GoDaddy.com Attempts a New Domain Name Registration Scam

I had quite an unpleasant domain name registration experience with GoDaddy yesterday. I don't know if this is a new way for Go Daddy to cheat you and "steal" your money but at least it was the first time they attempted to pull this domain scam on me. I have been using GoDaddy.com for registering domain names for years and I haven't been so displeased by them as other people. The registrar usually tries to sell services you most probably do not want but once you've become accustomed to their methods, they are easy to be quickly omitted. So, until yesterday, I didn't mind to register generic top level domains there. Now, after they supported SOPA bill and my recent obnoxious discovery about them, I think it's time to reconsider using GoDaddy's domain registration services.

So, what's the story? Yesterday, I decided to register a .com domain name for a new website which I intended to create with a friend of mine. We liked a name and I incidentally checked if it was available for registration at EuroDNS (the registrar where I had registered some international domain names, mainly European and Asian). The domain look up at EuroDNS showed that this particular name is unoccupied. So, I went to GoDaddy.com and began the steps required for domain name registrations. What was my surprise when immediately upon entering the domain it showed that the name had been already taken but available for purchase at GoDaddy auctions for $499 USD. I repeated the search several times while trying to figure out what was the reason for this "unavailability" and all of my attempts at Go Daddy showed that the domain name was already registered.

I knew that EuroDNS sometimes displays wrong information about domain availability so I decided to check if the domain name is free at a couple of other domain registrars. I did the check and there was nothing wrong with EuroDNS this time, the domain appeared to be available for registration wherever I checked. Then I thought of another test. I went back to GoDaddy and instead of searching for [domain name].com, I made a search for [domain name].info. And as you might guess, now the .com version was listed as available and ready to be registered.

Obviously, GoDaddy's trick is pretty simple. When you make a domain name lookup at GoDaddy.com, sometimes, they decide to show an unregistered domain as already taken and listed for sale at GoDaddy's auctions. If this scam successfully misleads you, there are 2 options. If you really want this domain name, you'll have to pay tens if not hundreds of times bigger amount for it instead of the regular GoDaddy's domain name registration price. If the multiplied price is too high for you or you are not so much into this particular domain, I suppose Go Daddy assumes that you are just going to register another name with them and thus, they will still get (or keep) you as a customer.

The bad thing is, as nasty as GoDaddy's behavior is, the fraud could actually work quite often. In fact, if you haven't accidentally become aware a particular domain name is available for registration, chances are not very huge that you'll figure out Go Daddy is trying to cheat you. I hope this writing creates some awareness about the described GoDaddy scam scheme and if you think it could be helpful to your friends, just share the article with them.

A necessary addition

Because it appears there are a lot of people with a "headache" that have not other job but to accuse others, here are some further clarifications.

1) I did not write the above because GoDaddy "stole" the domain name from me. I successfully registered that name and I own it now. It has been available for registration for all of the time in question so I have not had any problems with its registration. It was available for registration at all other registrars and even at GoDaddy if I searched for the .info version instead of the .com version.

2) Actually, the whole problem described above lies in GoDaddy's implementation of their website and particularly the domain look up. Apparently, if a domain name has been listed for sale through their auctions (and has not been removed) they directly display it as already taken and they offer it to you at the auction price instead of making a check if the name hasn't become available at the time of the check. I don't know the reasons behind this implementation but it's hard to believe it's implemented this way unintentionally. If this is a scam depends on your definition of the word but definitely, it is not proper.

Murder on the Orient Express (1974): Agatha Christie's Mystery

Sidney Lumet's Murder on the Orient Express is packed with great actors. It has a good and interesting (despite being a bit narrow) plot based on a book by the world famous Agatha Christie. The director is arguably one of the best directors that have ever lived. The costumes and all other details are carefully crafted. And pretty much everything seems to be perfect at first glance. Then it's quite strange that although plenty of people like this movie, there are many that nearly hate it. The main reason probably lies in Albert Finney's representation of detective Hercule Poirot who creates a distinguishable character which is easy to be loved but equally easy to be hated too.

Multiple Oscar nominee (incl. for his role in Murder on the Orient Express) Albert Finney presents a really notable Hercule Poirot. He is intelligent but arrogant. He does not show sympathy for everybody. He could be gentle and charming with ladies yet impolite and restrained with particular men. He speaks with accent and sometimes it's hard to understand what he is saying. He manifests a sense of humour but he is also capable to be plain serious. He is a bit annoying at times and overly self-confident most of the time. All this translates to a character that could be simultaneously enjoyed and disliked depending on different people's perceptions.

While Finney gives quite a distinctive performance of Poirot, the rest of the all-star cast has not been misused either. Lauren Bacall as Mrs. Hubbard plays an important part constantly providing Poirot with clues and pieces of evidence. Martin Balsam enacts the train line director Bianchi who shows a lot of concern for the future of the Orient express after the murder has been committed on his train. Ingrid Bergman gets her 3rd Academy Award for a convincing (yet small) role of religious missionary in this movie. Jacqueline Bisset, Vanessa Redgrave, Wendy Hiller, Sean Connery, John Gielgud and Jean-Pierre Cassel are only some of the other renowned actors that make great portrayals in the film.

The movie exposes the life in 1935 with very typical shades. Almost all of the colorful and rich characters are very snobbish. The vehicles, the papers, the costumes are well selected and fits perfectly in the epoch. Sidney Lumet creates enough suspense although he has made tenser movies. The tight environment determined by the dimensions of a train car could call forth some parallels with Lumet's 12 Angry Men but this is quite a different film. In fact, the lack of space here probably furthers any theatrical resemblance that the acting could prompt eventually.

Another moment that could dissatisfy some moviegoers is the fact the ending revelations are not quite naturally coming out of the investigations presented in the film. Still, this is a common "feature" of most of the movies based on mystery books (a recent example could be Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) so it's not such a specific flaw of Murder on the Orient Express. Despite its shortcomings this is a solid film. I can see where both its admirers and their opponents are drawing arguments from but it's a movie that is worth a look even just because of its (kind of a controversial) ending.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011): Nothing Is Impossible

After a gap of several years, Ethan Hunt is back with yet another Mission: Impossible movie. If you've already looked at some of the critique's reviews, you can think that it offers something different or at least some more than its previous installments. The truth is Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol offers primarily more impossibility and this could be good or bad depending on your taste. What could not be denied is that the movie looks spectacular and it is packed with lots of action. Of course, "Is it really sensible?" is a rhetorical question.

The fourth instalment in Mission: Impossible series begins with a rescue mission for getting Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) out of a Russian prison. Shortly afterwards the Kremlin is bombed and the IMF is considered involved in the bombing so the organization is shut down. Ethan Hunt and his team are left alone to stop an insane terrorist (Michael Nyqvist) in possession of access codes for launching nuclear weapons and to clear the IMF's name from the accusation of the Kremlin bombing. A skilled and dangerous female assassin is working for the terrorist while Ethan's team gets an "analyst" (Jeremy Renner) as an unexpected bonus. Despite being constantly short of time both, terrorists and Hunt's team, succeed to visit the distant cities of Dubai and Mumbai in addition to Moscow. And with this team involved, the action scenes are guaranteed anywhere in the world.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol offers everything delivered by the previous installments of these series and even more. It has beautiful (Asian) scenery, gorgeous women (the "good" girl Paula Patton and the "bad" one Léa Seydoux), a semi-annoying tech geek (Simon Pegg), various types of action, straightforward plot, breath-taking operations, a lot of "last second" events and naturally, frequent impossible happenings. Plausibility has never been a strong element in the Mission Impossible series and Ghost Protocol is no exception of this rule. Our heroes bring havoc in all of the places they visit yet we have to believe they are under cover.

