Go See Benjamin Button, Unless…

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a great movie to see, unless you feel like you have already seen it. Or have already seen another schmaltzy/romantic time-traveling film like it. Or if you are in the mood for something funny. Or you’re on a date. Or you’re a teenager. Or you’re really old. Or if you’ve recently lost a loved-one. Or if you get emotional over hurricane Katrina footage. Or you’re kind of sleepy. Or you have anything else to do for the next 2 hours and 45 minutes.

I’m not saying I didn’t like it, because I did, I’m just saying that it is not a great movie for everyone to see. Disclaimer Moment: I am a marketer, not a movie critic; for a professional’s opinion, go here. IMO, the demographic for this movie is Middle-Aged Women. You know, the same people that loved The Notebook, The Lake House, or The Bridges of Madison County.

If you’re the kind of person that loves going to movies with the intent to cry through the whole second half, then this is a great movie for you. Or if you like the idea of seeing Cate Blanchett age before your eyes. Or if you love hummingbirds. Or if you are in the Somewhere in Time Fan Club. Or if you believe Brad Pitt is an Oscar-worthy actor.

Now, I’m not ruling out Brad and Cate for Oscars for this one, in fact, they’ll probably get Oscars for it the same way Charlize got one for Monster and Nicole Kidman for The Hours. We all know that getting ugly gets the Academy’s attention. I’m just saying I’ve seen better movies come out this year and I’ve definitely seen better film adaptations of books.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 24-page original story is here and it is a great story in its own right. However, besides the title and the lead character’s name, it has little in common with Fincher’s film. My wife says it borrows heavily from the 2003 novel The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I haven’t read it, so you’ll have to take her word for it. Or, if you don’t feel like reading it, you could just wait a few month’s and see it in theaters. I just read that Brad Pitt’s production company has picked up the title, which is set to release later this year. I, for one, won’t be going to see it. Unless I decide I’m in the mood for another romantic time travel film.

Heroes Season 3 = Season 1 Repeated

Ummm...

I kept thinking 1 thing as I watched the 2nd Episode of Season 3...

Have the writers already run out of ideas for powers?

I mean, we've got another guy that shoots fire, another guy that can miraculously heal, and another guy that can paint the future.

And About Monica's power... please see this article--> wwv.heroes.com/most-ridiculous-hero-power-ever-are-we-idiots?

I'm not alone in this sentiment.

A Heroes Authority, SmellyPirateHooker, said,

"Who is saying that the painter is just a rehash of season 1? This entire show is just a rehash of season 1. Someone time travels, sees a bleak future, and comes back to stop it and a painter makes absolute visions of the future that take all the suspense out of things. It's this show's MO."

I mean, come on, Tim Kring. You're what, 25 episodes into the series, and you're re-using powers like crazy?! To support this statement, I was forced to research and open up excel sheets. You jerks better appreciate this. Below, I present my findings...

Heroes Super-Power Repeats:

(Source: Wikipedia.org. Of course.)

Painting the Future: ·Isaac Mendez ·Usutu the African guy

Super Memory Skills:

·Charlie (who works at a Diner) ·Monica (who works at a Diner)

Pyrokinesis (Making Fire):

·Meredith (Claire's Mom) ·Flint (the Convict guy from Lvl 5)

(To distinguish these two, his is blue while hers is fire-colored)

Cellular Regeneration (Super Healing): ·Claire Bennet ·Adam Monroe

Telepathy: ·Matt Parkman ·And his Dad

Flying: ·Nathan Petrelli ·Claire's boyfriend, West

Collecting Other People's Powers: ·Peter Petrelli ·Sylar

And Now Let's Just be REALLY Honest...
Re-hashed Repeats of Already-Used Superhero Powers:

·The German Magnetic Guy = Magneto

·Claire and Kensei = Wolverine

·Parkman and his dad = Professor X

·Jesse the Convict = Banshee

·Claire's Mom = Human Torch

·Daphne = A female Flash

·Tracy Strauss = girl version of Ice Man

·Nathan Petrelli, West Rosen, & Niki Sanders = Are All Really Just Trying to Be Superman

Which reminds me of my un-published Season 2 take-away...

The only difference between Heroes in the Present and the Heroes in the Future = Hair Gel.

