Starbucks + Me = Love

Haha, okay, maybe not Starbucks itself. But the one on campus does! Check this out!

They randomly posts things like "Be the first 10 people to comment in this status and win a complimentary Grande (insert drink here)" and I would always miss it, but I would comment anyway. And then sometimes they would say "How's everyone's morning doing" and I would say "Good. It would be great if it's topped with a complimentary Starbucks Frappuccino.."

I guess they see my name enough and my rant for frappuccinos that they remember me. How awesome are they to acknowledge me? Hehe ;)

America's Next Top Model All Star: Kristin Cavallari

This episode, I didn't get what I wanted. The girl I wanted to go home, didn't.

Lisa - I don't like her.
Angelea - I don't like her either.
Isis - I love that she's so classy. SPOILER: I was disappointed when she got sent home.
Kayla - Her photos are so weak, I'm lost. Where did the amazing model went?
Alexandria - She's crazy and overly dramatic. Don't like her.
Laura - She's so sweet.
Allison - She really is strange, but a really great model at that.
Everyone else are not so memorable that I won't mention them.

Now, here are the three photos I think were the best, in no particular order - courtesy of Google Images.

The Roaring Twenties (Raoul Walsh, 1939)

It takes one hell of a star to embody an entire decade, but Jimmy Cagney moves through The Roaring Twenties with such energy that the title might as well refer to his character. Raoul Walsh's gift for mixing huge, meaty setpieces, and moods with economic staging fits Cagney's brand of spare, raw grandeur perfectly. Together, the two present a profoundly cynical view of the decade retroactively seen as the glory days upon the onset of the Depression. The Roaring Twenties exposes the grim naïveté beneath that view as mercilessly as it undermines the fresh-faced pluck of Eddie Bartlett (Cagney), who returns from WWI expecting a hero's welcome and instead finds a society in chaos.

The Roaring Twenties plays by gangster movie rules, complete with stern, almost newsreel-like narration, clipped dialogue and sleazy views of the underworld. Nevertheless, it also works as a people's history of the '20s, digging beneath the glitzy surface of pre-crash society to see how the only people who were having a good time during the period were criminals, and even they soon suffered collapse.

Walsh opens in grand fashion with a recreation of the final days of WWI, American soldiers running for the nearest cover as shells and bullets fly around them. Eddie dives into a trench and lands on a grouchy soldier named George Hally (Humphrey Bogart), and soon the two meet Lloyd Hart (Jeffrey Lynn), the kind angel to George's darker presence. Bogart clearly has a handle on his screen presence by this point, filling George with such acid it's a wonder his own blood doesn't melt through his flesh, but there is also an intense, crippling fear under his menace that will surface late in the film. Walsh's punchy staging and the clever bluntness of the script digs into the absurdity of the war, evident even to the Americans who entered the conflict near the end: George runs afoul of an officious sergeant he recognizes as a thug who used to steal from his father's shop, but the stocky man can now boss George around based on a codified ranking of human worth. When the armistice is signed, George darkly alludes to carrying his machine gun home with him.

Back home, Eddie undergoes a series of experiences that make him a microcosm for the dramatic upheavals of postwar anxiety and Prohibition's disastrous effect in making a separate economy. Instead of being welcomed as a hero, Eddie finds himself unable to land a job, and when he finally gets a gig as a taxi driver, he soon finds himself inadvertently delivering packages of hooch to local speakeasies, and he soon gets busted for his naïveté. But soon he starts working in one of those speakeasies and, when he runs into George during a raid on another bootlegger ship, the two join forces and establish their own empire, fellas who had nothing upon returning now kings because of crime.

The moralism is so thick you could cut it with a knife, to the point that even the lecturing narration seems but the cherry on top for a film that makes inescapably clear the social factors leading to a life of crime. But Walsh handles the material with such gusto that the film is entertaining at all times. He films those newsreel montages with artistry, using Dutch angles and superimposed imagery to demonstrate the blitzkrieg pace of change and the bewilderment it causes. As Eddie, like the rest of the bootleggers, sink further into depravity and crime to protect their ways, the montages become even more daring, showing the shadow of an armed gangster looming over a mock-up of City Hall. Later, when the stock market crashes, Walsh uses almost apocalyptic images, the ticker-tape machine growing until it resembles a giant idol before bursting over a frenzied crowd of brokers being showered by confetti-like slips of paper with clients' "sell" orders on them.

