepy original. Nobody can play the controlling incestous mother like Angela Lansbury. Fight Club can be seen as a secret society opposing the forces of corporate consumerism. And for the classic evil cult type of Secret Society, I'd go for The Devil's Rain, where Tom Skerrit and Bill Shatner take on a demonic cult lead by Ernest Borgnine!
]]>Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:35:55 GMTunclefesteringWeekly Theme8/12/2008 10:35:55 AMI think that The Parallex View has been largely forgotten, but it is a really great movie with Warren Beatty as an intrepid reporter getting way over his head when he investigates the secret forces behind a Kennedy-esque assassination. The best scene is when the group, disguised as a corporation, strap him into the chair for programming. It is much better than the similarly themed updated version of The Manchurian Candidate. I still love the creepy original. Nobody can play the controlling incestous mother like Angela Lansbury. Fight Club can be seen as a secret society opposing the forces of corporate consumerism. And for the classic evil cult type of Secret Society, I'd go for The Devil's Rain, where Tom Skerrit and Bill Shatner take on a demonic cult lead by Ernest Borgnine! http://www.spout.com/blogs/cinemarian/archive/2008/5/12/28796.aspx Post By: CinemaRian
Post To: CinemaRian Blog
Post Date: 5/12/2008 11:17:02 PM
Body: It's now time to enter the strange new world of the Pointless Remake. At the best of times, a remake is a chance for a director to take a work that is in the public consciousness and put there own spin on it (as was the case with Cukor's A Star Is Born, Coppola's Dracula and Jackson's King Kong). There are other times that remakes are obvious cash-ins (as was the case with 1976 version of Kong and Devlin and Emmerich's Godzilla. And then there are some that seem to have no logical reason for there existence, films that audiences were not clamoring for but got made anyway. This category includes Gus Van Zant's Psycho, Paul Schrader's Cat People, and Neil La Butte's The Wicker Man. Jonathon Demme's The Manchurian Candidate also falls into the third category. On the most basic level, the broad outlines of the Frankenhiemer classic would make a good movie- a man is brainwashed into assassinating someone without ever knowing there is anything wrong. However, Demme has not just taken this narrative hook and built a new story around it, but taken many themes and characters from the original. Although this is not a shot for shot remake a la Psycho, there is enough similarity that we run into the same problems with the Van Zant film - we can't stop comparing the new film to the original, and almost every comparison is lost because you can't see the movie in its own right. For example, Denzel Washington is a better actor than Frank Sinatra, but Washington can't play Sinatra better than Sinatra can. Watching Demme's remake is boring and tedious, because we no exactly what is going to happen. There are differences, of course: the party in question is now supposed to be the Democrats and instead of the Republicans, the original war is the Iraq I instead Korea, and the villains behind the scheme are different (the movie wants it to be a surprise, but unfortunately it's given away in the title if you pay attention). Demme is so intent on being loyal to the original that some of the action is difficult to believe. Political conventions are hugely different now then they were in the 60's but you would never know that from this movie. Of course, all of the above is only true if you have seen the original. Maybe if I had come into this film cold I might have been caught up in the movie anyway, but I doubt it. The movie still has some crucial pacing issues. What is missing most from the original is the atmosphere- that vague notion that something is very, very wrong gives way to Demme's declarations that something is REALLY, REALLY wrong. I have not seen much of Demme's work but he made the excellent Silence of the Lambs, so he's obviously talented. But why make this film, when the original was a complete thought and there was little else that was necessary to say? The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
]]>Tue, 13 May 2008 03:17:02 GMTCinemaRianCinemaRian Blog5/12/2008 11:17:02 PMIt's now time to enter the strange new world of the Pointless Remake. At the best of times, a remake is a chance for a director to take a work that is in the public consciousness and put there own spin on it (as was the case with Cukor's A Star Is Born, Coppola's Dracula and Jackson's King Kong). There are other times that remakes are obvious cash-ins (as was the case with 1976 version of Kong and Devlin and Emmerich's Godzilla. And then there are some that seem to have no logical reason for there existence, films that audiences were not clamoring for but got made anyway. This category includes Gus Van Zant's Psycho, Paul Schrader's Cat People, and Neil La Butte's The