In their effort to increase the complexity of the missions, the filmmakers have gone quite too far in some particular moments. For example, there is a scene where a guy of Ethan's team has to go down in a shaft and instead of using just a plain "old school" rope in the vertical direction, the team's tech guru tries to capture the jumper in the air with kind of a computer game machinery. Of course, if you are going to see the movie just because of its impressive action and visual sequences, such flaws are nothing to be worried about.

All in all Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is a film that delivers on expectations. The critique has been a bit too favorable to the movie but if you don't tune yourself for something really great, chances are you'll end up satisfied by this Mission: Impossible experience.

Contraband (2012): Unsurprising Action Thriller Movie

Contraband is the latest Mark Wahlberg's movie. And not for the first time Wahlberg is the main hero in an action film even if he scarcely takes part in the action himself. It seems that Contraband is kind of a remake of a four-year-old movie called Reykjavik-Rotterdam. The more curious fact though is the Icelandic director of Contraband, Baltasar Kormákur, plays the lead (the role of Mark Wahlberg) in the former film. Since Contraband is set in America, I suppose Wahlberg has been the better option for the role. Thus, Kormákur has the "easier" assignment just to direct the remake.

Contraband is about a former smuggler with a legendary status named Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg) who has left his smuggling days behind. He lives happily in New Orleans with his wife Kate (Kate Beckinsale) and their two children but unfortunately, Kate's brother Andy seems to have not been listening to Chris advices to stay away from criminal affairs. After a drug transfer executed by Andy fails, Chris is forced to return to his smuggling days in order to settle Andy's debt with Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi), a young criminal boss for whom Andy has been working. Chris heads to Panama to import a pile of counterfeit bills but as expected everything goes wrong so he and his newly assembled team have to adapt their behaviour almost in real-time. Meanwhile, Chris' wife and children have the task to survive in the United States until he's back.

Mark Wahlberg is the typical cool male protagonist in Contraband. He does not demonstrate a bunch of new acting skills and as far as I recall correctly, he does not make even a single shot in the movie but still he fits well in the role of a charming leader and respected smuggler. Giovanni Ribisi is not very convincing as a mob boss (which could be attributed to the role itself) so his rough resemblance to Metallica's drummer Lars Ulrich would be pretty much everything I will remember him with. Kate Beckinsale hasn't been in a movie for several years and it seems this year she will be back with more than a couple of screen appearances. She does not have a huge role here and it's hard to determine if she's in a good shape by just seeing her in Contraband but her character looks pretty and worried which, I suppose, is what mainly has been anticipated from her.

To continue in this direction, Contraband delivers pretty much everything you would expect from a movie like this. There is a portion of action, a couple of small twists, some thrilling moments, a pinch of drama as well as a few funnier scenes and of course, a happy ending. But on the other hand, this same predictability is what depreciates the film considerably. You can see coming all of the major events and the only non-evident elements in Contraband lies in the details. Another thing I find to be problematic is the filmmaker's decision to include Chris' brother-in-law in the team for the job in Panama having in mind he's not a very dependable guy but apparently this has been important for the plot.

So, a recommendation for this movie is easily determinable and even does not need my meddling: since Contraband possesses exactly what one would anticipate to find in it and there is hardly anything to surprise you in whatever aspect, you should be able to decide whether to see the movie or not without further help.

Friends with Benefits (2011) vs. No Strings Attached (2011)

It often happens that more than one movie exploiting a certain topic is released in a short space of time. Some examples could be Tombstone and Wyatt Earp or The Illusionist and The Prestige. Last year's No Strings Attached and Friends with Benefits have been one of the recent couples to join this company. Both movies are typical romantic comedies and explore the mixture of sex and friendship in people's relationships. Yet the couple in either of the movies tries not to be involved in a real romantic relationship so both of the films have a lot in common.

No Strings Attached has Natalie Portman, Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Kline on its list while Friends with Benefits does not sport actual Academy Award winners but has a good ensemble comprised of Mila Kunis, Justin Timberlake, Woody Harrelson and a few other Oscar nominated actors. So let's assume there is not a particular winner in this aspect. No Strings Attached starts with a primarily physical relationship before complications arrive while Friends with Benefits begins with friendship shortly followed by sexual exercises but still without any initial intention for romantic development. Again, nothing so outstanding on either side. Both movies show a parent with lots of sexual relationships. And both, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, are beautiful actresses although we have seen them looking prettier in other films.

Now, to point out some differences. No Strings Attached is somehow more unfocused. There are events like a funeral and an invitation to an almost unknown person to attend it that seem a bit artificial. The movie starts with a physical relationship while trying to avoid any elements of friendliness. Some of the main supporting characters including Kutcher's female co-worker and his father are annoying at times. The ending is kind of mawkish and on second thought, this is valid not only for the ending.

Although Friends with Benefits seems a bit harried over towards the end, it has less redundant scenes and the whole narrative flows more naturally. The dialogue sports a little more freshness compared to the other movie. The ending is not so sugary despite not being original. The supporting cast (or more correctly the characters they portray) fits better in this movie. Woody Harrelson plays a Justin Timberlake's gay co-worker who is really cool with lots of humorous lines for his short screen presence. Another distinction is Kunis-Timberlake couple is practically in a romantic relationship almost since the very beginning of the film, only they don't realize it at that point.

The above should translate in Friends with Benefits being the better movie but don't expect a huge quality gap here. The film is just a bit fresher than No Strings Attached, funnier and more relaxed. Both are standard romcoms with predictable endings and without unexpected twists during the rest of their time span. If you are a fan of the genre, you can see both. If you are not so much into romantic comedies but you want to pick out one of them, I would suggest Friends with Benefits unless you're a dedicated Natalie Portman or Ashton Kutcher admirer.

Cheap International Calls - A Few Rebtel Secrets

If you are already familiar with Rebtel's cheap international calls, below you will find a few secrets for decreasing your phone bills even further (and if you are not, you can find some Rebtel highlights here).

After my first acquaintance with Rebtel I've continued to be unaware of many of the real advantages the service offers for a long time. In order to save you from discovering all of Rebtel's benefits yourself, I am going to list several of its not so obvious treasures so you can make really cheap international phone calls. I say "really" because after reading these tips, you will be often able to make even cheaper phone calls with Rebtel than you've expected. Many of Rebtel's users remain unaware of these possibilities for quite some time after they've signed up with the service so go through the list below and use every hint you can to your full advantage.

So here are the tips that result in direct saving of money when making cheap international calls with Rebtel.

Use a voucher code to double your deposit

Sometimes, for promotional reasons, Rebtel offers voucher codes so you can double your first deposit. For example, by clicking on this link you can turn your deposit of $10 USD into $20 or your initial $25 USD into actual $50 which you can spend for making cheap international phone calls twice more.

Use international collect calls to speak even cheaper

The so called collect calls are based on a very simple idea that could lower your rates multiple times but most likely you won't be aware of it when you land on Rebtel's website for the first time. What is the actual trick? Let's use an example. If you live in the United States and you want to call a friend in the United Kingdom, Rebtel's fee for this call would be 14.9 cents/minute. And you probably wouldn't know that the rate for calling vice versa (from the UK to the US) is just 1.5 cents/minute which is actually 10 times cheaper. And here is the good news: your friend from the UK could call you in the US by using a Rebtel number without even being a customer of the Rebtel's service. How could this happen?

If you are a Rebtel user, you can give your friend the Rebtel number that will be assigned to your real phone number by the service so when your friend in the UK uses the assigned number, the call will be made with a rate of 1.5 cents/minute instead of 14.9 cents/minute. Your friend would have to pay for the local call and you should cover the international part of 1.5 cents/minute. In fact, if you are in the USA, anyone that lives in another Rebtel supported country will be able to call you without even being a Rebtel customer and paying just the local fees (in case local minutes are not included in their monthly plans for free) while you're covering the international part of the call for just 1.5 cents per minute. Of course, this example could be applied to many other countries and you can check the actual rates between them on Rebtel's website. It's a very simple trick but it gives you the opportunity to make really cheap international calls by just changing the direction of the call.