This gritty take on the vast, rapid sweep of history contrasts with the increasingly small focus on Eddie, constantly shrinking the film until we're trapped by the mounting sense of doom that surrounds the man and his unraveling empire. He pines for Jean (Priscilla Lane), a sweet girl who called him her dream soldier when she wrote a letter to him during the war. Grown up and scared of the dark environment into which Eddie takes her, Jean begins to pull away and reciprocate the more gentle affections of Lloyd, who maintains a sense of innocence despite using his lawyer skills to constantly bail out Eddie. Meanwhile, Panama (Gladys George), the owner of Eddie's favorite speakeasy, harbors clear feelings for the man who never drank even after he became a figure of the underworld and who is so torn up over Jean not reciprocating his feelings that he does not notice the woman deeply in love with him before his eyes. Then again, she too loves a specter, as her own cynical way of life helped corrupt the returning soldier she liked for his goodness, a goodness long since eradicated.

The film barrels toward its climax as the wars between bootlegging gangs finally escalates to the point that the cops cannot be pacified anymore, and when the stock market crashes, it takes bootlegging with it. (Or is it the other way around?) Eddie finds himself back where he started, but he's sure he'll climb his way back to the top, linking him with so many poor fools, then and now, who cling to materialistic fantasies of the American Dream long after it has been exposed a lie.

This being a gangster film starring James Cagney, one knows things will not end well, and Cagney's death here may be the finest of his career, or at least on a par with his almost nuclear end in White Heat (incidentally also a Walsh film). Cagney later remarked that he'd watched a documentary where a hunter shot a gorilla, which lumbered around before collapsing; he noted that it died in a "slow, amazed way." Escaping from a small act of vengeance that did nothing but make him feel slightly better, Eddie takes a bullet in the back but keeps stumbling forth, acting as if he got hit with a tranquilizer dart instead of a bullet. Cagney keeps moving, tripping sideways up some stairs and hanging for a brief moment before tumbling back down the steps and collapsing. Cagney's face is barely visible in this shot, yet his entire body registers a mild surprise at and grim acceptance of his own death. Where Cagney's end in White Heat showed a small-time hood's delusions of grandeur, the performance he gives for Walsh here is the inverse: this is a man who had it all, only to realize the worthlessness of it as he sees death before him. Cody Jarrett needed to feel like a big shot in the sobering aftermath of WWII, but Eddie Bartlett actually did make a name for himself, only to see the vapidity of his accomplishments. I cannot think of another film that so brutally captures the real nature of the Roaring Twenties and the Prohibition era.

Beauty Get To Know Me Tag

Thanks to YouLittleBeauty for tagging me. The questions are really interesting so here we go :)

1. Do you apply your foundation with a brush, sponge or your fingers?
I apply foundation with my fingers and only my right hand if I'm using Laura Mercier Silk Creme Foundation. I use both hands when I use any other foundation like Maybelline Liquid Dream Matte Mousse

2. Do you apply your foundation from light to dark, or dark to light?

I am not familiar with this terminology. But pretty much, I apply by dotting my face: cheeks, forehead, nose, and chin. Then I start blending my right cheek first, then, either my nose or my left cheek, then chin, and lastly, my forehead.

3. Do you prime your eyes?

Yes. I use NYX Eyeshadow Base.

4. Do you conceal first or after foundation?

I only conceal when I feel like it, and I do that before foundation. My favorite is Rimmel Match Perfection.

5. Do you go for manicures, or manicure yourself?

I've never had my nails done. I do it all myself.

6. Do you exfoliate your lips, face, or both?

Neither. I do that to my body with a shower scrub. That's it.

7. On average, How long does it take to do your makeup?

10-20 minutes. Depending how much I want to take my time :)

8. Do you wear makeup everyday and everywhere?

I wear makeup when I'm going anywhere out of my house. If I stay in all day (like Sundays), I don't. That way my face can have at least a day to breathe.

9. What is your weakness? Shoes, bags, clothes, jewelry, or makeup?

This is a hard question.... Books is not on the list either. Haha.. I would say makeup. I don't buy jewelry, shoes are a hit or miss, bags are not my obsession, and clothes, well, they're not always on my list of splurges.

