the blog of Jan. 1, 2006 (1)

The Manchurian Candidate

Last night we caught most of the remake of "The Manchurian Candidate" on TV. I must say that it was well-photographed, making good use of such familiar New York locations as Old Westbury Gardens and Penn Station, and well-acted by a great cast: Denzel Washington, Merril Streep, John Voigt, Liev Schreiber. The story itself was disturbing but intelligent and engaging enough to hold my attention. I'm not familiar with the original film but clearly director Jonathon Demme re-adapted the story to the present. Perhaps the strangest thing was the cameo by singer Robyn Hitchcock. Apparently he's acting now although the director gave him a highly peripheral role -- not as a singer, but as a someone connected to shadowy experiments on US soldiers in Iraq by a somewhat deranged CIA-protected South African scientist.