Make free calls directly from your mobile phone or landline

Another money saving feature of Rebtel's is that you can make free calls under certain circumstances. And you don't need a computer with Skype for this. You can talk with your friends that have Rebtel accounts for free if you have an iPhone, Android or BlackBerry phone. You will have to download a software application in order to use this feature though. You can also make "free" international calls even if you don't have Android, iPhone or BlackBerry phone but you should cover the local part of the call in this case. You can learn more about this feature here.

Use Rebtel to avoid international roaming charges

To maximize your benefits from Rebtel you can use the service to lower the charges for your roaming calls when you are abroad. You can read more about this opportunity here but in brief, you have to do the following. You should buy an international SIM card (which just means a local SIM card for the country you'll stay in) and when you enter the number of this new SIM card in your Rebtel account, you will get a Rebtel number for it. You have to give this Rebtel number to your friends and family in your home country. Now, when they make calls to you using this number you will have to pay only the Rebtel fee for the international call instead of paying any roaming charges to your mobile provider. This is so cause the international part of the call will be routed between the new Rebtel number in your home country (where your regular cell phone provider operates) and your "international" SIM card via Internet. And the good news again is your friends and family do not have to be Rebtel customers for calling you.

These have been all of the hints I can recall currently for using Rebtel's cheap international calls from either landline or mobile phone to their full potential. I hope they will be helpful to anybody wanting to save a few more bucks with Rebtel's voip calls and I wish you cheaper calling.

Cheap International Calls - A Few Rebtel Highlights

I'm going to list below a few highlights that make Rebtel's cheap international calling service convenient and easily recommendable for trial and usage. If you're already familiar with Rebtel's service you probably don't need to continue reading this article but you can still check my hints for getting the most of your Rebtel subscription. With these "secret" weapons you will most likely make the "cheap international calls" service you've been already using to cost even cheaper.

Here is how Rebtel works in brief. After you sign up with the service, you receive a local phone number for each of your contacts so when you dial to your friends, you will be practically making a local call. Rebtel routes the international part of the call via Internet so you pay to your landline or mobile provider just for the local call plus a small fee to Rebtel for their service. You don't need any phone cards, software downloads, computers and headsets for this and you can make cheap international calls from either your mobile or landline phone.

And now, a few interesting points that you should have in mind when deciding whether to sign up with Rebtel.

There is a trial free call.

You have the possibility to test the service Rebtel provides by using the free trial call they offer before paying them. If you have any doubts about the quality of the service or any other concern about Rebtel's cheap international calls this is the way to go.

No phone cards, downloads, computers or headsets

Unlike other similar services, you don't have to buy any calling cards or use a computer and download software in order to use Rebtel's service for making cheap international phone calls. You do not have to use a headset either. Actually, there is a case when you need to download a software application but it is intended for use on your phone rather than on your PC and it's just for the purpose of making free calls to your friends which also own Rebtel accounts. You can read more about Rebtel's free international calling on the aforementioned page with money saving tips.

Use landline or mobile phone

You are not only relieved from using computers and calling cards but you can use either your cell phone or landline phone and the service will work fine independently of your choice. The same is valid for your friends on the other side of the line. It is a VoIP call service that can be used directly from your phone in any moment you like meaning you can make cheap international mobile calls directly on the street or anywhere else.

15 million users company

If this has any significance to you, Rebtel is a winner of several awards for mobile phone services and applications. More importantly, they have more than 15 millions of users in 50 countries around the world.

So, after sharing the above Rebtel highlights for your convenience, now it's time for the tips that could lower your international calling charges. Find them here: Cheap International Calls - A Few Rebtel Secrets

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011): An Old School Cold War Spy Drama

The Cold War was a fruitful inspiration for many spy thrillers back in the days. John le Carré's books about MI6 were amongst the more successful. Some of them have been made into films, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold with Richard Burton probably being the most popular. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy has already been made into TV series with Sir Alec Guinness in the main part. So the new version has some big shoes to fill.

The protagonist George Smiley is everything that James Bond is not: plain, quiet and working in an office. The movie is centered on his attempt to uncover a double agent in the higher echelons of MI6, or the Circus as its personnel address it. The movie is directed by Tomas Alfredson, who did Let the Right One In. He brought in the project cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, his collaborator on Let the Right One In. Van Hoytema also more recently shot The Fighter. As expected, the film is carefully crafted.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is an old school Cold War spy drama both in themes and technique. It is a slow film which takes its time thus recalling the cinema of the 70's, which, incidentally, is when the story is set. The cast features a lot of top British actors: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, to name a few. This shows in the movie: it is an excellent example of a great ensemble cast elevating the end result. Gary Oldman has a heavy task in the role of Smiley, competing with the previous work of Alec Guinness. He does a wonderful job even though his character doesn't talk much and he can most accurately be described as unnoticeable and plain. In fact, his lack of verbosity is so present that when at a later point he relates an event from the past in some detail, it serves as a counter point. Benedict Cumberbatch as Smiley's assistant also deserves a special mention.

The movie conjures a very strong image of London of the 70's. The atmosphere is almost a character of its own. The film has a brownish grey desaturated look; London of this film is not a colorful place for sure. Characters are often portrayed from a distance. Long lenses are the main workhorse, resulting in abundance of shallow depth of field. All this gives a detached view on the subjects and conveys a sense of suspicion and paranoia. Everyone is watching someone and is being watched themselves.

In conclusion, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is one of the best movies of the year 2011. It is meticulously directed, wonderfully played and masterfully shot. And all of this with an almost nostalgic nod to the cinema of old. It is a movie one can't often see these days and a film that the awards season will most likely ignore. So treat yourself and go watch it in a movie theater if you can.

EuroDNS Voucher Code List - 2012 Coupons

Similar to the previous years we are going to list here any EuroDNS voucher codes valid throughout 2012. EuroDNS continues to be one of the strong domain registrars offering international domain name registrations so we hope this list will help to many people who want to save a few bucks when register or renew their generic, Asian or European domain names at EuroDNS. The discount codes are valid for renewals too so you don't need a separate promo code to save on renewal of your old domain names as it is with other registrars. Be sure to browse the whole list of coupons below since often there is more than one voucher code for a particular top level domain name.

Here is the list of EuroDNS voucher codes valid during 2012. The list has been updated on 24/01/2012.

Code TLD Type Discount Expires on
GOSE43 SE ANNUALPRICE 43.00 % 31/01/2012
GOEU70 EU ANNUALPRICE 70.00 % 31/01/2012
DM50NET12 NET ANNUALPRICE 50.00 % 31/01/2012
DMFR4EU12 FR ANNUALPRICE 50.00 % 31/01/2012
DMRE4EU12 RE ANNUALPRICE 50.00 % 31/01/2012
DM50EU12 EU ANNUALPRICE 50.00 % 31/01/2012
DM50NO12 NO ANNUALPRICE 50.00 % 31/01/2012
DM50BE12 BE ANNUALPRICE 50.00 % 31/01/2012
PBASIA12A ASIA ANNUALPRICE 61.11 % 29/02/2012
NLINFO12A INFO ANNUALPRICE 66.72 % 29/02/2012
NLNL12A NL ANNUALPRICE 50.06 % 29/02/2012
NLLU12A LU ANNUALPRICE 55.91 % 29/02/2012
NLNET12A NET ANNUALPRICE 66.72 % 29/02/2012
NLTV12A TV ANNUALPRICE 58.35 % 29/02/2012
NLASIA12A ASIA ANNUALPRICE 55.61 % 29/02/2012
SOORG12B ORG ANNUALPRICE 50.06 % 29/02/2012
GOBE4 BE ANNUALPRICE 75.00 % 29/03/2012
IT2009 IT ANNUALPRICE 70.00 % 29/03/2012
ES2009 ES ANNUALPRICE 70.00 % 29/03/2012
PBFR5012 FR ANNUALPRICE 50.00 % 29/03/2012
PBES7012 ES ANNUALPRICE 70.00 % 29/03/2012
PBBE7512 BE ANNUALPRICE 75.00 % 29/03/2012
PBIT7012 IT ANNUALPRICE 70.00 % 29/03/2012
PBNL12A NL ANNUALPRICE 45.00 % 29/03/2012
DTES5 ES ANNUALPRICE 72.00 % 31/03/2012
DTDE4 DE ANNUALPRICE 75.00 % 31/03/2012
DTCK6 CO.UK ANNUALPRICE 60.00 % 31/03/2012
DTIT5 IT ANNUALPRICE 82.00 % 31/03/2012