10. Do you whiten your teeth?

No.. But I'm thinking I should.

11. Do you wax or pluck your eyebrows?

I'm too lazy when it comes to this. I rarely pluck. I need to go to a professional........

12. What do you use to contour?

No idea what contouring is. Haha. I just put blush and I use Physician's Formula Happy Booster.

13. False lashes or natural?

I don't know how to use false lashes, sadly. But I'd love to learn. For now, I have no choice but to stay natural. I like it though :)

14. Favorite makeup brand?

Foundation: So far, Laura Mercier Silk Creme Foundation

Concealer: Rimmel Match Perfection

Everything else, I haven't found a favorite brand.

15. Liquid, Gel, or Pencil?

I would choose cream eyeliner even though it's not on this list. It's amazing! I love using it with an angled brush. My first brand is E.L.F. and I bought it a few days ago.

16. Lipstick, Lip gloss, or chap stick?

I would say chap stick and lip gloss. I can do without lipstick.

17. Pigments, Pressed, or Cream eye shadows?

I haven't used cream so I don't know about that. Right now, all I use is pressed. Pigments are too vibrant, it stains my eyelids.

18. Favorite eye shadow color by itself?

This is hard coz all I have is palettes or the Victoria's Secret ones that look like the one pictured below.

19. Favorite eyeshadow combination?

I don't know. I don't have any high-end yet. But I would say any neutral palette.

20. Neutral or dramatic eye shadow?

NEUTRAL!

21. Do you care more for quality or name brand?

Quality. But we all know quality usually means name brand, but not always.

22. What is your current addiction?

My E.L.F. cream eyeliner. :)

Thanks for reading!

I tag:

iheartmexo

madeline's fashion

ms. rinz

katie's bliss

Ja Computer Society - leaping into the future

Important communique from the Jamaica Computer Society - we're "Likkle but Tallawah"!



The Jamaica Computer Society opened its 2011 Knowledge and Exhibition Forum at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston on Thursday 29th September. The theme of the 2011 event is "Certification: the Key enabler for the Knowledge Economy".  President and Council Members in continuing the focus of their administration on the critical role of the human capital asset in the ICT sector, reiterated the rallying cries for the 2010-2011 administrative period of



"Likkle but Tallawah" and "Punching above our weight class".Platinum sponsor for this year's event is Anixter.  



The nearly 80 attendees in this year's event are eagerly participating in Security +, Project +, Web Design and 3D Animation training classes.



During lunchtime on Thursday, the participants were addressed by Regional Manager for Microsoft, George Cobin on emerging solutions for unifying technologies for increasing personal productivity and business effectiveness, locally and globally.



Over the past year the "Likkle but Tallawah" theme has gained tremendous traction and will be the background soundtrack for the Knowledge Society Foundation's 16-part series  to be aired on CNS starting  Wednesday October 5th.   



Jamaica Computer Society "Likkle but Tallawah is strong message for leaping into future"



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Vampire Diaries Season 3: End of the Affair

This episode was a bit bland in my opinion. It wasn't as interesting as the first two, but not every episode would have its moments, right?

I'm so glad Caroline is okay... I really wanted her to be violent and save herself or something. But she stayed sweet. I'm just so glad she wasn't killed. And Tyler is nice to be by her side :)

Elena - poor Elena. Her heart was broken in order to save her life. That's a sign that she should divert her attention to Damon from now on ;)

Damon - he's as bad as ever, in a good way. Does that make sense? I love him. His eyes, especially.

Stefan - poor Stefan, his emotions are all over the place. He's so conflicted. I feel sorry for him. One thing I loved, though, was the flashbacks. Stefan definitely looked ravishing :D

Katherine - I wonder what she's up to. The ending sure wasn't that interesting but it's a clue that she's up to something. Mostly likely to no good :)

Klaus - He's always up to no good. I wonder what he's up to next episode. And what he would do when he finds out Elena is alive.

Rebecca - I don't know about her, but I don't want her to be with Stefan.

Did you watch this episode? What did you think?