Wicker Man. Jonathon Demme's The Manchurian Candidate also falls into the third category. On the most basic level, the broad outlines of the Frankenhiemer classic would make a good movie- a man is brainwashed into assassinating someone without ever knowing there is anything wrong. However, Demme has not just taken this narrative hook and built a new story around it, but taken many themes and characters from the original. Although this is not a shot for shot remake a la Psycho, there is enough similarity that we run into the same problems with the Van Zant film - we can't stop comparing the new film to the original, and almost every comparison is lost because you can't see the movie in its own right. For example, Denzel Washington is a better actor than Frank Sinatra, but Washington can't play Sinatra better than Sinatra can. Watching Demme's remake is boring and tedious, because we no exactly what is going to happen. There are differences, of course: the party in question is now supposed to be the Democrats and instead of the Republicans, the original war is the Iraq I instead Korea, and the villains behind the scheme are different (the movie wants it to be a surprise, but unfortunately it's given away in the title if you pay attention). Demme is so intent on being loyal to the original that some of the action is difficult to believe. Political conventions are hugely different now then they were in the 60's but you would never know that from this movie. Of course, all of the above is only true if you have seen the original. Maybe if I had come into this film cold I might have been caught up in the movie anyway, but I doubt it. The movie still has some crucial pacing issues. What is missing most from the original is the atmosphere- that vague notion that something is very, very wrong gives way to Demme's declarations that something is REALLY, REALLY wrong. I have not seen much of Demme's work but he made the excellent Silence of the Lambs, so he's obviously talented. But why make this film, when the original was a complete thought and there was little else that was necessary to say? The Manchurian Candidate (2004) http://www.spout.com/groups/The_Film_Library/Re_They_Got_It_Right_somehow_but_not_the_book/512/23960/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: Puhnner
Post To: The Film Library
Post Date: 1/16/2008 2:25:49 PM
Body: It's been a while since I read it, so I cannot remember if the ending was different too, but the film The Manchurian Candidate , both of them, particularly the later , are quite different from Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate. The book, as I remember it, had an ironic, wiseguy, jokester, sarcastic tone to it, that I missed in both of the films ( it is a great book along with a couple others of his, by the way ). But I like both films for different reasons, the first much much more than the 2nd, even though the 2nd had the contemporary paranoia ( or is it ) and who is really who and why, well illustrated while the 1st played the Cold War and the insidious 'commies everywhere taking over the world' perfectly.
]]>Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:25:49 GMTPuhnnerThe Film Library1/16/2008 2:25:49 PMIt&#39;s been a while since I read it, so I cannot remember if the ending was different too, but the film The Manchurian Candidate , both of them, particularly the later , are quite different from Richard Condon&#39;s The Manchurian Candidate. The book, as I remember it, had an ironic, wiseguy, jokester, sarcastic tone to it, that I missed in both of the films ( it is a great book along with a couple others of his, by the way ). But I like both films for different reasons, the first much much more than the 2nd, even though the 2nd had the contemporary paranoia ( or is it ) and who is really who and why, well illustrated while the 1st played the Cold War and the insidious &#39;commies everywhere taking over the world&#39; perfectly. http://www.spout.com/groups/The_Film_Library/They_Got_It_Right_somehow_but_not_the_book/512/22511/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: Puhnner
Post To: The Film Library
Post Date: 12/3/2007 2:57:25 PM
Body: Here are a few and I am not sure if this is the right discussion, but since I do not think that the film followed the book or was particularly faithfull, but nevertheless, I enjoyed the film; perhaps this should be a separate discussion threadSin CityA History of ViolenceRashomon ( this is not a book, but a story )The Big Sleep ( Bogart version )LA ConfidentialThe GetawayMoby DickBilly BuddThe Thin Red LineNo Country for Old MenMystic RiverChildren of Men ( a very different milieu, story framing, and ending; both endings are equally fitting for the respective piece)The Short Timers ( Full Metal Jacket )oh and of course:Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ( Blade Runner )The Dexter Series ( however not a film, a television series )I would love to see 'Out' from the novel by Natsuo