If you do not have an account at EuroDNS but you want to try their domain registration services, you can create a new account here. After your account has been created, you can use a particular discount code by entering it in the "Voucher Codes" section on EuroDNS website. Another option is to enter the EuroDNS vouchers directly during the process of new domain name registration or renewal. The article international domain names from EuroDNS.com can give you more information about this domain registrar in case you don't know much about it.

Explore the Review Maze to find other domain name articles.

Moneyball (2011): Change the Rules of the Game to Be Competitive

Moneyball is about balls more than it's about money. Moneyball is in fact about shortage of money (although it's hard to call having millions of dollars an actual lack). What we have in excess though are balls. Because Moneyball shows not only a lot of baseball balls but also men that have balls to experiment, to go against everyone else and to risk their reputation, professional relationships and careers. Changing the rules requires a lot of courage and it is not always a successful initiative but if you are brave enough to commence it and persistent in doing the changes even after a series of failures, you have good chances to succeed. Moneyball confirms this statement and offers even more to enjoy.

Moneyball is about the 2002 season of the Oakland Athletics, a baseball team of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The club has had a low payroll for the recent years and the team's general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) has grown frustrated of the situation and his unsuccessful attempts "to win the last game of the season". He desperately seeks for an efficient way to achieve more while on a limited budget and thus he encounters Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a Yale economics graduate who suggests that Billy's goal should be to "buy" wins instead of players. Together they embark on an interesting experiment that makes the team competitive and amazes the baseball world.

Moneyball's cast is quite strong with Brad Pitt having the task to present the emotional depth of the lead character in a role not so typical for him. Billy Beane is not only a manager trying to change the rules of the baseball game but also a former player who feels the system has misjudged him and probably has turned his entire life in a wrong direction. Billy is constantly bothered by his past and Pitt brings out the general manager's inner pain well enough. Jonah Hill is very believable as Peter Brand. He is smart, quiet, shy and not so extreme as his superior. Philip Seymour Hoffman appears in the role of the Oakland Athletics' manager who has the hard task to manage a team of players he does not approve. The rest of the cast is Ok although not having a lot to do really.

The narrative of Moneyball is fairly absorbing. I suppose it should be more interesting to a baseball dilettante compared to a baseball fan cause the latter one would be most likely familiar with many of the events that have happened in the baseball season of 2002. One possible issue I see that might or might not bother you is how much of the movie is actually true. The statistics cited in the film are probably correct but what part of the Oakland Athletics' success has been due to the new approach is hard to be judged. Moneyball does not offer a typical happy end which again could be treated as good or bad depending on your particular preference and film perception.

Independently of the season's outcome for the Oakland Athletics, the movie is quite inspiring. Moneyball demonstrates that although it's rather dangerous to change the rules of the game, you can often get a big advantage by doing so. The film has a strong potential to change your thinking and eventually to revise your strategies in life, love, work, etc. and this is what makes Moneyball interesting and deserving of your attention. It's a movie good to be seen not only by sports people but by anyone who frequently faces challenges.

Play Misty for Me (1971): Suspense and Efficient Acting

Play Misty for Me is Clint Eastwood's directorial debut released in the distant 1971. He has embarked on various directions making all kinds of films for the next 40 years but rarely his movies have been so suspenseful as his first effort. This does not necessarily mean that Play Misty for Me is his best film (in fact, it exposes enough shortcomings) but on the thrilling side, the movie has a lot to offer (especially for an early 70s film).

The story revolves around disc jockey Dave (Clint Eastwood), a demented female fan of his (Jessica Walter) and the consequences of their brief affair and Evelyn's obsession when Dave's ex-girlfriend Tobie (Donna Mills) comes back into the picture. It has appeared earlier that Evelyn phones to the radio station every night asking Dave to play Erroll Garner's song "Misty" but this is the nicest of her doings. She spoils Dave's business appointment, penetrates into his house, offends his housemaid and makes his life terrible. As Dave's current love interest, Tobie is in danger even more.

The movie offers plenty of suspense and most of the time throughout its second half you would look forward for something (bad) to happen. The acting contributes a lot to the overall tension. Jessica Walter is a brilliant psycho that makes you constantly wonder what to expect next when she's on the screen and even more when she's not. She looks harmless and in the next moment violent. Her unstableness only intensifies the terror. Clint Eastwood makes one of his strong performances and his self-confidence fits well the movie and its threatening atmosphere. Donna Mills is fragile and unsuspecting, almost self-attracting troubles. The rest of the cast is Ok with director Don Siegel deserving mentioning primarily because of his peculiar game with Eastwood's character.

Now for the worse part. While Play Misty for Me offers enough of suspense, it's not so scary as many of the movies released in the years following it. The narrative and most of the events are predictable and there are almost no surprises. This perception however could be referred to the genre's oversaturation nowadays. Another weakness is the Semi-Obligatory Lyrical Interlude (the name comes from Roger Ebert) when Dave and Tobie walk for a couple of minutes under the tunes of a hit song. Although the scene is nice to watch and shares the dark tones of the movie, the whole sequence is just too long and boring.

Another unnecessary scene is the festival one. I can't find its purpose and probably the only thing it helps for is to make you wondering whether something wrong is going to happen during it. Finally, we have a police officer behaving unprofessionally and apparently marching towards his demise with ease.

Despite its flaws Play Misty for Me is a solid debut effort for Clint Eastwood. Although it has probably not aged quite well, the movie has offered a good thrilling story at the time and efficient performances. It's a film that a lover of the genre will enjoy and it drops a hint of Eastwood's directorial potential which we have been able to witness for decades.

When Fall Movies Are Too Happy or Too Dark What Are the Alternatives?

This is a guest article from our friend Raj.

Major Hollywood productions have recently become more black and white in their emphasis, particularly during the fall season. New films have lately been either entirely happy and sweet hearted affairs (think of Happy Feet Two, The Muppets, the entirely bubbly New Year's Eve, and so on), or rolling to the dark, violent or gloomy side of the human experience (the latest Twilight installment, Immortals, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). There are always films in between, but the most promoted blockbusters tend to trend between one pole and the other.

So what is a moviegoer, from the humble malls of Peoria to the Leicester Square Cinema, supposed to do with their entertainment money, with a range of depicted human experience that is only snowflake white or pitch black? Well, what more and more people are doing is widening their menu for getting access to new movies. Many film lovers are getting acquainted with the smaller, quirkier, and most often more honest independent films that don't necessarily cleave to a particular formula, or paint the world as either Day-Glo colors or as a zombie horror fest. On cable, channels like IFC or Sundance are often proving to be preferable to stay home and watch, compared to new releases.

Others are getting reacquainted with the classic Hollywood and international features released between the '30s and '60s, which offer a sea of choices for those looking for all varieties of possible views and tones about the drama of life, quite often with superior performers doing the roles. This may mean, again, staying at home and being entertained by Blu-Ray discs and Turner Classic Movies selections versus running to a multiplex. Avoiding wasting money is the immediate benefit of this approach to movies, as well as regularly viewing a higher grade, classic example of each genre.

