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The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

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All reviews for The Manchurian Candidate

Rachel Getting Married Review
by Karina in Karina on SpoutBlog

hasn't rated it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. [What do you think?]
"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 forc ... " [More]

Rachel Getting Married Review
by SpoutBlog in SpoutBlog on spout.com

hasn't rated it.

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"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 forc ... " [More]

Rachel Getting Married Review, ...
by Karina in Karina on SpoutBlog

hasn't rated it.

Was this review helpful? [Be the first to tell us!]
"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 e " [More]

Rachel Getting Married Review, ...
by SpoutBlog in SpoutBlog on spout.com

hasn't rated it.

The Manchurian Candidate - The ...
by MovieBabe in MovieBabe Blog

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"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 ... " [More]

The Manchurian Candidate
by JimBell in JimBell Blog

liked it.

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"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 ... " [More]

The Manchurian Candidate (2004, ...
by CinemaRian in CinemaRian Blog

hasn't rated it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. [What do you think?]
"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 thi ... " [More]

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