In today’s trailer bin, Kevin Smith offers up another helping of Clerks 2, Disney takes a page from Pixar in this early teaser for next year’s Meet the Robinsons, and Liev Schrieber and Julia Stiles add up the signs (and leave the swingset behind) in the new trailer for John Moore’s Omen 666 remake.
Tag: Liev Schreiber
Notorious.
In the trailer bin, you can see the seed of Satan swinging in the new teaser for Omen 666 (Yes, another needless remake. But I like the cast: Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, Mia Farrow, David Thewlis, Michael Gambon, and Pete Postlethwaite.) Or, take a visit with another original temptress in the trailer for Mary Harron’s The Notorious Bettie Page, with Gretchen Mol (That’s Gretchen Mol?), Lili Taylor, and David Strathairn (as Estes Kefauver.)
Stacking Gotham’s Deck.
For what it’s worth, Dark Horizons publishes a highly speculative “insider report” on the next Nolan Batman. Among the tidbits offered here, Liev Schreiber is up for Harvey Dent, as are Paul Bettany, Ryan Reynolds, Michael Keaton (!), and Johnny Depp for the Joker. Schreiber would be a great pick-up as Gotham’s two-faced D.A., and any of the others — well, except Reynolds, I guess — would make a solid Crown Prince of Crime, although I’m still rooting for Adrien Brody.
Landlord’s Daughter, Satan’s Son.
Lots of casting news today on the horror remake front…first, Leelee Sobieski and Ellen Burstyn have joined Neil La Bute’s Wicker Man, in what sounds like the Britt Ekland and Christopher Lee roles respectively. And, likely appearing as Gregory Peck and Lee Remick in a new version of The Omen are Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles. (For their part, the AICN guys think they’ve found the new Damien.)
A Long Way from the Shire.
In the trailer bin, Elijah Wood pulls double duty delving into strange and exotic Old World cultures in the trailers for Green Street (nee Hooligans) and the Liev Schreiber-directed version of Jonathan Foer’s Everything is Illuminated. Of these two, I think I’d rather see the former.
Red States, Blue States, Altered States.
While remakes of film classics are generally a lousy idea (Exhibit A: Gus Van Sant’s Psycho), George W. Bush’s America seems a more than apt time and place for Jonathan Demme to re-tackle The Manchurian Candidate. And, while there’s no scene herein as memorable as the brainwashing in the original 1962 film, the Denzel version actually turned out to be a decent night at the movies, despite a failure to capitalize fully on the potential of the source material and the histrionics of Meryl Streep.
For those looking for quality Bush-bashing from this project, there are some nods in your direction. This version of the film takes place in a post-9/11 election year when “security” is definitely the watchword of the electorate. And Manchurian Global, the new Big Bad for these post-Communist times, clearly “Harkens” to Halliburton and its ilk. Unfortunately, however, most of the politics in this movie aren’t very well thought-out. For example, this would seem a perfect cinematic vehicle to skewer the newsmedia for its inane and/or atrocious political coverage these days. But almost all of the political scenes here — conventions, talk shows, speeches, and whatnot — come off half-baked and unrealistic. Liev Schreiber is undoubtedly a good actor, but it’s hard to imagine him winning a congressional seat as portrayed here, much less the vice-presidency. Speaking of which, the convention backroom scene at the beginning seemed woefully out of date, as by now it should be clear to anybody that any political party worth its salt would have picked a ticket before their Big Show. In sum, most of the politics here seem like plot points to move the story along, when with just a little more tweaking they could have made for some really devastating satire.
Still, The Manchurian Candidate is an entertaining ride, in no small part due to several quality performances. The characters from the original Candidate are scrambled in this version, but remain more or less intact, with Denzel as Sinatra, Liev Schreiber as Lawrence Harvey, Kimberly Elise as Janet Leigh, and Meryl Streep as Angela Lansbury. (Alas, no Queen of Diamonds.) All in all, I’d say most of this bunch do a solid job (particularly an almost-unrecognizable Jeffrey Wright as Cpl. Melvin)…with the very notable exception of Meryl Streep. I’m not sure what she was going for here — some sort of uber-Karen Hughes or something, I guess — but she’s more over the top than Hoo-ah Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. At one point in the middle third, she even out-JonVoights Jon Voight, which I didn’t know was possible. While everyone else seems to be working hard to make the film seem remotely plausible, despite all the talk of implants and such (i mean, why bother with implants when you can just throw up a malleable dupe like Dubya?), Streep seems to be just playing it for camp. (It didn’t help that her first speech, in the aforementioned smoke-filled room scene, is completely hamhanded and improbable…however the choice of a veep goes down, I highly doubt it goes down like this.)
All in all, The Manchurian Candidate is worth seeing, but it’s nowhere near the league of the original. Which is too bad, really, because I think with just a little more effort, this could have been quite something.
Streep on Lansbury.
Undeterred by the lukewarm reception to The Truth about Charlie, Jonathan Demme tries his hand at another remake in this new trailer for The Manchurian Candidate. Hmm…so the Communists have been replaced by a corporate conglomerate (Manchurian Global), and Sinatra is now Denzel. That works, although Meryl Streep seems wildly over the top here. (In fact, she may even be out-Voighting Jon Voight.) Well, let’s hope it’s a return to form for Demme, and not another needless remake.
The signs of war advance.
No king of England if not of France. Alas, the NY Times didn’t think much of Henry V in the park. I caught it a few weeks ago and enjoyed it better than this reviewer, for sure. Given recent events, I do wish they’d turned up the satire a notch (“We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,” as the posters proclaim) and Bronson Pinchot’s Balki-esque schtick as Pistol seemed wildly out of place. But all in all, I thought the show made for a lively summer evening. And as a fan of the McKellen Richard III, I enjoyed the WWI motif Liev Schreiber & co. were aiming for.