Saturday, November 5, 2011

Black Cat , White Cat [Import ,All Regions, English Subtitles]

Home

  • ISBN13: 9781608202126
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
WINNER OF THE ORANGE PRIZE 2009
A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE
A New York Times Bestseller
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year
A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year
A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year

Hailed as "incandescent," "magnificent," and "a literary miracle" (Entertainment Weekly), hundreds of thousands of readers were enthralled by Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. Now Robinson returns with a brilliantly imagined retelling of the prodigal son parab! le, set at the same moment and in the same Iowa town as Gilead. The Reverend Boughton's hell-raising son, Jack, has come home after twenty years away. Artful and devious in his youth, now an alcoholic carrying two decades worth of secrets, he is perpetually at odds with his traditionalist father, though he remains his most beloved child. As Jack tries to make peace with his father, he begins to forge an intense bond with his sister Glory, herself returning home with a broken heart and turbulent past. Home is a luminous and healing book about families, family secrets, and faith from one of America's most beloved and acclaimed authors.

Amazon Best of the Month, September 2008: "What does it mean to come home?" In one way or another, every character in Home is searching for that answer. Glory Boughton, now 38 and lovelorn, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Her wayward brother Jack also finds his way back, though! his is an uneasy homecoming, reverberating with the scandal t! hat drov e him away twenty years earlier. Glory and Jack unravel their stories slowly, speaking to each other more in movements than in words--a careful glance here, a chair pulled out from the table there--against a domestic backdrop so richly imagined you may be fooled into believing their house is your own. Meanwhile, their father, whose ebullient love for his children is a welcome counterpoint to Glory and Jack's conflicted emotions, experiences his own kind of reckoning as he yearns to understand his troubled son. There is a simplicity to this story that belies the complexity of its characters--they are bound together by a profound capacity for love and by an equally powerful sense of private conviction that tries the ties that bind, but never breaks them. It's a delicate sort of tension that you think would resist exposition--and in fact these characters seem to want nothing more than, as Glory says, to treat "one another's deceptions like truth"--but Marilynne Robinson's fine,! tender prose imbues this family's secrets with an overwhelming grace. --Anne Bartholomew

With his signature wit, charm, and seemingly limitless knowledge, Bill Bryson takes us on a room-by-room tour through his own house, using each room as a jumping off point into the vast history of the domestic artifacts we take for granted. As he takes us through the history of our modern comforts, Bryson demonstrates that whatever happens in the world eventually ends up in our home, in the paint, the pipes, the pillows, and every item of furniture. Bryson has one of the liveliest, most inquisitive minds on the planet, and his sheer prose fluency makes At Home one of the most entertaining books ever written about private life.

Amazon Best Books of the Month, October 2010: Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything) turns his attention from science to society in his authoritative history of domesticity, At Home: A Short Hist! ory of Private Life. While walking through his own home, a! former Church of England rectory built in the 19th century, Bryson reconstructs the fascinating history of the household, room by room. With waggish humor and a knack for unearthing the extraordinary stories behind the seemingly commonplace, he examines how everyday items--things like ice, cookbooks, glass windows, and salt and pepper--transformed the way people lived, and how houses evolved around these new commodities. "Houses are really quite odd things," Bryson writes, and, luckily for us, he is a writer who thrives on oddities. He gracefully draws connections between an eclectic array of events that have affected home life, covering everything from the relationship between cholera outbreaks and modern landscaping, to toxic makeup, highly flammable hoopskirts, and other unexpected hazards of fashion. Fans of Bryson's travel writing will find plenty to love here; his keen eye for detail and delightfully wry wit emerge in the most unlikely places, making At Home an engross! ing journey through history, without ever leaving the house. --Lynette Mong


This immensely popular, witty, and highly provocative book is changing people's attitudes about convenience, decor, and technology in home design and furnishing. 10 black-and-white illustrations.
Hundreds of thousands were enthralled by the luminous voice of John Ames in Gilead, Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prizeâ€"winning novel. Home is an entirely independent, deeply affecting novel that takes place concurrently in the same locale, this time in the household of Reverend Robert Boughton, Ames’s closest friend.
 
Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jackâ€"the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty yearsâ€"comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain.
 
