Movie Review: The International

For those who don't know it, I am a huge Clive Owen fan. I'm one of those people who say that you could do a whole movie of just a closeup of him and I'd be happy. The International made me very happy. Not only is it Clive Owens' movie but the whole first minute is just a close-up of Clive Owens. And it gets better from there.

I think The International is the first intelligent thriller of the year. The globe trotting movie has splendid scenery and a great story about a large multinational bank that is working to control the world's supply of small arms, the kind used in 98% of the ongoing skirmishes throughout the globe, and the small group of law enforcement personnel who are working to stop the bank. The bankers are suitably loathsome and cut throat, with their own personal assassin on call.

The movie avoids the usual cliches of the investigator and beautiful woman on the run and in love in amongst all the shootouts. Instead you see Clive Owens as an Interpol agent, and how long has it been since Interpol has been mentioned in a thriller?, and Naomi Watts as a New York District Attorney. The two work well together and care for each other as colleagues but Naomi has a perfectly lovely family at home - this is a woman with work/life balance worked out. They manage to retain their jobs through most of the movie so you get to see several scenes of employee and boss clashing about their work objectives.

The movie has several thrilling scenes - I won't ruin it but I may never go to the Guggenheim Museum again since it seems to have no emergency exits which is not a good thing - and a wonderful chase through the streets of Milan. The violence is very realistic and graphic but that adds to the tension in the movie. It also has a great twisty ending. Here's hoping for the International 2.

The movie is definitely not one to take the kids to. But if you like the Bourne movies only without all the jiggly camera work and confusing abrupt cuts and you are really hating on banks right now - this is the movie for you.

Movie Review: He's Just Not That Into You

For those who don't know about this movie, it's actually based on an expression that was first used in a Sex and the City episode. Carrie's then boyfriend Berger (my least favorite of any of the men she dated) listened to Carrie and Miranda going through a complicated justification of why a guy had not called Miranda after the first date. Berger's simple solution - he's just not that into you. And so it went from there.

The movie, written by the same Sex and the City writer who coined the phrase and wrote the book, follows the lives of a group of interconnected attractive people living in Baltimore. I chose this as our Valentine's movie date because a romantic comedy seemed the thing and Mike would have run screaming after the first ten minutes of Confessions of a Shopaholic. He refuses to see all movies where a major subplot revolves around shoes.

Overall, I found the movie interesting, it certainly held my attention and got a few chuckles and a few oh no's from me as well. Mike pointed out afterwards that to him the whole movie was just one long incredibly awkward moment. I can see his point - when the women in this movie interact with the men in their lives more often than not it was something painful. At least until the last 20-30 minutes in which everything was wrapped up to a degree.

For me the movie raised some questions - why did Jennifer Aniston seem so surprised that Ben Affleck, a professed skeptic and non believer in marriage, didn't want to marry her? But then I've known many women in the same situation. There is always that hope that maybe he'll change his mind, sometime. And why was Jennifer Connelly so obsessed with her husband's possible smoking when she really needed to be concerned that he was sneaking around behind her back with Scarlett Johanssen. And how did Scarlett Johanssen and Drew Barrymore come to the conclusion that it is ok to go after a married man and try and destroy his marriage? You had to wonder about things like that.

However, I'm not panning this movie - I don't think it was worth $10 each - I would have been a bit more satisfied if it had been a matinee - but I did enjoy watching all the pretty people and the movie does have some funny moments. And while much of it seemed absurd and over exaggerated, much of it rung true for me. I've had too many friendswho have angsted over guys who are just not that into us and dealt with predatory women pursuing the men they were with. So the happy endings, though a bit contrived, did actually make me happy.

Social Media and Non Profits

I attended a webinar this week on fundraising for non profits through social media -specifically blogs, facebook and twitter. The information was not as useful as I had hoped since the basic message was you should devote time to social media but not too much time but we can't tell you how much time that is. The other advice was to use these tools as a way to build rapport and support from your audience and to engage people.

I was fascinated by the numbers - there are 150 million bloggers and 1 million tweeters. But what was really interesting were the numbers from the mini survey of the attendees - more than half of the non profits on the call were using no social media, many were doing one of the three and only 4% of the call attendees were using all three - blogs, facebook and twitter. The Anita Borg Institute is using all three so we are part of that 4%. Currently we have a twitter account, soon to be adding another for myself to do ABI public relations twitter. It seems that some reporters now refuse to receive any pitches except via twitter. If you can't say it in 140 characters I guess it's not worth saying. But that means it is time to start tweeting PR. We have multiple blogs - one for ABI, one on Fast Company for our CEO and Director of Research and one for GHC bloggers. And for Facebook - we're all over that with pages and event pages and groups, etc.

So what keeps most non profits from investing in social media? That ephemeral thing called ROI - when you are underfunded and your staff is overworked how do you take someone off of helping a hungry child to go and tweet about it? And with the inability to prove the ROI of social media - few facebook fundraisers are truly effective, yet. And the operative room is yet. It takes a good amount of time to build up Facebook pages and blog and twitter followers. And as a member of the ABI team I can tell you it is totally worth it.

