text:
Would appreciate information on Caravan Tours to Nova Scotia from anyone who has ttraveled with this company and what is the best time of year?
Hi and welcome to Trip Advisor.
Here are some fairly current threads that mention Caravan Tours.
If you wish to contact someone who has made a post and may be able to give you more information, click on their user name (or avatar), and you can send them a private message.
As for the best time of year, June, July and August are high season. September can be wonderful and less crowded and October, especially in Cape Breton is fine too, but it is getting cooler.
Thanks for the threads on Caravan and Nova Scotia. About 35 years ago one of my sons and I camped for a week near Halifax, but never went to PEI or Cape Breton. Thought I would like to finish the trip with someone else doing the driving.
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"One of Best"
- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
I worked at HCL Technologies full-time (More than a year)
Variety of project from a wide variety of domain. Onsite as well
Try to little harder while package negotiation, becasuse HR people during negotiation will always try to dominate if you are not coming from well know company
Advice to Management
HR recruiters need to be skilled.
I have been working at HCL Technologies full-time (More than 5 years)
You will be able to manage personal as well as professional. No body can force you to work late. They have work from home option too, but in this case they give you half salary and you have to work for half day means 5-6 hours per day.
dont offer good salary hike.
i really do not think there are any pros for the 2012 onward fresher batch as it doesnt seem like the company is interested in calling them at all
everything is a con if ur a fresher.. ul neva get called and hence u wont be gettin any experience and hence no other company will bother lookin at u..

subset: commoncrawl


text: Weekend Investor The 'Rate Gap' Is Rising The gap between deposit rates and borrowing rates is higher than it's been in 32 of the last 40 years. By Andrea Coombes Oct. 18, 2013 6:55 p.m. ET Low interest rates have been bruising savers for years, but for a while those same low rates were proving a boon to mortgage borrowers. Not anymore. In fact, the gap between the interest consumers earn on a savings account and the rate they pay on a... To Read the Full Story Subscribe Sign In Most Popular Videos Seven Years Without Google in China U.K. Anger Toward the U.S.: Three Things to Know Johnny Depp Returns With Disney's Fifth 'Pirates of the Caribbean' TSA Security Lines: Changes Coming at the Airport Can Domino's Deliver Pizza Under 10 Minutes? Most Popular Articles Trump Pushing Big White House Changes as Russia Crisis Grows Trump Renews Focus on White House Staffing Changes, 'Fake News' Rural America Is the New 'Inner City' J.Crew's Mickey Drexler Confesses: I Underestimated How Tech Would Upend Retail Hotels Remove Welcome Mat for Online Travel Agencies


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Archive for the 'News' Category
Published on May 18th, 2017
We've updated our ticketshop with a new item, making that a total of two Pack4DreamHack events. Starting today, »
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Published on January 10th, 2017
Packers who joined us last winter were already informed: we're starting our ticket sale early this time! Again, »
1 Comments
Published on November 27th, 2016
The final day of DreamHack had some fun activities for us so Bjorn went ahead and captured a »
0 Comments
Published on November 26th, 2016
Bjorn went out to shoot some more photos of DreamHack, with today starring the League of Legends Cosplay »
0 Comments
Published on November 24th, 2016
First of all let me start by saying that we all arrived safe and sound. It took a »
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Published on November 17th, 2016
By now we're getting to that point where you have to start thinking about organizing your stuff for »
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Explore In Spanish, Model and more!
Explore related topics
Mannequin In Spanish Orange
The Black Tulip: Painting Exhibition by Dutch artist, Lita Cabellut Inauguration on Wednesday, 9th September at 6.30 pm at the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. Exhibition open till 23rd September 2015
I love the drama of this portrait by the Spanish painter Salustiano Garcia Cruz. Salustiano paints using a special pigment – up to sixty layers – from the Cochineal beetle. This pigment was used by the native peoples of Central America and was brought to Europe by the Spaniards. After gold the exquisite red derived from this insect was the second most prized commodity imported by the Spanish (who later sold it to Navajos and other North American tribes for use in their rugs and textiles)
Miquel Barcelo spanish painter, untitled, 2007Follow: Contemporary-Art-Blog
Lita Cabellut (b1961, born a gipsy girl in the streets of El Raval in Barcelona, Cabellut was adopted at the age of 13)...
Salustiano Garcia Cruz (b1965 Seville, Spain) …
Picasso Lines Napkin Rings Contemporary Modern Kitchen by Furniture Creations. $12.61. Add an artistic touch to your table with this set of festively colored napkin rings. Each ring measures 1-1/2 inches in diameter by 1-1/4 inches. Made of dishwasher safe porcelain. Perfect finishing adornment for your place setting. Boldly detailed with an abstract work by the famed Spanish painter with signature. Add an artistic touch to your table with this set of festively colored napk...
BEAUTY. Jose Manuel Merello.- "Andalusian girl." (73 x 54 cm) Contemporary art. Spanish art. Painters. Current art 21st century. Modern painting. Paintings of contemporary artists. Art, Luxury and Passion. Color and Decoration in the Modern Art. Investment. http://www.merello.com
Ignacio Zuloaga - Candida in Yellow (the artist's cousin was the subject of 24 of his paintings)
Girl illustration


