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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Manchurian Candidate

We're The Great Old Ones Now

16:53 / 02.07.01

I just saw this for the first time.

Wow.

16:57 / 02.07.01

<wanders through thread>
Must...find...Paul Weller...
<wanders out of thread>

14:46 / 14.07.01

I've read that it was censored for quite a while. Not too suprising. Ever read Catcher in the Rye?

13:14 / 16.07.01

I suspect that the reason it was censored was that it came out about a year (I might be off a little on the timing, but it was an amount of time before the grassy knoll) before the Kennedy asssasination, which, as we all know, was pinned on a young American serviceman named Lee Harvey Oswald. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not.

At any rate, an incredible movie. The Ladies Flower Symposium blew me away- still does after the thousandnth viewing. Excellent choice on the director's part to NOT lead the viewer by 'hint' music.

D Terminator XXXIII

01:08 / 12.03.05

The oldie I have not seen.

The new one I have.

Demme has to be commended for such relentless dread, sustained in the majority of the movie. But I see a worrying trend in my choice movies of late: I am more preoccupied with the form, than I am in the message. Although it's not like a flashy image will distract me from noticing something patently atonal. But, I couldn't care less if this movie carried a subtext which stated something profound about the current presidential candidacy; yet, I absolutely loved the ever present mastery of suspense employed. Along with Something Wild and Silence..., it forms an impressive trilogy of dread. Intelligent dread, that is.

17:42 / 13.03.05

See the original.

See it.

The new one is a dim and shallow remake.

D Terminator XXXIII

20:45 / 13.03.05

I will try to locate it. In the meantime, why don't you explain a bit more, Stewart?

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

03:46 / 14.03.05

I don't know why Cameron said he liked the original better, but the reason I did was that the first one didn't tell you everything when the movie started.

The new version was a sledge hammer when it came to its political points, and became almost a screed with some story in it, while the first one was a great story that happened to make a political point. And it was FAR ahead of the new one when it came to acting. Not once did I think Denzel Washington was sane, the "Candidate" couldn't have been more of a robot, while the original was far more subtle, and because of that, far more chilling.

06:11 / 14.03.05

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

I dunno, it's not a terrible film, just kind of...mediocre. I always judge remakes pretty harshly anyway - is there a point to remaking it? Does it improve on the original in any way? Remakes, to me, have to justify their existence beyond "people don't like to watch black and white movies." I didn't think the story contemporized very well, particularly the shedding of the communist paranoia of the original in favour of the clumsy "Manchurian Corporation" or whatever it was.

The Ladies' Garden Club scene that opens the original is one of the most memorable scenes in any movie I've seen, incredibly cleverly edited, chillingly effective and all the more impressive when considering when it was made. I don't think there's anything in the remake as innovative as that one scene in the original.

It's really worth seeing, if you can get it.

(By the way, Stewart is my surname, you can feel free to address me as Cameron, unless you're deliberately trying to sound aggressive and condescending.

)

D Terminator XXXIII

10:08 / 14.03.05

Oh no, no, Cameron. I thought it was the polite thing to do, because Cameron would sound too much like me trying to cosy up to an impressive artist... I should also apologize, come to think of it, of a pretty harsh post in the Machinist thread, but no malice was intended. Oh, I was just surprised at how different our tastes were, considering that I liked most of your original iPod list in the music forum.

Even though it should be interesting to watch the original, perhaps the order that I'm watching them in will invariably produce a different outlook than both of you - your complaints are specific to the story, and I liked it because of the clarity that was used to tell its story: the disturbing sense of menace arising from either sounds, colors, situations or music. When so many movies feel like muddled experiences - in that the tone of what has been sought to achieve with a movie leaves me with divided or unclear impressions - I thought this movie was a personal achievement for Demme.

14:25 / 14.03.05

Also, too, I am coming at it with a knowledge of the original and so can't help but make a comparison - perhaps had I not seen the Frankenheimer version, I would have enjoyed the Demme one more.

Hugs all round!