Jack is one of the great characters in recent literature. A! bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold a job, he is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his traditionalist father, though he remains Boughton’s most beloved child. Brilliant, lovable, and wayward, Jack forges an intense bond with Glory and engages painfully with Ames, his godfather and namesake.
 
Home is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and faith. It is Robinson’s greatest work, an unforgettable embodiment of the deepest and most universal emotions.
 
Home is a 2008 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.
Amazon Best of the Month, September 2008: "What does it mean to come home?" In one way or another, every character in Home is searching for that answer. Glory Boughton, now 38 and lovelorn, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Her wayward brother Jack also fi! nds his way back, though his is an uneasy homecoming, reverberating with the scandal that drove him away twenty years earlier. Glory and Jack unravel their stories slowly, speaking to each other more in movements than in words--a careful glance here, a chair pulled out from the table there--against a domestic backdrop so richly imagined you may be fooled into believing their house is your own. Meanwhile, their father, whose ebullient love for his children is a welcome counterpoint to Glory and Jack's conflicted emotions, experiences his own kind of reckoning as he yearns to understand his troubled son. There is a simplicity to this story that belies the complexity of its characters--they are bound together by a profound capacity for love and by an equally powerful sense of private conviction that tries the ties that bind, but never breaks them. It's a delicate sort of tension that you think would resist exposition--and in fact these characters seem to want nothing more than! , as Glory says, to treat "one another's deceptions like truth! "--but M arilynne Robinson's fine, tender prose imbues this family's secrets with an overwhelming grace. --Anne Bartholomew

Hundreds of thousands were enthralled by the luminous voice of John Ames in Gilead, Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prizeâ€"winning novel. Home is an entirely independent, deeply affecting novel that takes place concurrently in the same locale, this time in the household of Reverend Robert Boughton, Ames’s closest friend.
 
Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jackâ€"the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty yearsâ€"comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain.
 
Jack is one of the great characters in recent literature. A bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold a job, he is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with! his traditionalist father, though he remains Boughton’s most beloved child. Brilliant, lovable, and wayward, Jack forges an intense bond with Glory and engages painfully with Ames, his godfather and namesake.
 
Home is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and faith. It is Robinson’s greatest work, an unforgettable embodiment of the deepest and most universal emotions.
 
Home is a 2008 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.
Experience the wonderment of our world in a way that will enthrall, captivate and inspire you! Award-winning aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand and narrator Glenn Close take you on a spectacular voyage around the world in Home, a unique film with such breathtaking imagery, you’ll want to enjoy it time and time again. Former actor Yann Arthus-Bertrand directed this visually astonishing p! ortrait of the Earth as seen from mesmerizing aerial views. Home is not the first documentary to survey our planet from the air, but Arthus-Bertrand brilliantly and dreamily captures the miraculous linkage within delicate eco-systems. For viewers whose eyes glaze over at descriptions of the way Earth recycles energy and matter, Home underscores the beautiful and awesome reality of that complex process. Narrated by actress Glenn Close (in this English-language version), Home begins by exploring and clarifying the natural history of water, sunlight, and the role simple life-forms such as algae played (and still play) in making the planet hospitable to more evolved, living things. As the film moves along, it also has a way of rebooting one's lazy assumptions about familiar phenomena. The Grand Canyon, for example, might be a fantastic sight to behold, but it's also a collection of billions and billions of shells compressed under Earth's oceans long ago. The carbon trapped in the Grand Canyon was drained from the atmosphere, h! elping--once again--oxygen-dependent life to develop.

Similarly, plant life, Home tells us, broke up the water molecule and released oxygen into the atmosphere. Everything is linked, everything is part of a grand machine--the film makes this clear in scores of ways, and not just by telling us. Arthus-Bertrand reveals the intricate, breathtaking designs and patterns of glaciers feeding rivers, of animals feeding on plant life so more plant life can grow, of Australia's great Coral Reef's role in keeping the ocean in eco-balance. Of course, a big part of the story is the impact short-sighted humans have on these systems: the way we overfish, or drain deserts of scarce fossil water, or turn non-farming lands into perverse engines for agriculture. There is much to be alarmed at watching Home, but there is much to move one as well. --Tom Keogh"A frank, intriguing memoir."
--People

"Painfully shrewd, and written with real delicacy and path! os."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Hom! e reflec ts the very qualities that first made the working-class English singer a star 45 years ago: intelligence, gentle humor, and a clear, sweet, surprisingly powerful voice . . . In warmly nostalgic later chapters, the book begins to glow."
--Entertainment Weekly