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ROB DAVIES ANALYSIS: What lies in store for the High Street in 2010?
On the face of it, retailers enjoyed a bumper Christmas, with the majority of the High Street's big names reporting rising sales.
But suggestions that the sector is well on the road to recovery could prove wide of the mark.
The festive period may have seen some double digit increases in sales, but only when compared to 2008.
Tax rises this year may knock fragile consumer confidence
In 2008, consumer confidence was languishing at an all-time low and the likes of Woolworths and Zavvi were going under. In fact the pair's collapse handed rivals an artificial boost this time around.
Retail analysts have also warned that the record sales enjoyed by the likes of John Lewis and DSG this Christmas may be down to shoppers getting in their big-ticket purchases early before VAT returned to17.5pc.
The market has priced in these positive factors and is now turning its attention to the uncertain outlook for 2010.
If the Conservatives win the general election, swingeing cuts in the public sector will take a chunk out of consumer spending figures, while the threat of tax rises looms large, regardless of which party comes out on top.
However, retailers can take comfort in the fact that they have
slashed costs, putting them in a strong position should the economy
surge back upwards this year.
Home Retail sales anaemic
Home Retail Group, the owner of Argos and Homebase, posted an underwhelming increase in sales over Christmas yesterday, but was buoyant about its prospects for the year ahead.
Underlying revenues at Argos were up 0.1pc in the 18 weeks to January 2, far below the double-digit growth seen at rivals such as John Lewis.
But the group upgraded its full-year pretax profit estimate by £20m to £265m, though the markets were less than impressed, sending its shares down 17.7p to 265.8p.
Chief executive Terry Duddy admitted yesterday that the catalogue outlet's anaemic sales growth had been 'hard fought' but said he expected improvement in 2010.
Duddy also shrugged off the threat posed by Tesco and Sainsbury, both of which have ramped up their nonfood offerings.
'I am fending them off,' he said. 'We're also growing our share and you have to remember they're coming from a smaller base.'
Homebase, the group's home improvement brand, proved the highlight, as like-for-like sales rose 4pc.
Duddy attributed the performance to higher-income shoppers taking advantage of low mortgage rates to spend on home improvement.
Analysts pointed yesterday to the group's lacklustre performance compared with rivals, but most said it was well-positioned for recovery.
Cash and carry prize for Booker
Even the cash and carry trade is booming, judging from the latest update from Booker, the biggest supplier to the nation's corner shops.
Underlying revenues in the 16 weeks to January 1 were up 6.7pc thanks to increased footfall and higher average spend per customer. Within that figure, tobacco sales were ahead 7.9pc with customers stocking up on cigarettes ahead of the 2010 duty rise.
The shares edged up 1p to 47.25p as the group said pretax profit and net debt will be in line with City forecasts.
Greg Lawless, retail analyst at City broker Collins Stewart, described the latest update as 'solid' as he restated his buy advice and 49p-a-share price target.
The firm, which opened its first overseas branch in the city of Mumbai in September, said its performance in India had been encouraging.
Waterstone's throws the book at its boss
Waterstone's has axed its chief executive following a worrying slump in sales at the 313-strong chain of bookstores.
Gerry Johnston will be replaced with immediate effect by Dominic Myers, who is currently development director of parent company HMV.
Despite the demise of a host of rivals, turnover at Waterstone's plunged 8.5pc in the five weeks to the start of January.
An unappetising slate of non-fiction autobiographies, heavy pre-Christmas discounting by the now-defunct Borders chain and problems with Waterstone's distribution system were to blame.
The news sent HMV shares down 7.35p or 8pc to 84.4p. HMV chief executive Simon Fox acknowledged that the performance at Britain's largest independent bookshop chain was 'unsatisfactory'.
However, he maintained that Waterstone's still has a glittering future, despite the relentless rise of online retailer Amazon and burgeoning sales of electronic items.
At the HMV music retailer, underlying turnover rose 1.2pc over the period.
Fox is in the middle of an overhaul of the HMV wing. He's buying the music venue operator Mama Group and yesterday cut a deal with Luminar in a bid to expand into the live music and ticketing markets.
Mothercare continues to exceed expectations
Mothercare under chief executive Ben Gordon goes from strength to strength with the baby care chain posting its 18th consecutive quarter of underlying sales growth.
Like-for-like revenues for the 13 weeks to January 8 jumped 4.2pc, with online sales ahead 30pc.
A new pushchair called the Spin that allows parents to quickly change the direction in which their child is facing proved particularly popular at the retailer's outlets.
At the same time, the company's Early Learning Centre reported strong demand for toys, such as the Sizzlin' Kitchen and Retro Robot.
Andrew Wade, an analyst at City broker Numis Securities, said the sales growth had been better than anticipated even after an estimated 1pc drag from the snowy weather over the past two weeks.
He added: 'Looking ahead, with every element of the business seemingly firmly on track, we have a growing confidence that Mothercare can continue to deliver, and exceed, our hopes.'
Shareholders, however, took the solid trading figures as a cue to take profits on an investment which has risen 73pc in the last year.
The stock fell 29.5p to 626p.
Electricals light up DSG revenue
DSG, the company behind Currys and PC World, enjoyed record sales over Christmas as customers flocked to snap up big-ticket electrical items.
The firm, formerly known as Dixons, saw UK like-for-like sales top City forecasts to rise by 8pc in the 12 weeks to January 9, boosted by a revamp of its store format.
Chief executive John Browett, pictured below, has spearheaded efforts to combine Currys and PC World stores in 'two-in-one' outlets, as well as transforming existing branches into megastores.
Browett said the new formats had helped UK electricals become a particular highlight for the group, with many shoppers 'trading up' to premium products such as LED TVs.
And he predicted a further spike in TV sales in the run-up to this summer's World Cup in South Africa, although he warned that most customers would simply be bringing their purchases forward.
Former high street stalwart Dixons, now transformed into DSG's online division, enjoyed a 16pc bump in sales.
The icy conditions have been a boon for Halfords as motorists struggle to keep their cars on the road
But revenues from PC World gave some cause for concern, with UK sales down 3pc as a boost from the launch of Microsoft's Windows 7 was offset by 'very weak' sales to businesses amid the economic downturn.
Browett said PC World had 'always struggled a little during recessions', but predicted that the advent of the two-in-one stores would 'dramatically expand PC World's footprint'.
He repeated the mantra of retail chiefs by issuing a cautious outlook for consumer spending in 2010, but said the company did not believe that the UK will suffer a ' doubledip' recession.
The company said it was on course to hit the top end of analyst forecasts for full-year pretax profits of £60m to £90m.
But Browett's wary assessment of the outlook for the year ahead sent DSG's shares down 2.34p to 35.19p. A bevy of analysts slapped buy ratings on the firm yesterday, predicting a stock rally.
Halfords reaps rewards from the big freeze
Halfords is reaping a huge bonanza as motorists tried to keep their cars on the road during the big freeze.
Sales of car maintenance kit such as de-icer, snow chains, new batteries and blankets soared 8pc between October and December thanks to the bitterly cold weather, Halfords reported.
The car parts and bike retail chain has sold enough screen wash to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool and had to import extra sledges from Norway after stock ran out.
The Arctic windfall helped offset a 25pc plunge in sales of satellite navigation systems over the period, which have been battered by the consumer downturn.
Halfords now expects full-year profits to be at the upper end of market forecasts, which range between £105m and £112m.
Underlying UK sales growth fell to 0.2pc in the third quarter from 1.7pc at the half-year stage, but sales of bikes and cycling accessories rose 15pc over the period.
Halfords chief executive David Wild said: 'While remaining cautious about the wider economic outlook in the near term and its impact on consumer spending, the board is now confident in delivering full-year earnings growth in line with the upper end of market expectations.'
He added: 'Our key categories of Car Maintenance and Cycling, representing approximately 60pc of revenues in the quarter, continue to deliver very strong like-for-like performances.'
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|abuse child abuse domestic violence emotional abuse include sexual man woman sexual abuse site include topics site
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Updated: 2017-05-20T21:54:18.633-07:00
2017-05-03T14:49:37.415-07:00Sometimes people reach out to others wanting to know, "Should I just leave?" Of course you should if someone is abusing you or you simply feel like you can't go on with that person. But...
2017-04-29T15:55:30.496-07:00The abusive one doesn't realize it but the wiring in the brain isn't connected right. Fight up against truth, talk down to those who are only trying to help, kick people when they are down, use...
2017-04-25T13:24:35.437-07:00He seeks his next target. By the time he is finished with her... His demands will cause her to lose the makeup,change her hairstyle, and stop dressing so nicely. Stress ages the beautiful...
2017-04-19T21:11:21.240-07:00It's All In the Family: Is there a connection to a father beating his daug...: Somewhere right now as you read this, a teenage daughter may have said something to her father that offended him so much...
2017-04-19T13:43:52.102-07:00So sex is supposed to make things better? Wasn't it just last week, a month ago or a little longer that a woman or man complained about his or her relationship with an abuser. And wasn't...
2017-04-12T14:54:43.831-07:00We saw recently what one can do when a handgun is in the wrong hands. In the San Bernardino shooting involving an abusive husband and his estranged wife, media reports say he was at...
2017-04-03T14:50:57.309-07:00Obsessed with power and control, a mean spirited man or woman refuses to agree on anything even when it just might cost them everything. In their minds, they feel good knowing they could do...
2017-03-25T09:13:32.130-07:00Behind the Scenes of Many Dysfunctional Relationships They usually don't start that way, but then again, maybe. Too blind to lust they don't see the light. He didn't like the way she...
2017-03-24T10:59:45.094-07:00When was the last time you smiled genuinely in public and stayed content for longer than a few hours. Did you experience that happiness when your partner was around or when he or she was...
2017-03-22T11:32:17.125-07:00He could do something about the odor that comes from lips, underarms, feet, and other places, but he doesn't. She could do something about her chronic health issues, but why should she?...
2017-03-18T14:16:57.687-07:00BUT NOW? Time doesn't heal all wounds especiallywhen people refuse to change. ____________________________________ Laboring to Love an Abusive Mateby Nicholl McGuire


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Explore Ski Season, Olympians, and more!
Aimee Fuller
Well I'd like to try it, but it might be the last thing I ever do, so I should probably put it LAST on my list...
Melissa Meiner on Instagram: "Slush and sun☀" More
Gnu Ladies Pickle PBTX Snowboard - Women's
Snowboarding!!--Spring Time Short riding good time! ;) i'll have to learn how to snow board just to get this board..f'n cool , man .
Nike Snowboarding Women's Alpenglow Insulated Jacket - gamma green/ tropical teal - Snowboard Shop > Women's Snowboard Outerwear > Women's Snowboard Jackets > Women's Insulated Snowboard Jackets
Looking at life from above.
Kindred Custom Snowboards love love love that this pops up on the top of the snowboard search! Here's to the island company's!
I miss being at the top of a race course on my skis. The box was the most insane place. So much love and support before, during, and after the run. Maybe one day I'll throw on the racing skis again!
Once I got stuck for an hour because the lift broke down. In the end we got free one-day ski lift passes. The freaky part was that I watched a movie the night before about how a group of kids got stuck on a lift in the middle of a blizzard for an entire week.


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The process of buying a new Ram car or truck can seem overwhelming if you don't know where to begin. Edmunds.com can get you started on the right track with a convenient directory of Ram car dealerships in and around Onalaska, Texas. Compare online price quotes on the new or used car, truck, SUV, minivan, or wagon of your choice to locate the best deals. Edmunds.com makes it easy to find trusted Ram car dealers in Onalaska, saving car buyers time and money on what will be an important purchase.
Non Display Review Name "I have just recently purchased my newest car from Demontrond. I have purchased my last 5 from Demontrond and have used the same salesman (Corey Newman"... Read more Review by: Heatherleigh01


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× View Today's Deals
You missed it This great deal for The W Salon is over. But don't despair, we've got more great deals every day.
Related Deals That You May Like
The W Salon
Blowout, Haircut, Color. Highlights, or Condition
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Haircut and Deep-Conditioning Treatment
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Dustin Burrows Hair Design
Color Retouch Package
Beverly Hills / West Hollywood$100$39.99
back by popular demand:
The W Salon
Smooth and Shine With a Brazilian Blowout
deal over
deal over!
88% recommendedin LivingSocial customer ratings
With more than thirty years of salon experience, owner Omar Sarmiento's passion for hair trickles down throughout the rest of his staff. Prepare to be amazed by the talented stylists of this serene West Hollywood spot:
• $99 ($250 value) for a Brazilian blowout
• Brazilian treatment may help reduce frizz and create a smoother appearance
• Open seven days a week and until 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday
PAID VALUE EXPIRES ON May 25, 2022
PROMOTIONAL VALUE EXPIRES ON November 3, 2014


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Explore 5th Grade It, Adverbs and more!
Explore related topics
Definition and examples of the adjective clause.
Glencoe Online Writer's Choice
Adverb Matching game from Oswego.com
Educational Website For Kids...This is a great site for science...You are going to love this one!
Do you need help with understanding the parts of speech? Are you confusing adverbs with prepositions? Then Houghton Mifflin's Grammar Blast can help. Grammar Blast allows you to work independently or with others as you view adverbs and prepositions in the context of sentences.
Image result for adverbs list
Great description of different parts of speech with examples.
This Adjectives and Adverbs Study Guide contains 42 questions that address the following topics: ~Identifying adjectives and the words they modify ~Predicate Adjectives ~Nouns and Pronouns Used as Adjectives ~Identifying Adverbs and the words they modify ~Comparative and Superlative Forms ~Good vs.
Interactive Quizzes from The Guide to Grammar and Writing to improve your writing and editing skills.


