last night we saw the remake of the manchurian candidate. i really liked it, although by making the bad guys a big corporation instead of communist chinese, the title was a little more contrived. (i don't think a single manchurian appeared on the screen) as serious as the film takes itself, there is an implicit joke running around in the background. or at least i think there is. how else am i supposed to take a movie where the vice presidential candidate is secretly mind-controlled by a multinational company that is awarded a bunch of no-bid military contracts?
but at the same time, the film-makers were clearly trying to avoid making this film into too much of a blatent a partisan attack. early in the film there's a discussion of the electoral map which suggests that the bad guy politicians are democrats. (although when it reaches the actual date of the election, the returns map seems to have no resemblance to the earlier discussion--or real-life politics) and i am certain that all self-respective right-wingers would see hillary clinton in meryl streep's character.
somehow, it made me want to see jacob's ladder again. and the original too, of course.
