Thursday, November 10, 2011

Joe's Jeans Men's Brixton Slim Fit Straight Leg Jean, Camden, 28

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Close Your Eyes

  • ISBN13: 9780374313821
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
2011 album from the Texas-based melodic Hardcore band.In Close Your Eyes, the author of the bestselling How to Be Lost spins another mesmerizing tale of buried family secrets.

For most of her life, Lauren Mahdian has been certain of two things: that her mother is dead, and that her father is a murderer.

Before the horrific tragedy, Lauren led a sheltered life in a wealthy corner of America, in a town outside Manhattan on the banks of Long Island Sound, a haven of luxurious homes, manicured lawns, and seemingly perfect families. Here Lauren and her older brother, Alex, thought they were safe.

But one morning, six-year-old Lauren and eight-year-old Alex awoke after a ni! ght spent in their tree house to discover their mother’s body and their beloved father arrested for the murder.

Years later, Lauren is surrounded by uncertainty. Her one constant is Alex, always her protector, still trying to understand the unraveling of his idyllic childhood. But Lauren feels even more alone when Alex reveals that he’s been in contact over the years with their imprisoned fatherâ€"and that he believes he and his sister have yet to learn the full story of their mother’s death.

Then Alex disappears.

As Lauren is forced to peek under the floorboards of her carefully constructed memories, she comes to question the version of her history that she has clung to so fiercely. Lauren’s search for the truth about what happened on that fateful night so many years ago is a riveting tale that will keep readers feverishly turning pages. A Letter from Author Amanda Eyre Ward
I grew up in Rye, New York, a small town outside of New York City. In 1988, I was sixteen years old. I smoked cigarettes in my room, thinking Trident gum would mask the scent. I made a fake ID and laminated it at the library, then used the ID to visit bars in nearby towns: Bumper’s, Streets, Tammany Hall.

On January 1, 1989, my friends and I woke up, heads pounding, in the living room of a stranger’s apartment in Manhattan. We walked to Grand Central and rode the Stamford local back to Rye. By mid-day, we heard that during the midnight hours of New Year’s Eve, there had been a murder in Larchmont, a neighboring town.

An Indian couple, both doctors, had been stabbed to death in their bedroom, throats slashed, their bodies mutilated. It seemed impossible that something like ! this could happen in the suburbs. Fear travelled silently along the Boston Post Road, past Baskin Robbins and the Smoke Shop, to Dogwood Lane, where I lived with my family in a stunningly beautiful home. To me, the message was clear: danger was everywhere.

The murder was not solved. Four-and-a-half years went by. My parents split up, and I went to college. I thought about the murder from time to time, trying to understand how a stranger had broken the spell of Rye, smashed through the safety we had all thought money could buy.

In 1993, we found out that the murderer was one of us, a teenage boy, a local. The son of a bank president. He had been blind drunk, he told a room full of people at an AA meeting. He was afraid he may have broken a door pane, entered his childhood home, where his family no longer lived, taken a knife from a kitchen drawer, and savagely attacked the strangers sleeping in his parents’ bedroom. He later said he didn’t remember anything! about it. He had been in an alcoholic blackout, but now he ha! d nightm ares.

At his trial, a psychiatrist said, "Probably the most typical behavior during a blackout is finding the way home....It's almost as if he were going back in time and eliminating the people that he sought to blame for all his problems back when he was seven years old."

He is now in jail.

The story of the New Year’s Eve murder has always stayed with me, and eventually evolved into Close Your Eyes. I think, in writing the book, I wanted not only to understand what happened to a boy who was one of us, what made him into a murderer, but also to create a world where this wrong was righted, and a broken town was sewn back together. I wanted to imagine a town that was loving and safe, a place that might never have existed in real life.

CD We Will Overcome

A little tiger takes an imaginative journey

The little tiger lay on his back in the tall grass.
"Close your eyes, little tiger," said his mother, "and go to ! sleep."