text: Modulation of cannabinoid receptor activation as a neuroprotective strategy for EAE and stroke.Ming Zhang, Billy R Martin, +4 authors Ronald F TumaJournal of neuroimmune pharmacology : the…2009Recognition of the importance of the endocannabinoid system in both homeostasis and pathologic responses raised interest recently in the development of therapeutic agents based on this system. The CB(2) receptor, a component of the endocannabinoid system, has significant influence on immune function and inflammatory responses. Inflammatory responses are… (More)


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Absolutely Adorable Kids and Family Halloween Costumes
This is so cute, you'll go into a diabetic coma!
This is so cute, you'll go into a diabetic coma!
I didn't know we were supposed to write notes! No wonder I was getting chump change!
Quite frankly, if you see something lewd or obscene here, the problem lies with you.
You never know what's going to come out of a kids face and, when it does, it's hardly ever good.
Astonishing photos of child laborers in America taken by photographer Lewis Hine between 1908 and 1924. He traveled across the US to document children working in different fields for the NCLC (National Child Labor Committee) in order to promote the "rights, awareness, dignity, well-being and education of children and youth as they relate to work and working."
Kids are honest little bastards who will stab you in the heart with a blade made of words and then ask you for a cookie right after.
Folks, if you're going to put a three year old in a major role in your wedding, don't get upset if they end up getting the most attention.
I wouldn't trade my children for the world. Cash only.
I wish I could go back to when throwing a tantrum for a minor or imagined inconvenience was perfectly acceptable.
Children, all of the fun of a drunk with none of the following self-responsibility…


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Layered PSD Calendar-Frame in a romantic autumn style for 2016. Inscriptions on the Spanish, English and Russian
Multi-layered calendar with the ability to insert a photo.
Free for personal use. Download from Google cloud or Mediafire
If you want to buy a multi-layer source any of my works, please contact me.
File Format: PSD | Resolution: 4961x3508 ~ 300 dpi | File Size: 120 Mb
Author: Koaress


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Flight No. VS401 at Dubai International Airport "have temporarily disembarked the aircraft for additional security checks''. ...http://zeenews.india.com/world/virgin-atlantic-flight-from-dubai-to-london-evacuated-2008103.html
[India], May 20 (ANI-Businesswire India): Mumbai-based Omkar Realtors & Developers, a market leader in redevelopment and luxury residential... ...http://www.sify.com/news/omkar-realtors-introduces-signet-by-omkar-news-national-rfusNfgbhideh.html
Kabir Ahmed was scheduled to fly to Dubai on May 11 from the international airport. ...http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-bangladeshi-held-for-trying-to-fly-to-dubai-with-fake-indian-2442396
Recent reports suggest that terrorists can now create bombs so thin that they cannot be detected by the current X-ray screening that our carry-on... ...http://www.catchnews.com/international-news/why-banning-laptops-from-airplane-cabins-doesn-t-make-sense-61565.html
The GVK group-run Mumbai airport has become the world's busiest amongst the single-runway facilities by handling 837 flights a day or one in 65... ...http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/with-1-flight-in-65-secs-mumbai-busiest-single-runway-airport-117051400249_1.html
1 Followers
So you have decided to arrange for...
1 Followers
Dubai rolls royce phantom rentals for...
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madurai airport terminal is 12km...
138 Followers


text:
About Clay County
Clay County is in the central part of the state located northeast of Charleston and about 130 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was formed in 1858 from parts of Braxton and Nicholas counties. The county is named after Henry Clay (1777-1852) who had been Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, a U.S. Senator from Kentucky, and a U.S. Secretary of State.
It is rural with a present territory of 346 square miles and a population 10,356. Its county seat and major town is Clay (pop. 593), located in the center of the county. Interstate 79 takes an east/west course through the northern part of the county, and the county is drained by the Elk River and its tributaries. It's proximity to Kanawha County makes Clay part of the Charleston metropolitan area.
Major employment is in health care and social assistance, retail, surface coal mining, construction, trucking, finance, manufacturing, and repair and maintenance. A little over half of construction employment is that of special trade contractors. Manufacturing is in fabricated metal and machinery or veneer, plywood, and other wood products. Coal mining employment is three quarters of what it was recently when there was still bituminous underground mining. There is some notable agricultural production of eggs, but the major products are livestock and forage.
View Larger Map


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|Name: _________________________
|Period: ___________________
This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. What was unique about the mail Red Smith receives?
(a) It only had a phone number on it.
(b) He didn't know who it was from.
(c) It only had directions on it.
(d) It was blank.
2. What does Andy crawl through in order to escape the prison grounds?
(a) A sewage pipe only.
(b) A wall only.
(c) A wall and a sewage pipe.
(d) A dumpster.
3. What is Kurt doing when he has his health scare?
(a) Burying a wino.
(b) Reading a book.
(c) Helping Todd study.
(d) Killing a wino.
4. Who's nose is broken in Shawshank Prison?
(a) Andy Dufresne.
(b) Sam Norton.
(c) Bogs Diamond.
(d) Rooster McBride.
5. Why is Todd's teacher suspicious about his grandfather?
(a) He stumbled over his words.
(b) He doesn't use Todd's name.
(c) He is sweating.
(d) He is shaking.
6. What beings to happen to the winos in "Apt Pupil"?
(a) They are murdered.
(b) They are given money.
(c) They are put into rehab.
(d) They are on the news.
7. What is the name of Todd's girlfriend in high school?
(a) Hope Tramer.
(b) Jenny Tramer.
(c) Betty Hope.
(d) Betty Trask.
8. How do Todd's grades change when he moves from junior high to high school?
(a) They remain mostly D's.
(b) They remain mostly C's.
(c) Todd continues to fail his courses.
(d) They improve and are very good.
9. What year does Andy escape?
(a) 1965.
(b) 1975.
(c) 1985.
(d) 1945.
10. Who is angry about someone having proof of Andy's innocence?
(a) Bogs Diamond.
(b) Rooster McBride.
(c) Sam Norton.
(d) Red Smith.
11. How does Andy let a fellow inmate know he escapes safely?
(a) He calls.
(b) He sends a letter.
(c) He sends a post card.
(d) He doesn't let anyone know he escaped safely.
12. Who helps Andy Dufresne set up a false identity?
(a) Red Smith.
(b) Sam Norton.
(c) Tommy Wiliams.
(d) Jim.
13. When Andy meets Red Smith in Shawshank Prison, what does Red refer to himself as?
(a) A go-getter.
(b) A con.
(c) A troublemaker.
(d) An instigator.
14. Why is Tommy Williams transferred to a different prison?
(a) To keep him silent.
(b) Because he was a trouble maker.
(c) Because of federal regulations.
(d) Because he wanted to be transferred.
15. Where are the winos buried?
(a) In a cemetery.
(b) In a basement.
(c) In a lake.
(d) In a backyard.
Short Answer Questions
1. Who leaves Byron Hadley an inheritance?
2. What year does Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption begin?
3. Why is Kurt afraid of Todd?
4. What does Todd tell his parents he's really doing at Kurt's house?
5. What causes problems for the winos?
This section contains 438 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)


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Had to happen: Pedal Pub backlash
Bicycle-powered bars must be gaining in popularity because there's a whole lot more people that seem to hate them.
WCCO reports on the backlash against PedalPub Co. and its ilk — essentially bars on wheels that chug around neighborhoods while passengers shout, drink and stop at other bars. The company introduced the Twin Cities to the concept with one vehicle five years ago, but has a dozen now, plus a competitor (and a new expansion into Rochester, Minn.).
The company says it follows local ordinances, but the business still draws critics, especially when the pubs veer into neighborhoods.
City Pages, which was linking people to anti-Pedal Pub sites back in February, has a new roundup of pub-bashing images. (Batman, for example, really doesn't like them, but you could probably guess that.)
Mark Reilly manages daily and weekly coverage at the Business Journal newsroom.


