Matthew’s Blog

Three years ago at the Toronto Film Fest I saw a delightful film called Millions - A magically realism story as only a 7 year old can see it - about ethics, love, being human, and fortune in more ways than one. I just picked it up on dvd and remembered just how charming it was and realized I never posted the review of it.

Want a magical and lift your spirits movie? Rent or Buy Millions. This was one of my favorite movies of the Toronto Film Festival that year. “A heartwarming story of two little boys, faith, miracles . . . a whole lot of money.” It is a charming story told from the perspective of Damian, a 7-year old boy, who uses imagination, fantasy and faith to make sense of his confusing world. When upon receiving a gift from the sky of a suitcase full of cash he and his practical 9 year old brother need to decide what to do with it. The catch, they have seven days before the money becomes worthless as the British pound sterling transitions to euros. This is not a predictable movie, perhaps the final outcome and moral but how they get there is full of unexpected twists, gotcha moments, originality, mysticism, and heartwarming spirit. A truly lovely film. The score is wonderful, the setting is lush and green, and the little actors are enchanting. You won’t regret it.

Trailer: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3734372633/

PS Keep an eye out for some really cool halos.

Book: Raising the Bar: The story of Clif Bar Inc. : Integrity and Passion In Life and Business
A journey toward sustaining your business, brand, people, community, and the planet.
- by Gary Erickson (founder of Clif Bar) with Lois Lorentzen.

As some of you know I have named the hunger of one of my bigger games - Sustainable Business.  Last Summer after viewing the movie  “The Corporation”, which is out on DVD now, was inspired by what could be and an awakening to how much we really don’t know as a culture of why things are the way they are.   In addition to being inspired, I found a hero/mentor in Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface (http://www.interface.com).  Since then I have been collecting and searching for information about people and companies truly working toward sustainable business.

My mother put me on to the Clif Story while she was out in California last month and as intention and creating my day would have it, lo and behold I found this book at the library in the new book section.

It’s a gripper.   It is an amazing and inspiring story about both about Clif Bar Inc. and its founder Gary Erickson.  Gary is a cyclist baker turned 25% growth business owner to borderline pauper and finally a pioneer in the world of sustainable business.  This is a very readable book.  Everything from a how to of working with funding sources to bicycle trips in the Alps to ecological business to Jazz trumpeting to hand-to-mouth existence.   It combines just the right mix of personal story and history with business models and savvy insight.

The story begins with Gary making an unconventional decision.  On the day of the $60million sale of Clif he follows his gut and chooses to go for a walk.   Upon his return he tells his partner to send the buyers home which begins the middle of this roller coaster “white road” story.   There is this brilliant chapter where he describes the “red road and white road” trekking to business theory and what it takes to be on either path.   Red roads on the map are the major highways, the fast and efficient routes between major cities and towns.   White roads are the far less direct and often more challenging routes which offer unparalleled views, joy, and direct contact with people.  The White Road is about soul and passion.  ”Stay focused on the quality of the journey, rather than the destination, and the rewards are already in your hands.” (Anon. reviewer of the book)

This is a passionate, inspiring, heart-pumping, and educational frontier book on what it does and will take to stay in integrity so that you can build sustainable business, brand, people, community and planet.  It is a must read for anyone on the sustainable business path.

So I got really miffed when I could no longer download my favorite SciFi shows through ITunes. I sunk a bit below the line on that one. How dare they? Those idiots! What greedy . . . .!
Then I went and checked out Amazon Unbox. And got all pissed off again. What!? I’ve got to download another piece of software? I’ll only be able to view it through them?! Great, another proprietary copy restricted format that I’ve got to keep track of! And last but not least, what do you mean these files are 20% larger?!

You can see where this was going fast.

Well my need for good SciFi busted my resistance, you see I don’t have or want cable and I don’t watch regular tv. SciFi is my vice - good, philosophical, well written plots and character development that causes people to think and relate to current, past, and future events - the great “What Ifs?” I love’m. My top choices these days all happen to reside on the SciFi Network which was pulled from ITunes and put on Amazon Unbox: Stargate, Stargate Atlantis, Eureka, Battlestar Galactica, and a non-SciFi - Heroes.