But the little tiger is worried about what sleep might bring.
His mother reassures him that once he closes his eyes, he will dream of magical places. And when he awakens, she will be right there, waiting for him.

Alternating between real-life scenes with the baby tiger and his mother and enchanted dream scenes of sleep's possibilities, Kate Banks's simple, comforting text and Georg Hallensleben's bright, colorful illustrations make this a charming bedtime story for small children.
 
Close Your Eyes is a 2002 New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year and a 2003 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
A mother tiger wants her baby to go to sleep, but the little tiger resists. "'If I close my eyes,' he said, 'I can't see the sky.'" She assures him that he will not only see the sky when he sleeps, but will float among clouds and be cradled by the moon. Not in the ! least assured, the little tiger complains that if he closes h! is eyes, he will miss seeing the tree and the bird with blue feathers. With each concern, his mother consoles him with a comforting thought. If this gentle give-and-take were not calming enough for a bedtime story, Hallensleben's lovely dreamscapes (And If the Moon Could Talk) will surely do the trick. Double-page paintings of cloud animal shapes (with the little tiger cozying up with the moon), the "big mountains where the rain lives," and of mother tiger licking her baby are utterly hypnotic. Young children who are afraid to go to sleep will learn that "Dark is just the other side of light. It's what comes before dreams" and that mom is never very far away. (Ages 3 to 6) --Karin Snelson
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The Girl Next Door

  • ISBN13: 9781892950611
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Suburbia. Shady, tree-lined streets, well-tended lawns and cozy homes. A nice, quiet place to grow up. Unless you are teenage Meg or her crippled sister, Susan. On a dead-end street, in the dark, damp basement of the Chandler house, Meg and Susan are left captive to the savage whims and rages of a distant aunt who is rapidly descending into madness. It is a madness that infects all three of her sonsâ€"and finally the entire neighborhood. Only one troubled boy stands hesitantly between Meg and Susan and their cruel, torturous deaths. A boy with a very adult decision to make…

ALSO INCLUDES TWO BONUS SHORT STORIES, ONE IN PRINT FOR THE FIRST TIME!

INCLUDES A SPECIAL INTERVIEW WITH ! JACK KETCHUM AND THE SCREENWRITERS OF THE CONTROVERSIAL MOTION PICTURE!Suburbia. Shady, tree-lined streets, well-tended lawns and cozy homes. A nice, quiet place to grow up. Unless you are teenage Meg or her crippled sister, Susan. On a dead-end street, in the dark, damp basement of the Chandler house, Meg and Susan are left captive to the savage whims and rages of a distant aunt who is rapidly descending into madness. It is a madness that infects all three of her sonsâ€"and finally the entire neighborhood. Only one troubled boy stands hesitantly between Meg and Susan and their cruel, torturous deaths. A boy with a very adult decision to make…

ALSO INCLUDES TWO BONUS SHORT STORIES, ONE IN PRINT FOR THE FIRST TIME!

INCLUDES A SPECIAL INTERVIEW WITH JACK KETCHUM AND THE SCREENWRITERS OF THE CONTROVERSIAL MOTION PICTURE!IT’S COMPLICATED.

We’ve read the scandalous headlines, watched her sexy breakout performances in Starship Troopers and Wild Th! ings, and seen her many public faces on her reality televi! sion sho wâ€"the beautiful vixen, the devoted mother, the hard-working entertainer, and the fun-loving friend. But how well do we really know Denise Richards?

Like so many small-town girls, she dreamed of making it big in Hollywood. But following a painful, high-profile divorce from Charlie Sheen, she found herself raising their two young daughters alone as her mother was dying of cancer. Denise writes openly and honestly about these experiences and more: she lets you in on her childhood dreams, her fated move to Hollywood with her close-knit family, her rise to fame, the pressures of living in the spotlight, and the controversy surrounding her relationships. Through it all, she managed to keep her sense of humor and optimism.

