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Features July 13, 2018
My Back Pages: Kerry's Kids, An Undying Dream
Oakland pediatrician Dr. Karen Kruger said, "Kerry's death was so sudden and seemingly purposeless and shocking that I think there was a need for people that loved her to carry on her memory in a way that she would look down on from her cloud and be happy about."
Dr. Kerry Spooner-Dean provides health care to Oakland children in a medical van — her life's dream before her tragic death.
by Terry Messman
Editor's Note: In my final issues as editor of Street Spirit, I am recalling some of my most memorable stories. The story of Oakland pediatrician Kerry Spooner-Dean still haunts me. It's the story of a young pediatrician who overcame great personal pain to fulfill her dream of health care for the poorest children — a dream that refused to die, even when the young doctor was murdered.
Oakland pediatrician Karen Kruger doesn't look much like your standard-issue medical doctor as she sprawls on the floor of an emergency shelter, laughing and reading out loud to a group of giggling, excitable kids, with her own five-year-old son balanced precariously on her lap, while simultaneously throwing a football to Bobby Hill, an exuberant seven-year-old boy with a strong, but wild arm.
This isn't your traditional, antiseptic hospital environment either — this is a shelter for scores of homeless people in Berkeley run by BOSS (Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency). And Karen Kruger, M.D., who just came off a 24-hour shift as a pediatrician at Children's Hospital in Oakland, is not outfitted in a sterile white coat and air of clinical detachment. She's wearing blue jeans and bearing teddy bears for her patients, and she's come to a homeless shelter as an unpaid volunteer, with two of her own young children in tow, to provide free "house calls" to children whose only home is a shelter.
The kids she's seeing aren't paying customers, or covered by medical plans or health insurance. No, they're Kerry's Kids. They're the children loved and cared for in absentia by Kerry Spooner-Dean, a brilliant young pediatrician whose life was cut short when she was brutally murdered in her Oakland home in May 1998.
Everyone who works at the mobile health clinic that now bears her name is aware that Kerry Spooner-Dean's life dream was to deliver free medical care to the very doorsteps of homeless shelters and battered women's refuges so the poorest children would not be shut out of the health-care system.
And every pediatrician, every volunteer for Kerry's Kids, every van driver, every family member raising funds, knows that Kerry entrusted her kids to them to care for now that she no longer can. They know it is a sacred trust. In carrying out Kerry's last dream, they are caring for the children she was forced to leave behind.
The Legacy of the Dreamer
The homeless children being immunized and cared for in the East Bay — at Harrison House in Berkeley, and the Salvation Army, Women's Refuge, and the Henry Robinson Multi-Service Center in Oakland — are Kerry's legacy to us, the part of her spirit that outlived her short life. She left a lasting impression on the talented doctors and dedicated volunteers who are now keeping alive her vision of free and accessible health care for the poorest children of all.
The brilliant young doctor, only 30 when she was murdered, dreamed of overcoming the lack of health insurance, the institutional obstacles, the language barriers and transportation difficulties that prevented homeless children from accessing health care. She was one of those rare people with the gift of inspiring others to carry on her dream, even beyond the span of her short life.
Karen Kruger, Kerry's friend and fellow pediatrician at Children's Hospital Oakland said, "It's interesting to be so young and to have her work live on, to be so young and yet accomplish the kind of work that could live on. You know, most people spend their lifetime trying to accomplish that."
During her lifetime, Kerry was already making that dream come true, by anyone's standards, through her work as a pediatrician at Children's Hospital, one of the finest pediatric hospitals on the West Coast. Matthew Uretsky, a volunteer coordinator at Kerry's Kids, notes that many doctors at Children's Hospital could double their incomes by working elsewhere, but are dedicated to working at a facility that accepts all children at the door, no matter their income levels.
But in the course of her three-year residency, Kerry realized that many children never made it to Children's Hospital in the first place — homeless kids who languished without medical attention in the shelters of Berkeley and Oakland; kids whose parents had been evicted and had to scramble day and night for shelter and food; kids whose moms had been battered and were living in fear in a women's refuge; children from refugee families whose parents didn't speak enough English to navigate the incomprehensible maze of medical insurance forms; kids whose parents were too bone-tired from standing in soup-kitchen lines to take four bus-transfers to keep a doctor's appointment for an immunization.
Dr. Kerry Spooner-Dean's central insight was that health care had to be delivered to homeless children, not the other way around. Dr. Karen Kruger, who supervised and taught Kerry during her residency at Children's Hospital, saw Kerry's dream take shape over the years.
"In the short time between when she finished her residency and when she was killed, she wanted to go a step further," Kruger said. That next step was a mobile health van that carried free medical care directly to children in homeless shelters.
The dream came closer to reality when Oakland Head Start donated the van, and closer still when Kerry completed her residency and passed the rigorous final exam in pediatrics in January 1998.
Then, tragically, the dreamer died.
A few months after passing her final medical exam, Kerry was stabbed to death in her Rockridge home on May 5, 1998, by Jerrol Glen Woods, a carpet cleaner hired to clean the rugs in her home.
Woods had seven prior felony convictions and had served 12 years in federal prison for a bank robbery before his release on probation in 1996. He was caught a week after the murder using Kerry's stolen credit cards, and admitted to the police his guilt in the brutal killing. He entered a guilty plea to murder with special circumstances, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole on August 4, 1998.
'Ongoing acts of kindness'
Kerry was killed a few weeks before the fifth anniversary of her marriage to architect Daniel Dean. Immediately after his wife's murder, Daniel said: "We are focused on turning this horrific act of violence into several ongoing acts of kindness." He was as good as his word.
Kerry's family and medical friends refused to let her dream die. Karen Kruger said in an interview with Street Spirit: "Kerry had this dream. She had many things started, and then her death was so sudden and seemingly purposeless and shocking that I think there was a need for people that loved her to carry on her memory in a way that she would look down on from her cloud and be happy about. A bunch of people loved her. A bunch of people were in the same field at the place she worked, and she had already made a lot of connections."
The words "undying devotion" leap to mind in trying to understand Kerry's dedication to the cause of free, accessible health care for the poorest children — because, as it turned out, even death could not stop her dream. Her friends and family labored to create Kerry's Kids literally in defiance of her tragic death.
Bob Savio, M.D., worked closely with Kerry during their residency together at Children's Hospital, and has volunteered with Kerry's Kids for three years now, providing pediatric care to homeless children at Henry Robinson Multi-Service Center in downtown Oakland. He said Kerry's dream has helped fill a very serious gap in health care in the East Bay.
"Her dream was to help out inner-city kids in Oakland," Dr. Savio explained. "She saw a deep need. Before Kerry's Kids there was no free medical care for kids in Oakland. It blew me away when I came to Oakland from Seattle, where there are great homeless clinics. It blew me away to be in a big urban center with a lot of socioeconomic need that had no resources for free medical care for kids in the city. Kerry saw that too."
Kerry's Kids pediatrician Karen Kruger visits with homeless children at Harrison House in Berkeley. Lydia Gans photo
A funny, sunny, joyful person
In interviews today, nearly four years after her death, her friends, medical colleagues and family talk about Kerry's funny, sunny, joyful personality with as much fresh enthusiasm as if they had just had lunch with her. They remember her medical knowledge and brilliance. But it was something else — her love — that they say makes Kerry unforgettable.
"She's just one of those unbelievably kind, gentle, very warm people," Dr. Savio said. "It always seems like horrible things happen to the most wonderful people, and that is what happened to her."
Savio still draws inspiration from Kerry's life. "Knowing Kerry inspired those around her to do good — not just to make money but to do good."
Kruger said, "She was extraordinarily bright; she just had tremendous knowledge. But probably even more important than that is her heart. I mean she just loved the kids, loved their parents; she had no judgment of anyone's choices. Whatever went on in the family, she was just there supporting them and loving them."
Kruger said that Kerry reminded her most of Susan Sarandon's portrayal of the unconditional love shown by Catholic nun Helen Prejean in "Dead Man Walking." Kruger explained, "Kerry was more giggly and humorous, but to have that love is an extraordinary quality, a rare quality. Her brightness was great, but her other qualities were more rare."
Smiles, like beauty, may be only skin deep in some. Dr. Savio said that Kerry's warmth and joyfulness came from deeper places, for she had a lasting acquaintance with pain long before her death. "She just wore her smile all the time," he said. "But she lived in incredible physical pain, multiple back injuries. She was smiling all the time but living with really bad pain."
Kerry's family keeps it alive
Kerry's extended family and in-laws were instrumental in founding Kerry's Kids, providing the administrative know-how, finding the financial support, and above all, being the sheer driving force needed to jump-start a mobile health clinic and keep it rolling all these years.
Dr. Kruger explained: "They took care of all those practical things completely, for one. But I also think that the spirit — the desire for this to work, their availability — has made this possible. Kerry's family, who are not medical, had such love for her, and just wanted to make this work, coming to us, working together, and just breaking their necks to make everything happen. I think they kept it alive."
Kathy Dean, Kerry's mother-in-law, now helps coordinate the health van's visits to homeless sites. She described the meaning of Kerry's Kids to the family her daughter-in-law left behind. "It's a blessing. If we didn't have this piece of Kerry with us it would be so tragic, because her vision was to meet the medical needs of indigent children. It's a wonderful legacy because she was so compassionate and caring and people have just taken up this mantle of her quest and vision."
The family laid the groundwork for Kerry's Kids immediately after her death, setting up a memorial fund in her honor that made it all possible. The pediatricians and medical staff at Kerry's Kids are all volunteers, but money is needed for supplies, medications, insurance and other expenses. Oakland Head Start donates the RV, the vehicle maintenance and gas; and Bennie Smith is behind the wheel, driving the RV to homeless sites all over Oakland and West Berkeley. The women of All Saints Lutheran Church collected scores of teddy bears to donate to Kerry's Kids, and those are given out along with children's books to make the health van's visits more special for the homeless kids.
But Kerry's Kids operates on a shoestring budget, receiving no governmental grants from Alameda County or the federal government, even though it is providing health care for the children in poverty that are supposed to be cared for by governmental medical assistance and funding.
The beauty of Kerry's Kids is that it was not launched by a big medical foundation or by seasoned professional fundraisers. Rather, it was launched by relative babes in the woods, by people who had a dream of giving away free health care to homeless children, by family members who were faithful to the last dream of a tragically murdered daughter and wife. All they had when they started out was heart and compassion and commitment, and that is still true today.
Kerry's Kids sends volunteer doctors and nurses in a medical van to homeless programs and shelters to deliver on-site health care to poor and uninsured kids.
Directing it from above
But if the program is modest, without governmental support or big celebrity benefits, it may benefit from something still more powerful. Dr. Kruger says flatly, "I think Kerry's directing it from above, myself, personally speaking."
Each year, Children's Hospital awards a resident the Kerry Spooner-Dean Memorial Award that honors a doctor's commitment to delivering health care to underserved communities. The 2001 award winner was Dana Weintraub, M.D., a chief resident at Children's and volunteer pediatrician for Kerry's Kids.
Kerry's work lives on today in the children she helped while alive, the Children's Hospital scholarship, and, above all, in Kerry's Kids. Dr. Kruger said, "I think Kerry's Kids is a great dream come true. In a lot of ways, I see ripples, like how you throw a pebble in the water and these ripples go out. It's just how goodness can spread. It just spread beyond to people she never met in her lifetime."
Friends recall how resilient Kerry had been in life, how she kept bouncing back. Kerry's Kids might be the ultimate act of bouncing back from sorrow and tragedy.
Kruger said, "I think it's a combination of her dream, the person she was, all the people nearby that knew her and wanted to make some sense of her life not being longer than it was. No one knows about tomorrow, but it just seems unbelievable. I mean, a lot of us saw her that day (she was killed) and she was fine, you know?
"So it helped to just bring some little bit of peace — that she was somehow still a little bit here, or that she would have at least liked that Kerry's Kids was happening since she didn't have enough time to finish it herself."
Kruger, her friend in life, works to this day in honor of Kerry's legacy. Asked what Kerry's reaction would be if she could see the continuation of her life's work, Dr. Kruger said, "I think she would be pleased and just be so grateful. She'd say, 'Oh, thank you guys for doing this! I can't believe you did this!' "
Abolish the Inhumanity of War and Poverty
My Back Pages: A Song for Miss Kay


