NAPOLEON DYNAMITE: This quirky comedy is a sort of poor-man's RUSHMORE, following one weird kid through high school as he runs into bullies and finding out he has no charisma with the ladies. It's really just a series of moments, and as always, the nerd will have his day. Jon Heder, as Dynamite, is the best reason to watch. His line readings are completely off-kilter as he keeps the same doesn't-care, deadpan expression throughout. It's certainly not a great comedy, but it's worth watching.

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE: Jonathan Demme has gotten on a remake kick lately, with THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE (a re-do of CHARADE) and now this, of the critically acclaimed 1962 John Frankenheimer political thriller starring Frank Sinatra (Major Marco), Laurence Harvey (Raymond Shaw), and Angela Lansbury (Mrs. Iselin). Demme has a style that can at least be traced back to his great SILENCE OF THE LAMBS: people looking directly at the camera as they talk, but definitely not in a way that makes it look like they're actually looking into the camera. In this paranoic thriller, the effect is quite striking, and has a sense of unease about it (much the effect of LAMBS). Denzel Washington takes over for Sinatra, Liev Schreiber for Harvey, and Meryl Streep for Lansbury. I've always liked Denzel, and he's quite good in this--if you usually accuse him of being the same in every movie, this is for you. Liev Schrieber is serviceable but as you might read several times in reviews of this, doesn't have the same effect of Harvey in the same role. And Meryl Streep, whom everyone is going to give a pass or fawn over in every performance she does, simply overacts her part (it's a way less-subtle play for power than Lansbury's, whose character was all the more dangerous because she stayed in the background, pulling the strings. Here, Streep's character has not only got the full, attention-grabbing name: Eleanor Prentiss Shaw, she's in the senate and barking threats to everyone). The main changes to the original film include wiping out the romantic subplots, changing the actual candidate (In the original, it was Shaw's dad, in this, it's Shaw), and changing which characters do what. Even with all of the modern-era touches that make this movie more horror than political thriller, the original MANCHURIAN wins out because it made the whole idea of brainwashing for political power an eerily normal occurrence, blended seamlessly in the mainstream, where the people inside this world couldn't possibly believe that such a thing could happen. This version is so oozing with paranoia, it's hard to believe MORE people don't believe that such a thing could happen. It's a decent thriller, but with tremendous shoes to fill, and it unfortunately has the task of living up to it.