Movies that Move us

Only three movie this year have blown me away… keeping me thinking about them, the message and ideas they carry, long after the credits had passed.

Two of them had Leo as the lead: Shutter Island and Inception, both of which were highly anticipated and Hollywood at its very best. Their directors, Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan also need no introduction.

While the first two were a feast for the eyes and a stimulating mental challenge, the third, which I watched last night at the Cornerhouse, was an amazing emotional and spiritual experience.

The film is Argentinian, subtitled and its director is Juan José Campanella, who interestingly enough has directed quite a few House episodes and a famous Argentinian director; but other than that, I had never heard of him before and as I don’t particularly like reading subtitles, I wasn’t certain what to expect.

However, the movie won an Oscar for best foreign language film this year and with 8.3 on IMDB, it ranks in the top 250, so we still had high expectations.

More than two hours later (and I had no idea it has been that long), Vaivara and I left the cinema in a state of awe, what a movie!

So I just had to blog about this experience, with the hope that at least a few of my friends take my advice and watch this fascinating movie. If like me, you are fascinated by the grey area between right and wrong, fair and unfair and the inner battle we face every day between mundane activities and the people and dreams that really matter… the Secret in Their Eyes is a must see!

P.S. The Cornerhouse is still showing it in Manchester, and they do a fantastic deal on Mondays and Tuesdays: a movie, pizza and glass of wine/beer for £12 – check out the Reel Deal

Fail Fast, Fail Often

For a long time I thought my entrepreneurial motto should be, “good is the enemy of great”. I believed that the key to business success is that extra yard, the unique selling point, the value added. I still believe this to be true, but I think what’s more important to me, at this stage of my life, is to get in there, stick my head in, risk, risk and more risk.

So the motto has changed, although the goals remain the same. Coming straight from Silicon Valley:

“Fail Fast, Fail Often!”


The World Stops When You’re Ill

I have never experienced the highs and lows of life in such quick succession as I have this week.

There I was on Sunday, singing United songs in the rain as the Bulgarian assassin single-handedly destroyed Liverpool.

Emotions were high as my friends came over for a wonderful reunion of house mates. I enjoyed feeding everyone and I welcomed a new week like I had never done before.

Then Monday came and I was feeling rough. On Tuesday I was ill but not as bad as on Wednesday and Thursday when I couldn’t even get to work. As I started to feel better today, I dragged my ass to the office and am glad I did, somehow feeling sorry for myself at home wasn’t doing me much good.

This just makes me think, is it better to ride a massive wave; success after success, happy moment after another, long periods of good health, with a massive failure to humble us to ground level every now and then? Or, is it better to be constantly reminded of mortality, of failure, of the dreams we failed to achieve? As a gambling enthusiast, I can’t help but think of life as a game of roulette; you can win many times in a row just to suffer a large loss at the end, or you can win once, lose once, over and over, never truly reaching that euphoria that a streak of wins provides; or the total emptiness of loosing it all at the end.

It makes you wonder, is happiness all about the experience we have or the memory of that experience? Daniel Kahneman tries to answer this…