Don't Become the Next Kodak 01/19/2012
January 19, 2012 Don't become the next Kodak By THERESE POLETTI MarketWatch SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Eastman Kodak Co., the photography company founded during America's Gilded Age by inventor and entrepreneur George Eastman, is again warding off rumors of a looming bankruptcy filing. Now investors and pundits are trying to figure out at what point the iconic company did itself in, and whether or not it can still be saved. Read more about Kodak's bankruptcy discussions. One simple answer is that Kodak got fat and complacent relying too heavily on its highly profitable cash cow, the film business. That made it fearful and skeptical of what are now called disruptive new technologies, such as the digital camera, which one of its own engineers invented in 1975. KodakKodak's Brownie camera, introduced in 1900, cost $1, and a roll of film was 15 cents. Its introduction brought amateur photography to the masses. "They decided themselves at some point, 'I no longer need to be in the innovation game,'" said Hal Gregersen, a professor of leadership at Insead, a global business school. When company engineer Steve Sasson pitched an electronic camera to upper management, and they didn't know what to do with it, Gregersen said, "they sealed the fate of the company." Years later, Sasson, who described his invention as a toaster-size prototype that took photos with a resolution of 0.01 megapixels, told the New York Times that Kodak's management told him, "That's cute but don't tell anyone about it." The first cracks in Kodak's world dominance of photography began to show when Fujifilm arrived in the U.S. in the late 1970s, and Kodak's executives steadfastly refused to believe the Japanese giant would become a real competitor, even though it was selling film at lower prices. "Corporate failures are incremental," said Gregersen. "Kodak had a complete corner on the market until Fuji came along. He said that when companies rely on the same business models for decades, "senior managers lose the capacity to discover the next business model." "That happens because they stop engaging in the behavior to do something different," he added. Gregerson, who is also a co-author of "The Innovator's DNA" along with Clayton Christensen, sees this happen frequently at large companies too dependent upon one product and therefore are afraid to kill their own very profitable children, as Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs was famous for doing. This business conundrum was famously explored and analyzed in Christensen's bestseller, "The Innovator's Dilemma." "The fact that they couldn't see what that [digital camera] might become reflects to me years, if not decades, of senior management behavior that disabled or incapacitated their ability to see," he added. "That comes from leading a fairly insular life, not stepping out of the office." Current Kodak Chief Executive Antonio Perez made a full-on push to embrace digital photography when he was named CEO in 2005. But some analysts believe he also muddied up the company's focus by making an expensive gamble on consumer inkjet and commercial printing. In printing, Kodak still lags far behind the dominant Hewlett-Packard Co. ), Perez's former employer, with market share in the single digits in the U.S. It doesn't even show up in IDC's third-quarter peripherals market research, except under the blanket category of "other." "Printers are a commodity," Gregersen said. "If I were Kodak - where there is this rich enormous history and brand - the question to ask is do the senior people have an authentic, real connection to the people today taking pictures?" As an example, Gregersen points to Apple co-founder Jobs. As private as the late Jobs was, he lived in relative modesty compared to most CEOs, in a walkable neighborhood in leafy - if expensive - Palo Alto, Calif. Jobs was also known to answer emails from customers and was occasionally seen out in Silicon Valley, where some have recalled talking to him in line in stores. "He was out looking at Cuisinart machines but he also had that broader experience," Gregersen said. "We laugh at the fact that he lived in India on an ashram and didn't like the noise of a fan. But he used life experience that was not normal to create incredible products and services." Working with his other company, Pixar Animation Studios, now part of Disney , also gave Jobs a much broader view of another industry, entertainment. Over the weekend, a conference of innovators called The Intersection was held at Pixar's campus in Emeryville, Calif., where one of the themes was how innovation can come from learning about other industries and