Twentieth Century (Howard Hawks, 1934)

Howard Hawks' Twentieth Century is so ahead of its time it serves as a precursor to two great types of Hollywood storytelling: the behind-the-scenes, referential melodrama and the screwball comedy. Even in the film's first segment, in which the dialogue tumbles out with the speed and visceral impact of a golf match, it still feels like the ping-ponged exchanges that would grace Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday. Hawks' economic direction, his ability to eke the fullest energy from the simplest, barest setup gives even jazzes up the dim slurring of the drunken sot who moves around the demented Broadway world of the protagonists.

"Discovered" by Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore), an impresario who tyrannically parades around like a scarfed Caesar, a lingerie model named Mildred Plotka (Carole Lombard) opens the film infuriating the rest of Jaffe's troupe with her awful acting. Cast in a melodrama, she proves incapable of conveying emotion. She transcends natural acting; she's so plain and starched she proves more suited to play the role of a bread loaf than a frenzied damsel. But Jaffe refuses to fire her, and though his insistence carries predatory desire, somehow his instincts prove correct and Mildred is reborn as star Lily Garland, and a cut across several years instantly hops from a tearful, overwhelmed "Hoboken Cinderella" to a jaded diva.

This time warp throws Hawks' camera forward with such force that it emerged with a momentum that propelled the director at double speed for the next decade. Throwing the lever into high gear, everything speeds up into lunacy: Lombard, whose stiff-mannered nobody couldn't even scream, now speaks solely in melodramatic flourishes. Not to be outdone, though, is Barrymore, who got lost on his way to an Expressionist film. Barrymore has no "natural" response to anything in this movie. At all times, Barrymore is ludicrous: even the mildest surprise registers on his face with such comic exaggeration he looks as if he just found a swaddled baby Quasimodo and got a peek the hideous creature underneath the blanket. He and Lombard engage in a warped romance that mixes sexual lust and power dynamics into a case of mutual love-hate dominated by jealousy and ego. It resembles a cosmic war of deities more than an affair, and the mortals caught between them are just so much collateral damage. Jaffe hires a detective to tap Lily's phones—"Tapping phones is our specialty!" the man crows—and the poor S.O.B. returns looking as if he ran across a puma on the way over.

Hawks himself helped stoke the flames between Barrymore and Lombard, all while trying to get Lombard more comfortable in her role. At this stage in her career, Lombard was known enough to get into the sort of party where Hawks met her but hadn't had her breakthrough yet. Impressed, Hawks had her come read for the film and test with Barrymore, where she bombed. Like Katharine Hepburn four years down the road, Lombard just didn't know how to handle the material, and she came off as flat, not wild like the part needed her to be. Rather than look for another actress, Hawks called her over and asked her what she'd do if a guy said something insulting about her. "I would kick him in the balls," Lombard responded, and Hawks told her that Barrymore had just said whatever would set her off. In a sense, Hawks' own dedication to keeping Lombard until she lived up to the potential he saw in her mirrors Jaffe's treatment of Mildred/Lily, albeit in a far more supportive manner. And clearly, the gambit worked, and not just because it launched Lombard into stardom, where she quickly became the highest-paid star in Hollywood. Lombard plays Mildred/Lily as if she's always on the cusp of hauling off and sending a gam flying up between Jaffe's legs, and her own histrionic sense of importance creates an equal sparring partner for Barrymore's madman.

The two enrage each other to the point that Lily quits Broadway for, naturally, Hollywood, sending Jaffe into a frenzy and leading to an absurd scheme to steal her back by intercepting her on her train, the titular Twentieth Century. The action thus compressed and contained, the film hones its banter into bottlenecked madness, expanding the cast to include Lily's new, put-upon paramour, and a mysterious old codger (Etienne Giradot) who speaks of having so much money he despairs not being able to spend it all and amuses himself by pasting apocalyptic stickers wherever he can put them. As Lily and Jaffe explode at and over each other in cramped proximity, the white "Repent!" discs proliferate like bacteria in a petri dish, adding a visual element of chaos to the war of gesticulation between the two sort-of lovers. Giradot's matter-of-fact attitude when placing these stickers is hilarious, as if this is his day job and he's just sticking crap to windows and unsuspecting people until the 5 o'clock whistle blows.

