HANCOCK

We’re quite used to Will Smith on the 4th of July in this country; he’s been in the pole position for July six times in a row, and frankly, the relative merits of his release on this holiday don’t much matter. Fans will be lined up on the sidewalks regardless of what the critics think. And perhaps that’s a good thing, because most critics will hate Hancock despite its creative counter-programming, making their reaction to this film a perfect analogy for a bulletproof man who — regardless of the derision of the masses due to his laissez-faire attitude toward his superpowers and responsibility as a hero — can’t be chased out of town.

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KIT KITTREDGE:
AN AMERICAN GIRL [G]
review by Robin Clifford

Kit (Abigail Breslin) is a smart, imaginative, spirited and inquisitive girl who aspires to have her news articles printed in the local newspaper. It is 1934 and the effects of the Great Depression have descended on her hometown, Cincinnati. Her friends, one by one, have to leave because their parents lost their homes. Kit must face the same when her father (Chris O’Donnell) loses his auto dealership and must leave to find a job in Chicago… while her mom (Julia Ormond) is forced to take on boarders… while the cub reporter works to end a crime spree in Kit Kittredge: An American Girl.

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When a show like “The Sopranos” makes its final cut-to-black, its greatness does not merely evaporate into the ether; like some kind of symbiotic organism, it finds another host to inhabit, and in this case, that show’s executive producer and writer, Matthew Weiner, has found purchase in the form of AMC’s Mad Men: Season One. It is a brilliant series, and a great DVD set, as well.

The action centers around fictional Madison Avenue ad agency Sterling Cooper in 1960. American Dream-living idea man Don Draper (Golden Globe winner Don Hamm) is a king among men, though he lives a mysterious life with plenty of inner turmoil. His beautiful wife, Betty (January Jones), whose mother recently died, suffers panic attacks and seeks the counsel of (da-dum!) an analyst. His affairs include free-spirited beatnik illustrator Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt) and rich department store owner Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff). Life is good, or so it would seem.

And that’s just the drama in Don Draper’s life. Weiner writes so incisively, never giving into the wink-wink “look how wacky things were back then!” impulse and instead letting his cast and team of artists recreate a bygone era so seamlessly that the story could just as well take place today. He expertly juggles multiple story lines involving Draper’s team, a combination of old school veterans and hungry up-and-comers, played by, well… a combination of old school veterans and hungry up-and-comers. Tony winner Robert Morse pops up as Bertram Cooper, the agency’s amusingly eccentric shoes-hating co-founder, and John Slattery as his partner, Roger Sterling, is commanding. Young buck Vincent Kartheiser as newlywed Pete Campbell is a wonderfully fierce ball of angst, and snow white new girl Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) is an engaging riddle, in that she may be as naïve as she seems or may have an agenda to rule the advertising world.

Collectors will fawn over the presentation. In that smoking is so prevalent in the world of “Mad Men,” the four-disc set is packaged in an oversized metal cigarette lighter box. The top flips open to reveal the four discs, each easily accessible as if it were itself a cigarette. Like the similarly packaged “Disney Treasures” sets, the packaging is somewhat fragile, susceptible to dents and dings, making a clean box all the more challenging to find, and all the more valuable when it is found.

AMC includes a selection of more-than-perfunctory special features. There is running commentary on all 13 episodes, plus a behind-the-scenes introduction to the world of “Mad Men.” There is a nice featurette about the 1960’s creative revolution in media, as well as a lovely narrated photo gallery by the costume, hair and production designers. Because the music plays such a part in establishing time, place and mood, they have also included a one-on-one discussion with composer David Carbonara. All these features go far in helping foster a greater appreciation for a series that already lends itself to greater appreciation through multiple viewings. And considering that the only way to catch up on Season One before Season Two starts later this month is with $1.99 iTunes downloads, that money would be better spent investing in a swell set like this and sharing with friends (whom you can trust not to dent the case, of course).