Kirino, but it does not seem to be availableI understand the disappointment with Breakfast of Champions, however even though I loved the book, especially the drawings, I really liked the film too.god, there are so many more, I have already posted on other discussions...many, many that I would love to see into films...I have not seen 'All the Pretty Horses' either but want to even though I view it as the weakest of the Cormac McCarthy Border Trilogy.I am also interested in seeing Gone Baby, Gone as for an abomination of a very good book with a much subtler and involved tale, Taking Lives....oh woe and ruination. I suspect that I am Legend will not fare well either after reading it ( I do love Last Man on Earth though )I have not seen it yet but, I expect little fromCharlie Wilson's War
]]>Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:57:25 GMTPuhnnerThe Film Library12/3/2007 2:57:25 PMHere are a few and I am not sure if this is the right discussion, but since I do not think that the film followed the book or was particularly faithfull, but nevertheless, I enjoyed the film; perhaps this should be a separate discussion threadSin CityA History of ViolenceRashomon ( this is not a book, but a story )The Big Sleep ( Bogart version )LA ConfidentialThe GetawayMoby DickBilly BuddThe Thin Red LineNo Country for Old MenMystic RiverChildren of Men ( a very different milieu, story framing, and ending; both endings are equally fitting for the respective piece)The Short Timers ( Full Metal Jacket )oh and of course:Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ( Blade Runner )The Dexter Series ( however not a film, a television series )I would love to see &#39;Out&#39; from the novel by Natsuo Kirino, but it does not seem to be availableI understand the disappointment with Breakfast of Champions, however even though I loved the book, especially the drawings, I really liked the film too.god, there are so many more, I have already posted on other discussions...many, many that I would love to see into films...I have not seen &#39;All the Pretty Horses&#39; either but want to even though I view it as the weakest of the Cormac McCarthy Border Trilogy.I am also interested in seeing Gone Baby, Gone as for an abomination of a very good book with a much subtler and involved tale, Taking Lives....oh woe and ruination. I suspect that I am Legend will not fare well either after reading it ( I do love Last Man on Earth though )I have not seen it yet but, I expect little fromCharlie Wilson&#39;s War http://www.spout.com/blogs/moviebabe/archive/2007/7/5/13219.aspx Post By: MovieBabe
Post To: MovieBabe Blog
Post Date: 7/5/2007 7:52:00 PM
Body: By Tricia Olszewski Remaking a film considered by most to be a period classic is questionable to begin with. But then handing the helm over to Jonathan The Truth About Charlie Demme? Well, any Charade fan can tell you that the result might very well move you to curl up in a corner and claw your eyes. Though purists will likely still balk, Demme’s 2004 version of The Manchurian Candidate shouldn’t set John Frankenheimer spinning in his grave. Then again, it might: Working from a smart, tight script by Daniel Pyne and Dean Georgaris (who, given that his previous credits are Paycheck and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, must have typed), Demme fashions a redo that pays homage but doesn’t copy, that streamlines the story and amps up the thrills without cheapening the material. The result, in other words, is not only the best one could hope for but arguably an improvement on the occasionally ponderous original. Denzel Washington and Liev Schreiber take on the roles originated in 1962 by Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey in this still-relevant thriller about manufactured politicos and righteous paranoia. Thirteen years after seeing combat in Kuwait during the Gulf War, Maj. Ben Marco (Washington) is still called on to speak about the heroics of his platoon, particularly Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Schreiber), who is now a congressman being urged to become a vice-presidential candidate by his domineering mother, Sen. Eleanor Shaw (Meryl Streep). The problem with Marco’s speeches is that although the words come naturally, he has no actual memory of the events they concern. He’s also plagued by nightmares in which Shaw not only isn’t a selfless hero but is also quite the villain. When another platoon member, Al Melvin (Jeffrey Wright), disheveled and clutching a notebook filled with seemingly lunatic scribblings, confronts Marco about having the same issues, Marco becomes determined to discover what really happened in Kuwait. Demme and fave cinematographer Tak Fujimoto bring their Silence of the Lambs sensibility to what happens next, which also happens to show Frankenheimer a thing or two about effective narrative and efficient pacing—not to mention sinister atmosphere. There is no phony ladies’ garden club here—instead, the brainwashing