"A delightful remembrance of her own childhood, and an engrossing prelude to her cinematic career . . . Andrews is an accomplished writer who holds back nothing while adding a patina of poetry to the antics and anecdotes throughout this memoir of bittersweet backstage encounters and theatrical triumphs."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Frank and fascinating . . . Andrews comes across as plainspoken, guilelessly charming and resoundingly tough."
--Time

In Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, Julie Andrews takes her readers on a warm, moving, and often humorous journey from a difficult upbringing in war-torn Britain to the brink of international stardom in A! merica.Syphilis, alcoholism, infidelity, and indeterminate parentage may seem improbable touchstones in the back story of one who didn't so much portray as embody the blithe Maria in The Sound of Music. But as this memoir of her formative years makes clear, there is more gravitas to Andrews than meets the eye. From her childhood in rural England and initial forays into British theater, to her first massive successes on Broadway and in the West End--notably as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady--Home puts her celebrated career in context. While arguably offering more detail about the Andrews family than necessary, it nevertheless dishes wonderful anecdotes about legends and Andrews contemporaries like Noël Coward, Rex Harrison, Robert Goulet, Richard Burton, and Rodgers and Hammerstein, in prose as crisp and immaculate as the author herself. It also offers a revealing look into the intricate, exhaustive craft of performing--skills often taken for granted i! n tabloid times. Since the book ends just as Andrews is about ! to launc h into the celluloid stratosphere, can Volume II be far behind? After Home, it would be most welcome. --Kim Hughes

A family.
A house.
A neighborhood.
A place to play.
A place to feel safe.

Little by little, baby Tracy grows. She and her neighbors begin to rescue their street. Together, children and adults plant grass and trees and bushes in the empty spaces. They paint murals over old graffiti. They stop the cars. Everything begins to blossom.

In Jeannie Baker's striking, natural collages, an urban community reclaims its land. A drab city street becomes a living, thriving neighborhood -- a place to call home.

Lucas Reed is a Cleveland advertising executive who returns to his southern hometown to deal with the sudden death of his estranged homophobic father. There, he unexpectedly encounters Rogan James, the former high school bully and now local deputy chief of police who had once made Lucas's ! life miserable. Reacquainted 12 years later, the two finally acknowledge a long held powerful physical attraction that quickly evolves into an even stronger emotional connection But all this becomes secondary when a local reporter's secret obsession for Rogan threatens not only the end of their newly found love, but their very lives.

