STRANGER THAN FICTION, Dir Marc Forster, 2006

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Billed as a comedy, but a bit of a black one, this film is quirky and interesting. Emma Thompson is the writer who is controlling Will Ferrell's destiny by what she writes, and he has to race to reach her and persuade her to stop writing his death as the climax. For a tragedy, he has to die of course, but this is a comedy. Will Ferrell remains deadpan throughout, only breaking into a slight smile once or twice. It's fun as a writer's film, playing with the idea of storylines and outcomes, and Dustin Hoffman plays the Professor of English who helps to clarify the plot devices and explain how Emma Thompson's narrator is pulling the strings. Described as a playful and eccentric postmodern movie, it is thoroughly enjoyable to people who love story, or have studied English; we can congratulate ourselves on recognising familiar themes, but will it please a wider audience? Maybe there are enough English students out there. It's a clever plot, and well done.

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ACCATONE! Dir Piers Paulo Pasolini. 1961

Accatone! (1961) is the first film by director Piers Paulo Pasolini and re-relased as part of a box set of his work. Accatone! features a pitiless, self-serving, manipulative young pimp living in the slums and rubble of Rome, whose lassitude is infectious. Images of his death recur throughout the film and he seems barely living. The exclamation mark in the title may be there to try and wake him up. Pasolini shot the film on the streets, using the people he found there rather than professional actors. The effect is a slow moving realism which casts the viewer as reluctant voyeur; it is impossible to gain any distance from the unrelenting sadism of hollow machismo. Seeing this film fifty years after it was made, the misogyny in this film is deeply disturbing; women are either Madonna, virgin or whore. Accatone says prostitution is ‘a mother’s situation’ which provides the mixed message that it’s selfless and necessary for survival, yet he and his friends view whores as trash; to...

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e-Marketing 3

Why bother with social media? Specialize in email marketing, business to business, using mailing lists. email campaigns are: Cost effective, immediate, flexible, interactive, measurable and environmentally friendly. Targetted emails are welcome whereas Spam is a nuisance so it’s important to research your mailing list, discover what the recipients are interested in, either hobbies or products, and narrow down the list so the campaign is more likely to hit interested people – and not be deleted before reading. Some companies opt to supplement email campaigns with occasional high quality postal mailings, ie brochures- their promotional material sending a tangible message of quality and style. This is a sophisticated method. The measurable element includes basic statistics such as how many emails were sent and at what time, then quantifies how many of those were delivered, bounced back, opened, read, how many were ‘clicked through’ to the company website or unsubscribed. Conversio...

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