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Life is weird, I keep on writing over and over again about all the movies I watch, following the motto "I review what I rate and I rate what I see"... still, my intent is not to show off my cinematic knowledge (no more or no less impressive than any average movie lover), but to share some thoughts with people who share the same passion.
Isn't that, by the way, the true measure of a passion?
Now, why do I write movie reviews? since I'm not paid for it, since it's not even my central activity, why wasting energy for lengthy texts that a few dozen readers in the best case would read? Well, because I don't believe it's a waste of energy at all ... and actually, I also write about movies because I wish I could work in the movie business. Having graduated in screenwriting and directing, I hope my time will come. If not, this is the closest I can get to my dreams.
According to Woody Allen's ex-girlfriend in Play It Again, Sam (1972), he likes films because he's "one of life's great watchers". To which he retorts: "I'm a doer, I want to participate". Well, as much as I want to participate, to do something, it's not that being one of life's great watchers and share some vets about life through the experience movies and about movies through the experience of life.
I hope some reviews will be insightful for you, convincing enough to discover a film or just enjoyable, and I hope it will simply get you the opportunity to compare your tastes, your appreciations and your dislikes with a fellow movie lover. Please, forgive some language mistakes and take into consideration, I'm not from an English speaking country, I do my best to use the most proper language... but hey, we're only humans.
Have a good read!
Most Recently Rated
Now, how about exploring one of the most defining aspect of his cinematic legacy: quotability. Indeed, Al Pacino is probably one of the most quotable actors of his generation with so many sayings, shouts, warnings, shouts, yells and screams again and last but not least, speeches that forever enriched Pop-Culture.
So, even if you're not a fan of the actor, if you could pick just one, which is your favorite from these 35 Al Pacino's memorable quotes? (one that doesn't come from a speech or a monologue except if it's a conclusion that can be considered a classic quote in its own right?)
Keep your choice close, your vote closer and discuss the poll here
PS: 60% of the list still belongs to his two most legendary roles : 12 quotes from Michael Corleone and 9 from Tony Montana
To overcome Blue Monday and daily morosity in general, which of these cinematic happy-go-lucky optimists and half-full glasses philosophers would most help you to look at the bright side of life?
(the question and answer can be delivered by the same character in one single quote)
The exchange shouldn't exceed four sentences, otherwise we're not talking about quotes but about dialogue, so sorry for the Pulp Fiction (1994) fans but the iconic "What" sequence between Jules and Brett is ineligible for this poll.
Want to discuss it? -It's here my friend."
Try to find your answer in the list in less than 20 seconds and then, discuss it here
* FF in the texts ** IMDb exists since 1990
So, from these 12 justice-related films (as in 12 Jurors), ranked in order of IMDb ratings, which one do you plead guilty of liking the most?
Indeed, "MITM" broke many grounds, being one of the first family sitcoms to really set itself apart from the usual clichés and feature a totally unredeemable, dysfunctional family, and get rid (for the first time) of (what used be obligatory) a laugh-track, but I guess most people remember it for being the series that really revived Bryan Cranston's career. Well, if only for that, the series deserves a little tribute.
So, as the title says, were you a fan of "Malcolm in the Middle"?
So, which of these 10 trick to improve your indie film, would you pick? Remember, you have no pretension to make THE film, your masterpiece, or your personal story ... you just want it to be "memorable" enough to launch your career.
Gone Girl (2014)
When the 'weaker' sex is strong enough to play the 'weak' card... and win the game...
Voice-over narration that sounds like post-coital whispers, opening credits the size of an ophthalmology screen, non-linear fuzzy editing "Gone Girl" isn't just a slow starter, it has an irritating tendency to give you the wrong idea. I can say in all frankness that after twenty minutes, I was contemplating the idea of getting to bed and finishing the film at the morning and the 'performance' of Ben Affleck didn't help. But the story grabbed me enough so I could make it as far as the middle section, and then, all the negative vibes were gone.
And not only did I love the film but retrospectively, what I saw as flaws actually made sense and even enhanced the appreciation, and that includes Ben Affleck's performance. We already suspected something was going wrong, quoting Lisa Simpson paraphrasing Churchill, what we had was "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma", if you consider as the "riddle" the little game played by Amy, Rosamund Pike in a gusto performance, consisting on leaving many clues to the Police, and a few incriminating ones in the process to accuse her husband Nick, the mystery about her absence and the enigmatic personality of both Amy and Nick, a couple that had everything to be happy, except the propensity for it. Near the end, Nick's lawyer, played by a scene-stealing Tyler Perry, tells his client that they're the most twisted couple he ever met, that's an understatement.
But this feeling is also the emotional reward after a build-up that needed to be long, to let the viewers make up their own mind, to be suspicious toward Nick who doesn't seem that upset when she shares his feelings with his twin sister Margo (Carrie Coon), to feel that he's hiding something until you understand why his acting was so subdued. This is a man who obviously doesn't play in the league than his wife, she's an intellectual New-Yorker, an uppity Annie-Hall-like broad without the sweetness, he's your average handsome Joe who wanted to get a girl better than him, that he succeeded was a splendid achievement, but what she saw as a beginning, he saw an ending. She followed him to Missouri and realized that marriage was asking too much in terms of sacrifice and compromises to even indulge to it.
But instead of filing a divorce and getting the hell out, what she did was far worse, but in terms of creative storytelling, far more intelligent. Indeed, there have been stories of vanishing persons in the past but not as twisted and smartly pervert as David Fincher's "Gone Girl". It is twisted almost in the literal sense of the word as there's no plot event to be taken for granted, just when you think this is taking some specific direction, the writers find the right way to derail the plot and increasing your interest. And it is smartly pervert because it highlights some deep and usually repressed aspects of human psyche, to start with the most 'evident' one, giving the film's theme: "haven't we all dreamed to vanish, at least once?". I dare any married people to say they never did.
People get many notions of suicides mixed up because there's no specific word for that, but there should, speaking for my own personal experience (and yes, I was particularly responsive to the film) and from what many friends shared with them, we, humans, do sometimes wish to simply vanish from existence, become someone else and never coming back. It's a way to escape from the burden of the past, the responsibilities, without any harmful self-infliction, a sort of victim-less suicide. "Gone Girl" would have been clever enough to tackle that subject but it goes beyond, this is no victim-less suicide, but a victim-less murder, a woman simulating her disappearance to accuse her husband and earn him a sentence (since this is happening in Missouri). Now, can it get more twisted?
Apparently yes, and I like that, I like that a film is hardcore enough to feature one of the most Machiavellian villains of recent history, in the Amazingly manipulative Amy, but the plot doesn't stop at that. Over the course of her diabolical project, she meets a few obstacles but she always have a trick under her sexy sleeve. And Nick is smartly played by Ben Affleck as the not-so-smart cool easy going guy, who married the wrong girl. It's all about a "He" and a "She" with a "She" too sophisticated, too New York for his Midwestern taste, but he wanted his trophy wife and he had to pay for his treacherous seduction. The thing is that this "He" and "She" don't quite match the general perception of the public and that's how a genius she is. She's strong enough to play the weak card.
She knows it's not just about leaving, it's about leaving marks that clearly accuses the husband, traces of blood, hints of pregnancy, a diary, everything is so neatly elaborate that you wish people could be as organized for benevolent reasons. I don't know if it's a personal fetish from Fincher but his movies have the tendency to feature the most beeped up masterminds, from John Doe to Tyler Durden and even counting "The Game" corporation, the plans are so far-fetched and yet never ruin their effectiveness whatever the effect. But that Amy one is really one of a kind, she looks a darling for feminists, then she's the total antithesis, by using her intelligence and boobs as weapons.
More than ever, our society lies on such polarized perceptions that you can't go beyond what the world wants to see. The woman gets away with everything, which is maybe the way to compensate the blow on feminism it makes, within its own wicked intelligence, it plays fair with the denounced archetypes and I would say about "Gone Girl" what I said about "Indecent Proposal", it's pure subversive brilliance.
L'oeil au beurre noir (1987)
A sadly forgotten gem of the 80's Made-in-France...
A black eye is called in French "eye of black butter" and the word 'butter' sounds exactly the same as the slang for 'Arab'. So, if you translate the title of Serge Meynard's debut film as "The Black Eye", you lose a pleasant and clever satirical pun but that's all that is lost hopefully for the film doesn't lose any ounce of social relevance, not from a foreign perspective, not from a French one of 2017, thirty years after its release. Like many 'social' comedies, the film encompasses the struggle of minorities to get a share of the French 'dream', if you can call it a 'dream' in the mid-80's that were a sort of Nixon era in France, disillusion-wise.
But don't get it the wrong way either, if this is a film that deals with racism, it focuses on one of its less benign forms, one that prevailed before September 11 and the suburbs' riots created definite shifts into French society. The film not only works on stereotypes and perceptions from one community to another but plays with them with tactful fun, the so-called "racism" is only based on suspicion, bigotry and prejudices that are instantly forgiven because they make you laugh. Take one scene where a big Arab family (a "smala" as they say) visits a white upper-class mansion, the host politely points out how numerous they are, to which the father retorts that the little one couldn't come but the big baby-sitting. Later when she unpacks the box cake, she marvels at the sight of a giant 'luqum', we call it a Rum Baba, the Arab mother says.
The intelligence in the humor is that, while it criticizes the way White people are prejudiced against minorities because of some vivid clichés, it mostly points out the failures to communicate ensuing from minor cultural gaps, and it doesn't sugarcoat the stereotypical behavior of the minorities either, or at least their entourage. The two protagonists are rather straight guys, and not influenced by their origins, they speak French very well, they work, they try to fit into society, there's Rachid, the Arab, played by Smaïn and the black man Denis, played by Pascal Legitimus, the third reel of the Unknowns trio. The two men weren't born yesterday, but while Denis is a young and idealistic painter coming from the West Indies, he didn't really grabbed the gravity of the situation, while Rachid had already developed "Rachid System", a version of 'System D'.
