8 I Friday, July 30, 2010
‘Mad Men’
Reviewed by Paul Osolnick
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
The new season of AMC's 'Mad Men" offered a
different product than seasons past when it aired
on Sunday.
The fourth season premiere
of Mad Men a series based
on advertising firms in the
1960 s opened with a ques
tion that has many answers:
"Who is Don Draper 9 "
In previous seasons. Draper
was a married man ("happily"
was left out for a reason),
father and a talented creative
director at the successful
advertising agency Sterling Cooper.
During the Korean War, he was literally a dif
ferent person, before dying in an accident
after which the current Draper assumed his
identity.
Courtesy of imdb.com
And now, Don Draper is divorced, sharing cus
tody of his children and working as a partner at
the unstable, "scrappy upstart" advertising firm
Sterling Cooper Draper Prvce.
The question is asked by a reporter interview
ing him about the start of the new company, but
when Draper receives the question, he dismisses
it with a question of his own.
This sets the tone for Draper throughout most
of the episode.
Draper is bitter and out of character as he
blows an account with a conservative bathing
suit company by offering an advertising cam
paign much more "sexy" than they had asked for.
His personal life has taken a dive as well, as he
goes "home" to a small apartment that is often
empty 7 .
(Sometimes he finds his housemaid with a
plate of cold pork chops waiting for him. >
After blowing the first interview a move that
cost him and the company bad press he is told
to have another interview with someone at a dif
ferent newspaper, a better one.
The show ends with Draper holding another
interview with a reporter from the Wall Street
Journal. Unlike the first time. Draper is eager to
talk, mainly about the founding of the new ad
agency.
The episode ends with Draper having an
entirely different disposition from where the sea
son premiere started.
He is still divorced, but he is calling the shots.
He is still a member of an unstable company, but
with Draper's talent, it won't be unstable for long.
And unlike the grimace the protagonist opens the
episode with. Draper is all smiles wiien the cred
its roll.
Get ready, America
Grade: A
To e-mail reporter: prosoo4@psu.edu
‘Ramona and Beezus’
Reviewed by Megan Rogers
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
In the words of the one and only Ramona
Quimby. "Ramona and Beezus" is “terrifical."
Viewers who had an imagination like Ramona's
—mk . will long to return to the
■n | magical world of elemen
jfljS ] tary school. Those who
didn't will get a glimpse
into what they missed.
.. MA The movie follows
p| Ramona -- the spunky
youngster with the cut
straight-across bangs all
'. • ,/m' girls suffered through at
one point as she makes
her stand against growing
up and “coloring within
the lines."
Long-time Beverly
Cleary fans will delight in seeing the book
sprawled across the big screen with its essential
themes and characters intact.
Courtesy of imdb.com
Scenes will make you beg to return to third
grade where the biggest problem is taking a
horrendous photo on school picture day and the
solution to every tough situation is to run away.
Joey King plays the adorable Ramona and
Selena Gomez surprises and impresses as older
sister Beezus. King and Gomez have a comfort
able on-screen relationship that translates to
some cute sister moments.
Supporting characters are equally well-cast.
Sandra Oh plays the strict but well-meaning
teacher. John Corbett is the fun-loving dad.
Hutch Dano is Henry Higgins, the other half of
Beezus’s wonderfully cute yet first-boyfriend
awkward romance.
Though the movie focuses mostly on the antics
of Ramona, the other characters' story lines are
all developed and add color to the movie.
Sisters will find themselves relating to their on
screen counterparts. Ramona stars as the per
petually annoying yet endearing younger sister.
Beezus charms as the young teenage navigating
through her first relationship with constant
mishaps caused by the pest, Ramona.
As an oldest sister, I can attest that the director
gets the sister dynamic down pat: lots of slam
ming doors, annoying antics and lots of teasing,
but some touchy-feely “I’ve got your back
moments” to cause the audience to “aww."
Audience members will be enchanted and
enraptured as they hold their breathe to see what
farfetched scheme Ramona will come up with
next, if Henry and Beezus will get their kiss and,
most importantly, whether the family gets the
happy ending it deserves.
Travel back to the world of recess, imagina
tion, lemonade sales and scary monsters hiding
under the bed. The responsibilities will still be
there when you exit the theater, but you'll be
more excited to tackle them.
Grade: A
To e-mail reporter: mers2oo@psu.edu
REV
Don Draper is back
‘Salt’ proves bland, predictable
Reviewed by Nathan Pipenberg
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
In • Salt," Angelina Jolie plays an
American double agent named Evelyn
Salt trained as a Russian spy and
inserted back into America as part of a
plot to kill both the Russian and
American presidents.
Or something like that. It’s all very
confusing, really.
To save us from thinking too hard
about the story line. Jolie puts herself
through a series of stunts ranging from
chilling to absolutely bloodcurdling
with gusto.
When she's not jumping from the
roof of one speeding car to anothi
she's escaping from a police crui:
lasing the driver with his own gu
while handcuffed
To actually attempt to describe
plot Jolie plays a CIA agent acc
by a Russian defector of involveme
a plot to kill the Russian president ai
begin a nuclear showdown resulting
the United States' demise.
Thanks to brain scans and lie detec
tors they run on the defector while
she's in the holding cell, the CIA takes
this threat seriously.
Soon Jolie is running from every cop
in the country, and look
ing more and
more guilty of H
Russian sleeper
she was
accused of being.
It's impossible to say
it's not fun to watch. Like
a James Bond movie, “Salt'
is best if you forget the plot
details that will ultimately go
unexplained, and watch the spec
tacle as it unfolds.
Watching Jolie devise a rocket
launcher from a fire extinguisher and
some sort of handy chemical she hap
pens across is marvelous. And if you’re
male, so is the scene where she covers
a security camera with her underwear.
Let 's see Bond pull out his undergar
ments from inside a tux.
But when the action lags, the
jyHE NECT
is incredibly dull. In a Jason Bourne
like fashion, we slowly learn about
Salt's misunderstood past, dead family
members and how she was brain
washed into becoming a killer.
You quickly realize, however, that it's
not going to make as much sense as
the Bourne trilogy did, and instead for
get about it.
Bourne enticed us because, even
though he knew how to kill a man in
five seconds, he didn’t know every
thing. There were other characters for
him to actually talk to and learn from.
In contrast. Salt commits every
action with unyielding certainty.
There's no trace of ambiguity in her
her boring.
Luckily, the movie doesn’t pause
for build-up very often. When
director Phillip Noyce does, it's
usually with a close-up of
Jolie's expressive face.
She's a seasoned killer, yes.
but when she's staring painful- |
ly into the distance, you realize
how this lifestyle is affecting
her.
;ed
t in
nd
in
Then she crashes a police car
over the side of an overpass,
and walks away
unscathed,
minidress-clad hips
swinging, as you
The Daily Collegian
cheer her on to keep up the fight.
As the movie careens to an ending,
the film's booming soundtrack - an
orchestral tour de force - seems
unnecessary. Everyone in the audience
has either already figured out who the
bad guy really is (do you really think
it's going to be Jolie? ) or didn't care
from the beginning.
"Who is Evelyn Salt?" That’s the
question Noyce begs us to ask, but it
never seems like we really need to
know the answer.
Grade: C
To e-mail reporter: ndpso4s@psu.edu
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