visions include rows of sweaty, wheelchaired men sporting head bandages and random wounds, arranged in a room that boasts just the right dark, grainy ambiance for torture. And the enemy, suitably changed from Red China to corporate America, is represented by a strangely accented doctor (Simon McBurney) whose soothing drone is downright spine-tingling. (Or maybe it’s his footlong skull drill. Tough call.) Washington and Schreiber basically exchange their usual onscreen personas here, with the normally smooth Denzel, in buttoned-up polos and nerdy glasses, playing a smart but schlubby loner and Schreiber slickly fitting into the role of plastic politician. Both command your attention with their not-quite-right characters, and Demme takes full advantage of these vets’ ability in a private-conversation scene in which the screen is alternately dedicated to each actor’s face as they exchange quietly urgent dialogue. Streep, however, is simply Streep. She may play the hell out of her nutcracking, ice-chewing, and now nearly clichéd lady senator—which the actress has adamantly denied modeling on Hillary Rodham Clinton—but she doesn’t exactly bring anything unexpected to it. Pyne and Georgaris lift a few memorable lines of dialogue from George Axelrod’s original script, but most of this Manchurian Candidate is an entirely new beast. One notable exception is the film’s end, which Demme mimics yet modernizes to dazzling effect. Using a peppy Fountains of Wayne song instead of anything even remotely like the original’s celebrated jazz-classical score to accompany an impending tragedy, the director first unsettles you with incongruity, then stretches the scene way past its logical end—a technique that he seems to have borrowed, strangely enough, not from Reservoir Dogs, but from Rob Zombie’s execution sequence in House of 1000 Corpses. Frankenheimer’s film may have been visionary, but you gotta admit that cribbing from a metalhead is its own brand of ballsy. The Bourne Supremacy’s approach to thrill-making, by contrast, is so frenetic that the movie seems less like a sequel to The Bourne Identity than to Run Lola Run. Here, however, Lola is named Marie (Franka Potente, of course, but blond and nearly unrecognizable), and the person doing the running is her boyfriend, CIA superspy Jason Bourne (Matt Damon). Whereas the first Bourne was a satisfying, if by-the-numbers, bit of puzzle-piecing that followed the amnesiac agent as he tried to figure out who he was and how he ended up floating in the Mediterranean, Supremacy’s plot details aren’t nearly as crucial. Good thing, too, ’cause you’re not likely to catch too many of them by the end of the film’s dizzying 110 minutes. Supremacy opens with Bourne enjoying a relatively peaceful but slightly insomnia-marred life with Marie in Goa, India. She spends her days trolling the open-air markets in colorful clothes; he hangs around their beachfront home and sorts through old notes and photos in an attempt to recall more of his former existence. Should digging into the past get too icky, though, he’s surrounded by new pictures of the smiling couple to remind him that it’s all over. Happy, happy, happy. Until, of course, it ain’t. It’s not long before Bourne senses that he’s once again being hunted, and in a claustrophobic sequence through narrow Indian streets reminiscent of Identity’s Mini chase, Supremacy gets kick-started and doesn’t let up until its quiet close, which bookends all the action with another touch of humanity. Director Paul Greengrass’ nauseating camerawork—in addition to MTV-style cuts, he prefers shots that are Blair Witch–shaky—follows Bourne to Naples, Berlin, and Moscow as he eludes CIA Agent Pamela Landy (Joan Allen in crisp Contender mode), who believes he’s responsible for the deaths of two of her men. While Allen takes over Chris Cooper’s Identity duties in maniacally barking out lines such as “I need answers,” Brian Cox returns as Bourne’s curmudgeonly former boss, Ward Abbott, whose sole purpose seems to be to dryly cut the overcaffeinated bitch down. (Best moment: Responding to Landy’s exhausting rationale for capturing but not killing Bourne with an offhand “You talk about this stuff like you read it in a book” and then walking out.) Damon, meanwhile, is once again sufficiently stoic to allow a secret-agent persona to believably trump his Boy Scout looks. Though the Landy-and-Bourne cat-and-mouse game is padded with minor characters and loads of detail-heavy conversation, Supremacy’s fun is of the superficial sort. Its scenes don’t exactly flow together so much as stand as discrete how’s-he-gonna-do-it dramas, and most of them are filled with enough clever spy tricks and gut-punching action to be terribly entertaining—Greengrass’ ace is a point-of-impact shot from within the car during a crash, a move he trots out twice. Like Bourne, you may sometimes be confused about how everything fits together, but you shouldn’t be tempted to think too hard about it.
