Rome Film Festival Review: The Paradoxes Of Charlie Sheen Vehicle 'A Glimpse Into the Mind of Charles Swan III'

"A Glimpse Inside The Mind Of Charles Swan III."

The second feature directed by Roman Coppola, "A Glimpse Into the Mind of Charles Swan III" is technically well made, but suffers from the absence of any forceful ideas. Visually, the film is certainly an assured work, retaining the slick color schemes of Edward Hopper by way of "Mad Men" with a plastic exuberance reminiscent of Russ Meyer. But its story is comparatively washed out, never deviating from an uneventful trajectory. Not even Charlie Sheen, in the lead role, can bring the movie the sensationalistic appeal associated with his name these days.

As the titular Charles Swan III, Sheen plays a well-to-do graphic designer whose girlfriend (Katheryn Winnick) grows fed up with his many affairs and a self-obsessed attitude and decided to leave him. You can hardly blame her. Trapped between despair and outright aimlessness, Charles does little except feel sorry for himself as the spectator is invited to enter his mind. Unsurprisingly, the perspective of an over-privileged designer tends to be rather claustrophobic and devoid of inspiration. His downward spiral into depression is spruced up by picturesque dream sequences that echo Coppola's past collaborations with Wes Anderson. Even when ostensibly desperate and saddened by his loss, Charles's sentimental affliction does not attract sympathy. When a pair of Russian taxi drivers sell Charles a tin of caviar for $800, the laugh is definitely on him.

While brilliantly executed on their own terms, Coppola's various stylistic inventions are often incoherent and run counter to whatever narrative development the story offers up. The other characters are little more than props: Charles' friend (Jason Schwartzman), sister (Patricia Arquette) and assorted minor roles all figure into the director's panting search for an eccentricity that never congeals into something authentic. Coppola delivers a mild pastiche of westerns, musicals and dusty 70s comics. Is it mise-en-scene of aesthetic fixation? Artistic intention of playful diversion? The jury is still out.

In accordance with the protagonist's vainglory, all the elements of the film are subordinate to an individualistic vision that not only fails to convince but also to justify its own posturing. Even Bill Murray, in a minor role, looks like he accidentally stumbled into a set where direction is entrusted upon the vagaries of an erratic if savvy beginner. Like Charles' romantic life, which consists of an endless series of female trophies, the film keeps accumulating cinematic toys have no real function. Simultaneously boring and almost doggedly uncreative, "A Glimpse Into the Mind of Charles Swan III" is inoffensively mediocre.

Still, viewers may have a hard time completely rejecting the film's indulgences, which maintain a certain innocent quality. It is tempting to read the whole thing as vaguely biographical, given the public identity of its star, since the story involves a man burdened by fame and talent but lacking determination. But such appeal is merely academic for this directionless project, a hodgepodge of awkward storytelling and bizarre digressions as hard to love as it is to hate. Criticwire grade: C

HOW WILL IT PLAY? Set for an early 2013 release through new distributor A24, the film could generate some media interest for its lead actor and some arthouse audiences may be drawn by the allure of the Coppola brand, but poor word of mouth and mixed reviews will likely limit its long-term box office prospects. It has better chances on VOD.

Source: http://fb.indiewire.com/~r/indieWIRENews/~3/nX7LqtbD-Us/rome-film-festival-review-the-paradoxes-of-charlie-sheen-vehicle-a-glimpse-into-the-mind-of-charles-swan-iii

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Sophisticated Museum Wedding

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Source: weddinggawker.com --- Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Head-over-heels in love with this gorgeous affair captured by The Schultzes! ...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weddinggawker/~3/Qoh-JTLQRtI/

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Green Blog: Mapping Cameroon's Motley Canopy

From above, the forests of Cameroon seem to sweep across the land in an unending carpet of green. The forested swath is the second-largest in Africa, with tens of thousands of people at its fringes and nestled in its lush depths, dependent on what appears to be a continuous canopy.

But according to an updated interactive map released by the World Resources Institute in partnership with the government of Cameroon, this blanket of trees is not as encompassing as it seems.

The atlas, coded with a kaleidoscope of colors, reveals a mix of protected land, commercial logging operations, mining concessions, community-owned forests and agricultural terrain. It is a striking visual reminder of the complexity of the environmental picture in Cameroon, where threats like logging continue to challenge the rain forest?s integrity despite restrictions that have been legislated to protect the forest in recent years.

The interface, called the Interactive Forest Atlas 3.0 and assembled with the Geographical Information System, is the third in a series of digital and paper maps issued since 2002 to help chart Cameroon?s forests by collating disparate data on land use.