Do you have a hard time paying your bills from time to time? Are you a low income family? Do you receive financial assistance from a government institution such as food stamps? If you answered yes to at least one of the following questions, you might be eligible for a free government phone in California.
Budget Mobile offers Free LifeLine Phones in California including unlimited free calls, unlimited free text messages, and 250mb of data. Through this free government phone program, those who struggle to pay their bills don't have to worry about how many minutes or texts their using per month helping reduce a little stress in their day to day life. This especially is helpful in emergency situations such as when you need to call for last minute daycare, call for a tow on your broken down car, or have a job interview on the phone that goes long.
To qualify for California LifeLine Phone program through Budget Mobile, applicants must meet some basic qualifications.
Important: Only one family member per household can qualify for a Free LifeLine Phone through Budget Mobile.


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Forward Under 40
Ryan Sarafolean '07
Since helping found KGSA in 2006, Ryan Sarafolean has worked to give hundreds of Kenyan women an education to help them stand up to threats of discrimination, rape, domestic abuse and forced prostitution.
Forward Under 40 >
2011 Forward under 40 Award Honoree
UW Major: Political Science
Age: 26 | St. Paul, Minnesota
U.S. Development Director, Kibera Girls Soccer Academy (KGSA)
The idea for the free secondary school for girls and young women started when Sarafolean was living in Kibera, Kenya, on a study-abroad experience with Minnesota Studies in International Development, an experiential grassroots program of the University of Minnesota open to students from other universities. Home to more than a half-million Kenyans, the Kibera slums play host to rampant disease and poverty brought on by overcrowding, scarce clean drinking water and a lack of basic public services. It is an even scarier place for women, who face constant threats of discrimination, rape, domestic abuse and forced prostitution. It was here that he met Abdul Kassim, and Sarafolean never dreamt of where their chance meeting and conversation would lead.
Kassim led Sarafolean through the slums, detailing these hardships and how he was working to combat them through his recently founded Girls Soccer in Kibera program, which he hoped would foster a supportive community of emotional support for young women through the sport. The program was successful, but fell short of his goal to not just provide an escape from the hardships of slum life, but empower the women of Kibera through a solid education in a safe and welcoming environment. Kassim figured it would cost a few hundred dollars to get his school up and running. Sarafolean knew he could help, and shortly after, KGSA was born.
"Traveling in Kenya, I realized most women just simply don't have a chance after they're 14," he says, noting the age when Kenya's primary school system ends and most women aren't afforded the opportunity for secondary education. "I believe everyone has the right to have their basic needs met and also an opportunity to create a sustainable future."
Since 2006, Sarafolean has worked with Kassim to grow KGSA from a nine-foot-by-nine-foot single classroom to a two-story building, including four classrooms, a science lab, a library, a teacher's office and a daily meal program. The school's 15 volunteer teachers educate more than 130 students each year, and each member of the class of 2009 (the school's first graduating class) passed the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exam, a vitally important step for Kenyans to pursue advanced work opportunities or higher education.
Empowering the girls with the tools to take their education out into their communities, KGSA also works to provide vocational training programs and prepare them for higher education. The school's science club recently completed work on solar light bulbs that students can charge during the day and take home at night (as most homes are without electricity), with the hope of turning this into a business. Students in the journalism program recently formed their own media company and are now writing, editing and producing a quarterly magazine.
Ventures such as these highlight Sarafolean's current role as KGSA's U.S. development director, and his task is to help realize the school's mission to achieve financial self-sufficiency. As an autonomous organization, KGSA would retain its decision-making power and remain a Kibera-born-and-run organization, empowering its people to realize they have a voice and a right to make decisions in their lives. Sarafolean's major endeavor, the Secure a Future campaign, seeks to raise $100,000 from 100 individual donors, which would allow the school to continue to run for several years as its sustainable business ventures, such as its new taxicab company, gain traction.
"I feel very fortunate," says Sarafolean. "I grew up with a lot of privilege and I realized that at a young age. I just knew that I wanted to utilize that for the benefit of many more [human] beings."
What's next for you? What do you see happening or hope will happen in the next five years?
Our goal is to have the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy become a financially sustainable school through several different income-generating opportunities that we've identified that would exist in Kenya and would be implemented and managed by Kenyans. We are searching for 100 individuals that can donate $1,000 each, as we need to raise $100,000 in order to make this a reality. If you would like to learn more about how you can help with this initiative, please visit our Secure a Future website.
What occupies your free time?
If I have a free morning, I like waking up to a podcast, either This American Life or a Radio Lab. If it's an afternoon, then I try to be a poet with a cup of coffee and headphones. If it's a free evening, then I'm playing the keyboard at home.
What advice would you offer to graduating seniors?
Don't try and control life and the direction it takes you in. Ultimately, life is beautiful and your job is to enjoy each moment. Continually challenge yourself, search out new experiences, allow yourself to laugh at least five times each day, be part of building community, ask for help, say thank you and take your grandma out for breakfast every now and then and you'll do just fine.
If you could trade places with any person for a week, living or dead, real or fictional, with whom would it be?
If I could trade places with any person for a week it would be with his holiness, the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje of the Karma Kagyu lineage. If only for a week, it would be quite an amazing experience to feel how someone of that awareness truly experiences life on a daily level. If he weren't available for trading places that week, my second choice would be Desmond Tutu — that man never stops laughing.
A Visionary Designer and Artist
Virgil Abloh '03, a visionary designer who blended street culture and luxury fashion, passed away in November 2021.
Forward Under 40,
Notable Alumni,
Meet 2020 Forward under 40 Award Recipient Kristian Johnsen '07
Kristian Johnsen works to make a more inclusive military culture, where LGBT service members can find the acceptance and community they need for pe...
Awards,
Meet 2020 Forward under 40 Award Recipient Scott Colom JD'09
As a changemaking district attorney in his home state of Mississippi, Scott Colom loves that he has the chance to use the law to achieve justice fo...
Meet 2020 Forward under 40 Award Recipient Jayeesh Bakshi MS '14
From cancer patients to nuclear power-plant workers, Jayeesh Bakshi works to protect people from radiation with a technology called ClearView Radia...
Meet 2020 Forward under 40 Award Recipient Erin Banco '11
Since Erin Banco took over the national-security beat at the Daily Beast, global unrest and political chaos have meant no shortage of news.
Meet 2020 Forward under 40 Award Recipients Mehrdad Arjmand MS'13, PHD'17 and Aaron Olson '12, MS'14, PHD'18
As cofounders of NovoMoto, a UW–Madison business spinoff, entrepreneurs Mehrdad Arjmand(left) and Aaron Olson (right) are bringing clean energy to ...
Alumni Profiles,
Meet 2020 Forward under 40 Award Recipient Kiana Beaudin '10, MPAS'15
The Ho-Chunk Nation's Department of Health has been declared a "shining star" among providers in the U.S. Indian Health Service, and executive dire...
Meet 2019 Forward under 40 Award Recipient Kashoua Kristy Yang JD'09
Kashoua Kristy Yang's 2017 election to the Milwaukee County Circuit Court made historic headlines: she's the nation's first Hmong American judge el...
Badger Vibes,
Meet 2019 Forward under 40 Award Recipient Matt Kopac'01
When it comes to the business behind Burt's Bees, Matt Kopac makes sure the company prospers while keeping its promises to people and the planet.
Meet 2019 Forward under 40 Award Recipient Kristin Kohlmann'13
Kristin Kohlmann's research on child and maternal health could mean a big breakthrough for treating acute malnutrition — one of the world's leading...
SEE ALL NEWS AND STORIES