System D is a notion deeply rooted in French, the D referring to the slang word "Débrouille" meaning resourcefulness, like during the German Occupation: doing your best with what you've got at hands. French did that when Germans occupied them, Arabs and Blacks when they "occupied" France, fair trade. Fair trade but not the fairest methods; Rachid pushes the concept beyond some ethical appreciations as if the end justified the means, the end being getting the blonde girl in your bed. With the help of his two (white) friends, a big and small guy, conveniently named George and Junior (played by Patrick Braoudé and Jean-Paul Lillenfeld), he makes them fake aggression only to save the girl and get her in the bed. The way they always get more than the expected kicks despite the efforts is one of the film's most delightful running gags.
"An Arab saving a girl from two white guys, the world's gone crazy", is Rachid's conversation starter but the funny thing is that he indirectly nourishes the stereotype of the sneaky and treacherous Arab from our point of view, indeed there's not one community that doesn't get its little slap in the face. But all the stereotypes that involve Blacks, Muslims and French are all dealt with lighthearted and satirical tone, the merit of the script (co-written with Braoudé) is to keep a fair balance, it doesn't speak against racism as much as it explores the struggle of minorities to get a flat or an apartment although they can provide it. A similar story could be made today about people looking for jobs today, it's all about trying to overcome that barrier of suspicion and resentment.But the film isn't just social commentary.
To thicken the plot, there's the character of Virginie (Julie Jezquel) who belongs to a bourgeois uptight family but is clearly more open-minded than her mother (Dominique Lavanant) and her stepfather (Martin Lamotte), two bigots played with charm and even a little something that invites for empathy, even the stepfather, as prejudiced as he is, can't help flirting with a girl dating a Black stud and even his tenderness with his stepdaughter is rather ambiguous. Things get also tricky between Rachid and Denis as they both fall in love with Virginie. It could have been a plot contrivance but it's not, it allows Rachid to be more motivated to help Denis and prevent him from becoming her roommate, it looks and smells like solidarity, but it's still "Rachid" system.
There's like a fresh air of hypocrisy all through the film, and everyone is part of it, there's a moment where George and Junior lamentably disguise as respectable marketing agents to buy an apartment but the stepfather is surprisingly patient and receptive as if not all the prejudices were negative. Under the directing of Serge Meynard (who won the César for best debut) it never confines into cynicism but in a funny, warm comedy and with a satirical wisdom of its own, concluding with the perfect little twist, or call it a punch line, that sums up the honesty about the film. The prejudices aren't meant to turn one community against another but to make us laugh.
Unfortunately, it didn't have the success it deserved, while it's better than many junk movies that grab viewers by the millions and play the 'community' card in a more attention-seeking flag-brandishing way. "The Black Eye" never preaches but it makes you think a lot, and laugh even more.
La chienne (1931)
Putting the 'Noir' in "Renoir"
The film opens with Guignol theater à la "Punch and Judy", the first hand-puppet presents a tale of social relevance, the second interrupts him by stating that this is a story making a moral statement about men's behavior but they're all contradicted by the third one, the master of ceremonies who insists that there's no hero, no villain in this story, it's just a sordid "love" triangle involving a "He", a "She" and "The Other Guy": a streetwalker named Lulu (Janie Marese), her boyfriend-pimp Dédé (George Flamand) and Maurice Legrand, the sucker, played by Michel Simon. What a gallery painted in black and white and infinite shades of human complexity by the great Jean Renoir, son of painter and impressionist pioneer Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Maybe like his father, Renoir cared more for 'impressions' than actual realities, there are no villains not because they don't exist but because the perception is so fuzzy in the first place and the roles are switched as the plot moves forward, Legrand is a meek bookkeeper and Sunday painter of intellectual superiority but mocked by his peers and constantly bullied by his wife, a nagging and controlling shrew reminding him everyday that he's not the soldier hero her late husband was. Legrand has surrendered to mediocrity until he fell in love with Lulu, a light of hope. He took her as a muse while she was a leech, sucking out his love, dignity and money for her domineering pimp. Not personal but strictly business, unless by 'personal' we mean that she did it because she loved Dédé. That everyone is driven either by money or lust foreshadows the dark shortcomings of the film, the notion that everything has a price, and they'll all pay for their actions.
But again, there's no morale. This is just entertainment, a story starting upon the little theater of Paris, like so many others, we're not here to judge anyone but to witness the flow of events that will cause many people to act one against another acting according to their inclination toward greed and lust. This is the year 1931 and while not a revolutionary story, under the confident directing of Jean Renoir, you come to question why it is Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" that is regarded as such a revolutionary film, even Welles would give Renoir the credit he deserves. The French director emphasized that "noir" syllabus in his name, with a main character who's resigned to a life of relative weakness to such a point it could almost pass as courage or wisdom, and that strength could only be expressed in awkward and disastrous ways.
Played by Janie Merese, Lulu is the pioneering femme fatale, a speaking version of the Woman from the City in Murnau's "Sunrise". But Renoir, almost defensively, claimed that all he wanted to do was to explore a film about a Parisian streetwalker, a job as respectable as any other because he was always fascinated by prostitutes, in a sort of naturalistic move à la Zola. And he also wanted a vehicle for Michel Simon who was then the rising star of French cinema. By making "The Bitch", he struck the two birds with the same stone and made a masterpiece for the ages, that would later be adapted by Fritz Lang in "Scarlett Street" with Edward G. Robinson.
But while Lang accentuated the pathos, Renoir conceals the darkness and keeps a certain distance toward the characters, as if he didn't want to overplay the feelings, there's not much pathos in the film, there's even a fair share of comedic moments, as if the whole thing was just tale of tragicomic intensity. He knew the acting of Michel Simon would carry enough emotions not to insist upon them and for his first major talking film, he wanted enough material to explore the actor's versatility. It is ironic that their following would explore the other side of the coin. Indeed, as Boudu, he'll play a larger than life positive man who rises above his modest condition, because he's just too self-confident.That's the power of Michel Simon who defines the most extreme sides of Cinema and can take you from pathetic to sympathetic in a blink of his deformed eyes.
I must admit I enjoyed Boudu a little more maybe because Cinema, for his spectacular debut needed such larger-than-life characterizations, of histrionic waves but "The Bitch" is a superior film, technically and visually. Maybe it is too dark and modern for its own good, no matter how hard Renoir tries to tone it down. Or maybe the knowledge of the tragedy that surrounded the film created an unpleasant bias. Janie Marese died the night of the, in a car accident. In real life, Simon loved the actress who loved Flamand, as lousy a driver as a boyfriend in the film, he wanted to drive his first car and impress his sweetheart, talk about reality being stranger and uglier than fiction.
Michel Simon later fainted in the actress' funeral, threatening to kill Renoir because he killed her. That's how much passion was injected in the film, the people were liars but they were sincere.What a tragic irony that fate revealed itself as ugly and twisted and wicked as the story, working like an antidote against criticism. These things happen and life came to the rescue and give it a taste of tragic credibility, besides cinematic prestige.
Boudu sauvé des eaux (1932)
A Poetic Hymn to Cheerful Vulgarity
In 1931, "City Lights" defied the talkies and proved that the world didn't needs words when you had stories, faces and an iconic tramp. Yet another tramp has emerged the same year and became one of the most emblematic and popular figures of French cinema: his name was Boudu and he was played by the incomparable Michel Simon.
Michel Simon was, like they say in French, a 'gueule', the word, usually referring to an animal's mouth, means a mug, an ugly or intimidating one, nothing really pleasant to look at anyway. But in French Cinema, the word has become a 'term of endearment' describing a face exuding a natural charisma whether. So if Norma Desmonds said, "we had faces," a French nostalgic movie lover would say, "we had some 'gueules' and he would be damn right And Michel Simon was the ultimate 'face'.. But while Desmond insisted on faces as a compensation for the lack of speaking, what a waste it would have had to never hear Simon talking. His voice was as unique as his face because it always reflected his ambiguous mix of vulnerability and confidence, immortalized in "Port of Shadows" with that quote: "better to have my face than no face at all". So, with such a bizarre looks and an expansive physique, Simon was born to play ambiguous men, either tragic or comic, but never comical in terms of belly laughs and never tragic in the heroic sense, he wasn't a Gabin and Fernandel, he was perhaps their missing link.
Simon wasn't born to define a genre, which is why he was the most complete and emblematic actor of his generation. A larger-than-life man who was hiding behind his teddy-bear appearance a big heart, just looking at his reunion with Renoir and you could see the tenderness fusing between these two men.And how couldn't they? Together, they wrote some of the first pages of French cinema and struck big with "La Chienne" in 1931 and one year later, in a more lighthearted tone, they made the story of "Boudu Saved from Drowning", a title that came to usual language and became a synonym of rebirth, although things don't go as planned as Boudu, much to the viewers' delight.
Boudu is as gruff, vulgar and crass as his name suggests but he's got a poetic soul, he's got style and character. He's a proud hobo spotting a shaggy-hippie-like beard, he's an anarchist, he's not scared of cops, he doesn't like getting a paper bill he didn't ask for and he likes to sing colorful songs, he would be an interesting mix between the Tramp, Quint and an Easy Rider, a monument of rebellious unpredictability. And this is the perfect note to play him because if Boudu was more inclined to pathos, and was eager to prove his gratitude to the man who saved him from drowning, there would be no story. But Boudu is that he's an ungrateful prick and that's why we love him.
When Boudu, desperate to find his black dog, jumps from Point des Arts and plunges his large body into the Seine, he's saved by a librarian named Lestinguois (Charles Grandval), a middle-aged liberal, with a devoted wife (Marcelle Hainia) and a naive and lusty servant he's having an affair with. But he's an intellectual and a humanist who walks the walk (and swims the swim) and after saving Boudu, he's developing a liking and keeps him at home, thinking there would be no point in saving him to let him go try another suicide attempt.The relationship between the men is interesting, Boudu recognizes his value as a good man and uses his patience as a shield to be more insolent and hostile toward his wife without it backfiring.
And it works, he knows because he's a bum, things will be forgiven more easily. Boudu is like a free electron that doesn't have the book smarts (hell, he spits on Balzac's book) but knows human nature more profoundly than any other humanist. The film is a splendidly executed confrontation between two schools of thought and behavior where Boudu's rude and dirty manners and dirty habits indirectly highlights the ugly hypocrisy of his host's attitude with his wife. Of course, it's less a social statement that Renoir is making than a little comedy showing that just because you're poor, you can keep your pride and behave like one, and maybe teach one thing or two to the rich one.