This latest installment includes new land-use layers, among them one for mining and another for agriculture that shows where the palm oil and rubber plantations area. The hope is that with the forest facing so many distinct pressures, the map will help improve the management of this massive green resource.

The mapping tool will ?bring all these pieces together into one place, so that everyone has the same access,? said Matt Steil, the World Resource Institute?s manager for the Cameroon Forest Initiative.

Embarking on their research in the late 1990?s, the team found that gathering detailed information about the forest was difficult, often because of a lack of government transparency. ?The information was not publicly available ? it was in the hands of a few,? Mr. Steil said. That helped pave the way for corruption, including the issuing of illegal logging permits, he said. Beyond promoting tighter management, the atlas now serves as a kind of surveillance tool.

Among the most controversial land-use issues in Cameroon these days is a proposal to allow Herakles, a New York-based venture capital firm, and local partners to clear about 280 square miles of rain forest for a vast palm oil plantation. While the partners say the plantation will yield jobs for impoverished workers in Cameroon and bolster global food security, environmentalists and others argue that the rain forest is crucial to the ecosystem and to countering global warming, and that locals will not necessarily benefit long-term.

The G.I.S. platform integrates data on boundaries and land use with satellite imagery. Then teams on the ground with G.P.S. equipment seek to corroborate the information and to collect missing data. Sometimes the trackers are not warmly received ? for example, when they happen upon an illicit palm oil plantation or illegal roads.

?There have been a few cases where we identified roads being built into a protected area,? Mr. Steil said. The institute can then turn to government partners who can follow up and impose a fine.

Sometimes local officials have eased the way for illicit logging or other activity, he said. But in the process of gathering data, the mappers have the ability ?to expose them to the world,? Mr. Steil declared, adding, ?No longer will these activities go unknown.?

Of course, even though the project?s overriding goal is improving access to information and locals are being trained to operate the digital atlas, not everyone in Cameroon has access to a computer. So in rural areas, paper maps have been pinned up in community gathering places.

Locals can inspect the color-coded atlas and voice concern about inaccuracies or illicit intrusions revealed by the map. Showing that a palm oil plantation infringes on a community-owned forest, for instance, might prompt an otherwise oblivious community to protest.

The government currently uses the maps to manage the allotment of land for various uses, Mr. Steil said. The private sector can now scope out the interface to figure out where they can apply for permits to farm, plant, or prospect. Nongovernmental organizations can use the atlas to make sure that environmental and community needs are being met.

Ultimately, Mr. Steil said, the donor community will also be able to use the platform to better channel its investments in protecting the forest.

?You can imagine in any status quo situation, there are illegalities going on,? he said. But ?there are always those who are pushing for change.?

Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/mapping-cameroons-motley-canopy/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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7 Questions With an Author: Josh Hinds | The Daily Retort

Author and motivational speaker ? Josh Hinds

This post marks another installment of my??7 Questions With an Author???series, where I ask published authors an unchanging set of questions and share their responses here.

Today?s featured author is Josh Hinds.

Josh is an entrepreneur, author, trainer and motivational speaker.

Diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome at the age of eight years old, Josh has been facing and overcoming adversity and challenges his entire life.?He?s a firm believer that no matter what circumstance life or business reveals, there is always a work-around which can lead to success.

Here are 7 Questions With an Author: Josh Hinds regarding his latest book It?s Your Life: Live Big!

1. Tell us about your book?
The title of the book, It?s Your Life, LIVE BIG! came about?because it is a motto I used to repeat to myself. Then when I was?approached by my book publisher, Sound Wisdom, to do the book, it just?kind of naturally fit. I?m a BIG believer in?the idea that the words we speak, especially to ourselves, make a?difference. I have certainly seen that to the be the case in my ?Live BIG? motto.?The book itself includes 17 lessons, that I?ve used in my?own life, and have seen countless others use throughout their own.?These lessons include: defining success, goal-setting,?visualization, the power of persistence, and other lessons?that can make a real positive, impact in the lives of people,?both personally and professionally.

2. What led you to write it?
As I mentioned above, I had seen how the ideas in the book?had made such a positive impact not only in my own life, but in the?lives of others through the different work I do,?whether while speaking to audiences, or where I share my?writing in other formats, so it just kind of made sense to?build on and expand much of what I was already sharing.?As far as published authors go, I guess I?m a little?different in that I was actually approached directly by a publishing company. I didn?t really pitch them to write the book. In a nutshell, my original contact with the?company connected with me via LinkedIn, and let me know he had?followed my work for a while, and wanted to explore the possibility of?me writing a book with their company.