]]>Thu, 05 Jul 2007 23:52:00 GMTMovieBabeMovieBabe Blog7/5/2007 7:52:00 PM By Tricia Olszewski Remaking a film considered by most to be a period classic is questionable to begin with. But then handing the helm over to Jonathan The Truth About Charlie Demme? Well, any Charade fan can tell you that the result might very well move you to curl up in a corner and claw your eyes. Though purists will likely still balk, Demme&rsquo;s 2004 version of The Manchurian Candidate shouldn&rsquo;t set John Frankenheimer spinning in his grave. Then again, it might: Working from a smart, tight script by Daniel Pyne and Dean Georgaris (who, given that his previous credits are Paycheck and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, must have typed), Demme fashions a redo that pays homage but doesn&rsquo;t copy, that streamlines the story and amps up the thrills without cheapening the material. The result, in other words, is not only the best one could hope for but arguably an improvement on the occasionally ponderous original. Denzel Washington and Liev Schreiber take on the roles originated in 1962 by Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey in this still-relevant thriller about manufactured politicos and righteous paranoia. Thirteen years after seeing combat in Kuwait during the Gulf War, Maj. Ben Marco (Washington) is still called on to speak about the heroics of his platoon, particularly Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Schreiber), who is now a congressman being urged to become a vice-presidential candidate by his domineering mother, Sen. Eleanor Shaw (Meryl Streep). The problem with Marco&rsquo;s speeches is that although the words come naturally, he has no actual memory of the events they concern. He&rsquo;s also plagued by nightmares in which Shaw not only isn&rsquo;t a selfless hero but is also quite the villain. When another platoon member, Al Melvin (Jeffrey Wright), disheveled and clutching a notebook filled with seemingly lunatic scribblings, confronts Marco about having the same issues, Marco becomes determined to discover what really happened in Kuwait. Demme and fave cinematographer Tak Fujimoto bring their Silence of the Lambs sensibility to what happens next, which also happens to show Frankenheimer a thing or two about effective narrative and efficient pacing&mdash;not to mention sinister atmosphere. There is no phony ladies&rsquo; garden club here&mdash;instead, the brainwashing visions include rows of sweaty, wheelchaired men sporting head bandages and random wounds, arranged in a room that boasts just the right dark, grainy ambiance for torture. And the enemy, suitably changed from Red China to corporate America, is represented by a strangely accented doctor (Simon McBurney) whose soothing drone is downright spine-tingling. (Or maybe it&rsquo;s his footlong skull drill. Tough call.) Washington and Schreiber basically exchange their usual onscreen personas here, with the normally smooth Denzel, in buttoned-up polos and nerdy glasses, playing a smart but schlubby loner and Schreiber slickly fitting into the role of plastic politician. Both command your attention with their not-quite-right characters, and Demme takes full advantage of these vets&rsquo; ability in a private-conversation scene in which the screen is alternately dedicated to each actor&rsquo;s face as they exchange quietly urgent dialogue. Streep, however, is simply Streep. She may play the hell out of her nutcracking, ice-chewing, and now nearly clich&eacute;d lady senator&mdash;which the actress has adamantly denied modeling on Hillary Rodham Clinton&mdash;but she doesn&rsquo;t exactly bring anything unexpected to it. Pyne and Georgaris lift a few memorable lines of dialogue from George Axelrod&rsquo;s original script, but most of this Manchurian Candidate is an entirely new beast. One notable exception is the film&rsquo;s end, which Demme mimics yet modernizes to dazzling effect. Using a peppy Fountains of Wayne song instead of anything even remotely like the original&rsquo;s celebrated jazz-classical score to accompany an impending tragedy, the director first unsettles you with incongruity, then stretches the scene way past its logical end&mdash;a technique that he seems to have borrowed, strangely enough, not from Reservoir Dogs, but from Rob Zombie&rsquo;s execution sequence in House of 1000 Corpses. Frankenheimer&rsquo;s film may have been visionary, but you gotta admit that cribbing from a metalhead is its own brand of ballsy. The Bourne Supremacy&rsquo;s approach to thrill-making, by contrast, is so frenetic that the movie seems less like a sequel to The Bourne Identity than to Run Lola Run. Here, however, Lola is named Marie (Franka Potente, of