She offers an up-close and personal look at her most intimate battle scars and the lessons she’s learned as she’s healed and grown. Denise’s story will resonate with anyone who has had to look within herself to find strength and courage when life is! throwing curveballs.

Inspiring and uplifting, raw and revealing, Denise finally lets her fans in on the resilient woman behind the bombshell persona, the person her friends and family already know: The Real Girl Next Door.Suburbia in the 1950s, a dark side emerging in the Chandler house for teenage Meg and her crippled little sister Susan --captive to an Aunt, who is rapidly descending into madness. "The Girl Next Door is alive.... in a way most works of poplular fiction never attain; it does not just promise terror but actually delievers it. But it's a page-turner, all right; no doubt about that." - Stephen King

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Cairo Time

  • CAIRO TIME (DVD MOVIE)
A married magazine editor falls for one of her husband's old acquaintances while vacationing in Cairo in this romantic drama from writer/director Ruba Nadda. Juliette (Patricia Clarkson) is a magazine editor who is happily married to Mark (Tom McCamus), a Canadian diplomat. Their kids are all grown up, and they've planned a three-week vacation in Cairo together when Mark gets delayed in the Palestinian territories and Juliette is left to navigate the Egyptian capitol alone. In order to ensure his wife's safety until he arrives, Mark asks his former security officer and longtime friend Tareq (Alexander Siddig) to be her guide though the city. He never imagined that they would fall in love, but the more time Tareq and Juliette spend together the more difficult is becomes for them to deny their intense attraction to one another.Patricia Clarkson, who brightens just about a! ny movie she's in, is positively luminous in Cairo Time. The plot of the movie barely exists: Juliette Grant (Clarkson, The Station Agent, Pieces of April) goes to Cairo to meet with her husband, a U.N. diplomat held up in Israel. At loose ends, she wanders the city and spends time with a friend of her husband's, Tareq (Alexander Siddig, Syriana, Deep Space Nine), with whom an understated but undeniable attraction forms. But Cairo Time isn't about plot--it's a wonderfully delicate examination of cultural differences and human connection across them. Both Clarkson and Siddig are superb; both are thoroughly grounded actors, and their firm grasp of their characters allows them to capture very quiet emotions that have a surprising impact. Director Ruba Nadda, who is a Canadian of Arab descent, has a skillful sense of rhythm and a keen eye for both human detail and magnificent landscapes. Cairo Time is a beautiful movie, romantic ! and melancholy, gentle and tart, subtle but deeply satisfying.! --Br et Fetzer
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Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

  • ISBN13: 9780316925198
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
David Foster Wallace made an art of taking readers into places no other writer even gets near. The series of stories from which this exuberantly acclaimed book takes its title is a sequence of imagined interviews with men on the subject of their relations with women. These portraits of men at their most self-justifying, loquacious, and benighted explore poignantly and hilariously the agonies of sexual connections.Amid the screams of adulation for bandanna-clad wunderkind David Foster Wallace, you might hear a small peep. It is the cry for some restraint. On occasion the reader is left in the dust wondering where the story went, as the author, literary turbochargers on full-blast, suddenly accelerate! s into the wild-blue-footnoted yonder in pursuit of some obscure metafictional fancy. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Wallace's latest collection, is at least in part a response to the distress signal put out by the many readers who want to ride along with him, if he'd only slow down for a second.