Hey Tim Kring, I got a great suggestion for your next Super Hero Power... How about when Mohinder gets angry, I mean REALLY angry, he grows larger, rips out of his shirt and gets super-strength! And he turns Green. --Shawn Butler

Building Up for Beijing

Shawn Butler waving in front of a hazy perma-fog enshrouded Bird's Nest at the site of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games

China is experiencing a quick build-up of population, infrastructure, and business investment visible up and down the eastern coast. This growth is fueled by the impending 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The awarding of the Games to Beijing on July 13, 2001 was seen by the Chinese as a sign from the world community that China has arrived. Peter Frank, the Olympics program director for UPS, defined the Chinese feeling for these Games by saying, “The Beijing Olympics are really the China Olympics. Winning the bid really vindicated China as a world power. The people here really look at the Games as a Coming Out Party.”

The idea of the Beijing Olympics as a “Coming Out Party” for China is echoed by many organizations across major industries in the country. Susan Davis of CARE, on loan to the Coca-Cola Company in Beijing for the duration of the Games, said “It’s a Coming Out Party—a chance for China’s big appearance on the world stage.” China has invested billions into the building up of facilities and infrastructure to support the Olympics and the forecasted eight million guests and visitors that will hit China’s major cities, airports, and traffic patterns during the summer of 2008.

China’s growth has transformed the once conservative nation “from Miser to Glutton.” China is now the worldwide top consumer of Coal, Water, Steel, Soybeans and Crude Oil. The nation is also facing head-on the very real effects of a shortage of clean air and water, as well as deforestation and desertification of land reserves. Respiratory and heart diseases related to air pollution are the leading cause of death in China. These horrifying statistics reveal the effects of rampant and unregulated growth without regard for the environment.

Coca-Cola & CARE

This issue has particularly come into focus as the eyes of the world settle on China for the 2008 Games. CARE’s Susan Davis states that these Games have already been subtitled “The Green Olympics,” with incredible focus being placed on sustainable or renewable resource usage, recycling of materials, and environmentally friendly practices. Davis says that CARE’s work with the Coca-Cola Company has aimed at “water, packaging, and climate.” All three are hot topics for the green-friendly movement that is late in coming to the Chinese people. Davis enumerated Coke’s goals at the Games “to give back all the drops of water they use, to take back all the bottles they make, and to grow the business, not the carbon.” The final goal relating to being “carbon neutral” refers to the act of off-setting carbon emissions created during the manufacturing and distribution of a product. Coke’s lead on the issue of improving environmental practices and being green-friendly could make great inroads for the Chinese people as they have a chance to see these ideals put into practice for the Olympic Games. But strong, grassroots governmental intervention and public education will still be required in order to create real change. The current environmental issues stem as much from the Chinese culture of indifference to nature as from the lack of environmental protection laws. --Shawn Butler

Alibaba’s Forty-four Hundred

We arrived at the world headquarters of Alibaba.com in Hangzhou to a fanfare of music--music that could have come from the soundtrack to the original Super Mario Bros. Across the less than 1,000 sq. foot office floor, the 115 employees stood inside their 4x4 ft. cubicles and stretched their arms in the air. Then, in unison, the entire mass of twenty-somethings began doing jumping jacks. They continued their group exercises while our group of MBA students was escorted past the cube-clusters into a large meeting room.

The calisthenics are but a small, visible piece of the unique corporate culture of Alibaba Group, an English language web-based business-to-business eCommerce and eAuction service specializing in connecting international buyers and small- to medium-sized Chinese sellers. Our guide quickly made us aware that the company knew it was unique. “For most companies,” he said, “employee culture is like a cliché or a joke.” Well, it is not that way for the employees here. “Everybody is happy,” he continued. “It is our environment.”

We were then given a rough translation of a company joke that concerned a stubborn donkey in a mill that refused to work for his master. The master enticed the donkey to do his work at the mill by threatening to send him to work for Alibaba.com. “Here we all work like donkeys!” he announced as the punch line. Indeed, the word “work” actually appears in 2 of the 6 points of their printed company motto. So, are hard work and teamwork the strong points that make Alibaba such a successful company? Or is there more to this unique start-up’s corporate culture?

The lobby of HQ is decorated in orange scarves and bright orange hanging plastic fruit. And one other ubiquitous decoration—photos of company founder, Jack Ma. Ma is the poster-child of the New Chinese, the modern entrepreneurial self-made success story that this newly-capitalistic nation adores. And he is on posters. Giant reprints of the man’s photo adorn 2 out of every 4 walls in the building and line the staircase up to the top floor. In ’88, Ma was an English teacher fresh out of college. 11 years later, after a visit to Seattle and a crash course in computers, Ma was founding his own eBay-esque business. Then, 8 years later, he took his company public on the HKSE to raise $3 billion USD and become the IPO with the greatest increment in stock price at first trading in 2007.