Much to my great surprise and pleasure - I like Unbox! I like the ease it is to play my videos. I am not restricted to the Unbox viewer. I can actually click on the file and open it directly with Windows Media Player (Sorry, Apple people). That file size thing - Not a problem - the images are clear and clean compared to the occasional artifacting of Itunes. No more out of sync voice/video issues because ITunes decided to revamp their player and not test it out thoroughly on non-apple machines. It’s been seamless. The only problem I had was when I was trying to run too many things at once and it couldn’t find the files. Easy fix - close down those other programs and clean out the cache (you’re going to be watching a video - why do have all those other things running anyway) and restart unbox - viola - fixed.

So if you wanna kick the cable thing and get all the episodes when they air instead of waiting for DVDs check out Unbox.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Milwaukee International Film Festival.

http://www.MilwaukeeFilmFest.org

For the past seven years my folks and I have made a pilgrimage every September to the Toronto International Film Festival and had a blast. This year we opted to stay local and try out the MIFF. Much to our surprise we were quite impressed. It was well run, efficient, and high quality in choice of movies to show.

Downside to the MIFF - theatres are too spread out as Milwaukee has lost a lot of the down town movie theatres. The upside: the majority of the films are shown in three great art houses and next year if the Avalon chooses to join they’ll have four.

The majority of the films are shown at The Downer (2 screens), The Oriental (3 screens), and the Times Cinema. The Oriental is Milwaukee’s jewel of a theatre, a movie palace of old in an East Indian theme with bejeweled giant Buddhas, elephants and panthers.

I have a feeling we will be going back to Toronto next year as we discovered that our annual pilgrimage was more than about just seeing cool new movies and movies not likely to play in the Midwest. We found that being local, we were unable to escape our lives and daily responsibilities and truly enjoy each other’s company, the restaurants, culture, and the fabulous host city. MIFF might provide an opportunity to see films that we missed in Toronto as it is a month later.

Tell No One (French 2006 “Ne le dis à personne”)
http://www.tellno-one.com

Synopses from film website:

Pediatric Alec Beck (Francois Cluzet), still devastated by the savage murder of his wife Margot (Marie Josee-Croze) in the early days of their marriage eight years ago, receives and anonymous email.   When he clicks on the link he finds a woman’s face standing in a crowd and being filmed real time - Margot’s face.  Is she still alive? And why does she instruct him to “tell no one”?

Review: Gripping suspense that spins and winds, thrills and startles, and gets more and more complicated the further into the film you go.  Good luck guessing at what is going on. Layer upon layer.  Fantastic story.  Great cast.  Worthy watch.

Film: ++++1/2 (4.5/5) I felt one section needed a little tightening up, but overall outstanding.  (one of the best “Frogger” scenes I’ve ever seen - watch the film and you’ll see what I mean).
Movie: +++++ (5/5 )  caution film contains violence.

Irina Palm (UK 2007)
http://www.irinapalm-themovie.com/home.htm

Delightful serious, playful, irreverent, and unusual film about the lengths a person will go to to help a child.    Loved this film.  It was charming and well done and tastefully done.   How far would you go to help your child? Really.

trailer available at the website, but it does include some spoilers.

Film: ++++ (4/5) A little too dark at times (lighting wise)
Movie: ++++ (4/5) entertaining, but be warned this a movie meant for adults

The Banquet (China 2006 original title “Yeyan”)

If you have seen Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and/or Hero - you’ve seen this before.

Of the three Hero in my opinion is the best of the three.  This film was in fact produced by the same production team as Crouching Tiger.   I kept having the sensation of “haven’t I seen this before.” To those who have not seen either of the above films this will be a novel experience for you.    This is the new age of Chinese cinema.   Big, bold, beautiful and full of outlandishly incredible martial arts moves.    It is visually stunning as all in this genre are.
They try to woo audiences with the claim of this being akin to loose interpretation of Hamlet.  loose is the operative word.   At 131 minutes at least 30 minutes could have been removed without damaging the film.   I was surprised to find that this was the final edit and has been in release for over a year.

Film: +++ (3/5) too long, been there done that cinemagraphically
Movie: +++ (3/5) too long, non hollywood ending (but neither is hamlet), been there done that