3. Who is a writer that inspires you and why?
There are so many that I could have included here, but since?you asked for just one, I guess I better start with the?first person who encouraged me. The?first ?motivational? book I ever read was written by Zig Ziglar. He has a great number of books I like, but that first one I?read of his was titled, Over The Top. In addition to being?a wonderful author, Zig is also an incredibly inspiring?speaker. Like me, he?s also originally from Alabama. He has?a gift for breaking down the complex and making it simple. That?s something I strive to do as?well. If I only had one word to describe him, it?d be??amazing.?

4. What was the biggest challenge you faced writing this?book?
I have to acknowledge first off, this was an incredibly?smooth process for the most part. Largely because I?have a great publishing company which took care of and?guided me through most of the confusing parts and challenges that can?pop-up along the way. After conversations with other author friends of?mine, I?d say I was a bit spoiled in that respect ?I should also say, I have self-published other products so I?have seen firsthand the different challenges that can come?up during the process.

While I was fortunate to have my book publisher helping with?many of the ?heavy lifting? parts of the process, for me,?one of the challenges was coming up?with the particular outline and sections that would be?included in the book. That?s primarily due to the fact that my business has several moving parts, which?include different web sites, live speaking and training, as well as writing ? I couldn?t just stop everything to??hammer out the book.?

5. What advice would you give to an aspiring writer?
Without a doubt, focus on building your platform. When I say??platform? I?m referring to your audience or reach. Now,?it?s true you may not have your book written, but it?s still?incredibly important ? keep in mind that my book publisher found and approached me about writing a book.

That didn?t happen?because my name was pulled out of thin air. It was because I had?developed an audience (via my writing, blog and various sites I manage) long before I ever thought a book was in my?future. Don?t just take my word for it, do a Google search?yourself for something such as ?bloggers who got book deals??and you will see a lot of similar examples.?Another?important reason to have your platform built before the?fact, is that once you have your book out there, you want to?have an audience you can reach out to who is likely to have?an interest in it. Trust me, just being in a bookstore isn?t?a guarantee of success.

6. Where do you get your ideas?
The ideas which I write and teach on come from my day-to-day life, or?that are brought up during the work I do with others.?One area of my business is consulting, so as I?m helping my clients?brainstorm through ideas and business challenges, I?ll often have the?opportunity to expand on solutions that show up during those?brainstorming sessions. In the writing I do, fortunately, ideas?abound.

7. Anything that you?d like readers to know that I haven?t?asked?
If you have an idea in you that you believe is worth sharing, then it?is. There?s an audience out there for what you have to share. Also,?remember to celebrate the success of your book. Remember that the key?is for you to always be sharing your book. Consider the ideal?audience, or audiences for your book, and reach out on an ongoing?basis to share about it, whether via an interview, or doing a?presentation, whatever.?The point is, it?s a crowded world, but you put yourself in a much?better place to be heard, just by speaking up and sharing what you?have to share a bit. So few do, that if you will be intentional about?making sure you do, it will go a long way towards getting the word out?about your book.

Source: http://thedailyretort.com/7-questions-with-an-author-josh-hinds/

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The Communist Party Returns Beijing to Pre-Internet Age : The New ...

The Communist Party of China has, for a brief and fragile moment, transported a city of twenty million people back to a simpler time. It is an exercise in sheer, unrelenting will?physical and mental. This extraordinary production is all to ensure the smooth success of the Eighteenth Party Congress, a period of barely a week, ending this Thursday, when thousands of loyal delegates converge on Beijing to cheer the d?but of the small, unelected group of men who will run the country for the next ten years. Even to those of us accustomed to the Party?s attention to detail, the effects have been astonishing.

For a week, Beijing is flirting with memories of the pre-Internet age. By ramping up the electronic network of censors, dead ends, and other roadblocks, the government has succeeded in making the Internet, at times, as balky and circumscribed as at any moment since the Web arrived in China nearly a decade ago. It would be easy to forget that China now has nearly six hundred million people online, because the Chinese-language microblogs and forums have been scrubbed of the humiliating double entendre and mockery that citizens now pour forth on the Party and its leaders. At times, Google and Gmail disappear entirely. The outside world?s most nettlesome newspaper, the Times, has been blacked out. Likewise, it?s easy to think we?re back in the days before Bloomberg was anything but a person, because that site is blacked out, too, for publishing details on the fortunes of senior Party oligarchs, a subject the government considers an appalling breach of decorum.

For a week, the Party is warning people to be on the look out for subversive ideas?not conveyed by e-mail or satellite television or text message, but by ping-pong balls that can be hurled from taxi windows, or strapped to carrier pigeons and flown to who knows where. Those might sound like a retro threat, but not when you calibrate your mind, as the Party has, to the days of Kodachrome Communism.

