Book Review: The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More- 5/30/08

Comments: The Long Tail is a really interesting book that speaks to the new generation of businesses that thrive in the digital age of products as well as the time of micro-consumers.

This book breaks down the process’ of business such as iTunes and Netflix and how the new market of consumers wanting abundant choices has shifted how they get their products and how stores either profit or fail based on their selection width and how they handle business as ones and zeros or if they are brick & mortar stores.

Score: 3.5 out of 5

Book Review: Be the Elephant: Build a Bigger, Better Business- 5/29/08

Comments: This is one of the good new business books I’ve read that discusses in detail the strategy and thought behind creating, maintaining and expanding a business.

You don’t have to be a big corporation to get in on this reading of Be the Elephant. It has good examples of business plans, cash flow strategy, customer insights that the author has used to form his our multi-million dollar companies from smaller-revenue firms.

Go ahead, pick it up and learn something!

Score: 4 out of 5

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull- 5/24/08

Comments: Finally saw the movie. My two cents. I went in it expecting an adventure film, came away feeling a definite sci-fi tone near the middle once the plot was shown. I like Indy films separate from other genres. Kinda like how I’d be disappointed if the Bourne movies somehow integrate Sasquatch or the Loch Ness monster into it, not my cup of tea.

Still, I enjoyed the movie for what it was… a flick with a history of fun adventures and slap-dash action. I could’ve done away with the cheesy one-liners in the first 20 minutes or Tarzan/Mutt scene.

Wonder now when Shia will be taking over the enterprise for the 5th film?

Score: 3 out of 5

Movie Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian- 5/22/08

Comments: The kids return to Narnia to help fellow teen-Prince Caspian recapture his rightful throne. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is a bit darker in tone than the original as well as a lot more of the cinematography shot at night creates a more harrowing mood to this film. A couple action sequences make this film bereft of a Lord of the Rings feel.

I saw it odd where in this Disney film the kids are shown killing human characters during their battles even if it was for good. Still, I thought this film was better than the first which bored me until the final battle.

Score: 3 out of 5

MOTW Rants: Behind the scenes at Disneyland- The adventures of a Jack Sparrow character actor- 5/21/08

An ex-Jack Sparrow spills on life at the Magic Kingdom from an article in Los Angeles Magazine.

Nice behind the scenes look on how someone became the “face” of the Pirates of the Caribbean character and how they go about their business.

Click here for details on the Pirate’s Booty.

Movie Review: Sherrybaby- 5/20/08

Synopsis: Sherry (Maggie Gyllenhaal) has just been released from prison after becoming a heroin addict and getting caught in a robbery. After winding into a half-way house she tries to re-establish her relationship with her young daughter who was taken in by Sherry’s brother and wife.

We learn that Sherry has been molested by her father after a scene at her daughter’s birthday party which may have contributed to her sleeping around vicariously since leaving prison. She tries to establish a life working at a kid’s school and fighting her addiction as well as her brother and his wife’s attempt to keep her separated from her daughter.

Comments: A strong performance from Maggie Gyllenhaal, a vibrant actress in independent films and soon the new Batman: The Dark Knight movie this summer. The movie establishes the character of Sherry as a strong willed person but also weak in her dabbling in drugs and sex to try and cope with her prison, abuse, and relationship-troubled past.

The viewer will become well acquainted with the character and her fight to reunite with her daughter and maintain her life on the straight and narrow. I just wish the ending was more fruitful instead as feeling truncated and ending abruptly.

Score: 3.5 out of 5

Movie Review: Cafe Lumiere- 5/20/08

Summary: Cafe Lumiere is a Japanese film by a Taiwanese director. Follows the snippet of life when a young Japanese woman finds out she’s pregnant by her long-distance Taiwanese boyfriend and her relationship with her parents as they learn the news. She also encounters and befriends a local used bookstore clerk who they share a low level crush on each other.