The intellectual gymnastics and ceaseless rumination endure (if you don't have a tolerance for that kind of thing, your nose doesn't belong in this book), but they are for the most part couched in simpler, less frenzied narratives. The book's four-piece namesake takes the form of interview transcripts, in which the conniving horror that is the male gender is revealed in all of its licentious glory. In the short, two-part "The Devil Is a Busy Man," Wallace strolls through the Hall of Mirrors that is human motivation. (Is it possible to completely rid an act of generosity of any self-serving benefits? And why is it easier to sell a couch for five ! dollars than it is to give it away for free?) The even shorte! r glimps e into modern-day social ritual, "A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life," stretches the seams of its total of seven lines with scathing economy: "She laughed extremely hard, hoping to be liked. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces." Wallace also imbues his extreme observational skills with a haunting poetic sensibility. Witness what he does to a diving board and the two darkened patches at the end of it in "Forever Overhead":

It's going to send you someplace which its own length keeps you from seeing, which seems wrong to submit to without even thinking.... They are skin abraded from feet by the violence of the disappearance of people with real weight.
Of course, not every piece is an absolute winner. "The Depressed Person" slips from purposefully clinical to unintentionally boring. "Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko" reimagines an Arthurian tale in MTV terms a! nd holds your attention for about as long as you'd imagine from such a description. Ultimately, however, even these failed experiments are a testament to Mr. Wallace's endless if unbridled talent. Once he gets the reins completely around that sucker, it's going to be quite a ride. --Bob Michaels
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Dig!

  • Running Time 107 Min System Requirements: Filmed over seven years (1996-2002) and culled from over 1500 hours of footage by rising director Ondi Timoner, DIG! plunges into the underbelly of rock n roll unearthing an amazing true tale of success, self destruction, friendship, and the ultimate rivalry between two up-and-coming bands; Brian Jonestown Massacre led by the tormented, self-destructi
Seven years in the making and culled from over 1500 hours of footage, DIG! plunges into the underbelly of rock ‘n’ roll, unearthing an incredible true story of success and self-destruction. Anton A. Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Courtney Taylor of the Dandy Warhols are star-crossed friends and bitter rivals â€" DIG! is the story of their loves and obsessions, gigs and recordings, arrests and death threats, uppers and downers, and the delicate balance between art and commerce.

Italian fabulist Italo Calvino observed that there are two kinds of artists--those who are prolific and successful, and the tortured geniuses, each gazing at the other in deep jealousy and admiration. The two rock bands chronicled in the documentary DiG! fall easily into this equation. On the side of the tortured geniuses is the Brian Jonestown Massacre, led by the psychedelic and volatile Anton Newcombe. Portland's the Dandy Warhols, fronted by Courtney Taylor, fulfill the role of the artists who, while unable to plumb the artistic depths of their friendly rivals, achieve a fair degree of popular acclaim (in Europe, anywa! y). Shot over seven years and containing some astonishingly in! timate f ootage, the film represents a labor of love for director Ondi Timoner, who befriended, lived, and traveled with the bands. DiG! will likely be most remembered for a remarkable scene of rock and roll implosion--a show in LA's Viper Room after which the Brian Jonestown Massacre were expected to ink a record deal. Instead, the band erupted in a fist fight onstage. Among themselves.

Does it go uphill or downhill from here? Depends on your definition of the terms. While! dooming their careers, the Brian Jonestown Massacre manage to crank out an insane number of self-distributed albums--including three records in a single year. Courtney Taylor and the Dandies regard the musical output of their peers worshipfully and find themselves virtually ignored stateside but huge stars across the pond. While tens of thousands of fans in Germany and the UK sing along to every word at sold-out festivals headlined by the Dandies, Newscombe leads his crew in a nine-hour set in a dingy club for an audience of ten. Throughout the film there are controlled substances imbibed, clothing shed, sitars broken, punches thrown, arrests made. Taylor performs double duty as narrator of the film, begging the question of whether to accept his assertion that he fronts "the most well-adjusted band in America" at face value. The destined-for-greater-things Joel Gion, BJM's tambourine player, is the thief of every scene in which he appears, playing Flavor Flav to Newscombe'! s Chuck D. For those who want even more immersion, the DVD inc! ludes th e option to "zoom," or expand, various scenes--a very cool feature. Those responsible for the hilarious excesses of DiG! have made a movie worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as This Is Spinal Tap, as mixed an honor as that might be.