A host of great lines skewer the self-importance of the art crowd, my favorite being Jaffe's grim dismissal, "I close the iron door on you" stressed as if the increasingly disinterested minions at his disposal are about to be black-bagged and shipped to the gulag. It's such a hysterically overwrought condemnation that even those on the receiving end grow weary of its hydrogen-inflated doom. But like any jumped-up tyrant, Jaffe's unsparing power comes from an intense fear of losing it, and Lily's defiance drives him so wild not merely because of his obvious feelings for her (feelings he can never articulate because he hates her just as passionately as he worships her) but because she can shatter his myopic sense of totalitarian authority. Sure enough, the film concludes by closing the circle, Jaffe having swindled his leading lady back into subservience, but where we met a timid, insecure woman, now we see an embittered, hollowed-out diva arguing with the same instructions Jaffe used to bring out her latent talent. This new cycle promises to be even more ridiculous than the last.

Camera?

I need some help people! I need a new camera. Typically, I carry my camera wherever I go and have it ready to capture a moment at any given time. I have been like this since digital cameras came out. My dedication to capturing moments have been costly. I have gone through many many cameras. I'm already pretty rough on them and I'm excessively clumsy (story of my life). Poor cameras!

My camera broke the night we were flying back to Phoenix from Hawaii. I remember sitting at the gate waiting to get on the plane when I pulled out my camera. I was excited to view the pictures we had taken from our trip. ERROR MESSAGE reads across the screen. Strange noises started to happen. Yup, it was a goner! Hasn't worked since Hawaii.

Thank GOD it didn't break while in Hawaii. I would be one sad honeymooner. I was able to retrieve the pictures by pulling out my memory card.

Now, the hunt is on! I need a new camera. I need suggestions! I really like the PowerShot Canon G11! Hmmmm.....

Economist on PM Golding's resignation

Jamaica's prime minister
Golding goes
The political price of an extradition

The Economist | Oct 1st 2011 | from the print edition

ON THE face of things, the announcement on September 25th by Bruce Golding that he plans to step down as Jamaica's prime minister in November is both a surprise and a puzzle. Mr Golding has his critics, but there was no huge pressure on him to resign. No powerful opponents within the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) have openly challenged him.

And, sometimes almost despite himself, he has been Jamaica's most successful leader in decades. 

Mr Golding narrowly won an election in 2007, ending 18 years in opposition for the JLP. His government restructured the country's debt and reached an agreement with the IMF, shoring up the economy amid the global financial turmoil. Jamaica is the only English-speaking Caribbean island where tourist numbers have kept on growing. Mr Golding's poll ratings are poor but not disastrous, with 32% approving of him in June, up from 25% a year earlier.

He said that the "challenges" of four years in office had "taken their toll". Most testing was an American request in August 2009 for the extradition of a leading drug "don", Christopher "Dudus" Coke. For months, the prime minister stalled, reluctant to take on a gang leader who ruled the streets in Mr Golding's own Kingston Western constituency, handing out school books and hosting Christmas parties. When the government finally moved against Mr Coke in May 2010, arresting and extraditing him, the confrontation left 73 dead. But it has been followed by a fall of more than 40% in the murder rate.

In 1995, as a youngish MP, Mr Golding called for a clean break with Jamaica's "garrison politics" in which both main parties formed alliances with local gang leaders. But in 2002 he replaced Edward Seaga, the JLP's veteran leader, inheriting his parliamentary seat through a by-election and with it the unwelcome problem of Mr Coke. "Dudus" seems to have damaged Mr Golding doubly: taking him on has turned the prime minister into an electoral liability in his own constituency, while his delay in doing so has hurt him nationally.

A general election must be held by the end of 2012. Nobody has yet claimed the JLP leadership, but it may pass to a younger generation. With a fragile economy, gang violence and pressures from the Americans, whoever wins will not have an easy job.

from the print edition | The Americas

http://www.economist.com/node/21531033

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Party Nails!

I'm headed up to Austin tomorrow!! Hooray! Oh, Sixth Street, how I've missed thee. And friends, too, but come on now.

In celebration of this joyous occasion, I decided to do rainbow nails! But I couldn't decide which kind I wanted to do - stripes or confetti - So I did both! :D

Look #1: Confetti Nails

VERY simple to do. This took me about 5 minutes. Minus drying time.

Apply a white base coat and allow to dry. Then grab your brightest colors and go to town! I used one of the dot-makers I bought a few weeks ago, and just took turns adding each color on. Don't worry about being exact with the dots - confetti is pretty lop-sided. Cover with a clear base coat, and you're done!