For a week, all is quiet on China?s Western front, as far as the Party is concerned. It would be easy to miss the fact that six Tibetan protesters set themselves on fire in the course of two days last week, to protest the Chinese occupation of Tibet, because the only Tibetan participants you?re likely to meet in the Great Hall of the People this week are the kinds of Tibetans who call each other ?comrade,? speak Mandarin, and point out, as the delegation did on Thursday, that the Tibetan capital has been voted the happiest city in China four times in the last five years. To make sure that the present doesn?t intrude on that memory, teams of guards are stationed outside the Great Hall with fire extinguishers in case anyone tries to burn themselves.

For a week, the Party is unified, tolerant of debate, and clear in its mission. To ensure that today?s complexities do not encroach on that, the State Council Information Office, which helps tell the Chinese media what it can report, advised all Chinese news publications that they are ?forbidden from reporting on, commenting on or publishing Hu Deping?s online article ?Reform Cannot be Wasted.?? Hu, the scion of the late leader Hu Yaobang, is a frequent critic of the Party?s reluctance to reform, but there?s no reason for newspaper readers to be burdened with those ins and outs. It was just one of scores of advisories given to the Chinese media this week to maintain what filmmakers call continuity. It is the authoritarian equivalent of ensuring that the extras in the shot aren?t wearing digital watches.

Like all parties, the Party?s party will come to an end, eventually: Thursday, to be precise, when the next generation of leaders will be revealed to the world. It will be up to those men to face the reality of the Party?s future, if the present is not unnerving enough.

Photograph by Ng Han Guan/AP.

Source: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2012/11/the-communist-party-goes-kodachrome.html

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Economist's View: 'Is Finance Too Competitive?'

I don't have any problem at all with the call for more competition in the financial industry, especially measures such as reducing bank size to the minimum efficient scale to reduce their systemic importance and political power. I do have a problem, however, with the idea that competition can substitute for regulation, i.e. that these markets can be left alone to self-regulate:

Is Finance Too Competitive?, by Raghuram Rajan,Commentary, Project Syndicate: Many economists are advocating for regulation that would make banking ?boring? and uncompetitive once again. After a crisis, it is not uncommon to hear calls to limit competition. ...

The overwhelming evidence, though, is that financial competition promotes innovation. Much of the innovation in finance in the US and Europe came after it was deregulated in the 1980?s ? that is, after it stopped being boring.

The critics of finance, however, believe that innovation has been the problem. Instead of Schumpeter?s ?creative destruction,? bankers have engaged in destructive creation in order to gouge customers at every opportunity while shielding themselves behind a veil of complexity from the prying eyes of regulators (and even top management). ... Hence, the critics are calling for limits on competition to discourage innovation.

Of course, the critics are right to argue that not all innovations in finance have been useful, and that some have been downright destructive. By and large, however, innovations such as interest-rate swaps and junk bonds have been immensely beneficial... Even mortgage-backed securities, which were at the center of the financial crisis that erupted in 2008, have important uses... The problem was not with the innovation, but with how it was used ? that is, with financiers? incentives.

And competition does play a role here. Competition makes it harder to make money, and thus depletes the future rents (and stock prices) of the incompetent. In an ordinary industry, incompetent firms (and their employees) would be forced to exit. In the financial sector, the incompetent take on more risk, hoping to hit the jackpot, even while the regulator protects them by deeming them too systemically important to fail.

Instead of abandoning competition and giving banks protected monopolies once again, the public would be better served by making it easier to close banks when they get into trouble. Instead of making banking boring, let us make it a normal industry, susceptible to destruction in the face of creativity.

This seems to imply that breaking banks into smaller pieces makes the system immune to taking on too much risk and the problems that come with it, but we had banking problems in eras where most banks are small -- cascading bank failures in response to a large shock are still possible -- so making markets as competitive as we can, including breaking firms into smaller pieces and allowing easy failure, is no guarantee that financial meltdowns will be avoided (it may, in fact, be harder to step in and save the system when you have to fix many, many small banks instead of a few big ones). I think more competition in this industry is a good idea, but we shouldn't be fooled into thinking that means we can stop worrying about the stability of the system. The focus of the article is innovation, but that is not where the main vulnerability lies. Market failures that allow the equivalent of bank runs on the shadow banking system are a much bigger problem, and this problem cannot be solved by simply reducing firm-size. Regulation to reduce the chances of cascading failure will still be needed.

Posted by Mark Thoma on Tuesday, November 13, 2012 at 09:53 AM in Economics, Financial System, Market Failure, Regulation?| Permalink? Comments?(20)

Source: http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/11/is-finance-too-competitive.html

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