DVD Features

The second of this set's two discs is practically its own sequel. Director Ondi Timoner had 1500 hours of footage to work with, so there was plenty of good material left on the cutting-room floor that found its way onto this supplemental disc. The deleted scenes include an unintentionally haunting pre-9/11 interview on a New York! rooftop with BJM's Anton Newcombe; the twin towers loom behind the singer as he attempts to justify singing about love yet engaging in violence, drawing tenuous parallels between himself and militant prophets throughout history. This, and Newcombe's delight in listening to Charles Manson's musical recordings, is about as heavy as it gets, though. Other extras include various videos by the bands, with the conspicuous absence of the Dandy Warhol's David LaChapelle-directed "Not if You Were the Last Junkie on Earth." (The omission is understandable in light of the Dandies' sour grapes over the $400,000 video.) The Where Are They Now features find various members of the bands a little older and reflective, with new families and new gigs, reminiscing fondly on the seven years spent under Timoner's watchful spycam. As is the case with the film proper, the mood picks up whenever Joel Gion appears. When is this guy going to get his own talk show? For fans of Timoner's commentary o! n disc 1 there is--get this--footage of the director and her p! artners recording that commentary. Why there's no footage of Timoner watching and commenting on the footage of herself recording the commentary is anyone's guess. --Ryan Boudinot

Dig These Discs by the Brian Jonestown Massacre


Tepid Peppermint Wonderland: A Retrospective
Strung Out in Heaven
Bravery Repetition & Noise

And This Is Our Music
Thank God for Mental Illness
Bringing It All Back Home Again

Dig These Discs by the Dandy Warhols


Welcome to the Monkey House
Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia
The Dandy Warhols Come Down

Dig These Documentaries (and One Classic Mockumentary) on DVD

!


This Is Spinal Tap (Special Edition)
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Hype

X (The Band): The Unheard Music
End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones
Gimme Shelter


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Flirting with Disaster: Why Accidents Are Rarely Accidental

  • ISBN13: 9781402753039
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Written and directed by David O. Russell (THREE KINGS, SPANKING THE MONKEY), this hysterically original comedy was cheered by critics and audiences nationwide. In a quest to find his biological parents, Mel Coplin (Ben Stiller, DUPLEX, MEET THE PARENTS) -- joined by his wife (Patricia Arquette, HUMAN NATURE, HOLES), and a sexy adoption counselor (Téa Leoni, PEOPLE I KNOW, HOLLYWOOD ENDING ) -- embarks on a cross country search for his "roots." Yet as he careens from one outrageous situation to another, Mel finds himself tempted by the seductive counselor -- even as his wife starts a flirtation of her own! By the time they meet up with his free-spirited birth parents, the whole situation is spinning hy! sterically out of control! Also starring Mary Tyler Moore, Alan Alda, and Lily Tomlin, this hilarious hit is sure to entertain everyone!Sometimes a filmmaker's second movie gets labeled as a sophomore slump. David O. Russell (Spanking the Monkey) shreds that fate with Flirting with Disaster, an outrageous, free-spirited comedy about private people forced into public situations. Mel Coplin (Ben Stiller) finds the opportunity he's been waiting a lifetime for: an adoption agency rep (Téa Leoni) has located his birth parents and the agency will fly him to California if they can record the reunion. With wife Nancy (Patricia Arquette) and new son in tow, the neurotic Mel is compelled to discover his origins, despite the protests of his neurotic adoptive parents (a wonderful Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal). To give away the plot any more would be a crime, but as the title states, Mel is on a collision course of Oedipal proportions. Russell, who made incest an int! riguing black-comedy topic in Spanking, is very liberal! with se x and permits dangerous situations. His characters mix it up at a moment's notice. The two women along for the ride are not just bit players: Leoni (Deep Impact) keeps her high-energy comic routine flying, while the grounded Arquette keeps the baby in arm, despite the mad wanderings of her husband. Stiller is a perfect comic foil. --Doug Thomas Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 04/15/2011 Rating: RSometimes a filmmaker's second movie gets labeled as a sophomore slump. David O. Russell (Spanking the Monkey) shreds that fate with Flirting with Disaster, an outrageous, free-spirited comedy about private people forced into public situations. Mel Coplin (Ben Stiller) finds the opportunity he's been waiting a lifetime for: an adoption agency rep (Téa Leoni) has located his birth parents and the agency will fly him to California if they can record the reunion. With wife Nancy (Patricia Arquette) and new son in tow, the neurotic Mel is compell! ed to discover his origins, despite the protests of his neurotic adoptive parents (a wonderful Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal). To give away the plot any more would be a crime, but as the title states, Mel is on a collision course of Oedipal proportions. Russell, who made incest an intriguing black-comedy topic in Spanking, is very liberal with sex and permits dangerous situations. His characters mix it up at a moment's notice. The two women along for the ride are not just bit players: Leoni (Deep Impact) keeps her high-energy comic routine flying, while the grounded Arquette keeps the baby in arm, despite the mad wanderings of her husband. Stiller is a perfect comic foil. --Doug Thomas There's a fine line between desire and disaster. At least, that's what improper Southern belle Maggie Forsythe thinks when unceremoniously dumped by a fiance even her mother approved of. Maggie has never cared what anyone thinks, so why is she hiding away from her Sou! th Carolina Lowcountry home?