Ancient Mysteries - The Black Death

  • What is the Black Death? Where did it come from? Scientists still do not know the origins of this deadly plague. Appearing miraculously in 542 A.D., the devastating outbreak claimed 100 million lives. Winding its way from Egypt, through Asia Minor and into Europe, the devastation lasted 52 years and disappeared as mysteriously as it arrived. Many believed that the plague was sent from God as punis
The year is 1348. Europe has fallen under the shadow of the Black Death. As the plague decimates all in its path, fear and superstition are rife. There are rumors of a village hidden in marshland that the plague cannot reach. There is talk of a necromancer who leads the village and is able to bring the dead back to life. Ulric (Sean Bean), a fearsome knight, is charged by the church to investigate these rumors. Joined by a young monk and a small consort of soldiers, the journey ahead will lead them ! into the heart of darkness where faith is challenged and put to the ultimate test.A potent combination of medieval combat and religious paranoia, Black Death serves as an outstanding example of how a genre film can smuggle in some surprisingly mature themes without missing a kinetic step. Set during the late 14th century, Dario Poloni's script follows a young monk (Eddie Redmayne) struggling with his faith as the bubonic plague runs rampant through Europe. As he contemplates fleeing England for a forbidden romance, he is tasked with leading a team of bishop-appointed mercenaries (led by Sean Bean) on their search for a rumored necromancer in the wilderness. After the group hacks their way through packs of infected marauders and nonbelievers, their search finally leads them to a pastoral town mysteriously free of the disease. When the town's beautiful leader (Carice van Houten) displays what appears to be mystical healing powers, the monk must decide which side God is! truly on. Director Christopher Smith, previously responsible ! for the commendably bent time-travel saga Triangle, creates a fantastically earthy environment for the film's increasingly supernatural possibilities to take hold. Bolstered by Bean's commanding performance, this is a terrifically grim--and occasionally terribly gory--action film that delivers an unsettling sting in its tail. --Andrew WrightThe year is 1348. Europe has fallen under the shadow of the Black Death. As the plague decimates all in its path, fear and superstition are rife. There are rumors of a village hidden in marshland that the plague cannot reach. There is talk of a necromancer who leads the village and is able to bring the dead back to life. Ulric (Sean Bean), a fearsome knight, is charged by the church to investigate these rumors. Joined by a young monk and a small consort of soldiers, the journey ahead will lead them into the heart of darkness where faith is challenged and put to the ultimate test.A potent combination of medieval combat and religious ! paranoia, Black Death serves as an outstanding example of how a genre film can smuggle in some surprisingly mature themes without missing a kinetic step. Set during the late 14th century, Dario Poloni's script follows a young monk (Eddie Redmayne) struggling with his faith as the bubonic plague runs rampant through Europe. As he contemplates fleeing England for a forbidden romance, he is tasked with leading a team of bishop-appointed mercenaries (led by Sean Bean) on their search for a rumored necromancer in the wilderness. After the group hacks their way through packs of infected marauders and nonbelievers, their search finally leads them to a pastoral town mysteriously free of the disease. When the town's beautiful leader (Carice van Houten) displays what appears to be mystical healing powers, the monk must decide which side God is truly on. Director Christopher Smith, previously responsible for the commendably bent time-travel saga Triangle, creates a fanta! stically earthy environment for the film's increasingly supern! atural p ossibilities to take hold. Bolstered by Bean's commanding performance, this is a terrifically grim--and occasionally terribly gory--action film that delivers an unsettling sting in its tail. --Andrew Wright

La moria grandissima began its terrible journey across the European and Asian continents in 1347, leaving unimaginable devastation in its wake. Five years later, twenty-five million people were dead, felled by the scourge that would come to be called the Black Death. The Great Mortality is the extraordinary epic account of the worst natural disaster in European history -- a drama of courage, cowardice, misery, madness, and sacrifice that brilliantly illuminates humankind's darkest days when an old world ended and a new world was born.

A book chronicling one of the worst human disasters in recorded history really has no business being entertaining. But John Kelly's The Great Mortality is a page-turner despite its grim subject matter and g! raphic detail. Credit Kelly's animated prose and uncanny ability to drop his reader smack in the middle of the 14th century, as a heretofore unknown menace stalks Eurasia from "from the China Sea to the sleepy fishing villages of coastal Portugal [producing] suffering and death on a scale that, even after two world wars and twenty-seven million AIDS deaths worldwide, remains astonishing." Take Kelly's vivid description of London in the fall of 1348: "A nighttime walk across Medieval London would probably take only twenty minutes or so, but traversing the daytime city was a different matter.... Imagine a shopping mall where everyone shouts, no one washes, front teeth are uncommon and the shopping music is provided by the slaughterhouse up the road." Yikes, and that's before just about everything with a pulse starts dying and piling up in the streets, reducing the population of Europe by anywhere from a third to 60 percent in a few short years. In addition to taking readers o! n a walking tour through plague-ravaged Europe, Kelly heaps on! the anc illary information and every last bit of it is captivating. We get a thorough breakdown of the three types of plagues that prey on humans; a detailed account of how the plague traveled from nation to nation (initially by boat via flea-infested rats); how floods (and the appalling hygiene of medieval people) made Europe so susceptible to the disease; how the plague triggered a new social hierarchy favoring women and the proletariat but also sparked vicious anti-Semitism; and especially, how the plague forever changed the way people viewed the church. Engrossing, accessible, and brimming with first-hand accounts drawn from the Middle Ages, The Great Mortality illuminates and inspires. History just doesn't get better than that. --Kim HughesWhat is the Black Death? Where did it come from? Scientists still do not know the origins of this deadly plague. Appearing miraculously in 542 A.D., the devastating outbreak claimed 100 million lives. Winding its way from Egypt,! through Asia Minor and into Europe, the devastation lasted 52 years and disappeared as mysteriously as it arrived. Many believed that the plague was sent from God as punishment for the world's sins. How was the cure for the plague finally discovered? Is it still with us today? These are some of the many questions we will explore in this program.