Comments: The shots and cinematography used felt a bit to me like Chinese director Wong Kar Wai with extensive scenes comprised of long static shots and lingering and silent moments. Unfortunately unlike the famous Wong Kari Wai’s movies, this one dragged on for so long without the movement of the story to capture my attention at all. You could go on for long stretches of the film with no speech, just watching people hang clothes or eating.

Unlike a movie such as the Vietnamese-made The Scent of Green Papaya where long lingering and silent shots account for the establishment of a character and emotion, the ones in Cafe Lumiere just dwells on repeated everyday moments that does not move the story, characters or enjoyment of the film at all. Thoroughly boring, a movie that felt pretentious trying to feel expansive and deep by trying to be minimalist and simple….in the end it didn’t capture anything except my Fast Forward button and finally Eject.

Score: 1.5 out of 5

Movie Review: Long Life, Happiness Prosperity- 5/18/08

Description: The festival award-winning Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity – is the January selection in The Film Movement Series. In LONG LIFE, HAPPINESS AND PROSPERITY, twelve-year old Mindy Ho (Valerie Tian) tries Taoist magic to fix her single mother�s (Sandra Oh) financial situation and seemingly hopeless romantic prospects. Mindy’s directed charms appear to cause an aging security guard to lose his job and a local butcher to win the lottery. The guard, the butcher and her mother’s stories all intersect, bound together by Mindy�s attempts at magic intervention.

Set in the Chinese Canadian community, LONG LIFE, HAPPINESS AND PROSPERITY is a story of hope and the importance of keeping faith in this sometimes difficult world.

Comments: A nice, cute, quirky and funny movie that explores both Chinese culture and its mingling with a western-influenced lifestyle. The story follows three main arcs: daughter trying to find love for her single mom, recently laid-off elder security guard, and a butcher store father trying to pass on the family legacy to his American born son.

The lead little girl (Valerie Tian from Juno) at age twelve here was really funny and down-to-earth. I experienced a few laughs from the situations brought about in the story. The ending may throw you off since a few of the arcs don’t really spell out the ending for some of the characters; that’s why I had to turn on the commentary for the ending scenes to hear the director’s explanation. Still, this a a well-made film and good times for the entire family.

Score: 4 out of 5

Book Review: Kong: King Of Skull Island- 5/17/08

Description: In 1933, American showman Carl Denham returned from a mysterious, hidden island with a priceless treasure. A treasure not gold or jewels, but the island’s barbaric god, a monstrous anthropoid called “Kong.” The savage giant escaped and wreaked havoc among the man-made canyons of Manhattan, but within hours of the giant ape’s death his body – and Carl Denham – disappeared. Twenty-five years later, the son of Carl Denham makes a shocking discovery that leads him back to the site of his father’s greatest adventure and to the answers that will unlock the century’s greatest mystery and history’s greatest miracle.

Kong: King Of Skull Island was authorized by the Cooper Estate and based on the original novel that inspired the all-time classic film. This new novel acts as both prequel and sequel to the classic fantasy tale, King Kong. Acclaimed fantasy artist Joe DeVito and top fantasy and science-fiction writer Brad Strickland join forces to make for an interactive visual-narrative storytelling experience unlike any other.

Comments: After thinking about the 2005 movie, I was searching around for information about the history of the film and came across this novel. An authorized book from the heirs of the creator of King Kong, this story takes place before and after Kong is found and brought to rampage New York.

The Kong: King Of Skull Island story centers around two main characters. Set in the late 50’s, the first is the son of the filmmaker who captured and brought Kong to NYC. He tries to trace what happened to the gigantic ape and his dad when both disappeared after Kong fell from the Empire State building 25 years in the past. The second arch is from the past (maybe 18th century) about one of the native islanders where Kong comes from. The island princess’ story traces the history of Kong and how he and the people and creatures of the island came to be before being disrupted by early European explorers.

Kong: King Of Skull Island is a pretty large format book with interspersed images capturing certain vivid scenes from the story. The book moves along at a brisk pace venturing back and forth between the two main characters with a dose of suspense, intrigue and ape vs. dinosaur vs. dinosaur vs. human battles.

Rating: 3 out of 5