Look #2: Rainbow Stripe Nails

Not quite as simple as the first, but still pretty easy. Apply a clear base coat (or white, if you want your colors to really pop. I was going for more of a Lisa Frank look.) Take the same rainbow colors, and one by one, paint diagonal lines across your nails. I used a smaller paint brush that I purchased with the dot-makers. If you are too lazy/cheap to buy one, then use fewer colors / fatter lines. Don't worry about being exact with the lines. I think it looks a little cooler if they're swirly! Add some glitter and a top coat and get ready to rave!

September 28: HAPPY BIRTHDAY HILARY DUFF!

Happy birthday Hilary!

You're such an amazing role model. I hope when I make it into the industry, that I will follow the same path as you. Thank you for being an inspiration for everyone - children, teens, fellow Disney stars. You'll always be one of the many people that I look up to.

Did you wish Hilary a happy birthday yet? If not, tweet her account @HilaryDuff or write on her wall on Facebook.

September RAK Wrap Up

This month was an awesome month for me! :) Thank you so much to the following people that sent me books! Blog links on their names :)

Thanks to Carrie who sent me a print copy of Original Sin :)

Thanks to The Book Nympho for e-book copies of the following books!

Unfortunately, I did not send any RAK this month. Let's hope for next month! Send me your wish list!

Giveaway Haul + Blogger Meet Up

Sorry I haven't filmed in a while. Hope you enjoy this video :)

Honeymooning in Maui

We had the BEST TIME in Hawaii. It was filled with love, adventure, beaches, meeting new people, pineapple, mai tais, and relaxation. We didn't want to leave but all good things come to an end. Here's a little video filled with our honeymoon pictures. Enjoy! It's kind of long but I had a lot of pictures to share.

Brian De Palma: Snake Eyes

Snake Eyes is, in a bizarre way, the logical continuation of Brian De Palma's previous film, Mission Impossible. Mixing political thriller with questionable plays for De Palma's capacity to capture Romantic grief, Snake Eyes likewise feels like a safe bet for the director, but one he that allows him to push his luck. If it's one of the emptiest films of De Palma's corpus—a collection of work that houses more than a few technical exercises—at least the director gives us a story so ridiculous you almost don't mind when it collapses in the third act.

In a long career of intricate, arresting openings, the start of De Palma's Snake Eyes may be his finest. A 13-minute tracking shot that moves through the grimy politics behind a heavyweight championship fight, the opening moves from camera monitors through police corruption and finally ends with an assassination. I would couch that in a spoiler warning, but I want to avoid repetition and thus see no need to mention that this is a Brian De Palma movie a second time. It's the start of a shallow but merry and hysterically over-intricate journey into late-Clinton America, a time of economic success and almost-grating peace, of a country so well off it's now darkly quaint to think how badly everyone wanted something interesting to happen.

That opening shot serves not only to introduce principal players—chiefly crooked cop Rick Santoro (Nicolas Cage) and his best friend, Commander Kevin Dunne (Gary Sinise)—but to serve as a smorgasbord of De Palma's pet themes and tricks. The initial focus on pre-newscast prep and pullback to a row of monitors starts the film with surveillance, while Rick's tour through the arena's underbelly, placing bets for the fight and chasing down hoods (Luis Guzman) who hang out with the defending champ, shows off corruption and the way some cops fit into the criminal underworld a little too well. De Palma's Steadicam careens around corners, tilts with anticipation, and when the action moves to the floor of the arena for the big match, De Palma uses the frenzy of the crowd (and a ludicrously oversized and ironic American flag) to instantly plunge into sensory overload. You're left waiting for something terrible to happen, a feeling made worse by De Palma strictly tethering the movement to Rick, always pivoting to look at suspicious people around him and Kevin sitting by the visiting Defense Secretary before returning to an oblivious and ostentatious Rick. At the height of the match, shots ring out, and Rick turns to see the Defense Secretary dying, the only clues amidst the pandemonium the previously established glimpses at surrounding characters. As is so often the case with De Palma, the style slowly reveals the substance.