Freaky Friday

  • In the tradition of THE PRINCESS DIARIES, Disney's FREAKY FRIDAY is the extremely funny and heartwarming comedy everyone will love. Dr. Tess Coleman (the hilarious Jamie Lee Curtis) and her teenage daughter Anna (rockin' Lindsay Lohan) have one thing in common -- they don't relate to each other on anything. Not clothes or men or Anna's passion to be in a rock band. Nothing. Then on
In the tradition of THE PRINCESS DIARIES, Disney's FREAKY FRIDAY is the extremely funny and heartwarming comedy everyone will love. Dr. Tess Coleman (the hilarious Jamie Lee Curtis) and her teenage daughter Anna (rockin' Lindsay Lohan) have one thing in common -- they don't relate to each other on anything. Not clothes or men or Anna's passion to be in a rock band. Nothing. Then one night a little mystic mayhem changes their lives and they wake up to the biggest freak-out ever. Tess and Anna are trapped inside each! other's body! But Tess's wedding is Saturday and the two must find a way to switch back -- fast! Literally forced to walk in each other's shoes, will they gain respect and understanding for the other's point of view? Filled with comedy, rock 'n roll and lots of heart, FREAKY FRIDAY is freaking fun everyone can enjoy togetherIn the wonderfully entertaining Freaky Friday, teenager Anna (Lindsay Lohan) and her forty-something psychiatrist mom Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis) have sunk into a rut of frustrated bickering--until a magic spell causes them to switch bodies. Suddenly Tess finds herself faced with petty teachers, vicious rivals, and a hunky boy, while Anna has to cope with her mother's neurotic patients as well as her befuddled fiance (Mark Harmon), who doesn't understand why his bride-to-be is suddenly recoiling from his embrace on the eve of their wedding. Both Lohan and Curtis turn in deft, delightful performances, with Curtis showing a surprising flair for physica! l comedy. The movie even manages to explore serious issues abo! ut fract ured families, new parents, and adolescent sexuality with honesty and empathy--and without making the story stop dead in its tracks. It's a mother-daughter film that fathers and sons can enjoy just as much. --Bret Fetzer

Focus: A simplicity manifesto in the Age of Distraction

  • ISBN13: 9781434103079
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Bestselling author Mike Schmoker describes a plan for radically improving student learning that is built on three core elements: a focused and coherent curriculum (what we teach); clear, prioritized lessons (how we teach); and purposeful reading and writing, or authentic literacy.

With this "less is more" philosophy, educators can help students learn content at a deeper level, develop greater critical thinking skills, and discover more clearly how content-area concepts affect their lives and the world around them.

Both a call to action and a blueprint for creating more effective classrooms, Focus: Elevating the Essentials for Radically Improved Student Learning will cha! llenge your assumptions about schooling and show how educators who have embraced this approach quickly achieved spectacular results.The author writes, "At the heart of this simple book lies the key to many of the struggles we face these days, from being productive and achieving our goals, to getting healthy and fit in the face of fast food and inactivity, to finding simplicity and peace amidst chaos and confusion. That key is itself simple: focus. Our ability to focus will allow us to create in ways that perhaps we haven't in years. It'll allow us to slow down and find peace of mind. It'll allow us to simplify and focus on less-on the essential things, the things that matter most.

I Am Legend (Widescreen Single-Disc Edition)

  • Robert Neville is a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable, and man-made. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City and maybe the world. For three years, Neville has faithfully sent out daily radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. But he is not alone.
Academy Award® nominee Will Smith (Best Actor, The Pursuit of Happyness, 2006) stars in this action-packed comedy as Hancock, a sarcastic, hard-living and misunderstood superhero who has fallen out of favor with the public. When Hancock grudgingly agrees to an extreme makeover from idealistic publicist Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman, Juno), his life and reputation rise from the ashes and all seems right again--until he meets a woman (2003 Academy Award® winner Charlize Theron, Best Actress! , Monster) with similar powers to his and the key to his secret past.Hancock turns the standard superhero movie inside-out: The title character (Will Smith) can fly, has superstrength, and is invulnerable, but he's also a sloppy, alcoholic jerk who causes millions of dollars in property damage whenever he bothers to fight crime. When he saves the life of a public-relations agent named Ray (Jason Bateman, Arrested Development), Ray decides to improve Hancock's image--starting by having Hancock surrender himself to the authorities and go to prison for his lawless behavior. The idea is that once he's in prison, the crime rate will go up, and people will start to realize Hancock might be of value after all. This is only the first act of Hancock--from there, the movie takes several clever turns that shouldn't be revealed. Hancock isn't a great movie (among other things, director Peter Berg overuses close-ups with a hand-held camera to a degree ! that may cause motion sickness), but it is an extremely entert! aining o ne. The script, which holds together far better than most superhero movies, has a propulsive plot, good dialogue, some compassion for its characters, and even an actual idea or two. The spectacular action at least gestures towards obeying the laws of physics, which actually makes the special effects more vivid. The three leads (Smith, Bateman, and Charlize Theron as Ray's wife, Mary) deftly balance the movie's mixture of comedy, action, and drama. All in all, a smart subversive twist on a genre that all too often takes itself all too seriously. --Bret Fetzer