Once we understand, that it's Boudu who actually makes the rules in the house and manages to get what he wants, we're transported by the innocent poetry of the film and the idea that sometimes, it's the Boudus of the world that are happy, people who embrace the inner unpredictability of life and take risks. Boudu goes as far as trying to seduce the so cold and reluctant wife, but the outcome reveals a truth about that hidden lust for depravity and vulgarity, something that feels so modern by our own standards, let alone the 30's. Boudu is free, he's a man who doesn't think of the consequences and only for that, things turn out better than what the wise men build on patience and respectability. The best edifices are those built without the fear that they can collapse at any time.
The film wanders between life and fantasy and tries to find the right note to end it, and it does find it, because it is obvious Boudu shouldn't be saved in order to die either, but he must be happy
not as we mean happiness but within his own vision of happiness, that's how we can be happy for him, the fact that we are, at the end, happy for him is a proof, that Renoir and Simon knew his audience and how to surprise them, and how to warm them.
Babel (2006)
"Real frontiers are within us, and they're the most dangerous ones"
... said Alejandro Inarritu while contemplating the wall between America and Mexico and the human flows circulating from one side to other, legally or not yet all the borders in the world wouldn't amount to a hill of beans if people decided to sit and talk, to take time to understand each other. To quote another director, it was Jean Renoir who thought-provokingly said during a friendly chat with actor Michel Simon that laziness was underrated, because civilized people, rather than acting, preferred talking and make the world a better place, with words as a first step.
And this is how "Babel", as magnificent a title as it is, is misleading; the Biblical episode symbolized the human hubris and its divine punishment: dividing people by languages. However, those who populate the film are ready to overcome these barriers, out of fraternal impulses, curiosity and sometimes, necessity. This hymn for universality is even more powerful because it doesn't ignore the specificity of the ground it walks on, whether Moroccan mountains, the urbane belly of a Japanese metropolis or a small Mexican town across the desert, Inarritu explores each identity, each form of expression, not to say that we're all the same, but so we gather the certitude of our own differences before concluding that we're still the same after all.
There comes a point in "Babel" where we stop seeing the children of a goat shepherd, or the deaf daughter of a Japanese businessman (Rinko Kikuchi) or two big stars playing American tourists (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) or a Mexican nanny (Adriana Barraza) taking her employers' children to her son's wedding. Indeed, we stop labeling them from their origins, we only see two brothers victim of childish temptations, the tragedy of three fathers, deafness as a convenient alibi while there's more to make communication difficult. We see a woman who worked hard all her life and decided to please herself just for once and compromising everything she built, and we see a couple trying to find to overcome a marital crisis before Karma intervenes through an accidental bullet.
Yes, there's a moment where we embrace the poetry of Inarritu, the realization that the air we breathe is the same, the way we break down after seeing a loved one bleeding to death, the way our pain can be either silent or tearful, the way we gaze at the sky with the same amazement, the way we're all humans there's a moment where the Mexican woman, after wandering for hours in the middle of the desert, sees a car and starts running, hysterically shouting, she doesn't scream in Mexican, she's just letting her heart vent the last gasps of desperate energy. The film is full of countless moments where to identify the existence of a universal language: we all nod and shake our head the same, and sometimes, a foreigner is closer than a compatriot. Actually, many tragedies in the film occur because of secrets, silences and misunderstandings within the same culture.
Another marvel of Hyperlink Cinema, "Babel" doesn't rely on a complex non-linear storytelling where you only get everything at the end, the stories are simple and could have made powerful dramas in their own right, but they all converge toward the same recognition of universality. It's a powerful journey into our own humanity, a movie one should watch before stating that there are some countries deserving to be invaded. The day, there'll be "Babel" about North Korea or Iran, maybe people will start to act reasonably. Because like for human relationships, sometimes, more than love, more than respect, understanding is the key element, understanding someone is like learning empathy. You can't bomb a country if you're empathetic, you can't make a terrorist attack either. I called the film universal, it's more than that: it's humanist and it's essential.
And after watching it, I wanted to know more about the project, convinced that the finished result was as fascinating as the journey that made it. And yes, the making-of provided many additional elements to understand the complexity of human language, that could have made a great sequel to the film. There were three moments that stood out and they were set in my country, I loved that Inarritu was surprised to learn that one of the Moroccan extra (playing the old lady) didn't understand one word in Arabic, and they needed a Berber interpret, putting the Palestinian interpret in a tricky situation. Later, during a shootout, I saw the female interpret being upset and I knew it was reminding her of some memories. I didn't need explanation, her eyes said it all. Finally, during a rain, Moroccan crew men were singing under an umbrella and one of the assistants asked them if it was a song to stop the rain, they nodded and kept laughing. It was just a pop song from the 70's, well sometimes; we're entitled to our little private jokes.
Because languages aren't only here to separate us, they reinforce us within a group and allow us to be best prepared to talk to the others, there's no "other" without a strong identity, and the efforts to overcome the languages also allow you to better understand the people, it's all about universal understanding but not at the expense of human diversity. Inarritu must have had troubles with Moroccan language but when he embraced the two kids at the end of the shooting, he didn't need any word to understand their grief, and didn't find any to console them. Understanding, emotion and pain . that image, both sad and beautiful, spoke a thousand words.
Inarritu made a timeless and universal movie, establishing Cinema as an art-form that transcended the barriers of languages and culture. Maybe more than ever, we need movies like "Babel". If the Academy wasn't busy giving a sympathy Oscar for Scorsese, they would have acknowledged the cinematic importance of "Babel" and its incomparable beauty.
Traffic (2000)
There's no business like drug business...
As far as drugs are concerned, every wheel of the machinery gets a shot (no pun intended) users, enforcers, wholesalers, politicians and of course, traffickers, the whole trade has no secrets for you when you finish Steven Soderbergh's Best Picture nominee "Traffic", a Harvard-like school case proving that every business has a specific functioning, and drugs, let's not kid ourselves, is a business.
Two comments before getting back to the film; Soderbergh had the privilege of being one of the few directors with two Best Picture nominees the same year, but I wasn't impressed by "Erin Brockovich" where Julia Roberts played the underdog crusader in the exact cinematic way that could have ruined "Traffic". Secondly, the film was made the same year than another anti-drug movie: "Requiem For a Dream", the two movies complete each other very well, and would have made a better pair of co-nominees; parenthesis closed.
"Traffic" uses a narrative structure popularized by Robert Altman with "Nashville" (and later "Short Cuts") and Fellini with his "Amarcord", the term was coined as "'Hyperlink Cinema" and it defined movies made of different interlocking stories, with no apparent connection, until they all finally converge toward a final realization of informational or existential value. This storytelling method has been popularized by Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson but "Traffic" is less a "Magnolia" meets "Requiem for a Dream" than the true consecration of a form of storytelling, paving the way to many socially-loaded documentary-like dramas like "City of God", "Syriana", "Crash" and "Babel".
"Traffic" is a product of a new time where Internet had emphasized our capacity to process brief, impacting and flashy information at the same time, sometimes at the expense of understanding but most commonly, for the sake of objectivity as today's audiences are less inclined to believe anything shown from one perspective and even in the case of drugs, we need the big picture. And what "Traffic" does is reconciling a new positive mindset with big-scope storytelling, showing how the titular word is handled by Mexican law enforcers, one of them is Rodriguez, played by Benicio Del Toro in his Oscar-winning role, and American cops played by Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman.
Many things happen that don't seem to have a connection, but we suspect they are many pieces of jigsaw puzzle. Halfway through the film, we learn that General Salazar (Terri Millian) is fighting the Tijuana cartel lead by the Obregon brothers and get them through the testimony of a local hit man. The Miguel Ferrer character, previously arrested by the American cop, accepts, in exchange for immunity, to give his boss, a civilized 'Tony Montana' played by his sidekick (Steven Bauer). The life of his socialite wife (Catherine Zeta Jones) all falls apart and she receives threats against her son and must find a solution to live up to her imprisoned husband's contract, going against the usual trend of drugs movies that reflect the way it affects impoverished lives, driving people into the corners of dealing and prostitution (and "Traffic" is no exception).
Speaking of the rich, the core of the story is Michael Douglas as Robert Wakefield, appointed as a head the President's Office of National Drug Control Policy against drugs, ignoring that his daughter, a honor student played by Erika Christensen is a drug addict. This story-line is the actual link with "Requiem for a Dream" and it's essential to have the health effect, but not for the reasons that you'd think. Indeed, if the film was a mere denunciation, it would have fallen in the preachy trap. "Traffic" doesn't much denounce drugs than the uselessness of a crusade that actually harms more than it solves, the film pinpoints some aspects that can easily get overlooked in movies where you get your usual bullet-ridden hell storm and you forget that they don't call this organized crime for nothing. It is organized in the scenes that there are prices involved, the higher the danger, the more likely the bloodshed, but echoing a line from "The Godfather", blood is expensive.
For all the stakes involved, the bottom prices are so accessible everyone makes hell of benefits, it's a profitable business no matter what and while drugs kill, war on drugs kills even more. Is it the lesser of two evils? Well, this is what Wakefield realizes. At first, he starts like your spear-raising crusader who lamentably fails when trying to display the same attitude toward his daughter, it's only until he follows her total descent into prostitution and when discovering the reasons his so-called partner in cause, Salazar, was fighting with such zeal the Tijuana cartel (and not the Juarez) that he realizes maybe corruption is so deeply rooted in humanity that crime will always prevail. When asked about the junkies, Salazar answers laconically, we wait till they die. Behind the cynicism the real point is that drugs victims aren't part of the equation, the point is not to have 'more' victims. In a way, it's like tobacco and alcohol.