It's a shame the rest of the film doesn't live up to this bravura opening, a perfectly timed escalation of comic overacting, art-for-art's-sake stylistic flourishes and gripping tension that introduces multiple stories and red herrings from the start. Once Rick, with his gaudy leather-brown jacket and leopard-color Hawaiian shirt, starts digging into a case that runs far deeper than he could ever comprehend, it soon becomes evident that he's too indifferent to justice and too invested in some of the suspects to pursue the truth with the conviction he displays.

Not that it isn't fun to watch Cage strut around yelling his head off at all those who cross him. In many ways, he's the ideal Hollywood star for a De Palma film, capable of powerhouse performances when matched with the right material but incapable of subtlety at all times. Cage is a bundle of wild eyes, a manic grin, and a base volume so high one would be forgiven for assuming Cage imagined himself in some strange variant of Speed where he couldn't drop beneath 55 decibels. The only time he looks in his element is when stands up in his front-row seat and declares himself king as the crowd roars. That is the single moment of the film Cage is sufficiently in his element; the rest of the time, the action takes place on Earth, a place Cage infrequently dwells.

Made to chase down various leads, Rick slowly uncovers a vast conspiracy that does not border on comical so much as merrily squeak a clown nose as it rides over the line on a unicycle. De Palma announces the twist early on, even framing it in blatant visual terms: red light bathes the double-crosser as the camera goes Dutch, and ominous music sets in because you can never have too many clues in a De Palma film. Taking a page from their work on Mission: Impossible, De Palma and writer David Koepp set their sights on a wounded military-industrial complex reacting to the end of the Cold War gravy train with pent-up masculine capitalist aggression. This curious, amusing mash-up of jingoistic greed and psychosexual feelings of impotence in the military machine when it cannot flex its muscles to impress people is grounds for merciless De Palma satire, but the director never truly explored the idea in either of these films.

But if Snake Eyes sacrifices potential depth of comedy (to say nothing of humanity), it at least proves a fun diversion that lets De Palma dance around coquettishly. He and Cage understand each other to the point that the two nearly ring tragedy out of the absurdity of the double-cross and Rick's steadfast refusal to accept it (to those always on-guard for De Palma's purported misogyny, the fact that he blames a woman to her face for the transgressions of a man edges uncomfortably into an abstract, allegorical form of slut-shaming, with money swapped out for sex). Sinise plays Dunne like Lieutenant Dan with more self-control but all of the frothing hatred roiling underneath; to hold back that tension, Sinise clenches his jaw, and it's entirely conceivable he turned in this performance after having his mouth wired shut from some kind of accident. His hissed lines make a jolly counterpoint to Cage's toothy yells. Carla Gugino steals the show as the mysterious woman whose role remains ambiguous for a chunk of the film as she alternates between the femme fatale, the brilliant professional and the damsel. Gugino handles these shifts so fluidly she emerges perhaps too talented a chameleon for the sort of person her character really is, but it's a delight watching her melt through various female types while not letting herself be defined by any of them.

But not even Gugino is as interesting as De Palma's camerawork. Though the film lacks the aesthetic or political bite to place it among the director's finer works, Snake Eyes boasts a few setpieces that display the best (and most gloriously tacky) of De Palma. Besides the stupendous short-film career-summary of the opening shot, De Palma outdoes himself with a drift over hotel rooms as evil forces close in on Cage and Gugino. With a camera pointed straight down, De Palma moves over gauche tableaux of Atlantic City oblivion, scanning over garishly colored rooms filled with reveling frat boys, lonely gamblers, gratified johns, even a businessman or two who clearly imagined themselves enjoying the kind of night we see in the other neon-smeared suites clinging to the '80s by the fake fingernails. As with the first shot, it's silly, tasteless, and oh so brilliant.

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Yvette Taylor-Hachoose's Life Lessons

Members of the CCRP (Caribbean Community of Retired Persons)were delighted to have been hosted by the US Embassy's Hanan Ghannoum, Deputy Public Affairs Officer and Emma Lewis, Public Affairs Specialist last Thursday September 22 for a brilliant presentation on Estate Planning by Yvette Taylor-Hachoose. The column below reflects on the importance of her presentation.
Getting our lives in order
by Jean Lowrie-Chin
Jamaica Observer | MON 29 SEPT 2011

Before she went into her lecture on estate planning, US attorney Yvette Taylor-Hachoose shared some principles of wealth which we would do well to follow. These included:

(1) Love what you do. Once you enjoy what you are doing, the money will follow.
(2) Adhere to a spending plan. She urged us to have a budget and discipline ourselves to live within it. This includes paying credit card bills in full when they become due.
(3) Put your money to work for you. She cited the book, ‘The Millionaire Next Door’, to explain that some of the wealthiest folk are living humbly. They are investing their money, not throwing it around on a flashy lifestyle.
(4) Protect your resources. She wants us to be prudent and not react to hype, for example get-rich-quick schemes.
(5) Save for your retirement.