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Weston Hurd & Corrigan Krause Share in MSI Global Alliance's 2013 Association of the Year Award
MSI Global Alliance was announced winner of 'Association of the Year' at the 2013 International Accounting Bulletin Awards
Attracting more than 100 nominations worldwide, the IAB awards were judged by an independent panel of accounting experts which saw
The International Accounting Bulletin is the leading authority of the global accounting industry and The International Accounting Bulletin is the leading authority of the global accounting industry and regularly analyses firm performance and best practices. The 2013 IAB awards honor individual excellence, innovative practices and firms that have risen above their peers in the past 12 months. MSI was presented with the Association of the Year award during the awards ceremony held at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in London on 14th March.
MSI was praised for effectively harnessing the use of innovative technology to connect with its global members having recognized the fundamental shift in the way in which professional firms, clients and stakeholders communicate.
MSI has a presence in Northeast Ohio through its member firms Corrigan Krause and Weston Hurd.
Thomas L. Harrison, CPA, Managing Director at Corrigan Krause, said: "Being a part of such a first-class organization enables our firm to provide more value-added services and international guidance to our client base – the closely held business centered in Northeast Ohio."
"The honor awarded to MSI is well-deserved. MSI has enabled our clients to compete internationally, saving our clients and our firm the valuable resources of time and money in the ever-growing global market. We have been a proud member of MSI since 1999,"adds Gary W. Johnson, Esq. of Weston Hurd LLP.
Ranked in Crain's Top 25 Largest Accounting Firms, Corrigan Krause was founded in 1992. It is a full service certified public accounting firm servicing northeast Ohio and beyond. They are a member of MSI Global Alliance, an international association of independent legal and accounting professionals.
With more than 55 attorneys and with offices located in Cleveland, Columbus and Beachwood, the law firm of Weston Hurd LLP provides comprehensive legal counsel to Fortune 500 companies, insurance carriers, banks, healthcare providers, small- and medium-sized businesses, the real estate industry, governmental agencies, non-profit enterprises and individuals. Weston Hurd is honored to be recognized by Martindale-Hubbell and ALM as a 2013 Top Rated Law Firm.


The UE Boom has been a popular choice among Bluetooth speakers since its debut back in 2013, thanks in large part to its stellar design and ability to blast tunes in 360 degrees. In fact, we've been quite smitten with it here at Engadget HQ. After nearly a year and a half, and a number of new colors and artist collaborations, Ultimate Ears has a new version: the Megaboom. If you're thinking this looks a lot like the regular Boom, you're correct -- except it's bigger. The larger option is still waterproof and wrapped in a stain-resistant skin, and it's said to last 20 hours on a charge with a Bluetooth range of 100 feet. Free apps for both iOS and Android are in play as well, which means remote control, alarm and sound tweaks from your mobile device return. And if one isn't enough, the UE Megaboom can "double up" with a second or a regular Boom for a sound boost. The $300 speaker will arrive in the US and a few countries in both Europe and Asia later this month.


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HSG Kreuzberg Berlin Homepage
News im Detail
When You go to handball match, You expect to see the hanball, and for beloved team You cheer for, to win. But it's not always the case. You don't see "the team", every time. And this game was no exception, at least not for the first half.
If we didn't have Paco, a wild cat on goal as I would call him, we wouldn't have much to look for in second half.
I must point out the great play from home team player, number 25 (Patrick Hanisch), who made a constant trouble for our defence, as well as couple of other players, who help him along the way to the win in first half.
Except Paco's goalkeeping, that kept us alive, nothing was clearly working in first half. His great saves, along side some of the good moves in the offense, was enough to finish the first half with three goals in behind. And then came the half break.
When You're three goals behind, against a team marked as one the top candidates for first place in league, could usually meen that we could expect some arguing, and finger pointing in locker room, but that's not what happened. We used the break properly. We defined our problems, we made new plans, and we got out on the court, prepared to win. In the second half, we became team!
With a really strong defence, smart first wave transitions, and patient build ups in offense, we maded through the end of the game, and fought for win by two goals difference.
We praise our fans, we show them what the teamwork realy means!!!


8/03/2016 · In this insightful talk, she shares 10 useful rules for having better conversations. "Go out, talk to people, listen to people," she says. "And, most importantly, be prepared to be amazed."... There are probably a handful of people you already know who could end up becoming part of a new social circle. I'm talking about people like: I'm talking about people like: Acquaintances you're friendly with when you run into each other, but who you never see otherwise.
The people who are the least "weird" and socially awkward are simply the ones who spend the most time talking to people. Think of the coolest, most outgoing person you've ever seen. Chances are, they spend hours a day talking to people.When you spend a lot of time talking to people, you start to develop a feeling or intuition of what you should say next.... 30/03/2012 · People like people who are generous (and confident) enough to engage them. Small talk isn't just about being gregarious or entertaining---it's a gesture of respect.
People love to talk (especially about themselves), and are typically flattered when someone is paying attention to them. Look for someone who seems approachable, who's by himself and isn't talking to someone else or working on something. how to clean suede trainers Dear Lifehacker, I'm a terrible listener. I want to do better, but I have trouble paying attention. I miss what people say a lot and end up embarrassing myself and offending them.
Gossip makes us feel better about ourselves because we get to revel in the fact that other people have problems too. This is especially gratifying when their problems are seen as more severe than our own. It is selfish pride and a need for self-exaltation that results in that mindset.
Do you have any other books you would reccommend to become a better listener and to just stop talking so darn much. I truly try and my mouth runs over with my brain. Not sure how to stop it. Thanks I truly try and my mouth runs over with my brain.


You might've learned about literary devices in school, but did you know that these aren't just for poets and professors? Many popstars also use these techniques to give your favorite anthems some extra punch.
Below are some literary devices that are used in pop music. Please feel free to sing along as you read.
Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds in the middle or end of a word. While consonance is generally used less frequently than assonance, divas (and boy bands) still utilize consonance to create catchy lyrics.
Alliteration is the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of closely adjacent words. Alliteration is used in many popular songs, and we hope you don't have any bad blood with your favorite artists because they use it.
Who knew that Eminem was a modern day Shakespeare? Listen to pop radio for a few minutes and you'll start to hear how often artists use these techniques to add some extra snap, crackle and pop to a verse.
Our tutors help students master grammar, literary devices and English.


What a beautiful day today was!
My husband and I went picnic with a lunch box.
but still it's nice to be out and to feel breeze.
we found Japanese Cherry tree was in full bloom.
It's a great surprise for us.
I cannot help but love them so much.


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Q: Trigger a single function on multiple different events I am making a function that appends objects to a text area with the following script:
Project Page Project Code
inputNum.onchange = inputNum.onkeydown =  function(e){
        if(e.type == 'change' || (e.type = 'keydown' && e.keyCode == 13)){
            if(checkLength(inputNum.value,10) === true){
                inputNum.value = 9999999999;
            }

            //random variables and functions

            var j = 0;
            var m = setInterval(function(){
                if(j !== 0){
                    val = val * 40014;
                }
                if(val <= a){
                    if(useOpt === true){
                        res.value = res.value + "\n" + Math.round(Number((Number(val / div) * en) - sn));
                    }else{
                        res.value = res.value + "\n" + Number(Number(val / div) - Math.floor(val/div)).toFixed(5);
                    }
                }else{
                    var n = val;
                    n = l(n,a);
                    val = n;
                    console.log(n);
                    if(useOpt === true){
                        res.value = res.value + "\n" + Math.round(Number((Number(n / div) * en) - sn));
                    }else{
                        res.value = res.value + "\n" + Number(Number(n / div) - Math.floor(n/div)).toFixed(5);
                    }
                }
                j = j + 1;
                if(j == Number(rep.value)){
                    clearInterval(m);
                }
            },1);
            res.value = res.value.replace(/\n/,"");
        }
    };

However, I cannot seem to find a way to run this function only once, when I press 'enter' on my input element. The resulting values from pressing 'enter' are:
0.00002
0.00002
0.74558
0.74558

instead of just 0.00002 and 0.74558 by themselves.
Is there a way that I can run the function only once when I press enter to change the input value? Also, I do not want to use jQuery for this. I would like the code to run both when the number is changed, but the key Enter isn't pressed and also when the key Enter is pressed and nothing is changed, and when the value is changed and the key Enter is pressed.

A: As a good workaround I would suggest to throttle or debounce your handler body. There are many implementations and you may create your own one, but let's take the lodash throttle with trailing option set to false:
var myHandler = function (e) { /* ... */ }
var myThrottledHandler = _.throttle(myHandler, 45, { trailing: false });
inputNum.onchange = inputNum.onkeydown = myThrottledHandler;

This would not allow to call your handler twice till 45ms is passed.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Q: Reloading a button on event change in React Typescript I am having a simple form in React, which looks like:
const [placeOptions] = useState([
     { value: 'USA', label: 'USA' },
     { value: 'MEX', label: 'Mexico' },
]);
const [name, setName] = useState('');
const [place, setPlace] = useState('USA');
....

<input onChange={event => setName(event.target.value)} type="text"/>
<select onChange={event => setPlace(event.target.value)}>
    {placeOptions.map(item => (
        <option key={item.value} value={item.value}>
            {item.label}
        </option>
    ))}
</select>

<CustomButton id="custom-btn" props={[name, place]} />

The above Custom button is just rendering once and is taking the default null and 'USA' value. It should Ideally send props to every event change, possibly refreshing the component once event is triggered. I am unable to determine how do I refresh a component on event change and pass the correct state to the props.
Edit: The below is the CustomButton.tsx file:
export function CustomButton({ props, id }: { props?:any, id?:string}) {
    var name = props ? props[0] : '';
    var place = props ? props[1] : '';

    useEffect(() => {
        renderButton(id);
    }

    return(
        <React.Fragment>

        </React.Fragment>
    );

    async function renderButton(id: string) {
        ... // Some logic involving the props passed
    }
}

Edit 2:
This the code sandbox: https://codesandbox.io/s/amazing-dust-315dk?file=/src/App.js
All I want is to change the props too and dynamically render the custom button.