Jack Ma’s influence is everywhere and his success is a model to the employees of his company. “He has us call him Kwai Chang, from the TV series Kung Fu,” our guide told us. During our tour, every action and idle quip of the 43-year-old founder was revered as holy writ, and even offered as justification for the “spirit” that prevailed there at the company. When asked what he thought Alibaba would do to maintain its growth and close the gap on rival companies Google and Baidu, our guide’s response, stars nearly visible in his eyes: “I can’t answer that. I’m not Jack Ma.” --Shawn Butler

Alibaba.com's oddly unrecognized logo, and CEO/Founder Jack Ma

U.S. Also Exports Dreams

The American Dream is no longer exclusive to America. During the past 20 years, 1.3 billion Chinese have also dared to dream as indulgently, as hedonistically, and as short-sightedly as our culture does. Long admirers of the reckless and materialistic American lifestyle portrayed in our Hollywood film exports, the rising core of the Chinese population is becoming free to pursue the American dream of self-indulgence and instant gratification of all their wants.

“Chinese dream of buying a car, a house, a first-class education for their children, and a range of consumer goods conferring status and convenience, just as they do to middle-class families in Europe and America. As disposable incomes rise, people are eating more protein and using more electricity to run their computers, televisions, and household appliances,” writes James Kynge in his book China Shakes the World (Houghton Mifflin, 2006). We are seeing China undergo in a very short period of time the changes that the U.S. and other developed countries underwent over the course of three centuries. China is being forced through this period of turbulence at an incredible pace because of the social, economic, and political pressures within and surrounding the country. The velocity of the change, rather than the change itself, is the root of the many ills currently plaguing the budding progress of China.

The rate of change in China has not allowed the nation to develop a mature social conscience and moral law. Chinese history is steeped in great thinkers, wise men and profound philosophical insight. This makes it all the more appalling that they have degenerated into a nation without a moral compass. The 1960’s rise of communism imposed atheism that undermined the current generation’s ethical foundation. Kynge states that “[t]he ideological vacuum that replaced communism undermines [trust]. The daily diet of propaganda disorients it. The venality of officials devalues it. The ascendance of a value system dominated by money hollows it out. What is left is a society in which describing someone as honest can just as easily be a gentle criticism as a compliment.”

Without a strong national moral compass, the country is rampant with instances of fraud, deceit and counterfeit. In many instances, these are only for the gain of wealth, but often the cost of the deception is human lives. We read from Kynge that “every time a Hollywood blockbuster was cut, it would appear on DVD in China before it had been released in the same format in America… A sixth volume in the series of Harry Potter novels appeared in China months before J.K. Rowling had written it… Kettles blow up, electrical transformers short-circuit, medicines have no effect, brake pads fail, alcoholic beverages poison those who drink them, and the use of inferior milk powder has caused several babies to starve to death.”

From our Western-centric point of view, it is simple to feel aloof from the morally remiss situations we read about in the East. However, we need to recognize that Americans are one of the leading forces causing the rapid changes to the Chinese nation. Kynge reports that “it is the advertising, marketing, and sales executives in Europe and the United States, as well as the shareholders of the brand-owning company, that take the lion’s share of the value from the product that the migrant workers create.” When we comment that the changes in China are happening too fast for the country to reasonably adapt, we cannot ignore the powerful influence that the demands and the unintentional export of the US culture have had on their current situation.

So it should be no surprise that the ambitions and appetites of its people are also following suit. China is adopting the same American dream of self-improvement, comfort and wealth that has been the calling card of immigrants to our country for so long. However, “in spite of the resemblance China bears to America in an earlier stage of its development, the chances that the Chinese will one day be able to consume at the same rate as Americans do today are close to zero. It is not that they will choose to be more frugal. It is simply that the world does not have the resources to cater to 1.3 billion Chinese behaving like Americans.” It should be added that the world in its current environmental situation does not have the resources for the 300 million Americans to continue behaving like Americans either. --Shawn Butler

Brazilians are like Chinese

Shawn and family stand in the shadow of the 130 foot O Cristo Redentor statue on Corcovado mountain.

Today we leave Rio to return to the United States. I'd like to conclude my four part series of Observations of the Brazilian People and Culture with this final conclusion: The Brazilian people are like the Chinese.

This may sound surprising, or even blaringly incorrect as it follows the other observations I have made, but they are like the Chinese insomuch as their culture exhibits the behaviors of a highly collectivist society. Brazil has one of the highest international rankings for Long Term Time Orientation, scoring 6th out of the 23 countries tested. Compare this to the number 15 rank of the United States' culture of independent living and short-term thinking. Interestingly, Brazil is the first of the non-asian countries to appear on the list.

