Pick of the Week:
The Manchurian Candidate (Criterion)
Some films are at once completely of their time and years ahead of them. Directed by John Frankenheimer, The Manchurian Candidate hit theaters at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a bit of timing so apt it couldn’t have been planned. Maybe America would perish in a ball of flame. Or maybe it would be taken down from within by an all-American hero who wasn’t quite what he seemed. The threats of the Cold War manifested themselves at once in the real world and in the movies, which always have a way of doubling as the public subconscious. Each was chilling in its own way.
Working from a novel by Richard Condon and a script by George Axelrod, Frankenheimer drew on anxiety concerning brainwashing and the notion that ordinary people could be programmed by foreign powers. Here it’s a Korean War hero (Laurence Harvey) who’s the victim of brainwashing and Frank Sinatra as a tortured soldier who comes to realize he has to stop him. With an intensity and directness learned on the job working as one of the top directors of the live TV era, Frankenheimer draws on feats that the communist bloc would find a way to topple American democracy from within while also questioning the misdirection and madness of the McCarthy era. It’s the right film for 1962, but also a preview of the free-floating fear and distrust that would soon wash over the country thanks to Vietnam and Watergate and it remains an intense, unsettling thriller.
It’s also one that lends itself well to the Criterion treatment, and a new edition that includes a vintage commentary from the late Frankenheimer, who was always a perceptive judge of his own movie, a new interview with co-star Angela Lansbury about one of her best roles, and other extras.
Also new:
Sisters (Universal)
Somebody had to put a movie up against Star Wars: The Force Awakens as an attempt at counter-programming and that fate fell to Sisters, a very funny and surprisingly heartfelt comedy starring Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and written by Paula Pell. Fey and Poehler play, yes, sisters, who decide to throw one last bash in their parents’ home before new owners move in. Both are quite good, as is the rest of a packed cast that includes Rachel Dratch, Maya Rudolph, and John Cena, who, with this and Trainwreck, is racking up a pretty good comedy resumé.
Carol (Anchor Bay)
Brooklyn (2oth Century Fox)
The Big Short (Paramount)
The Oscars were a mere two weeks ago, but they now seem much deeper in the distance. Those looking for something to watch at home can be forgiven a certain amount of Oscar fatigue, but the three awards-season films debuting this week, all New York stories, really shouldn’t be missed. Todd Haynes‘ near-perfect Carol is a wrenching lesbian romance set in 1950s New York, a time that didn’t allow much room for such relationships. Set in the same era across the bridge — and across the Atlantic — Brooklyn finds Saoirse Ronan playing an Irish immigrant trying to navigate the mores of her new home in America. Set in the more recent past, The Big Short stars Steve Carell, Christian Bale and others as characters smart enough to see the imminent collapse of the American financial system. Directed by Adam McKay, it’s at once a fine dark comedy and an angry bit of finger-pointing at the greed that brought on the Great Recession.
Invasion U.S.A. (Shout! Factory)
Or for a different, dumber, but nonetheless entertaining take on Cold War paranoia, one of Chuck Norris’ most famous films makes its Blu-ray debut this week. There are few better sources of kick-assery, explosions, and ’80s-style commie bashing.