A: The problem is how you define the name and the place variable in CustomButton Component.
Variables of javascript defined like var let, and const will not trigger re-renders in React Button. States and Props only can trigger re-renders in React Components.
So if you do something like this in the parent file:
// All same code excepet
<CutomButtom id="cutom-btn" name={name} place={place} />

You can get name and place directly from props and use them as it is like:
export function CustomButton({ name, place, id }: { name: string, place: string, id:string}){
// NO need for defining name and place now, just use them directly...
}

Another improvement you can make is to define  PropsType separately:
export interface CustomButtonProps  {
id: string;
name:string;
place:string;
}

export function CustomButton({name, place, id}:CustomButtonProps){

}


text:
Chapter 21 New Bedford/Onset, Massachusetts…1884 P261~268
They had been prisoners of the ice for six weeks, drifting farther and farther away from any kind of civilization they knew. Over time, death was something that the men began to know well. After six weeks, thirteen men were dead. Causes ranged from freezing to scurvy and three suicides. There were another twelve men still alive, if anybody could call it that. Four men, including Rainer were almost complete invalids and another two were well on their way. Isaac Dunn, the ship's second mate was in command. With Rainer's blessing, Dunn took a boat, two rifles one quarter of the food and three volunteers which included a young Aesop MacDonald to try and get help. Pushing and pulling one of the whale boats, the SPIDER became smaller and smaller until it eventually disappeared altogether into the whiteness of the ice, snow and sky. It took them almost two weeks to reach enough open water to float the boat, even then it wasn't much but rowing was easier than pulling the damn thing across the ice. They had already lost one man before putting the boat in the water. He just started walking in the opposite direction and didn't stop. The landscape itself was seductively hypnotic due to the absence of color or any type of identifying landmarks, there was just…nothingness. They rowed until they ran out of water and ice blocked their way, at which time, they pulled the boat out of the water and started pulling it over the ice again. They continued to move ahead slowly, eating anything they could get their hands on but pickings were slim. Dunn drove them on, using all his knowledge and experience. If anyone were to ever ask who was MacDonald's salvation in those dark days, he would say without hesitation that it was Isaac Dunn. When they reached another spit of water, they put the boat in and much to everyone's relief, continued on. Dunn knew their troubles were far from over. They were alone in one of the most unforgiving environments in the world. MacDonald was afraid and not ashamed to admit it, even now, fourteen years later, the memories still caused him to shiver. Thanks to Dunn, they were able to reach Wrangel Island which in itself was a God send, as they had run out of food. Scrounging around, they were able to collect a few bird eggs and break the necks of a couple birds they had feebly caught, all of it was eaten raw, it was enough to keep them alive a little bit longer. Over the next three days, they were able to kill a seal and two more birds. Stocking the boat with anything they could find, they set off again and made their way to the coast of Siberia. The third man, in a fit of depression took one of the rifles and shot himself in the head. They dumped his body over the side without ceremony. Now it was only Dunn and MacDonald. They pushed on, MacDonald lost track of time days were forgotten. He began to think death was preferable to the suffering they were going through but Dunn kept pushing him. "Come on Aesop, wake up God damn it!" MacDonald remembered a hard kick from Dunn's boot, his eyes fluttered open. "Get your black ass up! Come on Aesop, move! You got to keep your blood flowing!" "I just want to sleep awhile Mr. Dunn, jus' a little while…" Dunn slapped him across the face. "Listen to me Aesop, stay awake or you will die! Do you understand? If you sleep you will die!" Dunn was almost pleading with him. "I promise, we get to shore, I'll build a fire and you can sleep, ok? But stay awake now!" "Sleep? On shore?" mumbled MacDonald. "Yes, I promise, you can sleep when we get ashore." It took all the will power MacDonald could muster to keep his eyes open. He thought of food, fires, wool blankets, Georgia peaches, his mother, his father, hot soup…hot soup… When he opened his eyes, he was under a crude shelter, wrapped in a damp wool blanket. Dunn was warming his hands in front of a small fire and cooking up a small tin of soup with their available food supplies. Noticing MacDonald was awake he smiled, "It's alright Aesop, we're on land." "This ain't a dream?" asked MacDonald a bit fearful. Dunn shook his head. "We're gonna be ok. We'll rest here awhile, its gonna be ok. Go back to sleep." MacDonald closed his eyes. If Mr. Dunn said it was gonna be ok, then he knew it would be so. The memory was still alive. Once they reached Alaska, Dunn did his best to organize a rescue, but because it was winter not too many people were chomping at the bit to search for the whaler and her crew. Dunn went out twice, MacDonald going with him the second time but they found nothing. The SPIDER and her remaining crew members were gone. As Dunn had predicted the owners were not pleased with the loss of the SPIDER or her valuable cargo, and regardless of what the owners thought of him the captains on the waterfront still had a high regard for Dunn, even more so after the loss of the whaling ship in the Arctic. There weren't many men who could do what Isaac Dunn did and survive. Dunn was able to get Aesop a good billet aboard another whaling ship, as for Dunn…he never went out again. Leaving his horse in care of a stable hand, MacDonald after asking directions made his way over to the local school, a one room building that had been freshly white washed. Looking through one of the school windows he could see the man he had come to talk to. Isaac Dunn was 45 years old, trim man with curly brown hair and a slightly receding hairline. His face was clean shaven though lined from the years. Dunn still carried the guilt of the SPIDER. When MacDonald opened the door the students turned and Dunn looked up from the book he was holding, it took a moment before a smile came to his face. "Class, I think we've learned enough for today, we'll continue with George Washington and the American Revolution tomorrow, you're dismissed." The children cheered, half a day at school was almost as good as no school at all. In a hurry they grabbed their books and hats and ran out of the school, grateful for the stranger's arrival. Once the class was cleared, Dunn walked over to MacDonald with his hand extended, "My God, Aesop MacDonald, how the hell are you?!" MacDonald shook his hand and grinned, "Fine Isaac and yourself?" Dunn shrugged his shoulders, "Ahh, you know, not bad. This school and the kids keep me pretty busy." MacDonald nodded looking about the room. "Do you have time to talk?" he asked. Dunn smiled, "The whole afternoon, those kids ain't gonna be rushing back here." "Is there someplace we can go?" Dunn clapped him on the shoulder, "You mean besides an empty school room? Yeah, I know just the place." They walked down the street, MacDonald looking at the people, Dunn knew what was on his mind. "They're not all involved with the occult and spiritualism Aesop." "I know Isaac," said MacDonald, "'It's just the ones who are that scare me." They went inside a small inn where Dunn was obviously known and sat down. Dunn ordered two beers from behind the girl from behind the counter. "Heard you got married Aesop, congratulations." "Thanks Isaac, I wanted you to come to the wedding, but you wasn't around." Dunn looked at the table and shrugged his shoulders, "Sometimes I like to get away…it helps," he said not elaborating on the subject, not needing to. "I'm sure it does," said MacDonald. Dunn turned to his old friend, "I'm sure she's a fine woman Aesop, I'd be proud to meet her someday." "She's the best." The beers came and they raised their mugs to the familiar toast. "A dead whale," said Dunn. "Or a stove boat," smiled MacDonald. They clicked their mugs and drank down the cold yellow brew. After MacDonald's ride from New Bedford the beer sure tasted good. "Heard you was first mate aboard the SHY LADY," said Dunn. MacDonald nodded his head. "That's Jon Mason's ship ain't it?" MacDonald nodded again, "It was him that sent me to see ya." "Jon Mason sent you to see me? What the hell for?" MacDonald sighed, "We're going up north, high north and Mason wants you with us." "Christ, Aesop, the last time you and me went up that way, it damn near killed us and you want to go back?!" "Jon Mason's a good captain, Isaac he knows his business he'll bring us back." "So why do you need me?" asked Dunn. "You both been up in the Greenland fisheries before, you don't need me to hunt whales." "We ain't going to hunt whales," said MacDonald. "Then what ya going for?" MacDonald looked around he wanted to make sure they were alone in their conversation. "We're going to the North Pole," he said. "Are you crazy? Said Dunn. "The North Pole? Why in Sam hell would you want to go there?" "Because some big city fellers are paying good money that's why and we need your help. You're the only one who's actually spent time with the Eskimos, you know their ways besides are you telling me you couldn't use fifteen thousand dollars?' "Fifteen thousand dollars?" said Dunn. "Yeah, fifteen thousand, free and clear, that's for the second mate. Half now, the rest when we get back, that's guaranteed." "Second mate?" "Yeah, Mason wants you to go as second mate and ice master." Dunn looked out the window doubt spread across his face, maybe Jabez was right, maybe… "Look Aesop, I appreciate the offer but…I don't know. It's been a long time, you know." "The SPIDER wasn't your fault, Sebastion made the choice. If Rainer had listened to you maybe more people would have survived, as it is you saved my life. If it wasn't for you I wouldn't be here today." Dunn thought about it, this might be the answer to a number of growing problems in many ways. "I have to get out of this place, maybe this is what I need to do." "Come with us Isaac, you won't regret it," said MacDonald. "How soon can I get the money?" asked Dunn. With money, Martha could be free of their overbearing father and brother. "It'll be in any bank you choose in four days time." "Alright, I'll give you the details on that. Where do you want me?" asked Dunn. "Mason wants you in New Bedford aboard the SHY LADY in seven days, can you do that? And Isaac, this is all confidential no one else is to know." "Yeah, alright no problem New Bedford, seven days, I can take care of most things in that time." MacDonald stood up and shook his hand, "I'm glad you're coming with us, you won't regret it Isaac." "I'll see you in New Bedford," said Dunn shacking his hand. Watching MacDonald leave, Dunn shook his head and sighed. He must be crazy, what the hell did he just agree to?
Chapter 18 Greenland…1884 p221~227
Chapter 22 Chicago, Illinois…1884 P268~278


Combine eggs, butter, strawberry apple butter and vanilla. Place the covered jar of Fudge Sweet into hot water to thin. Add the milk, Fudge Sweet and Fruit Sweet to the butter mixture. Sift the flour and baking soda together and blend with the wet mixture. Pour into two greased and floured 9" round tins or equivalent.
Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Cool. Top with whipped cream.