Having a long term time orientation means that Brazilians value things like persistence, relationship orders determined by status, thriftiness, and having a sense of shame. These contrast starkly with the time-constrained structures of Americans. During my time here, I recognize that Brazilian collectivism and time perspective, although similar in their symptoms, differ greatly in their motivation from that of Asian collectivism.

Whereas Asian cultures seem to pursue collectivist behaviors in order to not stand out, to not draw attention to themselves or to engender unwanted notice, Brazilians observe collectivist behavior in search of a sense of unity. If one Brazilian is uniting with fellow Brazilians, it is not to escape notice or blend together. It is the stemming forth of a shared sense of brotherhood and patrimonio, the recognizing of a kindred spirit, and it is not quiet or subdued. Brazil's version of collectivist behavior is chanting at a fútbol game, loudly sharing a few drinks, or dancing samba with a very large group of friends.

In many regards, Brazil is exactly what others told me to expect. Brazil is the country described by paradoxes in many of the tour guidebooks. It is busy without seeming fast-paced. There is everything to do here, and plenty of nothing to do here. The beaches are covered with people, and the people are not covered with anything. The locals love the tourism and tolerate the tourists. But in so many more ways, the people, culture, and experience of Brazil defied or redefined the expectations that I had arrived with last month when I stepped off the plane at Galeão International Airport. I am thankful to the thousands of people that I have met here, that have offered me help, told me hello, or pinched my baby girl's thighs. I am thankful that they let me share a few moments of their time and see them as they experience life, their own daily lives, without any effort to be more like the Brazil defined by Frommer's Guidebook. --Shawn Butler

Uma Ausência de Relógios

Rio de Janeiro is everything I was told to expect. There is, however, one factor in the everyday life of Rio that bothers me. Everywhere I go, stores, bus stations, sporting events, places that one would expect might benefit from keeping track of the time, I find the exact same thing: An Absence of Clocks.

Time-tellers of any sort are no where to be found. Many South American countries, and most of the Spanish-speaking world, are pretty relaxed on time. But they at least seem to consider it important enough to merit placing a clock in the bedroom of their hotel guests. In 2006, California-based Hilton Hotels Corporation believed that their innovative new guestroom alarm clock would have such an impact on customer preference, it was made the focus of a year-long multi-channel media campaign.

The five room suite I’m in at the Ipanema Tower in Rio has not even one clock anywhere in it. Correction, there is apparently a clock on the microwave, but it is flashing 12:00 and I can only see it if I am directly in front of the cupboards against the kitchen wall. Neither is there a clock in the gym, the lobby, or the dining area. There are actually three (3) clocks at the reception desk; however, being that they give the hour in Rio de Janeiro, New York, and Rome, I have determined they are more for decoration than actual time-telling.

My own cultural distinction becomes very apparent to me in that I feel completely lost without knowing what time it is. I find myself constantly reaching for the cell phone that has doubled as a watch for me since its inception in 1999. Imagine my frustration now that, since my cell phone can neither send or receive calls, I have ceased carrying it with me to serve in its time-keeper capacity, but have now, instead, left it on the hotel nightstand by our bed. Where the clock should be. --Shawn Butler

I <3 New York City

New York City gets a bad reputation. As the most filmed city in the world, it is no wonder that I had many preconceived notions about NYC. Many of them were true. It is bigger, taller, and even more fast-paced than I had anticipated. I had blisters on my feet by the end of day 2. But I also had been lead to believe that this city was full of rude, selfish, busy and impatient people.

I want to say that this couldn't be further from the truth. I travelled the streets of NYC with my wife and our 4-month-old baby. We usually carried with us two bags and a stroller. On the way from the airport and back, we carried all this, plus two suitcases. At every leg of our trip, from the Q33 Bus at the airport to the Q Train to Central Park, without even asking, we had kind people offering us information and helping hands. These complete strangers offered to carry bags for us, to hold doors for us, and even to call elevators for us.

I came to expect that if I looked puzzled in front of the subway map for long enough, someone nearby would ask where we were trying to get to. And when I answered, as often as not, someone completely different offered up the route to get us there. I loved one experience where two separate groups were debating the best route to get us from 53rd and Lexington up to Lincoln Center. When people helped us with our bags or held doors for us, I would respond to their kindness in the way I had seen in movies: I pulled a couple dollars from my wallet. In every case, every case! it was refused with a shake of the head or a wave of the hand.

I want to say thank you to the countless helpful and friendly people of NYC for their kindness and altruistic service. You have conquered forever the unfortunate stereotype of your city. Well, I can't speak for any of the other boroughs, but, we loved the experience we had with the generous people of Manhattan, NYC. --Shawn Butler