After all, when it comes down to it, it may just be necessary to stop subsidizing the dumbing down of human drama that is going on with current Hollywood product, by not attending each month until they produce a better crop of films. The average family now has two rich sources (DVDs, and cable movie channels) that provide over 80 years of choices to mine from, that makes it possible to skip the latest pile of simplistic box office releases altogether. Perhaps the studios would then get with the program and give the public more original, complex, and satisfying explorations of the human experience.

Seatwave.com Ticket Exchange Service: Unprofessional & Irresponsible

In a nutshell: If you have any other alternatives, do not use the ticket exchange service of Seatwave.com!

Since there was not anyone to warn me and I was not smart enough to do a small preliminary research on Seatwave's service (as I usually do for other services), I made the mistake to buy tickets via their fan to fan ticket exchange. I suppose, it's needless to say that practically Seatwave is not a "fan to fan" exchange service rather than a platform for reselling tickets on a speculative basis. But this is not the real problem as far as you are aware of it initially and I assume that everyone who is not excessively naive would guess this fact immediately.

The actual issue with Seatwave.com (and all of the website's variations like seatwave.it. seatwave.ie, etc.) is that their service is extremely unprofessional and they rely only on chance in order to complete the ticket exchange between the involved parties successfully. You will read about many guarantees on their site which they offer automatically for free with your purchase of any ticket(s) and you may even pay for some additional protections. All of these mean nothing if you are not prepared to lose a lot of your time and nerves.

So, here goes my experience with Seatwave. Unaware that I should not use them, I ordered several tickets for Paul McCartney's concert on 26/11/2011 in Bologna, Italy. I made the order on 15/11/2011 and it was explicitly stated the tickets were already ready for shipping. Since I didn't receive any tracking information until the end of the next day, I contacted their support with a question when the tickets would be shipped cause I was worried they would not arrive before 24/11/2011 when I intended to fly to Italy. A kind of an automatic reply followed on the next day notifying me that the tickets should be shipped on 18/11/2011 (three days after my order). I actually received a UPS tracking number on 18/11/2011. For my surprise, after checking the tracking information I found that the scheduled delivery by UPS was for 25/11/2011. I would not need the tickets at that time. I contacted Seatwave support again (a little bit more worried now) and this time I received a human response informing me that the tickets probably would travel faster and I should expect them to arrive by the end of 22/11/2011.

I checked the UPS tracking page again on 21/11/2011 and I found the tickets were not travelling fast enough and I didn't see any chances that they would arrive on the next day. I contacted Seatwave.com support once more. This time they confirmed that according to UPS the tickets would arrive on 25/11/2011. And now the bigger fun began. I contacted Seatwave via the chat option on their website. Without even asking them about a refund (I didn't care for a refund at that point anyway) they informed me they would not refund me because the tickets would arrive before the date of the event. Seatwave's support didn't care the delivery would be after my flight to Italy and they also didn't even try to observe their User agreement which stated that Seatwave would try to deliver the tickets at least 2 days before the event and if they were unsuccessful in that attempt they would either find replacement tickets or otherwise refund the full amount you had paid.

I explained to them that they were in violation of their own user agreement and the fun continued. They answered me that normally people had to travel to the venue at the date of the event and more bullshit like this. I still do not believe that most people book flights for international trips at the actual date of the flight, especially when they intend to attend a concert or any other kind of event. After almost a whole day lost in stupid arguments with Seatwave's support, I informed them again that I didn't care about the refund and all I wanted was they keep their guarantees listed on their site. I wanted tickets, not a refund which I would get one way or another if eventually I needed to.

Read the second part of this article by following the link Seatwave.com Experience, Part 2.

Seatwave.com Ticket Exchange Service: Unprofessional & Irresponsible, Part 2

(Read the first part of this article by following the link Seatwave.com Experience, Part 1.)

On the next day, I began to think about other solutions because apparently Seatwave's support was useless. I was considering several options but the one that appeared successful was to contact them via Twitter. Meanwhile, the support offered me another useless solution by offering me to use a particular courier service to redeliver the tickets (expected to arrive at my home by the end of the day on 25/11/2011). This had to happen eventually in less than a day (from Friday night to Saturday afternoon). Seatwave assumed that this service will cost about 50 euro and they agreed to pay for it. But after I contacted the courier it appeared there was not a standard service like this and a customized one would cost no less than 600 euro, far more than Seatwave's estimate.

Finally, after contacting them via Twitter, somebody (from their headquarters I suppose) contacted me by phone and at the same time I received an email from their support's supervisor who informed me that they would find replacement tickets. And they actually did. But I received them a couple of hours before the concert in my hotel in Bologna and because of some traffic on the way to the venue, I arrived just before the commencement of the gig and I was at an unenviable position in the arena.

Since the article became too long, I intentionally skipped several more inadequate actions by Seatwave like for example, sending me a wrong tracking number for the second delivery. But just to make the whole story even more ridiculous, here is another one. The first set of tickets actually had not arrived on 25/11/2011 at my home. The first delivery attempt by UPS had been on 28/11/2011 (2 days after the event) and it failed due to inability of the UPS guy to find the address (it's strange why they hadn't used a map in 21st century) so the actual delivery happened on 30/11/2011 (4 days after the concert).

So, to recapitulate:

- It took Seatwave.com 15 days to deliver tickets that they claimed were ready for sending at the date of my purchase;

- Seatwave's support was completely unaware of the time needed for a delivery by UPS;

- Seatwave refused to observe their User agreement until I contacted them via Twitter;

- They hurried up to inform me that they were not going to refund me even without asking them about a refund;

- The initial set of tickets was delivered 4 days after the date of the event and would be delivered not earlier than 2 days after the gig anyway (even if the UPS guy had found the address the first time);

- I lost literally two days to write and argue with Seatwave for something that was obviously their fault. Despite all of their guarantees and without any sensible reason, they delayed the initial shipping with 3 days, they used the slowest possible UPS service and their support didn't care at all that the tickets wouldn't arrive on time;

- I didn't know whether I would receive the tickets for the gig almost until its commencement (this was really unpleasant).

For me, it's clear I will never use Seatwave again. I strongly recommend that you avoid them too. It seems much better to use eBay or another service in order to find tickets for an event instead of using Seatwave. My obnoxious experience unambiguously shows (at least to me) that Seatwave.com offers an unprofessional and irresponsible service and apparently, they rely only on luck in order to fulfil their side of the agreement. They try to discourage you from pursuing justice and it's not until you show them you have some legal knowledge and customer rights awareness that they start doing something really constructive and helpful in order to resolve an issue.

P.S. I initially thought the tickets would be sent directly from the person on the other side of the particular "fan to fan" ticket exchange deal. Actually, both of the packages have been dispatched with "Seatwave, Milano" filled in the "sender" field so I don't really know who has initiated the shipment.

Paul McCartney's Concert at Unipol Arena, Bologna, Italy

While being abroad last week I managed to see Paul McCartney's concert in Bologna, Italy on 26/11/2011. The event was the first of the European gigs on his "On the Run" tour and I hope this article could give a good overview of what to be expected from Paul's subsequent shows. Because I don't like sitting at the sides of a venue and since there were not any seating places in front of the stage in the case of Unipol Arena, I had to get a standing ticket. And because all of these tickets were sold out at the time I knew I could go to the concert, I made the mistake to use Seatwave.com aftermarket ticket service, which unfortunately appeared to be among the most amateurish services I had ever used in my entire long-lived Internet experience. Due to the latter fact as well as for some Bologna traffic problems on the way to the venue, my position in the hall was not among the best and although I had a direct view to the stage, it was mainly for the presence of a couple of big screens that I was able to see Paul McCartney and his band in good proportions.