text:
PhillyDeals
Sidhu takes over Chesco bank in $14M deal, plans growth
Ex-Sovereign Bancorp chief executive Jay S. Sidhu has taken the top jobs of chairman and CEO at tiny New Century Bank, Phoenixville, after helping raise $13.6 million in a private placement to recapitalize the troubled lender.
by Joseph N. DiStefano
Jay S. Sidhu, forced out as head of the former Sovereign Bancorp in a shareholder rebellion three years ago, has taken the top jobs of chairman and CEO at tiny New Century Bank, Phoenixville, after helping raise $13.6 million in a private placement to recapitalize the troubled lender.
He replaces the bank's founder, Kenneth B. Mumma, who'll stay on the board. New Century, with five branches, $300 million in assets, and $30 million in capital, is a gnat compared to $90 billion Soveriegn, now part of Spain's Banco Santander SA. But Sidhu reminded me Sovereign started almost as small when he joined it in the 1980s.
"We have big plans," Sidhu told me. "We will try to do organic growth and M&A growth. My hope is within a year or two it will be at least a billion dollar bank. At the right time we will do an IPO and take it public.
"We think there is a huge opportunity to have a unique selling proposition. I don't want to talk about that yet. But we will position ourselves against Wells Fargo and Bank of America and PNC. There's a tremendous demand for a bank where people feel their money is absolutely safe."
If Sidhu's in hiring mode, we expect a lot of his former Sovereign employees will be looking for work soon, as Santander prepares to consolidate Sidhu's former Reading headquarters. Will he put the band back together? "No question about it," Sidhu says. "We're looking for the best talent."
Joseph N. DiStefano