The film seems to end on a bleak and cynical note but it's actually more positive, because what it says is that you can solve the problem from the start (preventing kids from consuming) and the bottom (health program for addicted). The light of hope is shown through the slow recovery of Wakefield's daughter and a gesture from Rodriguez that says more than any political speech and is more efficient than any war. As a matter of fact, you could make a similar film about the so-called "War on Terror' that made probably more victims than the terror it was fighting.
But who could see any premonition of September 11 aftermath in "Traffic"? Maybe I'm reading too much myself but that's how great "Traffic" is, it's relevant even outside the context of drugs.
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
Emotionally Volatile and Bizarre Masterpiece...
Either "Birdman" is too simple but tries to make its nervous directing and real-time editing pass for intellectual complexity or if it really flies over these considerations with the insolent confidence of a real birdman. Well, I'm not sure the film is as original as it intended to be, but the treatment is one of a kind and maybe one of these cases where the form and the content redeem each other and contribute to one of these puzzling experiences that look too good not to be intentionally made to impress you, yet the result is so efficient that you almost feel guilty to fall for it.
Again, Inarritu displays some infuriating wizardry, using long takes and transitions from scene to scene, that are nonexistent so that in the end, you have the confusing impression to have endured in less than two hours, a dizzying and mind-bending three-day journey swinging between arguments, confessions, improvisations, outbursts of anger, passions, feelings, reconciliations etc. It is noisy, talkative, the drum beats popping up here and there highlight the torments that can invade an individual's mind like so many hits in the head, but, say what you want about "Birdman", the movie is alive and full of characters with a purpose that goes beyond the simple story-line. Well theoretically, they're all present for the release of an adaptation of Raymond Carver's play, but they're also free electrons moved by their own instinct, pasts and personal issues.
They all have a particular endeavor and they're all tormented enough to pull the blanket in their side when they feel the need. The result is confusing but somewhat exhilarating and that everyone stays dedicated to the play allows the film to keep its common thread, so this mess has a reason to be, and to happen. And there's the central pillar, Michael Keaton as Riggan Thompson: the has-been star. Riggan is an alter-ego of Keaton that fools no one, Keaton ensured the transition between the 80's and 90's with his portrayal of Batman, but only to sink into relative oblivion after Burton's "Batman" movies have been relegated to the status of their corny 60's counterpart by Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale. This is not just Riggan but Keaton's comeback and the similarities are so vivid that the performance was probably harder, because it really takes courage to laugh at yourself.
Thankfully, the film isn't devoid from a sense of humor in its constant meta-referential take on showbiz; even actors find the strength to laugh at themselves, like Edward Norton playing Mike Shiner, a very difficult and volatile method actor who's a ticking bomb of unpredictability. Besides Mike Shiner, there's Riggan's daughter, Sam (Emma Stone) who just came from rehab and tries to rebuild her relationship with her Dad, there's his ex-wife (Amy Ryan), a Broadway debutante (Naomi Watts) and the manager (Zach Galifianakis), all these people gravitate around Riggan, who's like the ringmaster and the player of his own bizarre show, trying to find himself while he's not even sure to be worth whatever his conception is, constantly invaded by the voice of "Birdman", like a phoenix awaiting to resurrect from the ashes of the past. The conflict is between Riggan's past and future and structures the film's present made of an attempt to conquer pride and self-esteem.
And it's quite impressive that, in this existential swirl, the film had time to make parallels between Riggan's struggles and the obsessions of going viral, dictated by society and affecting the youth. Speaking of celebrities, there is an important scene, Riggan meets respected critic Tabitha Dickinson (Lindsay Duncan) who's like a theater 'Pauline Kael', she doesn't take him as an actor but a celebrity, a media phenomenon, a fraud who tries to steal some prestige, he tells her that all she does is labeling things, giving sterile epithets to hide out the fact that she didn't nothing in her life, they're both part of the same hypocrisy but no one deserves resentment who tries at least to stake his life and do something about it, any Youtube commentator could get a taste of Riggan's rant. Yet these comments are relevant because everyone seeks approval and popularity.
I guess what "Birdman" shows is that we're all driven by opposite forces, one that tells you what you're really worth, or that you're a God, or a bum, it's all about perceived, real and felt value, and how we can express any of them. The film is an eye-opening experience about people's inner needs to be accepted, but it's more about reaching the kind of state where a man can master his being and control himself in order to accomplish what he feels he's meant to do. Maybe unconsciously, but it borrows a lot from another stage-themed film about aging, John Cassavetes' underrated "Opening Night" where Gena Rowlands played a character in conflict with her self-perception and yet wanted to make her performance worthwhile for the audience as if the people in the theater were the incarnation of life. There might that idea that there's something in theater that encompasses life, as there are many moments where the line between reality and fantasy gets confusingly thin..
Were these bits pretentious? Well, I don't think one's work wouldn't reflect part of his ego and maybe what we take from pretentiousness is the strong presence of a man's personal vision in his work. In that case, this is a real masterwork, and a dazzling drum-beat driven journey that feels like a good companion to "Whiplash", a co-nominee of the same year. "Birdman" took the Oscar home, maybe because it wasn't as linear as "Whiplash", it tried to go beyond the limits of imagination, or because it fooled the Academy, but maybe the talent it takes to fool the audience deserves an Oscar after all, maybe, it's all about fooling people
as long as you don't make them look like fools.
Marius (1931)
French Cinema's First Words... With an Accent...
1931 was quite a year for movies, while the talkies started in the late 20's with "The Jazz Singer", it's only in 1931 that directors found better than fluffy Broadway comedies to reach the audiences and made the first classic talking pictures, from seminal gangster movies "Little Caesar" and "The Public Enemy" to horror landmarks "Dracula" and "Frankenstein", each films providing iconic moments and, for the first time, immortal quotes, establishing in the most complete way the different aspects of cinema's appeal: characters, visuals, special effects but also an art-form of the verb. Edward G. Robinson would be one of the first voices with a specific intonation and accent and inevitably, the first to ever be parodied and remembered, see?
And in France, it's only fair that one of the first voices to ever "grace" the screen (so to speak) and to also be imitated would have the singing intonation of that French Provence accent, the Mediterranean South with that "Little Italy" touch, where people display a temperament of histrionic bad faith but ultimately pride and a heart, as big as forty 'Cannebières', all contained in the magnificent baritone voice of Jules Muraire aka Raimu aka César, the bartender of Marseilles. It is very interesting that the film is most remembered for the scene where he plays a French version of pinochle with his friends and to lure his teammate Captain Felix Escaterfigue (Paul Dullac) to play the "heart", he keeps repeating "you break my heart" and it only gets hilarious because the guy can't figure what he means, until it becomes apparent. And in the most childish way, César acts offended when he's finally accused by Panisse (Honoré Chapin) who wasn't the brightest bulb either.
That's what Alexandre Korda's "Marius" is about actually, heart and playing, or cheating, every French people remember the line "You're breaking my heart", and repeats it with the same accent as one would quote Arnie with Austrian robotic tone, but it takes the viewing of "Marius" to see how emblematic to the story this scene is: the film is about people in love, it is a romance, a love triangle between three characters who know as much about love as they know about themselves, and that's exactly what either drives or undermines their momentum. Young César's son Marius (Pierre Fresnay) is in love with little seashell merchant Fanny (Orane Demazis) and daughter of fish store owner Honorine (Alida Rouffe) but after years of wandering in Marseilles' streets and watching ships sailing to the seven seas, the call of the sea got louder and louder.
And there's Panisse who's a widow in his fifties and can only offer his money, he's respectful enough to Fanny that he takes his time to court her, makes no lies about his intention and even approaches her mother Honorine; in the process, he also makes a rival out of young and impetuous Marius. Fanny is torn between a young man she loves but conveniently never admitted her love and one proposes a marriage of convenience. And in the middle of this conflict, César is the (not so) passive observer, acting more like a Greek chorus to a tragicomedy full of such larger-than-life characters that even this two-hour movie couldn't sustain it. That's the power of Pagnol's characters, they didn't wait for the film to begin to be fully developed, the film didn't need any exposition, the characters are here, and when the movie finishes, we're looking forward to the sequel "Fanny".
A few people can create a world that feels realer than the real world, and with a slice of Provence's life, Pagnol made a real "Human Comedy" à la Balzac that would forever enchant French culture and lead to the two-parters "Jean de Florette / Manon of the Spring" and "My Father's Glory / My Mother's Castle". But let's get back to the one that started them all: there's a lot to say about "Marius", it provides the first sound to ever reach the hearts and screens of people, the visual quality gets blurry at time, but this is a movie, as complete and professional as any creation and with a little screeching sound that almost resonates like the grasshoppers of the countryside. "Marius" carried the word 'iconic' because of the accent, the landscape but more than anything, the performance of Raimu as César, whom Orson Welles called the "greatest actor alive", and seriously, I've rarely seen such natural and modern performances, in an "old" movie.
It takes you to know French or have subtitles to appreciate the film but even without understanding a word, you can see how authentic everything is. The film is adapted from a successful play, but it doesn't feel theatrical at all, unless you consider the theatrical tantrums of these Mediterranean fellows. Indeed, it brings France to the talkies' era without needing a genre: no horror, no gangster, just a simple but high drama about life and decisions to take. The climax is the culmination of such torments. We are used to see people who must make a choice between heart and reason, but for the first time, we also have the choice of instinct, and the center of the choice if "Marius" who must think of his love for Fanny, her reputation and his all-time dreams. The conflict is so tense that we can even feel the smell of the sea.
Right again, a very specific story with very specific characters but one of universal implication like Marcel Pagnol knows how to craft, and how fitting that the man born the same year than Cinema would contribute to the film that marked the birth of French Cinema. Of course, I mean modern cinema because Cinema was born French already and the first film was the famous train arriving at La Ciotat not far from Pagnol's hometown Aubagne or from Marseilles, the setting (and heart) of the Provence trilogy.