course, but blond and nearly unrecognizable), and the person doing the running is her boyfriend, CIA superspy Jason Bourne (Matt Damon). Whereas the first Bourne was a satisfying, if by-the-numbers, bit of puzzle-piecing that followed the amnesiac agent as he tried to figure out who he was and how he ended up floating in the Mediterranean, Supremacy&rsquo;s plot details aren&rsquo;t nearly as crucial. Good thing, too, &rsquo;cause you&rsquo;re not likely to catch too many of them by the end of the film&rsquo;s dizzying 110 minutes. Supremacy opens with Bourne enjoying a relatively peaceful but slightly insomnia-marred life with Marie in Goa, India. She spends her days trolling the open-air markets in colorful clothes; he hangs around their beachfront home and sorts through old notes and photos in an attempt to recall more of his former existence. Should digging into the past get too icky, though, he&rsquo;s surrounded by new pictures of the smiling couple to remind him that it&rsquo;s all over. Happy, happy, happy. Until, of course, it ain&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;s not long before Bourne senses that he&rsquo;s once again being hunted, and in a claustrophobic sequence through narrow Indian streets reminiscent of Identity&rsquo;s Mini chase, Supremacy gets kick-started and doesn&rsquo;t let up until its quiet close, which bookends all the action with another touch of humanity. Director Paul Greengrass&rsquo; nauseating camerawork&mdash;in addition to MTV-style cuts, he prefers shots that are Blair Witch&ndash;shaky&mdash;follows Bourne to Naples, Berlin, and Moscow as he eludes CIA Agent Pamela Landy (Joan Allen in crisp Contender mode), who believes he&rsquo;s responsible for the deaths of two of her men. While Allen takes over Chris Cooper&rsquo;s Identity duties in maniacally barking out lines such as &ldquo;I need answers,&rdquo; Brian Cox returns as Bourne&rsquo;s curmudgeonly former boss, Ward Abbott, whose sole purpose seems to be to dryly cut the overcaffeinated bitch down. (Best moment: Responding to Landy&rsquo;s exhausting rationale for capturing but not killing Bourne with an offhand &ldquo;You talk about this stuff like you read it in a book&rdquo; and then walking out.) Damon, meanwhile, is once again sufficiently stoic to allow a secret-agent persona to believably trump his Boy Scout looks. Though the Landy-and-Bourne cat-and-mouse game is padded with minor characters and loads of detail-heavy conversation, Supremacy&rsquo;s fun is of the superficial sort. Its scenes don&rsquo;t exactly flow together so much as stand as discrete how&rsquo;s-he-gonna-do-it dramas, and most of them are filled with enough clever spy tricks and gut-punching action to be terribly entertaining&mdash;Greengrass&rsquo; ace is a point-of-impact shot from within the car during a crash, a move he trots out twice. Like Bourne, you may sometimes be confused about how everything fits together, but you shouldn&rsquo;t be tempted to think too hard about it. http://www.spout.com/blogs/jimbell/archive/2007/5/5/8187.aspx Post By: JimBell
Post To: JimBell Blog
Post Date: 5/5/2007 1:58:00 AM
Body: The Manchurian Candidate, the remake, is such a good movie that I wonder why it is not excellent. The Director is top-knotch—Jonathan Demme debuted in 1980 with one of my all-time favourite movies, Melvin and Howard, about Howard Hughes and the “Mormon will.” Between 1984-93 he directed a string of top-drawer movies e.g., Married to the Mob (1988), Silence of the Lambs (1991), and Philadelphia (1993). Now he and two script writers revamp the classic Manchurian Candidate movie about a platoon that has been secretly brain washed in order to have a “puppet” run for high political office and infiltrate the White House. Demme put a lot of his energy into selecting the actors. Denzil Washington, probably my favourite actor, was already part of the project and did a superb job of playing the brain washed Major. Meryl Streep won her part over 11 other actresses fighting to get into this heavy-weight picture. Her speech to a backroom campaign meeting is one of the most powerful arguments you’ll see on screen—and it succeeds in making her brain-washed son the vice-presidential candidate. Live Schreiber, as her son, was chosen because he was so likeable in real life, an essential quality in a person who is so unsympathetic in the movie yet must ultimately make us feel how pathetic and abused he really is. These and the secondary actors get to perform in marvellous sets, sets which seem perfectly natural but simultaneously convey a subtle message e.g., when the seemingly prim and proper Major enters his apartment for the first time on screen, we see newspapers and books and