These are invaluable guidelines, for young people who are just starting their careers, as well as for parents who may believe that their children are making wrong career choices. In ‘Catch A Fire’, we learn that Bob Marley had been advised to stick with welding because some folks thought his obsession with music was not going to take him anywhere in life!

Yvette Taylor-Hachoose (pronounced Ha-choo-say) has a distinguished legal career as former VP with Prudential Insurance Company and Assistant General Counsel with both Prudential and CIGNA Corporation. She decided to go into private practice and focus on estate planning after seeing many cases of poor planning resulting in conflict and heartbreak. Here in Jamaica the phenomenon of ‘dead lef’’ has torn families asunder, and so this series of free lectures sponsored by the US Embassy, is well needed.

Mrs Taylor-Hachoose explained that estate planning did not mean simply writing a will to say who would get your belongings. She showed us the wisdom of establishing a trust which would ensure that funds and property left for a beneficiary are well managed. She urged us to write a ‘living will’, citing the case of Terri Schiavo, who was kept on life support for 15 years until the courts had to make a ruling. A living will states your wishes, should such a fate befall you.

Another important consideration is specifying whom you would entrust with the guardianship of your minor children. In her excellent book, Stop! What are you waiting for? Your step-by-step Guide to Estate Planning, Mrs Taylor-Hachoose shares the case of the former Playboy model celebrity Anna Nicole Smith’s five-month-old baby who became the subject of a custody battle.

“My advice is to take the time now to survey the list of potential guardians for your minor children,” she writes. “Make a decision regarding guardianship, and stay current by updating your will when necessary.”

Dr Taylor-Hachoose reminded us that proper estate planning saves money, ensures peace of mind, protects resources, establishes a legacy and addresses special concerns. She said that this legacy was not just physical property, as one of the most treasured possessions she and her siblings share, is a book written by her father about his life. She said they learned about his challenges as a young soldier in the Korean War and understood how he overcame his bout of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), to become a fine educator and family man.

Dr Taylor-Hachoose paid tribute to her professor from her undergraduate years in Maryland, none other than US Ambassador to Jamaica Pamela Bridgewater, who invited this brilliant attorney to share her knowledge with us. Let us act on her important advice and get our lives in order, so we can give our families a worry-free legacy.

The Death of Netflix as We Know It

Good god it's been forever since I've written a post! What a failure.... But I do have an excuse! I was in a car accident (not my fault) on the 15th, and I've been dealing with insurance issues and car repairs. I think there should be an inconvenience compensation along with all of the damages. I have other things to do! Like write blog posts!!

Today, I think I'm going to rant about Netflix. A few short months ago I was raving about what a great company Netflix was, but oh how the tides have turned. If you haven't heard already, Netflix raised their rates an incredible amount all at once. Mine went from $15 to $20, I think. That's a 33% increase!! OUTRAGEOUS. And on top of this disgusting betrayal, the CEO announced that Netflix would soon be splitting into two separate companies - Quickster, which will continue mailing DVDs along with the addition of video games, and Netflix, which will become online streaming only. WHAT. THE. HECK. So now I'll have to keep my movie lists up to date on two separate sites!

I don't think that's going to happen. And millions of other customers have agreed. Netflix's stock prices plummeted in the past few weeks as many customers reduced or cancelled their subscriptions. I've already reduced mine, and will most likely cancel one service (or both) fairly soon. This is so disheartening. Since I'm a totally TV/movie junkie, I really need my flix! The only way Netflix can recover from this is if they manage to stream EVERYTHING - not just the old movies from 1946 and the ones that flopped a decade ago. Either that or take back everything they're attempting to do - price-hikes, company-splitting, and game-adding.


Do it.





Do it.