Stills from Hancock (click for larger image)










Academy Award® nominee Will Sm! ith (Best Actor, The Pursuit of Happyness, 2006) stars ! in this action-packed comedy as Hancock, a sarcastic, hard-living and misunderstood superhero who has fallen out of favor with the public. When Hancock grudgingly agrees to an extreme makeover from idealistic publicist Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman, Juno), his life and reputation rise from the ashes and all seems right again--until he meets a woman (2003 Academy Award® winner Charlize Theron, Best Actress, Monster) with similar powers to his and the key to his secret past.Hancock turns the standard superhero movie inside-out: The title character (Will Smith) can fly, has superstrength, and is invulnerable, but he's also a sloppy, alcoholic jerk who causes millions of dollars in property damage whenever he bothers to fight crime. When he saves the life of a public-relations agent named Ray (Jason Bateman, Arrested Development), Ray decides to improve Hancock's image--starting by having Hancock surrender himself to the authorities and go to prison for his lawl! ess behavior. The idea is that once he's in prison, the crime rate will go up, and people will start to realize Hancock might be of value after all. This is only the first act of Hancock--from there, the movie takes several clever turns that shouldn't be revealed. Hancock isn't a great movie (among other things, director Peter Berg overuses close-ups with a hand-held camera to a degree that may cause motion sickness), but it is an extremely entertaining one. The script, which holds together far better than most superhero movies, has a propulsive plot, good dialogue, some compassion for its characters, and even an actual idea or two. The spectacular action at least gestures towards obeying the laws of physics, which actually makes the special effects more vivid. The three leads (Smith, Bateman, and Charlize Theron as Ray's wife, Mary) deftly balance the movie's mixture of comedy, action, and drama. All in all, a smart subversive twist on a genre that all too of! ten takes itself all too seriously. --Bret Fetzer
Ac! ademy Aw ard® nominee Will Smith (Best Actor, The Pursuit of Happyness, 2006) stars in this action-packed comedy as Hancock, a sarcastic, hard-living and misunderstood superhero who has fallen out of favor with the public. When Hancock grudgingly agrees to an extreme makeover from idealistic publicist Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman, Juno), his life and reputation rise from the ashes and all seems right again--until he meets a woman (2003 Academy Award® winner Charlize Theron, Best Actress, Monster) with similar powers to his and the key to his secret past.Hancock turns the standard superhero movie inside-out: The title character (Will Smith) can fly, has superstrength, and is invulnerable, but he's also a sloppy, alcoholic jerk who causes millions of dollars in property damage whenever he bothers to fight crime. When he saves the life of a public-relations agent named Ray (Jason Bateman, Arrested Development), Ray decides to improve Hancock's image--st! arting by having Hancock surrender himself to the authorities and go to prison for his lawless behavior. The idea is that once he's in prison, the crime rate will go up, and people will start to realize Hancock might be of value after all. This is only the first act of Hancock--from there, the movie takes several clever turns that shouldn't be revealed. Hancock isn't a great movie (among other things, director Peter Berg overuses close-ups with a hand-held camera to a degree that may cause motion sickness), but it is an extremely entertaining one. The script, which holds together far better than most superhero movies, has a propulsive plot, good dialogue, some compassion for its characters, and even an actual idea or two. The spectacular action at least gestures towards obeying the laws of physics, which actually makes the special effects more vivid. The three leads (Smith, Bateman, and Charlize Theron as Ray's wife, Mary) deftly balance the movie's mixture of! comedy, action, and drama. All in all, a smart subversive twi! st on a genre that all too often takes itself all too seriously. --Bret Fetzer