making connections in previously unrelated things. Kodak, which invented the Brownie camera that popularized the field of photography for the masses, ironically missed one of the biggest shifts in consumer behavior: amateur photography with camera phones, and now smartphones. An example of how Kodak has lagged in recent years was seen at the Consumer Electronics Show last week. The company introduced a new feature on its Easyshare digital cameras with built-in WiFi. Consumers can now upload higher-res photos directly to social networks like Facebook, a feature already available in smartphones for over a year. Now, the company is looking to add more cash to its operations, is suing rivals for intellectual property violations, and trying to sell off some of its vast patent portfolio, to stave off bankruptcy. "There is little doubt that they have technology and IP of tremendous value," said Anthony Sabino, a professor at St. John's University's Peter J. Tobin College of Business. He applauds the company's efforts to try to stay out of bankruptcy and isn't giving up hope that the company can avert filing for Chapter 11. Gregersen would argue that Kodak's business model and path to innovation is already bankrupt. Add Comment Top 10 Film Festivals 01/18/2012
Top 10 Film Festivals Jan 17, 2012 By: Healthcare Traveler Newsletter Staff Healthcare Traveler Mobile News Travelers with a love for movies may want to think about taking an assignment in a city with a major film festival. According to the Brooks Institute, Santa Barbara, Calif., an educational institute featuring programs in Innovative Film, Graphic Design and Photography Training, here are the 10 best film festivals in the United States.
 January 13, 2012 A Dangerous Method: It's risky, but it works By LIAM LACEY From Friday's Globe and Mail Director David Cronenberg and his cast went to extremes to make A Dangerous Method Deceptively elegant and coolly passionate, David Cronenberg's masterly thriller A Dangerous Method, about the birth of psychoanalysis, begins like a horror movie. An ominous coach is drawn by two black horses through the Swiss countryside. Inside, a young woman is being restrained by two men, her screams gradually drowned out by the crescendo of the orchestral score as the coach pulls up in front of a mansion and the flailing woman is carried up the front steps. The place is Zurich's Burghölzli Clinic; the year is 1904. We might be in a version of Dracula (written seven years before). The young woman, a psychiatric patient named Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), writhes and juts out her chin like someone in the throes of demonic possession. The performance is risky, but the extremity of her condition sets up the miracle of her cure. After the initial shocking introduction, her condition subsides to a fevered simmer and her performance marks the film's central dramatic journey. Her saviour is a handsome, reserved young doctor, Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), who is gentle and curious about her condition. He wants to try the new "talking cure" that Dr. Sigmund Freud is promoting in Vienna. While he sits behind the patient and lets her talk, Jung determines that her obsession with sexual humiliation is the result of abuse at the hands of her father. Christopher Hampton's script, adapted from his 2003 stage play The Talking Cure, which in turn was based on John Kerr's 1994 non-fiction book A Most Dangerous Method, gives a palpable sense of the pleasure Jung derived from his experiments with word association and dream analysis. It's no surprise that the highly intelligent Spielrein, once relieved of her symptoms, wants to study to be a psychoanalyst as well. The third side of the story's psychiatric triangle forms two years later when Jung, in his early thirties, eventually meets the 50-year-old Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and the two men talk for for 13 hours straight. Mortensen's sardonic performance sees the shrewd, possibly paranoid Viennese master waving his cigar to make his points and working to draw Jung into his movement. He sees the younger man as a potentially useful disciple, a Swiss Christian who can lend credibility to what has been regarded as a Viennese Jewish practice. At the same time, they have differences: The mystically inclined Jung finds Freud's insistence on the "firm ground of sexual theory" too limiting and controversial. Later, when Freud sends a patient Jung's way, the younger doctor becomes aware of just how volatile a force sexuality can be. The patient is a cocaine-addicted dissolute psychoanalyst, Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel), who believes that all forms