stuff everywhere. This set captures the core of the Major’s struggle: the man is simultaneously too depressed to clean up properly and too eager to discover the truth about what happened to him and his unit to throw anything out. So why isn’t this an excellent movie? First, there is what Ivor Winter’s calls “the fallacy of imitative form” e.g., when you write about a boring person boringly. Washington’s character is to an uncertain degree depressed and controlled by the Manchurian corporation, and this robs the picture of an admittedly more predictable hero who overcomes his brainwashing and raises hell. Second, the Manchurian corporation is too vague to give us something to heartily dislike. We dislike the brainwashing scientist the corporation has hired, but we see nothing of the corporation except a few men in suits in newspaper photos or in long shots. While this is realistic, it makes the movie flatter. Finally, in the climactic scene of the movie, the Major acts out of character, and he receives a crucial signal from the Vice-President’s eyes which the Major could not possibly see from so far away. But the sound track is excellent (Wyclef Jean doing John Fogarty’s “Fortunate Son”), the photography is solid, the minor actors are super, and the theme of the movie is one that needs to be reiterated. But some other movies that do fewer things right are more exciting to watch and stick with you longer.
]]>Sat, 05 May 2007 05:58:00 GMTJimBellJimBell Blog5/5/2007 1:58:00 AMThe Manchurian Candidate, the remake, is such a good movie that I wonder why it is not excellent. The Director is top-knotch&mdash;Jonathan Demme debuted in 1980 with one of my all-time favourite movies, Melvin and Howard, about Howard Hughes and the &ldquo;Mormon will.&rdquo; Between 1984-93 he directed a string of top-drawer movies e.g., Married to the Mob (1988), Silence of the Lambs (1991), and Philadelphia (1993). Now he and two script writers revamp the classic Manchurian Candidate movie about a platoon that has been secretly brain washed in order to have a &ldquo;puppet&rdquo; run for high political office and infiltrate the White House. Demme put a lot of his energy into selecting the actors. Denzil Washington, probably my favourite actor, was already part of the project and did a superb job of playing the brain washed Major. Meryl Streep won her part over 11 other actresses fighting to get into this heavy-weight picture. Her speech to a backroom campaign meeting is one of the most powerful arguments you&rsquo;ll see on screen&mdash;and it succeeds in making her brain-washed son the vice-presidential candidate. Live Schreiber, as her son, was chosen because he was so likeable in real life, an essential quality in a person who is so unsympathetic in the movie yet must ultimately make us feel how pathetic and abused he really is. These and the secondary actors get to perform in marvellous sets, sets which seem perfectly natural but simultaneously convey a subtle message e.g., when the seemingly prim and proper Major enters his apartment for the first time on screen, we see newspapers and books and stuff everywhere. This set captures the core of the Major&rsquo;s struggle: the man is simultaneously too depressed to clean up properly and too eager to discover the truth about what happened to him and his unit to throw anything out. So why isn&rsquo;t this an excellent movie? First, there is what Ivor Winter&rsquo;s calls &ldquo;the fallacy of imitative form&rdquo; e.g., when you write about a boring person boringly. Washington&rsquo;s character is to an uncertain degree depressed and controlled by the Manchurian corporation, and this robs the picture of an admittedly more predictable hero who overcomes his brainwashing and raises hell. Second, the Manchurian corporation is too vague to give us something to heartily dislike. We dislike the brainwashing scientist the corporation has hired, but we see nothing of the corporation except a few men in suits in newspaper photos or in long shots. While this is realistic, it makes the movie flatter. Finally, in the climactic scene of the movie, the Major acts out of character, and he receives a crucial signal from the Vice-President&rsquo;s eyes which the Major could not possibly see from so far away. But the sound track is excellent (Wyclef Jean doing John Fogarty&rsquo;s &ldquo;Fortunate Son&rdquo;), the photography is solid, the minor actors are super, and the theme of the movie is one that needs to be reiterated. But some other movies that do fewer things right are more exciting to watch and stick with you longer. http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/war/MemberTagFilms.aspxwar
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