If the Manchurian Candidate, recent offering, were a vegetable, it would be a brussel sprout: it may have very good elements, but it sure stinks. (Pls note, that there may be spoiler material.)

I have to say that the acting was stellar, but this is a case of very good acting, but something being missing. It is unfortunate because my sister, a couple of years back, had suggested that we watch the original with Sinatra, this was before we knew a remake was in the works. Now, I just don't see how I can sit through the original now.

I took two days to watch it, i.e, not compelling drama. It is going to take my wife three days to watch it, i.e., really not compelling drama. The movie seems a little forced in some places and there are some story gaps. There are always story gaps, but for a movie of that calliber, I would think they would be able to fill in these things.

For instance, I don't think I understood why the feds were onto the case in the first place. Equally implausible was that the undercover fed girl would take in and keep an obviously unstable man with her in an apartment and he not suspect something. He (Denzel's character) should have known that this was a movie and things are never what they seem and that she was not who she said she was.

Also, I wasn't satisfied with the ending, it seemed like one of those, "Oh shoot! we have to find a way to wrap this up in ten minutes," deals.

Of ALL the movies I have ever seen in my life. The one that stands out as the ultimate, "Oops we're out of money, end movie now!" memo moment is Snake Eyes (I know, doesn't sound like much of a movie in the first place). But it was directed by Brian de Palmer, and it starred Nicholas Cage and Gary Sinise. But I promise you, the last ten minutes of the movie are worth the rental fee. Just watching how they probably got carried away and then get movie exec memo say, "Cease operations now, we are out of budget!!!" is totally worth the $5 for rental. Priceless.

Speaking of compelling movies and Mars movies (Gary Sinese was in the movie, Mission to Mars-If you look in Webster under disaster, you might find this movie listed as the sixth or seventh entry.) Anyway, back to compelling movies, we got sucked in the movie Red Planet on the scifi channel. Now, Red Planet was a bomb and you could not have paid me to go see it when the movie came out. But it works quite well as a B+ movie on sci fi. Red Planet is the movie with Carie Ann Moss (Matrix Trinity) and Val Kilmer (Batman).

This was the second time I caught it on TV, of course, I've always missed the start and the ending. But I am always amazed how the stars always seem to survive. Everyone else but Kilmer and Moss die. It's amazing.

Mars movies are very hard to do. The reason is that we are in the age of Battle Star Gallactica, Star Wars and Star Trek, movies and shows in which our imaginations have gotten the better of us. So that with Mars, being that it is so close, so accesible, and fairly well known, we can't afford to be as imaginative. Mission to Mars tried to be imaginative and all I can say is that if anyone tries to do anything quite so stupid again, I will file lawsuit in federal court. What I refer to in Mission to Mars, was the fact that the ran into Ms Mars, aka Mother Earth. She was a Martian, but Mars was going to be destroyed (millions of years ago) so she sent some of her DNA to earth and viola, we get Genesis 1. well she's going home now snd Gary Sinise's character decides that her home is our home and he is going with her. (Well apparently, we missed the flight, because I've seen him in more recent movies.)

I should be careful about criticizing these movies though, my next sci fi novel, which is 97% done, is about Mars colonization and time travel and after having talked the talk, I fear I shall be expected to walk the walk: write a masterpiece. while I am in stream of consciousness. This reminds me a commercial I really liked in the vein of walking the walk.

Basically it starts with two bussiness type guys, sitting cross an executive desk and telling this CEO about IT systems and their benefits. Well, they get done and the CEO looks at them and smiles and says, "Great, do it!"

"Er . . . sir . . . we don't actually do what we say."

Other guy: "Yeah, we only recommend, but we don't actually implement . . ."

Next scene, they show both guys coming down the stairs leaving and on their cell phones back to home base saying, "Get a load of that guy, you're not going to believe this, he actually wanted us to . . ."