text:
Tag Archives: Catholic church
2/13/15: Old Habits Die Hard
Aidan McArdle, alternate title, British films, British horror, Catholic church, Christianity vs paganism, cinema, Elliot Goldner, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Final Prayer, foreign films, found-footage, found-footage films, Gordon Kennedy, haunted church, horror, horror films, horror movies, insanity, isolated estates, Luke Neal, mental illness, miracles, Movies, paganism, paranormal investigators, Patrick Godfrey, religious-themed horror, Robin Hill, suicide, The Borderlands, UK films, Vatican investigators, writer-director
Sometimes, it doesn't take much to give a particular film a leg up on its competitors. Take writer-director Elliot Goldner's feature-debut, The Borderlands (2014), for example. For the most part, Goldner's film doesn't do much different from the majority of other found-footage horror films on the market but it also doesn't make many obvious mistakes, either. Add to this some effective performances, along with a creepy, fairly original main concept, and you end up with a pretty winning formula. While The Borderlands doesn't raise the bar for these types of films, it's still a suitably sturdy entry and should prove duly thought-provoking for patient horror aficionados.
Goldner's debut deals with a small team of Vatican investigators who have been sent to a rural British church in order to check on claims of strange, miraculous occurrences. Our team consists of Deacon (Gordon Kennedy), the good-humored, gruff, hard-drinking veteran investigator; Mark (Aidan McArdle) the stick-in-the-mud, uptight, by-the-book priest who doesn't actually seem to believe in anything; and their tech expert, Gray (Robin Hill), a studied non-believer who still seems more open to the concept of miracles than his religious-oriented cohorts. The group has been called to the small church in order to investigate the resident priest, Father Crellick (Luke Neal), whose claims of strange, unexplained happenings have set off alarm bells in Vatican City. While Deacon and Gray are used to debunking such claims, the case quickly proves itself to be a singularly odd one. For one thing, Crellick is a decidedly weird duck, given to strange proclamations and privy to "visions" that no one else seems to have. For another, the rural church is a ridiculously creepy place, less of a functional religious center than a hold-over from a much older, darker time: as a rule, folks in films should steer clear of anything built "on top" of anything else: suffice to say, it's always bad news.
As the team continue to investigate, Deacon comes upon a journal, belonging to the church's 1800s-era caretaker, which seems to hint at some sort of dark presence in the area. After a horrifying incident involving a flaming sheep, the group gets the distinct impression that the locals are a little less than welcoming of this intrusion into their land. Who (or what) is responsible for the mysterious, seemingly paranormal incidents at the church? Is eccentric Father Crellick somehow responsible? Is it all related to stories of ancient pagan ceremonies in the isolated valley? Is someone trying to chase the investigators away from an earth-bound conspiracy or is the reality something much darker and more sinister? As each of the men begins to experience their own strange events, Deacon and the others will be forced to face the unfathomable: if a "miraculous" event isn't a miracle…what, exactly, is it?
For the most part, The Borderlands (given the unbelievably boring, generic alternate title of "Final Prayer" for American audiences, natch) is an assured, well-made and interesting film, albeit one that makes many of the same (inherent) missteps that most found-footage movies make. While nothing here is as obvious as the many Paranormal Activity (2007) sequels, we still get plenty of scenes that involves the audience intently peering at a static video image, waiting for something to move/jump/make a scary face/etc. Again, not terrible but so old hat, at this point, as to be almost risible. There are also plenty of strangely "unmotivated" camera shots, such as the lovely but out-of-place landscape exteriors, that pop up from time to time: like many found-footage films, the makers of The Borderlands don't always have the tightest grasp on their "gimmick," as it were, although this is hardly the sloppiest example of said issue.
Where Goldner's film really sets itself apart from the found-footage pack is in the quality of its acting. Gordon Kennedy and Robin Hill are both pretty great and make nice foils for each other: there's a level of shared respect between the two characters that's nicely illustrated in the performances. Kennedy does the gruff "two-fisted man of God" schtick to a tee and Hill is nicely nerdy and kind of sweet as the tech wizard who only wants to believe, even though he really doesn't. For his part, Aidan McArdle is appropriately assholish as the immovable Mark but, for some reason, I had the hardest time not seeing his character as a non-secular version of David Mitchell's odious Mark character in Peep Show (2003-present). Jerks are jerks, however, and McArdle acquits himself nicely as the smug priest/bean-counter.
One of the biggest issues with found-footage films is always the endings: in most cases, they simply devolve into shaky camera-work, motion blurs and the all-important "drop the camera" bit, regardless of what came before. The Borderlands doesn't (quite) go that route, opting for something quite a bit creepier and more bizarre. While the ending is certainly open for multiple interpretations, I'd like to think that the whole thing is a nod to Ken Russell's batshit-crazy Lair of the White Worm (1988): it's probably highly unlikely but who wouldn't want to throw some props Russell's way? Regardless of what it ultimately means, however, the ending is just different enough to warrant sitting through the entire film, especially if one is inclined to enjoy found-footage films.
For a debut-feature, The Borderlands is surprisingly good and makes an effective calling card for Goldner. By making good use of a rather unique location, a rarely-used religious angle, some rock-solid acting and a creepy, unexpected climax, Goldner and crew have come up with a film that looks a lot like its peers but has enough individuality and presence to stand on its own. It also features one of the single most disturbing, horrific and unforgettable scenes I've ever seen in a film (the burning sheep scene will haunt you, guaranteed), indicating that writer-director Goldner has no problems hanging out in the "dark side," when necessary. Here's to hoping that his next feature takes the good will he earned here and runs it in for the touch-down: The Borderlands may not be perfect but I'm willing to wager that Goldner has a pretty fascinating career ahead of him.
12/31/14 (Part Three): Bless Me Father, For You Have Sinned
absentee father, Aidan Gillen, Best of 2014, Brendan Gleeson, Calvary, Catholic church, child molestation, Chris O'Dowd, Church sex scandal, cinema, dark comedies, David McSavage, David Wilmot, Domhnall Gleeson, dramas, Dylan Moran, estranged family, father-daughter relationships, favorite films, film reviews, films, foreign films, forgiveness, Gary Lydon, Irish films, Isaach de Bankole, John Michael McDonagh, Kelly Reilly, Killian Scott, Larry Smith, M. Emmet Walsh, Marie-Josee Croze, Movies, New World in the Morning, Orla O'Rourke, Owen Sharpe, Pat Shortt, Patrick Cassidy, revenge, Roger Whittaker, secrets, set in Ireland, sins of the fathers, small town life, The Guard, writer-director
In a small, dim confessional, Father James (Brendan Gleeson) is calmly told by one of his parishioners that he is to be "sacrificed" the following Sunday, made to die for the sexual abuse that the unknown man suffered at the hands of another priest when he was a boy. The offending priest has since died but the man isn't interested in making a "bad" priest pay: he wants Father James, a "good" priest, to take a bullet, since the Church will feel his loss harder. "Nothing to say, Father?," the mysterious man asks, when he's finished passing his judgment. "I'm sure I'll think of something in a week," Father James sardonically replies.
The week leading up to that fateful Sunday forms the crux of Irish auteur John Michael McDonagh's amazing Calvary (2014), the stunning follow-up to his masterful debut, The Guard (2011). During that time, Father James will reflect on his own life, his failings, his victories and his faith. He'll spend the time wandering about his tiny, coastal town, making small-talk with the parishioners, these "friends" and neighbors who secretly wish him dead, despite their smiles and condescending good natures: after all, he immediately knows who the wannabe assassin is, even if we don't…in a town that small, everyone knows everyone else, regardless of the supposed "anonymity" of the confessional window. Despite his knowledge, however, Father James will go through the motions, investigating each "lead" as if it were a Holmes-worthy clue, biding his time until that inevitable, fateful meeting on the beach. Despite his own innocence, Father James is more than willing to become a victim, a sacrificial goat, if that's what his town needs to heal…to keep on with the drudgery of life under the age-old grip of the Church, Ireland's bloody past and its uncertain future.
From the jump, McDonagh's Calvary grabs a hold of you and never lets go: from the great opening quote, by St. Augustine, to the haunting, empty Irish landscape shots that play over the final credits, this is a film that is so exquisitely crafted that it's almost a Swiss clock. There's an overarching sadness to the film, a sense of fate and inevitability that cuts across any of the film's many joyful moments (there are plenty) and underlines all of its most dramatic ones (likewise, plenty). Truth be told, Calvary is one of the saddest films I've ever seen, although its sorrow is a mechanical heart, beating deep within the film's chest and nearly invisible to the naked eye.
There's a lot going on in Calvary, although McDonagh's excellent script manages to make everything fit, even if it doesn't always tie it all together with a big, red bow: the estranged relationship between Father James and his grown daughter, Fiona (Kelly Reilly)…the way in which the entitlement of the upper-class continues to determine the fate of the poor working stiff, as embodied by Dylan Moran's boozy lord, Michael Fitzgerald…the way in which the terrible economy and bad housing market have conspired to marginalize the middle class nearly to the point of extinction…the importance of forgiveness in a world that would rather focus on punishment…the way in which the Catholic church's priest sex scandals continue to influence and change the complex relationship between the clergy and the common people, slowly turning blind devotion into something more closely resembling abject hatred…the necessity of sacrifice as a form of healing…despite this wealth of themes and big ideas, Calvary never feels weighted down or overly preachy (no pun intended).
One of the things that helps Calvary stay afloat when other films might have sunk under this much ambition is the way in which McDonagh subtly uses humor (sometimes bright and laugh-out-loud funny, other times so dark and mean-spirited as to be practically unrecognizable as such) as a means of guiding us through the dark. As previously mentioned, Calvary is an intensely sad, unrelenting film: the characters that haunt its halls are such twisted, wretched, damaged individuals that this streak of gallows'-humor is an absolute necessity. When one character melodramatically describes how his "whole life has been an affectation," Father James quietly responds that "that's one of those lines that sounds good but doesn't make much sense." We need to know that Father James is keeping his chin up and taking it all in stride because, otherwise, we would never be able to take this journey with him. At one point, Freddie (Domhnall Gleeson), one of James' former students who's now locked up for killing and cannibalizing a young girl, plaintively asks the priest: "God has to understand me because he made me, right?" After a beat, Father James replies, "If God can't understand you, no one can." The dark streak of humor functions in the same way, reassuring us that things in Father James' world are never quite as grim as they seem to be, even when our heart tells us that they're actually much worse.
As with The Guard, McDonagh populates his film with a host of impressively individualistic characters: stellar actors like Dylan Moran (of Black Books fame), Chris O'Dowd, David Wilmot, Aidan Gillen, Gary Lydon and even good, old M. Emmet Walsh (looking positively ancient but sounding just as great as ever) all show up and help weave the intricately intertwined tapestry that forms the fabric of the film. Kelly Reilly does some great work as James' estranged daughter and I must admit to rather loving Killian Scot's ridiculously over-the-top performance as Inspector Stanton's gay, tough-guy lover: it's a blustery, obnoxious performance with just enough underlying sadness and vulnerability to sell the whole thing, part and parcel.
Towering over everything like some sort of enormous, cassock-clad, bearded Colossus of Rhodes, however, is Brendan Gleeson. Easily one of the best actors working in film today, Gleeson seems to spit out amazing performances like this in his sleep: he's like the male, Irish Meryl Streep, completely incapable of phoning anything in or giving any less than 1000%. Gleeson isn't acting: he IS Father James, from head to foot, inhabiting the character so completely that any notion of mimicry goes out the window. There's not one moment in Gleeson's performance, one single iota, that ever hits as anything less than completely authentic and genuine. It's a heartbreaking performance for a number of reasons but the main two are pretty simple: Father James seems like a genuinely nice person and Gleeson brings him to life in a way that makes us know and feel for him. We don't need to take a side, one way or the other, to feel the tremendous tragedy, the complete unfairness of Father James' fate: Gleeson makes us feel it because we don't have a choice.
Craft-wise, Calvary looks and sounds amazing: cinematographer Larry Smith, who also shot Nicholas Winding Refn's Bronson (2008) and Only God Forgives (2013), turns the emerald greens and azure blues of the Irish countryside into one of the film's main characters. There's an impressive sense of space and isolation that perfectly meshes with Father James' own "man without a country" status in the town and some of the sweeping vistas are so gorgeous that they resemble something out of a travel program. The score and sound design are also expertly realized: one of my very favorite scenes, ever, has to be the one where Father James prepares to leave town, set to the tune of Roger Whittaker's soaring "New World in the Morning." The scene is such a perfect synthesis of song and visual, so emotionally wonderful, that it, literally, took my breath away…even thinking back on it now, I find myself getting a little emotional, which is surely the mark of an indelible moment.
All in all, Calvary stands as yet another absolute home-run for McDonagh, a filmmaker who has quickly established himself as one of the most formidable around. Truth be told, I still find it hard to believe that this is only his second film: quality like this should be the result of a lifetime spend honing one's craft, not the span of four or five short years. From beginning to end, Calvary is a nearly flawless character study and one of the very finest films of this year (or many others, for that matter). For anyone lamenting the lack of quality, "adult" entertainment, look no further than Calvary: it just doesn't get much better than this, folks.
10/4/14 (Part One): They Sin So You Don't Have To
31 Days of Halloween, Andre Royo, bad priests, based on a graphic novel, Catholic church, cinema, Clancy Brown, Clifton Collins Jr., Dan Fogler, dutiful heroes, elder gods, exorcists, Fallen, film reviews, films, Ghostbusters, Hellbenders, horror-comedies, J.T. Petty, Larry Fessenden, Last Supper, Macon Blair, Movies, religious-themed horror, Robyn Rikoon, S&man, sins, Soft For Digging, Stephen Gevedon, supernatural, Surtr, The Augustine Interfaith Order of Hellbound Saints, The Burrowers, writer-director
In an era where ideas (and films) seem to get recycled with as much ease as hand-me-down clothes, it's more than refreshing to come across an original concept: it's downright life-affirming. Writer/director J.T. Petty's Hellbenders (2012) has one hell of an original concept, pun intended: six priests, all of various denominations, exist in a state of constant sin so that they may serve as the "nuclear option" for exorcisms. When there are demons that are too powerful for "regular" exorcists to handle, the team swoops in, invites the demons to possess them and then commit suicide, thereby dragging the demons straight back to hell with them. What this really is, of course, is a perfect excuse to witness priests swear, booze it up and engage in some very bad behavior, ranging from the slightly assholish to the downright blasphemous. It's a great concept and almost guarantees an interesting film: even though the final product ends up a religious-themed Ghostbusters (1984) with a touch of Fallen (1998), there's enough wicked good times here to make genre fans pay attention.
The film actually has a rather inauspicious beginning as we witness Angus (Clancy Brown), Larry (Clifton Collins, Jr.) and Det. Elrod (genre auteur Larry Fessenden) tromping around in some nondescript attic-area, lit only by flashlight. The scene recalls [REC] (2007), which seems like a strange point of reference, before jumping into some sloppy pseudo-mockumentary, talking-head-type footage. Just when things seemed to be taking a turn for the generic, however, the glorious opening credit sequence swooped in and saved the day: set to a swaggering, stomping tune, we see our six heroes arrayed around a table, Last Supper style, engaging in everything from excessive drinking to make grilled cheese sandwiches with a Jesus sandwich-press. It's a silly, visually impressive and, most importantly, utterly badass intro and ends up setting an impossibly high bar for the rest of the film. For a time, however, the movie almost lives up to its potential.
Our resident exorcists are Angus, the de facto leader and oldest of the group; Larry, the second-in-command (fulfilling the Peter Venkman role); Elizabeth (Robyn Rikoon), the resident spitfire who casually sleeps around with Larry; Stephen (Andre Royo), the "accountant" of the group, who keep track of their ledger of sins; Eric (Dan Fogler), who not-so-secretly pines for Elizabeth and Macon (Macon Blair), the free-lovin' Southern Baptist minister who's obsessed with his pretty-boy looks. The group lives together, cracking wise and engaging in their various sins with gusto, living just like a parochial version of the Ghostbusters. Their antics may be necessary as far as keeping the world safe goes but they certainly don't go over well with certain bureaucratic elements at the Vatican, as evidenced when holy pencil-pusher Clint (Stephen Gevedon) comes around to keep an eye on the wayward priests. He definitely approve of the drinking, drug use, fornicating and blasphemy but he seems to be even more irate over the inherent waste of funds: sinning be damned, the Hellbound Saints just don't make good fiscal sense!
As with any film like this how, however, we know that our dutiful heroes will be needed even if their superiors don't. They're forced to spring into action when they get involved with one seriously badass demon, an elder god by the name of Surtr. It seems that Surtr is known as a "god-killer" and has roamed around eternity putting the snuff on other deities that it considers to be weaker. Surtr has now set his sets on the Judeo-Christian God and it's up to Angus and his crew to stop it before all of Heaven is destroyed in the process. Things get complicated, however, when Elizabeth becomes possessed by Surtr but neglects to kill herself, giving the elder god an earthly vessel, as well as a convenient way to gain more followers (achieved via a noxious cloud of flies). Angus wants to kill Elizabeth in order to send Surtr to Hell. Larry, on the other hand, is in love with Elizabeth and would rather not see her suffer eternal damnation, despite it being pretty much her only job duty. With all of humanity on the line (or, at least, the Judeo-Christian portion), will love or duty win out?
For the first ten minutes or so of Hellbenders, I laughed so hard that I cried: no lie. The script is impossibly witty, choked with so much rapid-fire obscenity, bad behavior and juvenile attitude that it feels like one's being pummeled by a prize-fighter armed with one-liners rather than fists. It's a heady experience and, for a time, I was pretty sure this was going to be the funniest film I'd ever seen, hands down. And then, of course, the honeymoon was over and tedium began to set in: what was uproariously funny in a compressed ten minutes became wearing and tiresome over the sustained course of the film. This might sound like harsh criticism of the film and, in a way, I suppose that it is. It's also, conversely, a big compliment: if you can stay on the film's wavelength, it's pretty much the apex of this type of movie. I ended up really liking the film but was disappointed, ultimately, because I didn't love it: there was potential for so much more than was fully realized here and that kind of let me down.