The gig started with a small (normal) delay and continued for not less than two and a half hours. Sir Paul McCartney was in a relatively good shape considering his age. He changed half a dozen of musical instruments including bass and 6-string guitars, piano, mandoline and a small size guitar. McCartney's band comprised of good players who were almost constantly smiling and apparently having a good time on the stage. Because of Paul's frequent instrument changes some of his fellow musicians were also able to demonstrate skills on various instruments.

The audience counted about 20 thousands of fans. They were of all ages but I was surprised that the number of young people was considerable. I saw several persons that almost lost consciousness but I would attribute this to their inexperience in crowded areas rather than some 21st century "Beatlemania".

The sound was not at its best in the beginning of the show but after a couple of songs it got better and was decent until the end of the gig. The lighting was Ok and as mentioned already the big video screens were of huge help for many of the attendees. There were not numerous lighting or pyrotechnic effects. There was not any fancy choreography. The major part of the show was just great music, dedicated performances, a lot of smiles and just occasionally there were some remarkable special effects. It was just as it had to be for a performer who created (many of) the most recognizable songs of the 20th century.

As for the songs, many of Paul McCartney's masterpieces were there. He played more than 20 songs of the Beatles, 5 songs of his great Band on the Run album plus several other gems from his long career. Of course, in a setlist comprised of just 35 tracks (otherwise, more than enough for a single concert), Paul could not include even every big hit he had ever written. But it was nice to hear many of the songs which had made the Beatles such a significant phenomenon and some of McCartney's Wings and solo greatest hits. Sir Paul McCartney tried to include a bit of everything. There were plenty of ballads as well as many harder rocking tracks. He sang a song for John Lennon ("Here Today") and included a part of "Give Piece a Chance" at the end of "A Day in the Life". He sang "Something" for George Harrison. He played a small tribute to Jimi Hendrix (a piece of "Foxy Lady"). There were some fireworks on "Live and Let Die" and of course, the recent Grammy winner "Helter Skelter" was also included in the set list. Several times, Paul tried to spoke a little bit of Italian as a kind gesture to the public and at the end he performed his usual two small sets of encores.

The gig was a good value for money, something I would naturally expect from Paul McCartney. The only thing I have to stress and it is not a fault of McCartney's or his crew is that if you are a fan of a particular performer or a band, you should try to be closer to the stage, either sitting or standing, because the emotions are completely different there. I almost always manage to achieve a good position (if I care for the artist) but unfortunately, I was not able this time which spoiled the gig a bit for me. Apart from this personal reason, Sir Paul McCartney and the concert as a whole were great and I would definitely recommend attending one (or more) of his "On the Run" tour gigs if you have the chance.

At last, below are the songs Paul McCartney played in Bologna, not ordered in the particular setlist's sequence.

The Beatles songs: A Day in the Life / Give Peace a Chance, All My Loving, And I Love Her, Back in the U.S.S.R., Blackbird, Day Tripper, Eleanor Rigby, Get Back, Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight / The End, Got to Get You into My Life, Helter Skelter, Hey Jude, I'm Looking Through You, I've Got a Feeling, Let It Be, Magical Mystery Tour, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Paperback Writer, Something, The Long and Winding Road, The Night Before, The Word / All You Need Is Love, Yesterday

Paul McCartney / Wings songs: Band on the Run, Come and Get It, Dance Tonight, Here Today, Jet, Junior's Farm, Let Me Roll It, Live and Let Die, Maybe I'm Amazed, Mrs Vandebilt, Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five

The Fireman song: Sing the Changes

Wizz Air: Another Unpleasant Experience

It happened to me again. Another unpleasant experience with Wizz Air. You can read my first adventure with them here and my opinion about the website wizzair.com, which is an important part of Wizz Air service, here. This time there were not large queues of passengers at the airport, still one of the flights was late due to accumulated delay. The leg room was again very insufficient but nothing unexpected in this department either. In addition, they made us to replace our home-printed web check-in papers with new boarding passes at one of the airports, which made the home-printed passes pretty much unnecessary. Yet, people will continue to print expendable paper at home until Wizz Air is charging an airport check-in fee if you have not preliminary made a web check-in. But all of these were not a surprise.

The thing that really annoyed me was that they broke my suitcase. I suppose, it happens sometimes. But in the case of Wizz Air it's more irritating cause you have to pay for your check-in luggage. This is the reason why almost everybody travels with just hand baggage on Wizz Air flights and this leads to additional discomfort for all of the passengers since there is not enough space for everyone's hand luggage in the cabin of the plane. Everyone carries a big piece of cabin luggage (up to the allowed limits and sometimes even exceeding them) which actually results in even more uncomfortable trip because many passengers have to put their "real" hand luggage below their seats.

Another related problem partially due to the above one is that you have to compete for earlier boarding on the plane because first, you have to be ahead of the others if you want to put your baggage in the designated compartments and second if you are not flying alone chances are you will seat separated from your fellow-travellers if you've not been fast enough to leave behind the majority of "competitors". I don't know why Wizz Air do not assign seats at the time of check-in, especially when you are forced to check-in twice actually. This "first-come, first-served" principle seems a little bit inappropriate for an airline company. After all, assigning seats is a far easier task than transporting passengers.

Now, to return on the broken trunk. I wouldn't be so annoyed if there were not 2 particular reasons. First, most of the passengers do not pay the additional tax for baggage so Wizz Air flights practically have almost nothing to handle in this aspect. I would expect that a large company as they are pretending to be should know how to handle just a few suitcases. They should have enough time to handle them carefully because of their small number. And second, I had paid for my luggage explicitly. It had not been just a free supplement to my ticket but a separate service I had paid for. If they cannot handle my luggage properly, they should not charge me for such a service.

Finally, when I arrived at the airport and I saw my trunk had been broken, I asked the corresponding clerk should I file a complaint against Wizz Air. The answer was, "you will just lose your time and most likely receive nothing". I wouldn't usually agree easily to not take any action but in this case, I did. Having all of my previous experience with Wizz Air in mind, I thought the guy was probably right: Wizz Air don't care too much for the services they offer, neither for your opinion.

You may ask, why did I use them for a second time. Well, they are obviously cheaper, especially if you catch the right time to book. And what is not less important there are itineraries that are not covered with direct flights by any other airline company so you do not have much of a choice anyway if you don't want to change several planes before you reach your destination.

Avoid International Roaming Charges with Rebtel

Since I've been recently abroad, I want to share with you a cool way to avoid the usual high roaming charges. With this idea, international roaming calls you make will be charged as local calls and this is possible with the help of Rebtel's cheap international calling service. If you already have a Rebtel account, you probably know the basic principles of their service but for the rest, I am going to make a short introduction of Rebtel before delving into particulars about how to cut your international roaming charges.

Rebtel offer a service that allows you to make cheap international calls by calling a preliminary assigned local number instead of your contact's foreign number. When you create a Rebtel account you have to add your international contacts in it so the service can assign a unique local number for each of your friends or relatives. This means that if you are in the United Kingdom, Rebtel will create UK local numbers for all of your contacts which you can use forever from then on. The trick is that when you call one of these local numbers, you are still able to talk with your foreign friends but the international part of the call is accomplished over the Internet. The result is that you only pay for the local call and a small charge for the service provided by Rebtel. As far as I know Rebtel's service is provided in about 50 countries in the world and you can check their calling rates from country to country here.

Now about the mobile roaming. In order to use Rebtel to your advantage while being abroad, you will need to purchase a local SIM card on arrival in the foreign country. It don't have to be some special international roaming SIM card but the one offering the cheapest calling rates for making local calls in the particular country. Having a local SIM card enables you to use a cell phone calls provider originating in the foreign country and thus you can avoid the hefty international roaming charges that your domestic provider normally charge. When you buy the new SIM card, you have to add it to your Rebtel account and new local numbers will be automatically created for your previously saved contacts. Now, you can dial to any of your contacts back home by using these new local numbers and the charges for the international part of the call will be avoided in a way similar to the already described before. So, this was the easier part.