of repression are wrong. He sleeps with his patients as a matter of course. Given the green light from his patient-turned-counsellor, Jung begins a torrid affair with Spielrein, fulfilling her desire for sadomasochistic spanking. The ferocity of their encounters is contrasted with the tranquility of Jung's home life with his pretty, astute and helpfully wealthy wife (Sarah Gadon). Throughout, the rhythm of the film is determined by similarly jolting transitions: Perfectly framed images and gliding camera shots of a costume drama cut to moments of intense physical immediacy. At the heart of the drama, there's a betrayal. Jung, anguished but cowardly, decides he can no longer risk the potential scandal of the affair and breaks it off, later observing: "Sometimes you have to do something unforgivable to go on living." But Spielrein, ambitious and aggrieved, unbalances him when she decides to write to Freud with the plan of becoming his student. She also insists that Jung inform Freud of their affair. The older doctor's disenchantment with Jung is further exacerbated in a well-calibrated sequence in which the two men travel together to the United States on a steam ship (the wealthy Jung, of course, goes first class). "Do you think they know we're on our way, bringing them the plague?" wisecracks Freud. A Dangerous Method can be seen as a prequel to a horror movie, about the irrationality that would be unleashed in Europe in the next few decades. It's foreshadowed in one of Jung's visions of Lake Geneva filled with corpses, and alluded to in the film's postscript on the fate of Spielrein and her family in the Second World War. Mostly, though, A Dangerous Method is a suave chamber piece: a series of glimpses of two 20th-century intellectual titans, in friendship and separation, and the story of a remarkable woman who history had swallowed up, brought into the light again. December 31, 2011 Twelve 2011 movies that moved spirit and soul By JOHANNA SCHNELLER From Saturday's Globe and Mail Amid the din and glitter of Hollywood, 12 films this year tried a bit harder and reached a bit deeper A couple of weeks ago, Mike White dropped into Toronto for an onstage chat. White has staked out a corner of L.A. for himself, writing, directing and acting in TV shows and films (Enlightened, Chuck & Buck) that probe uncomfortable situations, resulting in the kind of pain/pleasure you get from touching your tongue to a sore tooth. About his recent work, however, he said something that struck me and stuck: "The older I get, the more I'm interested in compassion." Compassion - more and more, that's what I'm yearning for, too. And judging by ticket sales for noisy Hollywood fare, which are sagging like sad socks this season, it seems lots of people are. It's a tricky chord to hit, though. One note wrong, and it's treacly, preachy or just plain dull. And not every film has to belabour it - something that sizzles your nerve endings can be fun for an hour or two. But the films that settle in my heart are the ones that open a window into how other people experience being alive. Here in alphabetical(ish) order are 12 that did that for me in 2011. Beginners, written and directed by Mike Mills. How do people end up in lives that don't make them happy, and why are they afraid to change? Mills explores those questions in the story of a father and son who don't miss their last chance to connect. Not only does it achieve a near-impossible tone of lighthearted sadness, it also boasts one of the best performances of Christopher Plummer's storied career. Coriolanus, written by John Logan from the Shakespeare play, directed by Ralph Fiennes. This is Fiennes's directorial debut, and it's impressive. He keeps the language, but updates the period to a modern-day Balkans-style civil war, and employs everything he ever learned about Shakespeare and film to cracking effect. I think you'll be startled by how timely he proves this story of posturing politicians making pointless war. Melancholia, written and directed by Lars Von Trier; and Take Shelter, written and directed by Jeff Nichols. Together, these two offer a master class in the different ways one medium can explore what seems at first glance to be the same subject - in this case, mental illness and the end of the world. Von Trier's take is operatic, lush, at times bitterly comic. Nichols's is smaller, sparer, more grounded. Both are wonderfully humane and make you shiver at how fragile sanity, not to mention our little experiment of life on Earth, really is. Moneyball, written by Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, directed by Bennett Miller; and Win Win, written and directed by Tom McCarthy. This pair is not linked