Seduction
Posh pawn - Great TV - Great business model
https://www.prestigepawnbrokers.co.uk/posh-pawn-tv-show-channel-4/
Adam Alter - Irresistible
People have been addicted to substances for thousands of years, but for the past two decades, we’ve also been hooked on technologies, like Instagram, Netflix, Facebook, Fitbit, Twitter, and email—platforms we’ve adopted because we assume they’ll make our lives better. These inventions have profound upsides, but their appeal isn’t an accident. Technology companies and marketers have teams of engineers and researchers devoted to keeping us engaged. They know how to push our buttons, and how to coax us into using their products for hours, days, and weeks on end.
Tracing addiction through history, Alter shows that we’re only just beginning to understand the epidemic of behavioral addiction gripping society. He takes us inside the human brain at the very moment we score points on a smartphone game, or see that someone has liked a photo we’ve posted on Instagram. But more than that, Alter heads the problem off at the pass, letting us know what we can do to step away from the screen. He lays out the options we have to address this problem before it truly consumes us. After all, who among us hasn’t struggled to ignore the ding of a new email, the next episode in a TV series, or the desire to play a game just one more time?
“We live in an age of addiction — seemingly benign and otherwise — and Adam Alter, mixing the latest in behavioral science with briskly engaging storytelling, wakes us to an age-old problem that has found troubling new expression in the era of ubiquitous technology. You may never look at your smartphone in the same way again.”
—Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic and You May Also Like
Check out this video to see him talking about the book
Trespassing Bergman - Film makers about the influence of Ingmar Bergman
Trespassing Bergman (re-edit from IMDB)
The idea of famous film makers on a pilgrimage to Ingmar Bergman’s Faro Island home is interesting.
Famous directors and actors who like to talk about the influences that shaped their own work and for whom Bergman represented one of the high achievers of their craft. The interviews Woody Allen playing it straight, Lars Von Trier getting laughs, Robert De Niro, who is notoriously awkward in interviews, at ease and making valid comment. To name but a few. Some music by The Radio Dept. one of Sofia Coppola’s (and my) favourite bands.
Check out the trailer and see the film if you’re interested in making a film yourself. Learn from the best in the industry.
Happyish - Starring Steve Coogan
About Happyish (from IMDB)
It is “different” and does not belong to mainstream and regular type of shows that one may watch. It is not a kind of show that is talked about around water coolers and it is not to everybody’s taste. It is not a kind of show that one watches for sheer purpose of entertainment. Not a kind of show that soothes you, either. It is more like a mirror that reflects how we could get lost in banality of life. It is thought provoking, witty, and intelligent. It is truthful, wry, honest, and cerebral. One of the best shows (sadly underrated and overlooked) in the so called “golden age of television”, that tries to touch the vexed question of “happiness” in modern world and address the “tragic sense of life” in a roundabout way and blended with humor.
Best quote:
‘It’s only tragedy when you don’t see the comedy.’
Hear writer Shalom Auslander talk about an episode in this clip.
The Greatest Movie Ever Sold - Morgan Spurlock
The Greatest Movie Ever Sold – Morgan Spurlock
A documentary about branding, advertising and product placement that is financed and made possible by brands, advertising and product placement.
Basically it’s post modern art that Marcel Duchamp would have loved.
Tom Vanderbilt - You May Also Like
You may also like, taste in age of endless choice.
Why we like the things we like, why we hate the things we hate, and what our preferences reveal about us.
With a voracious curiosity, Vanderbilt stalks the elusive beast of taste, probing research in psychology, marketing, and neuroscience to answer myriad complex and fascinating questions. Comprehensively researched and singularly insightful, You May Also Like is a joyous intellectual journey that helps us better understand how we perceive, judge, and appreciate the world around us.
Check out this video to see him talking about the book
Noma - Clever branding by one of the best restaurants in the world
Noma by Rene Redzepi
Check out “A Very Short Film About the Past, Present and Future of Noma” by Rene Redzepi.
Noma is a two-Michelin-star restaurant run by chef René Redzepi in Copenhagen, Denmark. The name is a portmanteau of the two Danish words “nordisk” (Nordic) and “mad” (food).[2] Opened in 2003, the restaurant is known for its reinvention and interpretation of the Nordic Cuisine.[1] In 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014, it was ranked as the Best Restaurant in the World by Restaurant magazine.[3][4][5]
Self fulfilling prophecies by Li Edelkoort
Self fulfilling prophecies:
When you have as much clout as Li Edelkoort, your prophecies become self fulfilling. However, it took her almost a lifetime to get there.
'It's the end of fashion as we know it'
Lidewij Edelkoort
Fashion is dead:
Trend forecaster Li Edelkoort has declared, describing the fashion industry as “a ridiculous and pathetic parody of what it has been”
Lidewij Edelkoort, one of the world’s most influential fashion forecasters, used her annual presentation at Design Indaba in Cape Town to fire a broadside at the industry. “This is the end of fashion as we know it.”
Edelkoort said her interest in fashion had now been replaced by an interest in clothes, since fashion has lost touch with what is going on in the world and what people want.
“Fashion is insular and is placing itself outside society, which is a very dangerous step,” she said in an interview.
Edelkoort listed a number of reasons for the crisis in fashion, starting with education, where young designers are taught to emulate the famous names. “We still educate our young people to become catwalk designers; unique individuals,” she said, “whereas this society is now about exchange and the new economy and working together in teams and groups.”
Barry Lyndon - Masterpiece by Stanley Kubrick
Barry Lyndon is a 1975 British-American period drama film written, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray. It stars Ryan O’Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, and Hardy Krüger. The film recounts the exploits of a fictional 18th-century Irish adventurer. Exteriors were shot on location in Ireland, England and Germany.
At the 1975 Academy Awards, the film won four Oscars in production categories. Although having had a modest commercial success and a mixed reception from critics on release, Barry Lyndon is today regarded as one of Kubrick’s finest films. In numerous polls, including those of Village Voice (1999), Sight & Sound (2002, 2012), Time (2005) and BBC, it has been named one of the greatest films ever made.[3][4][5][6]
Barry Lyndon Blu Ray
Blu-ray ~ Marisa Berenson, Steven Berkoff, George Hamilton, Hardy Kruger Chieftains
Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01D6G4Y2E
'We were very fond of Sir Charles Lyndon'
King George III
Storyline:
In the Eighteenth Century, in a small village in Ireland, Redmond Barry is a young farm boy in love with his cousin Nora Brady. When Nora gets engaged to the British Captain John Quin, Barry challenges him to a duel of pistols. He wins and escapes to Dublin but is robbed on the road. Without an alternative, Barry joins the British Army to fight in the Seven Years War. He deserts and is forced to join the Prussian Army where he saves the life of his captain and becomes his protégé and spy of the Irish gambler Chevalier de Balibari. He helps Chevalier and becomes his associate until he decides to marry the wealthy Lady Lyndon. They move to England and Barry, in his obsession of nobility, dissipates her fortune and makes a dangerous and revengeful enemy.
Filming took 300 days during a 2 year span, beginning around May or June of 1973. The production suffered two major shutdowns and resulted in a then bloated budget of $11 million. It was finally released in December of 1975.
The film grossed $20,000,000 (USA) ( 1975) $31,500,000 (worldwide) ( 1975). And a lot of extra dollars since then.