The trickier task (if you want to achieve it at all) is to receive cheaper calls from your relatives or friends when you're abroad. In order to call you they have three options: either to dial your old number; to call to the number of your new local SIM card; or to create a Rebtel account themselves and call to your new number without paying for an international call by using the standard Rebtel service. Of course, the best option for them (without even knowing that you're abroad) would be to dial your usual old number. But in order to avoid the international roaming fees in this case you have to forward your old number to an assigned by Rebtel number to your new foreign local SIM card. Thus, the international part of the call would be practically between your old number and your new SIM card but since this forwarding will be serviced by Rebtel, you will avoid the roaming charges for it. Now, this might seem like an additional trouble (although it involves nothing more than just entering the number of your new foreign SIM card into your Rebtel account in order to get an assigned Rebtel number for it and just one forwarding from your domestic number to the assigned new number after that) but the good news is you can simply ignore the task of making the incoming roaming calls cheaper cause the prices for them are significantly lower than the prices for outgoing calls.

Having said the above, we should stress that this solution may not be always better than using just the conventional international roaming service of your domestic mobile provider. For example, if you plan to call back home only once or just to receive a couple of short calls from your relatives at home, using your usual phone number won't lead to very high roaming charges. Yet in other cases you can save considerably by using Rebtel's service abroad. Some proper usages would include:

• staying abroad for a long period of time;
• making a lot of calls back home over a long or even a short period of time;
• making (even a few) very long calls to your home country.

Usually, since the international roaming charges are in times lower for receiving incoming calls than for making outgoing ones, if you only plan to receive calls, probably you don't have to bother for the roaming charges too much. If you intend to initiate calls yourself, it's good to consider the Rebtel option. You should check their prices from the country you're visiting to your own country and also the prices of the local SIM cards in the country you will temporary reside in. Having both in mind, you should be able to make the best decision for your particular situation.

Of course, even if you don't plan to use international roaming a lot, you can still create a Rebtel account in case you don't have one yet cause you can always use it for making cheap international calls even when you are home (which is Rebtel's service primary intention anyway). And remember that calling to international landline phones is up to tens of times cheaper than the calls to international mobile phones so Rebtel can bring you even higher savings in this area.

I am glad to inform you that a couple of days after publishing this article Rebtel offered our site a coupon for 100% bonus on first deposits so if you want to sign up and try their service (they offer also a first free call) use this link which will automatically land you on the page with the bonus offer (I do not know exactly how long the offer will be valid but I hope it will stay active until the end of December).

If you are further interested in Rebtel, you can find a few Rebtel highlights here and several tips for making even cheaper international calls here.

...And What about Twitter?

After criticizing Facebook and Skype, first of which I use rather sporadically and the second one mostly due to some of my old contacts switching from other instant messengers to it, now I have to say a few words about Twitter. Like Facebook and Skype it has become a huge phenomenon and it's hard to ignore it. So, here we go.

To begin with, Twitter shares a lot of similarities with other social networking services. It has a fancy name although it is a dictionary word. Most of its content is useless and just a filler. Many of its ordinary consumers pile huge number of followers/friends just to sport a big list of them while at the same time, there are spammers, Internet marketers, businesses, etc. that intentionally build large contact bases in order to achieve some shady goals. Similarly to Facebook, Twitter has millions of users and probably an exaggeratedly big potential in the eyes of the investors. But... unlikely for a service of this type, I actually find a couple of beneficial usages when I think of Twitter.

The first useful side of Twitter is that popular persons (artists, celebrities, politicians), not so popular folks and all kinds of companies can share news, important information, promotions, various notifications and whatnot with their admirers, customers, friends or simply "followers". Of course, this does not prevent the continuous flow of superfluous data but it would be unfair to deny there is a certain amount of good stuff. What distinguishes Twitter in this respect is its format and the basic idea of microblogging. The short messages are ideal for efficient sharing of qualitative content which otherwise would be diluted in texts with bigger size.

The second beneficial usage of Twitter is the opportunity to contact companies directly with questions or requests. It's an additional channel to communicate with those companies which have Twitter accounts and as my experience indicates it is considerably more productive than for example, to deal with their standard support teams. Again, the short format of the tweets allows for meaty communication and the availability of direct messages provides for private conversations if needed. I have already had several successful attempts in this direction, the latter being to contact Seatwave.com representatives after their regular support team appeared to be absolutely useless. My assumption is that most of the companies assign for Twitter tasks personnel from their staff that is more dedicated to customer satisfaction than their support teams (which with some rare exceptions primarily send standard trashy replies of no use that in many cases even offend your intelligence). Having a concerned person on the other side in the case of contacting a company "directly" via Twitter could be often surprisingly satisfactory.

Well, although I do acknowledge that Twitter is of more use than other online social networking services, I am not a big fan of it either. I admit I mainly utilize it to send messages than to receive tweets and since I don't have a need to contact companies too often, this limits my overall usage of it. I also have not any intention to buy Twitter shares when (and if) their public offering happens cause I believe all services in this field are seriously overestimated. Nevertheless, I see Twitter's good aspects and if you are among its fans, I won't expel you from this blog. ;)

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949): A Gem in Black and White

You might have actually been aware that Sir Alec Guinness is a Jedi (Star Wars' Obi-Wan Kenobi) but I guess you do not know he has been also able to spawn himself into eight persons simultaneously if you haven't seen Kind Hearts and Coronets. This is a great movie in many aspects and Sir Alec Guinness' multiple roles are only one of them. The film sports other notable performances too and in addition offers a captivating plot, subtle storytelling, masterful direction and brilliant execution. You cannot be sure what will be the outcome of the movie up to its very end and even then you could still wonder how to treat its irony. This is one of those films that make you question yourself whether black and white movies could be ever outdone.

Kind Hearts and Coronets tells the story of Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price), a distant relative of the Duke of D'Ascoyne. Louis' mother has been banished from D'Ascoynes because of her marriage to an Italian opera singer so Louis has lived all of his life spurned from the noble family. When D'Ascoynes reject to bury his mother's body in the aristocratic family's tomb Louis plots to become the next Duke of D'Ascoyne. However, this task is not easy since there are eight other heirs who stand between him and the title of the Duke. When Louis' marriage proposal is declined by his love interest Sibella Holland (Joan Greenwood) due to his poverty, the young man decides to bring his murderous plan to life. And the fun begins.

As mentioned above, one of the highlights in Kind Hearts and Coronets is Sir Alec Guinness' rare performance of 8 different persons. You might have guessed that these eight comprise the D'Ascoyne family and to make Guinness' achievement even more notable, they are not only males. All of the D'Ascoynes share similar external features, which is normal for relatives but at the same time they are distinctive enough in order to be taken for separate people. Additionally, Sir Alec Guinness manages to put a different personality in each of the characters he plays. Another (often overlooked) gem in the movie is the leading performance of Dennis Price who makes of Louis Mazzini a calm, determined and convincing villain and at the same time succeeds to win our sympathy. The two women (of course, there is more than one) around Louis, Sibella Holland and the recent widow Edith D'Ascoyne are portrayed very well by Joan Greenwood and Valerie Hobson, the former making us to believe that Sibella is an artful tempter and the latter successfully presenting Edith as a delicate and stylish lady.

The plot does not offer numerous twists until the movie's ending approaches but the film's beauty prior to this point is in its details and storytelling. The narrative is very tranquil as if the story is not about murders, death and immoral behaviour. There is plenty of (dark) humour, either subtle or not and many of the funny lines flow effortlessly along the lead character's narration: "The advent of twin sons to the Duke was a terrible blow. Fortunately, an epidemic of diphtheria restored the status quo almost immediately and even brought me a bonus in the shape of the Duchess." or "The upshot was that I was dismissed on the spot. I decided to repay him in kind by dismissing him with equal suddenness from this world."