The Imitation Game (2014)
Alan Turing: saved millions of lives through artificial intelligence, and killed by human stupidity...
World War II wasn't won on the battlefields but on the field of intelligence as information was the nerve of the war to the point the Allies not only needed German information but to let false ones leak from "spies" or arrests in order to mislead the Axis. Secret as well as human intelligence were involved but WWII allowed a third form of intelligence to rise.
When Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician played by Benedict Cumberbatch, is applying to a job in Bletchey Park, things don't go as well as expected, his commander Denniston (Charles Dance) opens the door, ready to throw this cocky self-absorbed prick away, Turing utters one word: Enigma, and Denniston closes the door. And I was enthralled already by the premise because Enigma was probably the only name I remembered from a 2000's documentary series about how the world war was (really won) and I knew Enigma was beaten by the ancestor of our modern computers.
I'm a math buff and a real nerd who loves crosswords and plays on words, so I could relate to Turing who took Enigma as an intellectual challenge, on which millions of lives were pending. The Germans had made a machine that could encrypt codes made of complex and apparently random sequences of letters and with a new coding system each day, which makes a combination of billions and billions of possibilities to work on every day and after midnight, having to get back from scratch, over and over again. Even by hiring people working on different codes without stopping, day and night, the amount of time required to break the codes would be counted in millenniums.
Alan Turing leads team that includes a champion chess player Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode) and later, a crossword prodigy Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), but only he knew it would more than human minds to break Enigma, his project was to create an artificial intelligence, a universal machine to do the job at faster speed than human brain, imitating our brains process, our maybe improving them. The film chronicles the process that allowed him to get to decrypt the code and while it works on the thriller level, there's more to appreciate, "The Imitation Game" is not just a study on math and information but on fascinating man who finally gets his long overdue recognition.
While striking as an individualistic snob, Alan Turing gets progressively more complex as we get hints of his past experiences with bullying and a growing childhood romance that leaves no doubt about Turing's sexuality. In fact, it is very fascinating that his passion for cryptography came from the 'I love you' messages he sent to his friend, as if math wasn't just a passion, but an area of total freedom, a mirror of personal truth where he could express himself to the fullest. He had made math his own world, but only with the value of team-working, he could overcome the obstacles, including the patronizingly antagonistic attitude of Denniston.
But I didn't care much for these 'dramatic' bits that, while not unbelievable, were not worthy of such a complex personality, I doubt that Denniston could really order to destroy the machine or if he submitted that deadline. The film also suffers from similarly doubtful moments: I couldn't believe Joan Clarke wouldn't want to join the team, I mean didn't a MI6 official tell them that they were serving the country? She was just contemptibly dismissed by a nosy clerk who took her for a secretary and now, she wouldn't take part to a project because her parents thought it wasn't correct? The film didn't need these moments, Turing's story was enough good material.
I must admit I was first perplex about the part involving his sexuality but it became apparent that this was a part of Turing's life that couldn't be overlooked because it highlighted the tragedy of a man who saved millions of peoples' lives but never got the credit he deserved, on the contrary, he faced a public indignity because of a sexual scandal, which indirectly lead him to suicide. That a man who saved people, who should be seen as a benefactor of humanity, had his legacy ignored for years made me realize two things: math are too abstract and people believe what they see, virtually, Turning saved people but no one could materialize it, to measure up the glory of his work.
There's a magnificent moment where the code is broken and when his friend is ready to jump at a phone and prevent a ship bombing, Turing stops him. If they change the course of the war right now, Nazis will immediately cancel Enigma and annihilate their years of research. That's a subtlety that is extremely hard to accept, sacrificing thousands of people, to save millions, or to shorten the war, one could say that Turing let British people die, but maybe this act itself has saved millions others. But human intelligence is too blind to see it, what a tragic irony that the man who saved millions of people with artificial intelligence was sacrificed on the altar of human stupidity.
But the film at least respect our intelligence and says a lot without words, two standout moments I got at the first viewing: Alan tells Joan about the machine's name, Christopher, something is odd and she doesn't mention it, and yes, it took me a few seconds to realize that I expected a woman's name. And that was a brilliant hint of Alan's homosexuality before the revelation. A second moment is when he's in London train station with Joan and mothers and soldiers stare at him with disdain, he's obviously seen like a coward. How ironic that they'll never know this man is as heroic as them.
"The Imitation Game" is an imperfect film but from the subject it handles and its importance, it is as highly recommendable as if it was a masterpiece.
Manon des sources (1986)
Water has a taste after all... the Taste of Vengeance...
In my previous review of "Jean de Florette", I mentioned the movie "Chinatown". Well, there's a moment in "Manon of the Spring" where a city council is reunited to discuss the emergency of the recent shortage of water and through the anger and desperate frustration displayed by the farmers, I was reminded of the scene where Nicholson was amusingly looking at the sheep invading the L.A council and farmers protested about the absence of water. Watching Berri's movies before "Chinatown" would be recommended if only to give you the idea of how water is precious which makes Manon's vengeance even more delicious.
Indeed, I expected the beautiful Emmanuelle Béart as the titular goat shepherdess to avenge the death of her father, whose hard work and gentleness was destroyed by the cruel stratagem of an evil Noah-Cross like old man constantly hiding behind the trees while his nephew was doing the dirty job, I got the taste of that vengeance but I didn't expect it to be as emotionally rewarding as what the final act had to offer. This is not just a credit to Marcel Pagnol, the author but of Claude Berri, the storyteller, who trusts enough his material not to try to make it more spectacular than what it is. When you have a good story, there's no need for artifices.
After watching the first opus, Ugolin (Daniel Auteuil) and César (Yves Montand) were all familiar faces, we know the extremes they reached to get the land and grow their carnation, the film opens with these flowers as red as the blood it cost to make that miraculous little possible. But for César, the land was worth a life, because Jean wasn't his blood, he was an outsider. As simple as that, and when the film opens, he approaches his nephew with the same question that in the first film's opening, he tells him it's time to think of having children, it's like a sort of "now, where were we?", after having plotting to the point of death, let's think of life a little.
César explains that the Soubeyrans have worked hard enough to make money, the lineage must go on to make sure there's always a heir, without one, even land loses its value, Jean's death becomes pointless. But we know we're in a Greek tragedy format so no evil can be redeemed and when Ugolin crosses the path of Manon and instantly falls in love with her, he doesn't know It yet, but the punishment has started. Convinced that she doesn't know about their secret, he starts a courting session, harboring a ridiculous hunter's outfit to impress her and in one of the movies' most powerful scenes, starts a small smooth talk that escalates (literally) through a chase and where, finally, out of breath, he ends up declaring his flame, as he has nothing else to provide, except his good fortune.
We have a taste of Karma with this infatuation but the best is yet to come when Manon accidentally eavesdrop a discussion between two villagers who admit that they knew about the spring and didn't help Jean because it was none of their business, and later, she discovers the spring that feeds all the village and stops it, not only Ugolin and his flowers, but the whole town is punished by Manon. That will be their business after all. And when Ugolin takes his mule to go fetch the water, and is obviously exhausted by the heavy barrels, we think of Jean who went through the same nightmare, when all it took was to have a few words. Whoever killed by the water will perish by the water; this is a great tale of vengeance not because the culprits are punished but because they're punished the right way.
The performances of the actors are integral to the film's success, Emmanuelle Béart says a lot without speaking, her eyes are like repressing all the feelings until the final implosion held behind her blond, fiery, almost leonine hair, Auteuil as Ugolin gives a dimension of pathos that goes beyond his ungrateful looks and becomes the collateral but acceptable victim of his uncle's malice. But the best is still from Montand, who as the patriarch, looks like a stubborn man still recluse behind the fortress of his own vileness until a final last revelation comes as the perfect vengeance and the best thing about it is that it doesn't even come from Manon, but life itself which establishes the total failure of all his projects, and he lived long enough to measure up the extent of his cruelty and that's how poetically justice worked, when someone is so cruel he only gets sympathy as his cruelty's victim.
Marcel Pagnol was born the same day than Cinema and not very far from La Ciotat where the train made its iconic entrance, it's like he had this gift for authentically depicting human nature, reminding me this quote from Ebert: the more specific the story is, the more universal it becomes because the more it understands the characters, the better we do. That's the power of Pagnol, Berri and the actors, they created so specific characters that they immediately became real, this is high adult drama about things that happen in real life. Even someone who doesn't know much about farming, about water and love will get the many messages about love, greed, bigotry and karma.
This is tale for the ages, and one of the greatest French movies that earned its commercial and critical success. I couldn't believe I waited so much time to finally see this masterwork, one that says as much about mother nature than human nature and shows that at least, mother nature played fair with men, only they underestimated how evil and greedy they could be, and how destiny could give them a taste of their own medicine.


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Published on January 6th, 2014 | by Zachary Shahan10
Did 60 Minutes Read "How To Write A Hit Piece On The Solar Industry"
January 6th, 2014 by Zachary Shahan
I already wrote all I think I needed to write about the 60 Minutes episode that ran last night. Frankly, we have thousands of articles that tell the obvious true story — cleantech is growing fast and doing excellently.
However, one of our readers, Carter Lavin (@CarterLavin), tweeted me last night to remind me of an excellent guest post he wrote here last year around this time that makes fun of the kind of story 60 Minutes just fabricated. It's a great article, so I thought I'd repost it again today. Check it out:
This is a fun and interesting guest post that I think many of you will love. Check it out: Hey reporters, having trouble coming up with an idea for a new article? Why don't you write an attack on the solar industry — media outlets love these! If…
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