*SPECIAL FEATURES: Audio commentary on all 13 episodes; Featurette - “Establishing ‘Mad Men’”; Featurette - “Advertising the American Dream”; Photo Gallery - “Pictures of Elegance”; Featurette - “Scoring ‘Mad Men’”; Music Sampler

MAD MEN: MUSIC FROM THE SERIES VOL. 1
CD review by Robert Newton

Really, with 13 episodes worth of musical treats from which to choose, you’d think that they’d pick a more representative group of tracks. AMC’s brilliant series about a fictional Madison Avenue ad agency in 1960 gets a mostly-period soundtrack treatment that feels like only half of what could have been and should have been a two-disc set (the “Vol. 1″ tag hints at an impending double-dip). Chestnuts like Vic Damone’s “On The Street Where You Live” are key, and is to “Mad Men” like “Little Boxes” was to “Weeds” (before they retired it). While the other songs included are by no means throwaways (except for Rosemary Clooney’s slightly embarrassing “Botch-A-Me,” which is your grandparents’ pidgin Italian equivalent of Joe Dolce’s novelty song “Shaddup You Face”), they all feel a bit too kitschy and lounge-y. There are three tracks by series composer David Carbonara, including his lovely and infectious round arrangement Don McLean’s “Babylon.” And speaking of infectious, there is a dee-licious craw-jamming delight in the form of an extended version of the show’s theme, “A Beautiful Mine” by Aceyalone & RJD2 (think Massive Attack’s “Teardrop” from “House M.D.”). Filling the cracks of this sparse 13-track collection with more score would have been nice, and don’t think us total fanboys by suggesting this, but if Quentin Tarantino does one thing right every time he puts out a movie (or two), it’s intercutting dialogue between the tracks. Barbs from the series would have better represented the feel of the show, and for fans, would have been, in the words of series regular Elisabeth Moss (as Peggy Olson), “A basket of kisses,” rather than this bucket of misses.•••

Robert Newton is the editor of WorcesterMovies.com.

MONGOL

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WALL•E

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WANTED

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For anyone who takes The Karate Kid as more than a distraction should visit Zabka’s home site at www.BillyZabka.com. There is a great fan rant by Jason Johantges on the site that suggests that it is Daniel — not Johnny — who is the villain of the story. It’s inspired stuff, like the video (which you can watch below). –Elizabeth Meyer

It’s New Year’s Eve in the city of Terminus and chaos is this year’s resolution. All forms of communication have been jammed by an enigmatic transmission that preys on fear and desire, driving everyone in the city to murder and madness. In a place once marked by confomity but now sent into complete anarchy, the rebellious Ben must save the woman he loves (and her crazed, sadistic husband) from the bedlam in the streets. But the only way he can tell who to trust or who has given in to violence is by uncovering the true nature of “The Signal.”

QUESTION: What is the name of the 2006 Stephen King novel in which people are turned into psychotic killers by a mysterious signal broadcast over their cell phones?

E-mail your answer with the word SIGNAL CONTEST in the subject head to RNewton@PagioInc.com by 11:59pm on Sunday, June 29th. Multiple entries will be disqualified, as will entries by winners from the last 60 days. Winners will be selected at random from all correct entries. Good luck!

GET SMART

We’ve seen pretty much every kind of secret agent spy movie that there is to see. From James Bond to Austin Powers, there isn’t anything new that can be thrown at audiences. That is where Get Smart comes in.

Based on of the classic television show of the same name created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, “Get Smart” seeks not to just merely coexist with the series. Rather, the film is looking to be a modern update and with it a lot of things are updated from what television fans might remember.

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THE LOVE GURU

In his Austin Powers movies, Mike Myers shows that it’s possible to put one’s tongue in one’s cheek and add chocolate sauce for a dumb, and yet thrillingly inventive, confection: he mocks the suave super-spy genre by sticking so close to its absurd conventions that the rules of the game twist into a knot of high-grade absurdity.

Austin Powers worked so well that Myers can hardly be faulted for looking to apply the same method to something else. But what? In The Love Guru, the target seems to be the trendy, shallow obsession with Eastern religion, and the equally shallow Western bromides that practitioners of spiritual self-help rely on. Myers riffs endlessly on this in the character of Guru Pitka, an American raised in India by Ben Kingsley, cleverly disguised, by dint of crossed eyes and saffron robes, as Guru Tugginmypudha.

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THE VISITOR

review by Kilian Melloy

Because we define ourselves according to certain externals, loss can change our perceptions of who we are. The question then is how, or whether, we redefine who we are; a tricky business, because in times of grief or distress, it’s easy to pull back and forsake the best things about what we once enjoyed.