because they're sort-of sports movies (the former about pro baseball; the latter, high-school wrestling). They're linked because they're bittersweet dramas about good men on the cusp of something great. And they're standouts because they prove that, in the right hands, character is drama. Pina, directed by Wim Wenders. This documentary, shot in 3-D, demonstrates the passion in compassion. Pivotal German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch died in 2009, and Wenders and Bausch's company of dancers pay homage to her in the best way: with a few words, and a lot of stunning dance. Thanks to the close-ups only film can provide, the full spectrum of emotions in Bausch's pieces come alive in a way they can't from the distance of a stage. The 3-D is seamless - it's the first film that let me forget I was wearing those ridiculous glasses. (The only other one to have come close was Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Who'd have thunk it would be German documentary-makers who would perfect Hollywood's new toy?) Project Nim, directed by James Marsh. Another documentary, this time focusing on language-development researchers in the 1970s who tried to raise a chimp in a human family, with shattering results. Like Marsh's previous doc, Man on Wire (one of my favourite films of 2008), it operates on many levels. It's about human exuberance and folly; it's about the chaos that comes with breaking mores; and most of all, it's about the passing of time. No other medium can compete with documentary, and its juxtapositions of footage from then and now, in showing us what we gain and lose as the clock ticks forward. Shame, written and directed by Steve McQueen. I've written about this movie in previous columns, and tons of people have joined in the debate about whether its story - an urban man at the nadir of sex addiction - is revelatory or a retrograde morality tale. But I still maintain it's the film of 2011, because it's so about this moment in time: the nexus we're living in of social and sexual freedoms, technology that should but doesn't always make us feel more connected, and (most of all) unprecedented access to pornography. Believe it or scoff at it, but you should see it. The Tree of Life, written and directed by Terrence Malick. Yes, it's long, and some of the imagery seems incomprehensible, and yes, I'm not sure he pulled off the dinosaur bit. But it tackles head-on the mystery of life, what we alone in the known universe are up to on this little blue ball. This is a movie that aches - to feel, to know, to break free, to find home, to love. You can't just watch it casually. You have to give over to it. Is it pretentious? Sure. But name me an act of trying to make art that isn't. The Trip, directed by Michael Winterbottom. This docu-comedy, largely improvised by its stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, made me laugh like nothing else this year. Not much happens: Winterbottom films Coogan and Brydon on a culinary tour of northern England. But in the hands of these three, who previously collaborated on one of my all-time favorites, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, that's plenty. They're geniuses at reducing deadly sins - pride, envy, lust - to their smallest iteration, rendering them hilarious. The Whistleblower, directed by Larysa Kondracki, written by Kondracki and Eilis Kirwan. An underrated Canadian film is not news. But this political thriller, about a UN peacekeeper (Rachel Weisz) confronting the moral mess of postwar Bosnia, made news this year when it prompted the UN to take a hard look at some of its hiring practices - and alleged cover-ups. It's also a wrenching look at human trafficking, and features a note-perfect performance by Weisz that deserves a lot more attention. And now I can think of no better way to close out one year and begin the next than with a defining quote from Pina Bausch: "Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost." Top Ten YouTube Videos of 2011 12/22/2011