Stills from Hancock (click for larger image)










Academy Award® nominee Will Smith (Best Actor, The Pursuit of Happyness, 2006) stars in this action-packed comedy as Hancock, a sarcastic, hard-living and misunderstood superhero who has fallen out of favor with the public. When Hancock grudgingly agrees to an extreme makeover from idealistic publicist Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman, Juno), his life and reputation rise from the ashes and all seems right again--until he meets a woman (2003 Academy Award® winner Charlize Theron, Best Actress, Monster) wi! th similar powers to his and the key to his secret past.Han! cock turns the standard superhero movie inside-out: The title character (Will Smith) can fly, has superstrength, and is invulnerable, but he's also a sloppy, alcoholic jerk who causes millions of dollars in property damage whenever he bothers to fight crime. When he saves the life of a public-relations agent named Ray (Jason Bateman, Arrested Development), Ray decides to improve Hancock's image--starting by having Hancock surrender himself to the authorities and go to prison for his lawless behavior. The idea is that once he's in prison, the crime rate will go up, and people will start to realize Hancock might be of value after all. This is only the first act of Hancock--from there, the movie takes several clever turns that shouldn't be revealed. Hancock isn't a great movie (among other things, director Peter Berg overuses close-ups with a hand-held camera to a degree that may cause motion sickness), but it is an extremely entertaining one. The script, which! holds together far better than most superhero movies, has a propulsive plot, good dialogue, some compassion for its characters, and even an actual idea or two. The spectacular action at least gestures towards obeying the laws of physics, which actually makes the special effects more vivid. The three leads (Smith, Bateman, and Charlize Theron as Ray's wife, Mary) deftly balance the movie's mixture of comedy, action, and drama. All in all, a smart subversive twist on a genre that all too often takes itself all too seriously. --Bret Fetzer

Stills from Hancock (click for larger image)










Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 11/16/2010 Rating: Pg13Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 10/05/! 2010Robert Neville is a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable, and man-made. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City and maybe the world. For three years, Neville has faithfully sent out daily radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. But he is not alone. Mutant victims of the plague -- The Infected -- lurk in the shadows... watching Neville's every move... waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind's last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood. But he knows he is outnumbered... and quickly running out of time.Will Smith stars in the third adaptation of Richard Matheson’s classic science-fiction novel about a lone human survivor in a post-apocalyptic world dominated by vampires. This new version somewhat alters Math! eson’s central hook, i.e., the startling idea that an ordina! ry man, Robert Neville, spends his days roaming a desolated city and his nights in a house sealed off from longtime neighbors who have become bloodsucking fiends. In the new film, Smith’s Neville is a military scientist charged with finding a cure for a virus that turns people into crazed, hairless, flesh-eating zombies. Failing to complete his work in time--and after enduring a personal tragedy--Neville finds himself alone in Manhattan, his natural immunity to the virus keeping him alive. With an expressive German shepherd his only companion, Neville is a hunter-gatherer in sunlight, hiding from the mutants at night in his Washington Square town house and methodically conducting experiments in his ceaseless quest to conquer the disease.

The film’s first half almost suggests that I Am Legend could be one of the finest movies of 2007. Director Francis Lawrence’s extraordinary, computer-generated images of a decaying New York City reveal weeds growing through the crack! s of familiar streets that are also overrun by deer and prowled by lions. It’s impossible not to be fascinated by such a realistically altered cityscape, reverting to a natural environment, through which Smith moves with a weirdly enviable freedom, offset by his wariness over whatever is lurking in the dark of bank vaults and parking garages. Lawrence and screenwriters Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman wisely build suspense by withholding images of the monsters until a peak scene of horror well into the story. It must be said, however, that the computer-enhanced creatures don’t look half as interesting as they might have had the filmmakers adhered more to Matheson’s vampire-nightmare vision. I Am Legend is ultimately noteworthy for Smith’s remarkable performance as a man so lonely he talks to mannequins in the shops he frequents. The film’s latter half goes too far in portraying Smith’s Neville as a pitiable man with a messianic mission, but this lapse ! into bathos does nothing to take away from the visual and dram! atic acc omplishments of its first hour. --Tom Keogh

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