Then an intervention by friends! shows h er she has options. Lots of them! And one includes a man who can make her forget all about being jilted.

But one look at Maggie convinces project foreman Josh Parker that he's corn bread to her caviar. Sure, they have enough sparks to ignite a bonfire, but growing up broke has made him wary of sweetâ€"teaâ€"swilling debutantes. So why is he suddenly singing "Tea for Two"?Sometimes a filmmaker's second movie gets labeled as a sophomore slump. David O. Russell (Spanking the Monkey) shreds that fate with Flirting with Disaster, an outrageous, free-spirited comedy about private people forced into public situations. Mel Coplin (Ben Stiller) finds the opportunity he's been waiting a lifetime for: an adoption agency rep (Téa Leoni) has located his birth parents and the agency will fly him to California if they can record the reunion. With wife Nancy (Patricia Arquette) and new son in tow, the neurotic Mel is compelled to discover his origins, despite the protests o! f his neurotic adoptive parents (a wonderful Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal). To give away the plot any more would be a crime, but as the title states, Mel is on a collision course of Oedipal proportions. Russell, who made incest an intriguing black-comedy topic in Spanking, is very liberal with sex and permits dangerous situations. His characters mix it up at a moment's notice. The two women along for the ride are not just bit players: Leoni (Deep Impact) keeps her high-energy comic routine flying, while the grounded Arquette keeps the baby in arm, despite the mad wanderings of her husband. Stiller is a perfect comic foil. --Doug Thomas After a disappointing relationship, heiress Libby Carlyle needed to change her life. So she winged a prayer heavenward and traded places with her less privileged best friend. No sooner did she step into her new waitress shoes than Libby fell in love with her very stern, very handsome boss, Carson Davies. If she could! only find a way to reveal her true identity… .

Determine! d to suc ceed, Carson ran himself ragged and relied only on himself. When he looked up from his blinders, he noticed a beautiful woman working for him. Suddenly, he wanted to be with her and share her faith in God. But did he dare trust these budding feelings, or the voice inside that urged him to believe?After a disappointing relationship, heiress Libby Carlyle needed to change her life. So she winged a prayer heavenward and traded places with her less privileged best friend. No sooner did she step into her new waitress shoes than Libby fell in love with her very stern, very handsome boss, Carson Davies. If she could only find a way to reveal her true identity… .

Determined to succeed, Carson ran himself ragged and relied only on himself. When he looked up from his blinders, he noticed a beautiful woman working for him. Suddenly, he wanted to be with her and share her faith in God. But did he dare trust these budding feelings, or the voice inside that urged him to believe?HE! WAS THE MAN SHE COULDN'T HAVE . . .