Make no mistake, however: when Hellbenders is good, it's pretty damn great. The acting is top-notch, from top to bottom, with Robyn Rikoon being particularly stellar as Elizabeth. It's a great ensemble cast and they work together like a charm: in fact, the film really starts to come off the rails when it moves from the opening "bad priests hanging out" material into the more familiar "battling supernatural evil" territory. I've seen plenty of films that look exactly like the latter but precious few like the former: I really wish that we could have had a little more to get to know our priests before they were off butting heads with ancient evil in some rather clichéd fight scenes.
J.T. Petty directs the film based on his own graphic novel and there are plenty of points where the film actually feels like a big-screen comic book adaptation, not least of which is the odd moment where the film actually becomes a comic, complete with panels. That odd misstep aside, the film looks consistently great and features some pretty exemplary effects work. The film also ends up being pretty violent, which might seem like a given but is only odd when the majority of gore is loaded into the film's conclusion: suffice to say that I was rather surprised to witness someone bite out another character's eyes, although I was certainly forewarned when a nose was later chewed off in similar manner.
While I will freely admit that I disliked Petty's debut feature, Soft For Digging (2001), with a zeal that I normally reserve for much shittier films, I've actually enjoyed the rest of his filmography quite a bit. In particular, I think that his 2008 horror-Western The Burrowers is an amazing, nearly perfect film that's equal parts eulogy and nail-biting terror, although his found-footage experiment, S&man (2006), is an equally interesting, if substantially more flawed, production. Even though he's never mentioned alongside the likes of current genre faves Ti West or Adam Wingard, I personally feel that Petty has the potential to be the best of the bunch, some day: The Burrowers is such a monumental achievement that I keep hoping it wasn't his magnum opus.
Even though Hellbenders ends up in a much more familiar place than it begins, it's still a ton of fun and seems perfect as a party/crowd film. There are plenty of glorious setpieces here, the overall storyline is pretty genius and the ensemble cast is superb, riffing off each other in near perfect synthesis. I wish that the film was able to sustain its gonzo tone longer than it does but I'm also reminded of the saying that the flame that burns twice as hot only burns half as long. Fair enough: Hellbenders is hot enough for most of its running time that I can forgive if it seems to fizzle out a bit before the conclusion. There appears to be hints at a sequel, however, which could easily take the film's universe into some pretty awesome Hellboy-like territory. Sign me up! I may not have loved Petty's Hellbenders but I liked it enough to anticipate the next installment. In the meantime, it's good to know that we have people like Angus and his crew watching over us, keeping humanity safe one upraised middle finger at a time.
4/25/14: JGL Loves His Computer
addicted to porn, Barbara Sugarman, Brie Larson, Catholic church, character dramas, cinema, Clint Eastwood, Don Jon, dramadies, dramas, eponymous characters, fantasy vs reality, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Glenne Headly, internet porn, JGL, Jon Martello, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Julianne Moore, Movies, New Jersey, porn, pornography, relationships, Saturday Night Fever, Scarlett Johansson, sex addiction, Tony Danza, Tony Manero, voice-over narration, writer-director-actor
It's always a dicey proposition when a beloved actor decides to makes his/her mark behind the camera. On one hand, who could possibly understand the methods and motivations necessary to elicit the best performances from actors than a fellow treader of the boards? There's a special skill to directing actors, a skill that becomes even more impressive when one begins to take note of the numerous films, popular and otherwise, that feature serviceable (at best) acting. The modern Hollywood mode appears to be to distract from any basic flaws (storytelling, script, acting) by focusing on the showier, punchier details (special effects, fast-paced editing, bigger, better and louder everything). When a career actor throws his/her hat onto the directing chair, we usually (but not always) get films that focus on the characters and acting: a quick look through Clint Eastwood's exemplary resume gives a good example of this. When current golden boy Joseph Gordon-Levitt made his directing/writing debut with Don Jon, a fairly modest little film about a porn-obsessed, body-building, mook looking for love in all the wrong places, I was hoping he would bring the same deft touch behind the scenes that he normally does before them. For the most part, JGL delivers the goods, even if the final result ends up being a little more "same-old-same-old" than I'd hoped.
A montage of highly sexualized female images from film, TV, cartoons and the internet jumps us head-first into JGL's story about porn-addicted guys and the women who (try to) love them. A voice-over introduces us to the titular hero, one Jon Martello (JGL) who appears to have only four interests in life: masturbating to internet porn, picking up and screwing any living thing with lady parts, cleaning his house and lifting weights. That, as Porky Pig would stammer, is all folks. Frequent super-flashy cut-scenes and montages lay out Jon's personal philosophy pretty clearly: real girls are great but they ain't the real thing. You see, everything about porn is cooler to Jon than the actual act of sex: the positions are better, the people are hotter, the angles are better and nobody makes goofy "O" faces. Jon may pick up and bang a new club hottie every night but he always finishes the evening by slipping away from his snoozing conquest and spending a little one-on-one time with his fave XXX sites. As we come to see in pretty short order, Jon is obsessed with the ideal of everything over the reality: ideal sex, ideal body, ideal house, ideal everything. Real life, when compared to the air-brushed perfection of fantasy, just doesn't rev Jon's engine, as it were.
All of this, supposedly, changes when Jon lays eyes on Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson) in the club. She's a "ten" in his book, even though his friends proclaim her to be "long game": she's way too "classy" for Jon and he ain't getting her in the sack anytime soon. Not to worry, of course, because Jon has a little way to help keep his mind off of Barbara's naughty parts. For a while, this seems like the best of both worlds, to Jon: he gets to romance Barbara as slow as she'd like while still indulging in his own pleasure on the side. Regular visits to the confessional help keep his conscience scrubbed clean (Hail Marys are all-purpose cleaners, it turns out) and Barbara even begins to insinuate herself into the rest of Jon's life, getting him to enroll in night school and bring her home to meet his folks (Tony Danza and Glenne Headly). Thing's just get better when Barbara decides that it's finally time to take it all the way. Jon is thrilled but the sex ends up being just as unfulfilling as ever and he sneaks back to his laptop while Barbara snoozes. She ends up catching him in mid-act, however, which prompts a massive blow-up and promise from Jon that this was all a misunderstanding.
As Jon denies himself the self-gratification that he's always relied on, however, he finds the rest of his life beginning to fall apart: he's always pissed off, for one thing, which culminates in a nifty bit of road rage where he puts his fist through a car window. Big Jon may be trying to walk the straight and narrow but Lil' Jon is the one who calls the shots and, in time, it's inevitable that the whole flimsy structure will fall to the ground. After Jon learns about browser histories the hard way, he sets out on a journey of self-exploration that eventually leads to Esther (Julianne Moore), the older, philosophical, sexually-secure student in his night class who's been interested in him for some time. In time, Jon will learn that sex without an emotional connection is just as empty as the internet porn he's addicted to, forcing him to make some hard decisions. As Blink-182 once said: I guess this is growing up.
As a feature-film debut, Don Jon hits most of the right notes. The acting, as expected, is top-notch, with Tony Danza being a particular stand-out as Jon's ultra-mook father, Jon, Sr. I've never been a fan of Scarlett Johansson, finding her to easily be one of the most irritating, over-rated non-actors in the business but I admit to really enjoying her as Barbara Sugarman. There's an honesty and vulnerability to her performance that I've found lacking in everything else I've ever seen her in (with the possible exception of Lost in Translation) and it really helps to shore up the film's (occasional) emotional disconnect. As always, JGL is a highly personable tour-de-force in the film but he doesn't do much different with the role: this may be JGL as envisioned by the creators of Jersey Shore but it's still noticeably JGL: good, old' reliable JGL.
As a film, Don Jon is a bit more problematic. The quick-cut, fast-paced editing that makes an appearance at the beginning continues throughout the film and, to be honest, it gets old kinda fast. As a rule, I'm not a big fan of hyper-active editing unless it really fits the production (Fight Club and Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels being two of the best examples) and too much of the editing in Don Jon feels superfluous and unnecessarily flashy. The film also ends up being fairly predictable by the third act, mostly due to a softening of its core idea: despite all of the evidence to the contrary, Jon isn't a porn addict…he just hasn't found the right girl. While this may be fine and dandy for a stereotypical Hollywood happy ending, it seems to give short shrift to the film's previous insights into addiction. In my opinion, it would have made for a much better, more powerful film if we could have truly seen Jon caught in the unhappy throes of his addiction, unable to pursue his own happiness due to his obsessions. As it stands, we get the equivalent of the nice guy who spends the entire film being unhappy with the popular girl only to find true love with the mousey librarian in the final scene. It may make for a "nicer" ending but seems to ring a bit false with everything that preceded it.
That being said, Don Jon is a good film with some genuinely interesting things to say (before it pulls its punches, that is). Some of Jon's observations about the Catholic Church's policies regarding confessions are both hilarious and spot-on (it seems to rely on a vague point system where masturbation and out-of-wedlock sex are each assigned different, seemingly arbitrary values) and there's some great, messy energy to the home scenes involving his parents and (seemingly) mute sister. If some of this seems to unconsciously mimic similar scenes in Saturday Night Fever, it's only because Jon Martello and Tony Manero are probably long-lost cousins. Julianne Moore, like JGL, is consistently good, although her character may have one quirk too many to be completely believable.
As a directorial debut, Don Jon is good but not great. While his focus on the acting results in some truly great performances, there's a bit too much reliance on style and flash over substance which, combined with the overly conventional resolution, gives the whole production a bit of a "been there, done that feeling." Nonetheless, I was a huge fan of JGL's before watching the film and I don't find my overall impression of him changed in the slightest: I still think he's a hair's breadth away from being a national treasure and I'll eagerly await his sophomore effort.
4/20/14: A Mother Knows (Oscar Bait, Part 16)
2013 Academy Awards, 86th Annual Academy Awards, Academy Award Nominee, Academy Awards, adoption, Barbara Jefford, based on a true story, BBC journalist, Best Actress nominee, Best Adapted Screenplay nominee, Best Original Score nominee, Best Picture nominee, Blue Jasmine, buddy films, Catholic church, character dramas, cinema, drama, film reviews, films, homosexuality, Judi Dench, Mare Winningham, Martin Sixsmith, Movies, multiple award nominee, nuns, Oscar nominee, Oscars, Peter Hermann, Philomena, road trips, Sean Mahon, Stephen Frears, Steve Coogan
In the hustle of bustle of awards season, when it seems that every film is bigger, more important and more prestigious than the next, it can be a refreshing break to sit down with something a little more modest, a bit quieter. The 2013 Oscar season was filled with lots of very big, very vibrant films, including American Hustle, 12 Years a Slave and The Wolf of Wall Street, but one multiple nominee stood out a little: the Steve Coogan/Judi Dench-starrer Philomena. Not only did Philomena tell a much smaller, more personal story than the other nominees, it managed to focus on character in a way that (in my highly biased opinion) was only matched by Nebraska and Dallas Buyer's Club. It was also a bit of a David vs Goliath story, since everything about the film marked it as the scrappy underdog to the more established powerhouses helmed by Scorcese, Cuaron, McQueen and Payne. Like its subject matter, Philomena is the scrappy little newcomer that can – and does – get its day in the sun.
Ostensibly, Philomena is the true story of a woman looking for the son she gave up for adoption 50 years earlier. The woman, in this case, is Philomena (Judi Dench) and she's forced to give her son Anthony up for adoption when he's just an infant. Philomena, you see, has been sent to a nun-run home for wayward girls after her "indiscretion" with a local boy and the nuns make it plainly clear that it's God's will that the children be separated from their mothers as quickly as possible. Philomena's best friend Kathleen (Charlie Murphy) loses her daughter, Mary, when the child is adopted and the nuns decide to make it a two-fer, throwing in young Anthony, as well. Philomena loses her son, without even getting to say goodbye, and spends the next 50 years wondering what became of him.
When Philomena's grown daughter contacts disgraced former BBC journalist Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) with the story, he initially blows her off. He doesn't do human interest stories, after all, since he's a serious journalist. Something about the story ends up resonating with him, however, and he sets off on a journey of discovery with Philomena, starting with the abbey in Ireland where it all began and ending in America, where they finally track down Philomena's son. Revelations will abound, however, and the hot-headed Martin will gradually lose his patience with the frustrating "culture of silence" surrounding the Catholic church's adoption practices of that era. In the end, however, this is Philomena's story and she knows that forgiveness is the glue that really holds the world together. Will she ever find out the truth about her son? Will Martin ever land the big story that will put him back in the public eye? More importantly, will these two strangers be able to make a change in an unfair system?
As mentioned earlier, Philomena is definitely a labor of love: Coogan got the idea for the film after reading the original newspaper article and was involved in nearly every aspect of the film, including the Oscar-nominated screenplay. One of my favorite stories during this last awards season was the one where Coogan got the shocking phone call about his modest little film being nominated for multiple Oscars, including Best Picture. Stories like this, similar to the buzz that surrounded Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful, serve as a wonderful tonic to the usual entertainment industry propaganda machine, adding a little human element to everything.
It's certainly surprising to see Coogan attached to something so heartfelt but he ends up being the real revelation of the film. As portrayed by Coogan, Sixsmith is an incredibly well-rounded character: a complete, churlish asshole, yet filled with righteous indignation and good intentions. He makes a wonderful foil for Dench and their relationship is the real foundation of the film. At its heart, Philomena is a buddy road movie and those always live or die by the believability of the central relationship: by this rubric, Philomena not only lives but thrives. There's something almost elemental about Coogan snarking his way through the minefield of contemporary society while Dench projects the sweet, naive air of a child. She's nice to everyone, regardless of how much they spit on her, while he can't seem to find anything good to say about anybody, including her. In one of the film's funniest scenes, Martin makes a condescending comment about Philomena's good nature that ends up saying as much about her as it does about him: "She's told four people that they're one in a million…what are the odds of that?"
If Coogan's performance is a big surprise in the film, Dench's is pretty much business as usual. Over the course of some 100+ roles and almost 60 years in the business, Dench was become synonymous with impeccable performances and her turn in Philomena is no exception. I do feel that Dench has got a bit comfortable over the last several years, since most of her recent characterizations seem to follow pretty identical arcs (there's not much difference in personality between Dench's role here or her performance in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, to be honest) but there's no denying how effortless she is. Dench is the kind of performer who can energize anything and she invests the film's various emotional beats with a spunky sense of purpose.
Ultimately, however, Philomena suffers from something that's distinctly a filmmaking issue: as a whole, it lacks dramatic tension. Despite the trials that Philomena and Martin go through, the stakes never seem to be high enough, lending everything the feel of a slightly bittersweet made-for-TV movie. None of the film's revelations really affect anything and the one that potentially could, the revelation of Anthony's lifelong homosexuality, is deflated almost instantly: Philomena always knew that her son was gay, even if no one else did, so this isn't news to her, even if it is to the audience. Philomena is such a wonderful, understanding person that, ultimately, this particular revelation couldn't have any affect on her: that's just not how her mind (or world) works. Likewise, the banter between Philomena and Martin never reaches a critical boiling point, even though Martin frequently acts like a privileged jerk. Like its titular subject, Philomena is such a thoroughly easy-going, good-natured film that it doesn't seem particularly interested in rocking any boats. After all, the final confrontation is handled not with the tongue-lashing that we know is well-deserved but with the act of forgiveness that might prove impossible for many watching. Like the battered nun in Bad Lieutenant, Philomena forgives her oppressors, allowing her soul the peace it needs but robbing the audience of the easy gratification of retribution. It's a mature, reasoned way to handle things but it does tend to make for a fairly even, uneventful story arc.
Since I watched Philomena after the Oscar ceremony, I wasn't able to really consider it as I watched the telecast but the other nominees were definitely front-and-center in my mind as I watched it. How does Philomena compare? In many ways, the film is the epitome of "good but not great." While Dench's performance was typically good, I certainly don't think it was better than Cate Blanchett's turn in Blue Jasmine. Similarly, while I thoroughly enjoyed the film, it had nowhere near the impact of Dallas Buyer's Club, 12 Years a Slave or Nebraska. It's a much smaller film, obviously, much more of a Little Miss Sunshine than an event picture. The script, while quite good, was also overshadowed by Woody Allen's script for Blue Jasmine, one of his best in years. If anything, I firmly believe that Coogan was robbed of a Best Actor nomination, finding his performance to be much more nuanced and interesting than Christian Bale's turn in American Hustle. Provided Coogan keeps at the dramatic roles, however, I see no reason why he won't (someday) be able to take a statue home for his troubles.
In many ways, Philomena is an absolutely lovely film (the scene where Philomena, Martin and Anthony's boyfriend sit down to watch home movies brought tears to my eyes in the best, most non-exploitative way possible), filled with wonderful performances, some nice cinematography and a fairly unobtrusive score (also Oscar-nominated, for some reason). There are a few too many obtrusive flashbacks for my liking and the aforementioned lack of narrative tension tends to sap much-needed drama from the proceedings but patient audiences will find much to like here. Philomena may not have been the best film of 2013 but it was certainly one of the nicest ones. At the end of the day, can we really ask for more?