Selling The Economic Recovery Package - Make it Personal

I listened last night with great interest to Barack Obama's first press conference as President. He did a great job. His opening statement was strong but beyond that he was able to take something almost incomprehensible - the current financial economic meltdown and the 800 Billion Dollar recovery plan and make it instantly relatable to everyone. He did it using Elkhart Indiana as his case study. Elkhart has felt the impact of the economic downturn even more than the rest of the country with an unemployment rate of 15% and more bad times on the way. Obama's ability to take a global crisis and bring it down to an understandable level was phenomenal. He was everyone's dream spokesperson - he was clear, concise, honest and impactful. I had tears in my eyes as he told the story of Elkhart.

And when he related that in the last month we lost as many jobs as there are in the entire state of Maine - wow. I could immediately relate to that - I've been to Maine several times - the thought of all those people out of work - it was shocking.

I also admire his ability to stay on message throughout the questioning. Even more exciting - he did actually answer every question - something we haven't seen for about 8 years. Of course there's always the oddball question - the A-Rod question of steroids. And in that he did a nice reversal - taking a small personal story and relating it to a national lesson for children everywhere.

Now is the time for civility and rational thought - lead on Obama.

A Tarnished Idol

I've watched with interest the tarnishing of a relatively new American idol this week - Michael Phelps. It is an interesting example of how one slip can have a major ripple effect. I found it interesting that Kellogg's has positioned themselves as no longer being a sponsor did so in the same month Michael Phelps contract with them was expiring anyway. They get to promote their wholesome American values at a cost to no one but Phelps, the contract was expiring anyway. I'm sure the marketing team at Kellogg's was thrilled.

Notice that his other sponsors have not withdrawn - but then their contracts are still in place and I'm sure the a public legal case attempting to terminate a contract would be much more costly than putting their heads down and waiting out the scandal.

Do I think Michael Phelps will recover? Yes. He is one of the great Olympic athletes of our time. And 2012 is coming and I'm sure the US will rally behind him again. He's handling this well with an appropriate amount of public shame and remorse. I'm just sad that all those lovely shiny gold medals are now just tinged with a little tarnish.

Superbowl Ads: Which ones do I remember?

I wouldn't be a marketing person if I didn't write a blog about the Superbowl commercials from yesterday. I haven't seen or read any of the reviews of the commercials - I understand the news last night was actually offering reviews but Mike was so upset about Pittsburgh's win we ended up watching House Hunters on HGTV to avoid all discussion of the game.

So which commercials did I like? The Clydesdale commercials. I know I know - it's a beer commercial - but I really love the horses. They were my favorite, I especially liked the one where the horse wanted the treat and retrieved the log. The look on the dalmatian's face was classic.

I also loved Pixar's preview for UP. Something to look forward to this summer.

I happened to go to the grocery store yesterday and discovered at the checkout 3D glasses which were required for a commercial at the end of the second quarter. So I brought home a set of 4, even though only two of us were watching, carefully cut and punched them out and had them waiting. Thank goodness they gave us repeated warnings that the commercial was coming. So at last they announced the commercial was starting and Mike and I put on our glasses and watched. Our conclusion - Monsters and Aliens looks so/so - might be good, hard to tell from the commercial - but not much of the commercial was in 3D - though something did pop out at one point. It may have been a case of too much hype - the commercial was inevitably going to be a let down. So those of you without 3D glasses - you didn't miss much.

The new Star Trek movie looks fine though the clips at the end of the commercial were a bit muddled so hard to tell; the new Julia Roberts/Clive Owen is a must see - it looks like a sort of Mr & Mrs Smith type movie - rival spies fall in love - but I want to see it because I honestly think it's the first time I've seen Clive Owen ever smile. Must be worth a bit.

The rest of the commercials were of the forgettable sort. I hope no one spent their last marketing dollar. I noticed the only car companies really advertising were Hyundai and Toyota - no American car companies to be seen. Thank goodness they aren't spending our tax dollars on Superbowl commercials.

Of course my favorite part of the whole event was Bruce Springstein - I'm a Jersey girl and we love our Bruce. Excellent songs until the next to last about Dreams. We were both like what the hell is this? I was demanding Glory Days and thank goodness Bruce heard me and switched into that for his final song. Very cool. And how fun is it to see Steve Van Zandt not playing in the Soprano's but rocking out once again.

So who was the big winner in last night's Superbowl? The Boss of course.

It's always nice to see you - the advantages of a personal touch in marketing

Yesterday I attended the 50th Anniversary of the Mount Holyoke College Peninsula Club. In years past I was president of this group and we actually had an array of past (and present) presidents at the event. It was great to see so many friends - and to forge some deeper relationships wtih people I knew only slightly in my early days with the club.

As an added benefit to the afternoon event (and the delicious anniversary cake) Mount Holyoke sent along the new Executive Director of the alumnae association and the President of the Alum Assoc as well. It was an excellent marketing decision by the College to send the two women west.

The new Executive Director, this was her 30th day, was charming and made everyone feel comfortable that the association would be in good hands. The trials of a few years ago when the association seemed to be at war with the College is not something any of us want to see repeated. The rival direct mail letters alone were enough to make many say, I think I'll keep my checkbook closed that year.

The President of the Association did a fabulous job. She was incredibly knowledgeable about every aspect of the college - from the state of the endowment, what's going on with the faculty, how they are addressing students with financial issues and the new dorm (which remains nameless). She answered every question, validated every member for their input and inserted a few blatant and a few subtle pleas for contributions. She reminded everyone how urgent it is for everyone to make their annual donations and pleaded for contributions to the scholarship fund. I have a lot of respect for someone who can ask for money and not make everyone uncomfortable.

The afternoon ended well and I look forward to seeing more of both these women in the future.