In writer-director Thomas McCarthy’s finely drawn dramatic comedy The Visitor, the subject is a loss of a sense of possibility, and a corresponding loss of the willingness to celebrate liberty, either nationally or personally. In the person of Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins), a college professor of economics, we meet a man deeply entrenched in what might be shock, or maybe grief; he walks through his days like a zombie, barely does any work, recycles his old syllabi, and, after a half-hearted stab at learning the piano, dismisses his instructor rather than hear about how his fingers must always curve so as to make a little tunnel for an imaginary train to pass through.

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THE INCREDIBLE HULK [PG-13]
review by Robert Newton

Call it “Hulk 2.0.” After Ang Lee’s flawed but unfairly maligned 2003 screen version of the smashingly popular comic book, Hulk, audiences quickly hungered for a follow-up that delivered more of what they had come to love about the character and its Big Green Mythos, namely the thoughtful exploration of duality, but mostly the cathartic release that is the philosophy, “HULK SMASH!” The Incredible Hulk — more of a “reboot” than a sequel, in that it pretends its predecessor never existed — is that movie.

Anyone who grew up with the comic book — or even caught a smattering of the Bill Bixby TV version that ran from 1978-82 — knows the basic story. Scientist Dr. Bruce (David) Banner, convinced that his research into extending human strength and endurance with gamma radiation was so sound as to test it on himself, unintentionally becomes a green, raging, 10-feet-tall-and-bulletproof monster whenever he gets overexcited. “Mr. McGee,” Mr. Eddie’s Father would say all cool-like, “don’t make me angry — you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

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THE THREE STOOGES COLLECTION VOL. 2: 1937-1939

Hello! - Hello! - Hello! Sony,

On behalf of Stooges fans everywhere (including the three documented females who don’t just pretend to like them for the sake of keeping the peace with their men), we thank you. The fact that you are finally giving us what we really want — all 190 “Three Stooges” shorts released from 1934 to 1959 and released chronologically — is most gracious of you. This second set is nearly poifect (and we would gladly have paid twice the $24.98 SRP, you numbskulls).

Of course, we cursed you for years for releasing themed collections with no more than a half dozen shorts on a disc, making us re-buy the same collections we had paid nearly the same price for on VHS. What knuckleheads you took us for, all while moidering our video budgets. And while mixing Curly and Shemp shorts, too.

Soitenly, we forgive you. Last year, when you released the first volume of all the Stooges shorts from 1934-1936, we were all “Woo-woo-woo-woo!” Still, we were a little hesitant to start clearing space on our DVD shelves, for fear of looking like imbeciles. We remember back to 2002 when you released the entire first season of “The Larry Sanders Show,” and then did nothing with the other five (and that “Best Of” set doesn’t count, ya wise guys).

We don’t care that there are no special features on the 2-disc set, either. Under better soicumstances, sure, we would have liked some behind-the-scenes footage. Maybe you can license that nifty A&E “Biography” episode on the Men In Black-And-Blue? Or make a program based on One Fine Stooge, Stephen Cox’s and Jim Terry’s book on Larry Fine? Or call in a favor over at Disney and get them to loan you that great Stooges TV movie biopic from 2000 that shows up on cable every once in a while.

Lack of supplemental goodness notwithstanding, this is The Three Stooges at their best (but you guys know that ’cause you own ‘em). Jerome “Curly” Howard was still relatively healthy (despite all the cheese he ate), so he, brother Moe and longtime third Larry were still able to make it really seem like they were actually knocking the bag out of each other. Man, looking over the contents, there are 24 prime shorts here, including Grips, Grunts and Groans, Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb and perhaps the most fun one of them all, Violent Is The Word For Curly (in which we’ll forever be “Swinging The Alphabet”). Repeat after us… “B-A-bay, B-E-bee, B-I-bicky-bi, B-O bo, bicky-bi bo, B-U bu, bicky bi bo bu.”

Anyway, please feel free to release another volume this year. We’ll be ready and waiting to nyuk-nyuk-nyuk it up again, especially in that Volume 3 will contain possibly the best short of their whole 25-year run, 1940’s spoof You Nazty Spy! (which predated Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator by nearly a year).

Sincerely,
Every Living Person With A Y-Chromosome (And Those Three Girls)