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text:
Q: C# Save byte array as xml file I'm receiving a .zip file from a server.
The .zip file is sent 64Base encoded and it contains an XML file.
After I decode the data to binary using Convert.FromBase64String, can I convert the byte array to XML?
I don't want to deal with unzipping.
I tried the following code: (that resulted in Gibberish that doesn't make any sense and doesn't look like XML at all)
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
string xml = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(buffer);
doc.LoadXml(xml);

Any ideas?

A: You say you don't want to unzip, but do you actually mean that you don't want to unzip to disc?  Most zip libraries either allow you to unzip a file to a byte array directly or to a stream where you could pass it a MemoryStream.
There's no getting around having to uncompress.  Unless you have control over the server side, then you could change the format to an uncompressed file (like a tar file).  Then you wouldn't have to uncompress.

A: You say:

I'm receiving a .zip file from a server.

And:

I don't want to deal with unzipping.

Well. You have to. If the data is in a zip archive, you need to extract it first. You can't just ignore the fact.
There are plenty of zip libraries - sharpziplib is free and easy enough to use.


WOODLAND PARK, NJ, and LEUVEN, Belgium -- Cytec Industries Inc., a global leader in specialty chemicals and materials, and IMEC, Europe's leading independent nanoelectronics research institute, announce that they will work together to develop a commercially viable technology for organic photovoltaic devices with enhanced stability and extended lifetime.
Over the last few years, worldwide research on organic solar cells has mainly focused on increasing the conversion efficiency. However, the operational lifetime of organic solar cells must be improved to extend beyond 5 years. This challenge is the basis of the collaboration between Cytec and IMEC.
To reach this goal the project will be approached from two different angles. First, intrinsic stability issues of organic solar cells will be tackled by stabilizing the nanomorphology of the active material blend. IMEC has already shown that the photo-active blend of conjugated polymers and fullerene acceptor molecules is prone to phase segregation under the influence of time and temperature. To halt this, IMEC and Cytec will join their expertise in chemical synthesis and materials processing. Concurrently, the ingress of extrinsic degradation sources of oxygen and water vapor will be suppressed by the development of an appropriate barrier, encapsulation technology. The technology solutions will build on Cytec's core competencies of interfacial engineering and coating technology and on IMEC's background in organic solar cell processing and analysis. The project, which is co-sponsored by the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders, will run for two years and will end in March, 2011.
Cytec's Specialty Chemicals Vice President of R&D, Martin Court, said: "Cytec is very pleased to have the opportunity to work on this project together with IMEC. We are convinced that Cytec's capabilities in coatings, adhesives, inks and energy curing technology combined with IMEC's outstanding processing and technology capabilities will make this project a success."
IMEC's Program Director Photovoltaics, Jef Poortmans, added: "Organic solar cell technology is one of the most exciting emerging technologies for low-cost photovoltaic cells. IMEC is very pleased to have the opportunity to combine its process technology expertise with the excellent skills of Cytec in the field of synthesis and coatings to address the crucial issue of device stability and encapsulation".
IMEC is a world-leading independent research center in nanoelectronics and nanotechnology. IMEC vzw is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, has a sister company in the Netherlands, IMEC-NL, offices in the US, China and Taiwan, and representatives in Japan. Its staff of more than 1650 people includes about 550 industrial residents and guest researchers. In 2008, its revenue (P&L) was estimated to EUR 270 million. IMEC's More Moore research aims at semiconductor scaling towards sub-32nm nodes. With its More than Moore research, IMEC looks into technologies for nomadic embedded systems, wireless autonomous transducer solutions, biomedical electronics, photovoltaics, organic electronics and GaN power electronics. IMEC's research bridges the gap between fundamental research at universities and technology development in industry. Its unique balance of processing and system know-how, intellectual property portfolio, state-of-the-art infrastructure and its strong network worldwide position IMEC as a key partner for shaping technologies for future systems.
Cytec Industries Inc. is a global specialty chemicals and materials company focused on developing, manufacturing and selling value-added products. Our products serve a diverse range of end markets including aerospace, adhesives, automotive and industrial coatings, chemical intermediates, electronics, inks, mining and plastics. We use our technology and application development expertise to create chemical and material solutions that are formulated to perform specific and important functions in the finished products of our customers.