 December 20, 2011 Top 10 YouTube videos of 2011 By John Terauds The mock agony of a dog teased with non-existent meaty treats was the world's No. 2 YouTube video of 2011. "Ultimate Dog Tease" grabbed the No. 1 spot in the U.K. and was No. 2 in Canada - its country of origin. The sad gastronomic fate of an adorable, talking German shepherd - captured on video and voiced by Halifax comedian Andrew Grantham - has been watched 74 million times by people around the world. Although that's more than double the population of Canada, it's a drop in an ever-deepening YouTube bucket. The Google-owned, free online video service is growing at a rate of 48 hours of video a minute, according to Google Canada spokesperson Aaron Brindle. In all, the world has so far watched or replayed YouTube videos 1 trillion times in 2011. Another Canadian who climbed to the top of the world's YouTube pyramid this year was adorable 12-year-old Winnipegger Maria Aragon. She has sung and keyboarded her way through Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" more than 45 million times by now. In Canada alone, Google's year-end ranking puts Aragon's performance in third place, right behind the talking dog. The big winner, both around the world and in Canada, was American pop singer Rebecca Black, whose vapid, auto-tuned single "Friday" inspired tens of millions of views, not just for the official music video, but for a raft of parodies and covers, which include one by the cast of TV hit show Glee. The ultimate in mindless songs, "Nyan Cat," clawed its way to sixth spot in Canada. Commercial interests also had their moment in the spotlight, as ads by Kijiji.ca and Volkswagen picked up slots on Canada's Top 10 list of most-watched YouTube videos 1. Rebecca Black, " Friday" (Official Video) This song, created by a hit factory in the U.S., was a viral sensation, proving that a lack of talent is no impediment to fame these days. 2. Talking Animals, " Ultimate Dog Tease" You simply can't go wrong with animals and this dog-sided conversation racked up the hits earlier this year. 3. Maria Aragon, " Born This Way" (Cover) This Winnipeg girl took the world by storm with her version of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way." She eventually ended up performing with star at Gaga's Toronto concert. 4. Kijiji.ca, " Eric Wants to Sell His Stuff. Fast" How did this crack the list? This commercial for Kijiji had more than 10 million views. 5. Michael Bolton, " Jack Sparrow" The Lonely Island guys did it again, with their hilarious video guest starring Michael Bolton, who had a little too much Pirates of the Caribbean on the brain. 6."Nyan Cat" Likely the worst earworm you will hear all year. 7. Charlie Sheen, " Songify This" Winning, warlock, tiger blood. These are just some of the words that Charlie Sheen added to our collective lexicon this year. This interview set to music sums up the actor's very weird year. 8. Volkswagen, " The Force" Volkswagen won the Super Bowl with its ad featuring a tiny Darth Vader trying to use the force around the house. Bonus points for releasing it early online. 9. "Einstein vs Stephen Hawking" Einstein and Stephen Hawking split flow all scientician style! Aww yeah, that's an Epic Rap battle there! 10. Emerson, " Mommy's Nose Is Scary" Emerson can't decide whether his mom blowing her nose is hilarious or terrifying. No argument about how adorable this video is. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 12/21/2011
 December 19, 2011 Review: Rooney Mara squeezes fresh pulp in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo By Peter Howell Movie Critic The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Starring Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård and Robin Wright Penn. Directed by David Fincher. At GTA theatres. 158 minutes. David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is dirtier, more violent and marginally more complicated than the Swedish original - which was so recent, it still feels like it's in theatres. But is Fincher's version any better? And does it matter? Here's where things start to get interesting, but ultimately it all comes down to the "girl" of the title, played here with a ferocious combination of rawness and vulnerability by 26-year-old Rooney Mara. Her take on cyberpunk Lisbeth Salander is the real reason to etch this Dragon Tattoo onto your grey matter, even if Daniel Craig's Mikael Blomkvist is merely adequate as her crusading journalist sidekick. Fincher's remake and the original film are both cut from the same pulp cloth as the first novel of the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson, who needed a good editor as much or more than he needed worldwide acclaim. The late Swedish author obviously had no fear of thriller clichés, or of telegraphing major plot reveals. The question is, why would this material fascinate Fincher? He's certainly no stranger to pulpy thrillers - such early films as Seven and The Game proved that - but he's long since moved on to deeper probes of the human psyche, as witness more recent works Zodiac and The Social Network. He also brings a certain look of dread to his films, which this time seems distinctly second-hand. Apart from a knockout opening sequence, a 007-style montage of figures swimming in something like oil, set to Trent Reznor's vibrant rip of Led Zep's "Immigrant Song," the film might