If you squint real hard . . .
UPDATE 8/24: Here is an interesting article (reg. req.) focusing on the Manchurian Candidate as an example of how the left is fighting back against the Right's war of fear by shifting that fear from Al Qaeda to Big Brother. Thanks to Peter from Polistyrene for pointing it out.
I'm working on a comparative blog on the Manchurian Candidate, new and old. This will be fun. Unfortunately I'm going to have to watch the original again to refresh my memory.
At any rate, I strongly endorse Jonathan Demme's remake, even though his direction is uninspired.
Between the 20 minutes of commercials Regal Cinemas has spliced in to offset their staggering losses and the feature itself, I saw the trailer for Alexander for the first time. This is the new Oliver Stone epic based on the "life" of Alexander the Great. I don't know what to think. Colin Ferrell looks a little clunky in the role, and his flowing platinum mullet makes him look like a Grade-A yutz--a veritable maroon.
Maybe I should brush up on my Greek history--file through some daguerreotypes from the Pelopponesian Wars--but none of the Greek statues I've ever seen had mullets.
The only mullet I saw on a Greek was affixed to the head of the angry youth who sold me the roughly 8 gallons of Ouzo it took to keep me from committing suicide in Athens. I was supposed to fly out the morning after the place was rocked by the first snow storm the Eastern Mediterranean since the mid-80s. 12 people in Tukey died of exposure that night--this is how unprepared the region is for an inch and a half of snow. It only lasted about 6 hours, then it was gone. The Athens airport was closed for 5 days.
The city itself is post-apocalyptic in the most boring way imaginable. It looks like Sarajevo with less color and more Communist-Bloc architecture. Of course the Greeks don't have the same excuse the Bosnians do for a metropolis of crumbling buildings and infrastructure.
It's just not that cool of a city to begin with, and everything worth seeing is spread over miles and miles of dirty urban sprawl that might be accessible if 70% of the subway stations weren't boarded up (the decades old system was only made fully functional in time for this year's Olympics). It was a dark time boy.
Wow, my digressions are getting worse.
Anyway, I'm not holding out much hope for a historical account--In fact I'm looking forward to seeing what Stone cooks up. His ideas might be running a little thin though. In the a climactic battle towards the end of the trailer, I definitely think I saw a second spearman on a hill just in front and to the right of the rest of the battle.
Then there's the quizzical second-billing of Tommy Lee Jones as Alexander's gay, b-girl consigliere, Clayzakos Shawpides.
Argh, Blogger is sending me my comment emails 12 hours late . . .
posted by Luke @ 9:43 AM
11 comments
11 Comments:
"Clayzakos Shawpides..." Heh.
Speaking of Alexander, did you know that there is a good chance that he died from the West Nile virus? What a pussy. You can read up on that theory here: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol9no12/03-0288.htm
It's kind of interesting.
--Mike Sheffler
I did hear that actually, that's funny . . . and sad. But mostly funny.
So this is what the CDC is up to these days. Nice work guys.
The New England Journal of Medecine might take issue with that though: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/latest_news/110852.stm
Turns out it was typhoid fever, the same death that claimed the lives of my 5 children on that fateful Oregon Trail.
Let's just call the cause of death "Lack of oxygen to the brain" and leave it at that.
Speaking of the Manchurian Candidate, I highly recommend Frank Rich's semi-recent column for the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/arts/25RICH.html?ex=1093406400&en=7257893f76995988&ei=5070
He addresses a lot of great material we should all be thinking and talking about.
Peter Mellman
http://www.polistyrene.com/
"That's what both parties deserve for having steadily sanded down their quadrennial celebrations into infomercials with all the spark and spontaneity of the televised Yule Log"
I like this guy, that's a good link Peter, thanks.
That too goes well with my previous post--to unceremoniously link probably the only thing I've writen worth linking.
And the Anti-bush subtext of the movie was right on the surface--despite the villain being (probably, parties aren't named) a democrat--the antagonist is a whore for corporate interest, eager for war as the first and only solution etc etc.
God, I can't even count how many western settlers died of Typhoid on my watch ...
Hmm, I hadn't seen the BBC link. Good sleuthing. I think I read the West Nile theory in Discover some time last year.
On the other hand, I *did* see the Rich article, which is weird, because I *rarely* read the A&L section of the NY Times. Maybe I followed a link to it or something.
--Mike Sheffler
YOu knew about it and you withheld it from me? No wonder your shit died of Typhoid. Negligence.
Yeah, those have all been theories. The funny thing is that these people--The CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL for christ's sake--wastes the time and money to speculate on this crap.
Retrodiagnosis they call it.
SOMEBODY is desperate for a thesis topic.
Howdy, Luke-
Thanks for the nod. The address of my site is:
http://www.polistyrene.com/
not polYstyrene
it's amazing what difference the little things make...
Crap you're right ^----Idiot.
my bad.
It's a good site, you all need to check it out . . . once I fix the link.
Luke,
i do believe my VHS copy of the original Manchurian Candidate was stolen along with your PS2, putting an extra bitter subtext into my seeing the remake, if i do. Which reminds me...you've heard the saying, "a Conservative is a Liberal who got robbed." Not true, it turns out! You and Keynan got hit the hardest. i only get pised at irregular intervals, when i'm looking for a specific movie and realize it's history.
RE: Demme's remake. Was there any reason to even do a remake other than putting a leftward spin on The Manchurian Candidate? Of course most remakes happen for no reason whatsoever. i'll watch it for the twist ending...unless you just want to save me the time and money...
Hey, where's that comparitive blog of yours anyway?
-ben
You know, I'm sure that did get jacked along with all of my stuff. That sucks.
Let's be straight though, the original manchurian candidate was a blatant condemnation of McCarthyism. The fact that it was also aware of the communist threat doesn't change the fact that it was a left-wing hatchet job.
As that article mentions though, that was like 10 years after McCarthy had resigned in ignominy. So the point was a bit moot.
So it still has the leftward spin. I'd see it for Streep and Liev Schrieber. She's good as usual, and the fact that I was seething with hatred for her from about the second act on is testament to how versatile she is as an actress (I wanted to be best friends with the character she played in Angels in America). Shreiber is starting to get the chances he deserves and he lives up to them really well.
Demme, as I said, is unimpressive, but it's actually a GOOD thing that they turned the communists into corporate "patriots"
It's no longer a cautionary us vs them tale in the nationalistic sense, it's an allegory on the power corporations wield in American political discourse.
So see it.
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