On a humanitarian mission to fly doctors to a remote village in Mexico, pilot Lisa Merrick discovers something sinister lurking behind the organization in charge. Her plane is sabotaged, leaving her trapped in the Mexican wilderness with a price on her head and no way out. Injured and desperate, she manages to contact the one man she knows will help her: Dave DeMarco, a tough but compassionate Texas cop she was once wildly in love with, a man who left her with nothing but a whispered promise that now provides her only hope.

. . . SHE WAS THE WOMAN HE COULDN'T FORGET

Dave DeMarco is stunned when a woman from his past phones him late one night with an incredible story of smuggling, sabotage, and attempted murder. Just hearing Lisa Merrick’s voice brings back memories Dave doesn’t want to face, but a promise he once made leaves him no choice but to help her. Soon, though, his mission to rescue Lisa become! s a struggle for survival against an enemy who wants them both! dead. W hen the danger they face clashes with the passion that still burns between them, Dave vows to protect the woman he never stopped lovingâ€"and keep her in his life forever. . . .Sometimes a filmmaker's second movie gets labeled as a sophomore slump. David O. Russell (Spanking the Monkey) shreds that fate with Flirting with Disaster, an outrageous, free-spirited comedy about private people forced into public situations. Mel Coplin (Ben Stiller) finds the opportunity he's been waiting a lifetime for: an adoption agency rep (Téa Leoni) has located his birth parents and the agency will fly him to California if they can record the reunion. With wife Nancy (Patricia Arquette) and new son in tow, the neurotic Mel is compelled to discover his origins, despite the protests of his neurotic adoptive parents (a wonderful Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal). To give away the plot any more would be a crime, but as the title states, Mel is on a collision course of Oedipal prop! ortions. Russell, who made incest an intriguing black-comedy topic in Spanking, is very liberal with sex and permits dangerous situations. His characters mix it up at a moment's notice. The two women along for the ride are not just bit players: Leoni (Deep Impact) keeps her high-energy comic routine flying, while the grounded Arquette keeps the baby in arm, despite the mad wanderings of her husband. Stiller is a perfect comic foil. --Doug Thomas

Chernobyl and Katrina.  ChallengerandColumbia. BP and Vioxx. The Iraq War.  Were these unavoidable misfortunes that no one could possibly have imagined?  Hardly. All of them were disasters that could have been prevented, or whose damaging repercussions could have been mitigated.

            Despite warnings of impending disaster, p! reemptive action is rarely taken by those who have the ability! to do s o.  How do smart, high-powered people, leaders of global corporations, national institutions, even nations, often get it so wrong? While most investigations focus on the technical causes of disaster,Flirting With Disasterexamines the psychological, social, and cultural impediments to whistle-blowing, showing what we can do to reduce the possibility of disasters happening at all.

            Analyzing such phenomena as bystander behavior and the butterfly effect, amid a series of instructive case studiesâ€"not only the aforementioned shuttle crashes, natural disasters, and industrial accidents, but also Arthur Andersen’s shady accounting at Enron; the 1994 Mexican peso crisis that nearly caused an international monetary meltdown; and the American sub-prime lending crisis that emerged in August 2007, revealing the country’s unhealthy dependence on consumer creditâ€"Marc Gerstein, an organizational psyc! hologist,urges a re-evaluation of the timidity, distorted thinking, errors of judgment and self-serving conduct that result in disasters from the boardroom to the halls of academe to the Oval Office. Daniel Ellsberg, renowned and respected for releasing the Pentagon Papers, offers a foreword and a powerful afterword addressing what happens “When Leaders are the Problem.”

           Flirting With Disasteris a must-read for those who want to foster truth-telling in their organizations, and head off disasters in the making.  At once alarming, entertaining and hopeful, this is a book that offers very real and practical lessons for everyday life.

 
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