simply have recycled the sets of Niels Arden Oplev's 2009 Dragon Tattoo. The story still plods, perhaps even more than before. Mara's Salander and Craig's Blomkvist don't even meet until the 80-minute mark of the film's bladder-testing 158 minutes. They don't start busting crime until about the 90-minute mark, a time when many other movies are wrapping up. The story, only marginally buffed by Steven Zaillian ( Moneyball), is still the same "locked room" puzzle as before, the stuff of Ellery Queen and Agatha Christie potboilers. On a remote Swedish island, where even a billionaire can't get decent cell service, lives the bickering family of elderly industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer, happily hamming). Now a dark and inhospitable place, especially in the story's wintry depths, the island used to ring with the sound of happy children. One of them was 16-year-old Harriet (Moa Garpendal), beloved niece of Vanger, who vanished in the summer of 1966 after a road tragedy removed the island from mainland contact - and watchful eyes - for most of a day. Harriet has now been missing for four decades, presumed dead and long consigned to the police "cold cases" file. But Vanger refuses to die without knowing the answer to the mystery, which for him is unusually insistent: he's been receiving regular clues that suggest the killer is taunting him. Vanger also suspects it was one of his family members who did the deed, because how could an unknown murderer gain access to the isle? "I've spent half my life examining the events of a single day," he tells Blomkvist, an ace journalist whose life and career has recently been on the skids. Blomkvist was obliged to resign from muckraking Stockholm magazine Millennium, after his probe into corrupt businessman Hans-Erik Wennerström (Ulf Friberg) blew up in his face, resulting in a libel conviction and an impending jail sentence. Vanger's proposition to Blomkvist: Investigate Harriet's disappearance and apparent death, under the guise of writing a biography. In return, Vanger will not only pay Blomkvist handsomely, but also help him get revenge on Wennerström, whom Vanger also hates. Blomkvist has nothing better to do, although he does have a loyal and loving girlfriend in Erika Berger (Robin Wright Penn), his editor at Millennium, whom he'll be obliged to leave behind for many months. But he won't want for company, albeit of the weird kind. Enter Salander, the woman with the fire-breathing tat, introduced as someone whom her co-workers don't much like, and for good reasons - and not just because of her fondness for leathers and piercings of every variety. "She's different," her security-firm boss understates. Salander's abundant personality disorders, the cause of which are detailed in later chapters of the trilogy, have obliged her to become a ward of the state, under the too-close attention of her oily guardian, Bjurman (Yorick van Wageningen). A subplot involving Salander's eye-popping resolution of her status is one of the few areas where Fincher has pushed the violence beyond what Oplev did in the original Dragon Tattoo. Reznor's and Atticus Ross' score, another improvement from the original film, helps build the dire mood, and listen for a mordant riff on a certain film by Paul Thomas Anderson, a Fincher rival. Salander is one messed-up gal - she lives on Happy Meals and caffeine, and wears a T-shirt reading "F - k You, You F - kng F - k" - but she also rocks a computer like Steve Jobs. Too bad that what she and Blomkvist are doing is mostly plowing through old paper library files and photographs, which plays as porn for diehard print lovers, but which doesn't make for dazzling screen action. Vanger's family, described by the patriarch as "the most detestable collection of people that you will ever meet," should fill the void. Alas, most of them are drier and flatter than a Swedish cracker, even the usually reliable Stellan Skarsgård, who plays the unctuous industrial heir Martin Vanger. But what could anyone do with eye-rolling material like this? The villain is pointed out very early in the proceedings, something Fincher oddly underlines with a cat-torture scene (the violence happens off screen) that might as well be a flaming arrow of revelation. "Why don't people trust their instincts?" a character says. Good question, but in the incendiary performance by Rooney Mara, one of the year's best, you have all the incentive you need to drag out the Dragon Tattoo gun yet again. Noomi Rapace was great as the original Salander; Mara goes her one better with a performance that is as disturbing and wounded as the character is meant to be.  December 18, 2011 War Horse script brought co-star |