The story is genuinely absorbing, once because it has a good premise and twice cause it's not clear what is going to happen until the end of the movie. The ending itself is superb and one could see the film just because of it. The whole execution of Kind Hearts and Coronets is almost flawless and it's a rarity to find a movie so balanced and complete as this. If you haven't had a chance to see the film until now, do yourself a favour and watch this classic soon. The movie has a full potential to catch you unprepared for its charm and your first viewing probably won't be your last.

The Change-Up (2011): Another Mediocre Comedy

It's hard to say whether Horrible Bosses (review) or The Change-Up is a more mediocre movie. The latter has a more common plot while at the same time it wins in the field of more beautiful actresses. Both have Jason Bateman starring in a leading role. Horrible Bosses sports the more celebrated cast featuring Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell and Donald Sutherland compared to the cast of The Change-Up which "only" has to offer Ryan Reynolds, Leslie Mann, Olivia Wilde and Alan Arkin. We can continue with comparisons like these but independently of any juxtaposition, both of the movies are not among the good ones.

The Change-Up offers the worn story of Dave Lockwood (Jason Bateman) and Mitch Planko (Ryan Reynolds), two friends who accidentally switch their bodies while peeing in a fountain. The usual complications follow when Dave and Mitch try to change their bodies back. Mitch has to deal with Dave's wife Jamie (Leslie Mann), his children and their diapers while Dave has to experience Mitch's sexual life in the face of a pregnant woman, a suspicious role in a shady movie and probably a long-dreamed sex with his real-life legal associate Sabrina (Olivia Wilde). If this is not enough the irresponsible Mitch has to successfully execute the deal of Dave's business life.

Starting with the implausible change of bodies, The Change-Up continues in the same vein with a string of unmotivated actions coming either from the leads or their ladies. The behavior of Mitch in Dave's firm is also inadequate and subsequently it's strange that he's not fired long before the completion of the important deal. I would naturally expect that are movie like this could not be the most probable portrayal of the real life but the lack of motivation in pretty much every sequence of actions is too excessive. Still, there are scenes and jokes that are funny on their own and although they do not add to the entire story of the movie, every piece of banter is a plus for a film of this type.

The cast of The Change-Up is Ok for a light comedy. Jason Bateman has the harder task to tame Mitch in Dave's body and it doesn't work always like a charm. Ryan Reynolds has the easier part and he's doing fine. The ladies, Leslie Mann and Olivia Wilde, are very beautiful as usual and could be considered among the main reasons to see the movie: both are very charming, attractive and their acting is decent. Alan Arkin has a couple of short appearances as Mitch's father and while this is not the film which will bring him another Oscar, he is a nice addition to the cast.

Among the good sides of the movie is its similarity with Crazy, Stupid, Love. since The Change-Up also explores mid-life identity crises although it's even less profound than the former film. There are some unexpected or surprising scenes too like the "tattooing" or the "baseball tickets" ones. So if you don't approach the movie with high expectations of great humor or believable story, you can even actually like it if you see it without children at home.

Horrible Bosses (2011): Not Horrible but a Mediocre Movie

While it may not be the case with Jennifer Aniston you'll usually expect to see Kevin Spacey and even Colin Farrell in a better movie than Horrible Bosses. It's a comedy with a bit of a criminal flavor but the funniest thing in the film is the stupidity of some of the characters. There are people that find this movie to be surprising and with lots of twist but I cannot second that statement. There are small twists here and there but the bigger picture is pretty clear from the beginning and any occasional twists and funny moments are only enough to keep Horrible Bosses not so horrible as the bosses in it.

The movie is about three friends that hate their bosses for different reasons. Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman) hates Mr. Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey) because Harken heavily exploits Nick, denies him a long overdue promotion and eventually blackmails Nick in order to keep him in the firm. Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis) hates the new boss Bobby Pellitt (Colin Farrell) who unlike his father before him does not appreciate Kurt's work, uses drugs and he's not mentally stable. But Kurt actually likes his job. Finally, Dale Arbus (Charlie Day) hates Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston) who constantly attempts sexual abuse on him and similarly to Dave Harken blackmails Dale with a former charge of child offending so he does not dare to quit. Thus, being unable to leave their jobs, the three friends decide to kill their horrible bosses.

The premise of the plot is not the most standard one but it is somehow limited. You wouldn't expect that our "good" heroes are going to become real murderers just to get rid of their superiors. Many of the situations are forced and the narrative while not fully predictable in details from the very beginning leads to the only logical outcome at the end. And apart of the unpredictability pointed by other reviewers, I cannot find also a lot of dark humor in Horrible Bosses (check Kind Hearts and Coronets for huge portions of it) but it's always a matter of perception.

The cast is interesting and it offers bigger names for the supporting roles while the leading parts are assigned to less famous actors. Kevin Spacey makes a good performance as Dave Harken but his character is annoying as pretty much most of the other individuals in Horrible Bosses. The exaggeration in the portrayal of both the bad and the good guys actually makes the story and the characters in particular hardly believable although the performances are not bad on their own. It also hard to believe that Mr. Harken could cry at all but you'll see him almost doing it in one of the scenes and this practically ruins the already depicted character.

Objectively speaking, Horrible Bosses has a few funny moments and some potential to be appreciated by a certain group of (teenager) moviegoers. It is definitely not a must-see film and it does not worth seeing this picture in a movie theater but you could take a look at it if you have nothing better to do at home some day.

In Time (2011): Only the Poor Die Young

In Time is the latest brainchild of writer/director Andrew Niccol who you probably know from Gattaca. It is a high concept movie set in a dystopian futuristic society where people don't age past 25 and time is money. Literally. The more you have, the longer you live. Obviously this is an idea which doesn't bet on subtlety. And neither does its implementation.

In Time is direct and straightforward in a lot of ways. The world depicted has a clean retro-futuristic styling similar in this respect to Gattaca. The story is a take on Bonnie and Clyde with a robinhoodian cause. Its mythological grounds are well placed in this futuristic but almost timeless setting, which goes to some depth exploring the concept and its implications. Time related puns are probably too many, though. The movie shows some real obsession with them. They can be occasionally brilliant, but often a little too obvious. On the other hand, some of the more subtle elements derived from the literality of the "Time is money" reality are actually entertaining and thoughtful. The differences in the functional way the rich and poor dress, for example. Or how the rich are careful in their daily routines. You certainly don't want to die accidentally when there are millenia to lose.

The greatest strength of the movie lies in the stylish visual approach it takes in showing the world. Its decors have a role as important as the base idea and the story. Helping on the visual side is cinematographer Roger Deakins. This is his first digitally shot movie (images captured with the Arri Alexa) and he did a wonderful job. High profile cinematographers tend to stick to what they know best (film) and avoid risks. But In Time (together with Drive and The Social Network) shows that digital is now at least as good a medium for image capture as film. And probably even better on the technical side.

In regard to the acting Justin Timberlake is doing ok in the lead. He has certain physicality to his performance, which fits the role. Amanda Seyfried as his love interest and a partner in crime doesn't have much to do other than looking around with wide-open eyes. Cillian Murphy, as the Timekeeper, feels somewhat underdeveloped and not used to his full potential. On a second thought, this is true for almost all characters. Notable exceptions are Vincent Kartheiser as Sylvia's father and Alex Pettyfer as the leader of a gang of time thieves.

Simplicity is both the strength and the fall of In Time. It has an interesting concept and an interesting world, which happen to be tied to a not so interesting story. The movie is quite blunt at times, and the occasionally sloppy storytelling doesn't help. Pacing problems (excuse the pun) are notable and the ending is rather weak.

With all of its shortcomings, choppiness and overt straightforwardness, there is something unique and distinct about Andrew Niccol's movies, which makes In Time worth seeing too. And it also happens to have a timely release, what with the Occupy Wall Street movement.