Flawless

• From director Michael Radford (THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, IL POSTINO) comes FLAWLESS, a clever diamond-heist thriller set in swinging 1960s London. Demi Moore plays Laura Quinn, a bright, driven and beautiful executive at the London Diamond Corporation who finds herself frustrated by a glass ceiling after years of faithful employment, as man after man is promoted ahead of her despite her greater expe

Four pretty little liars have been very bad girls.

Spencer stole her sister's boyfriend. Aria is brokenhearted over her English teacher. Emily likes her new friend Maya . . . as much more than a friend. Hanna's obsession with looking flawless is making her sick. But their most horrible secret yet is so scandalous that the truth would ruin them forever.

And why shouldn't I tell? They deserve to lose it all. With every crumpled note, wicked IM, a! nd vindictive text message I send, I'll be taking these pretty little liars down. Trust me, I've got enough dirt to bury them alive.

From director Michael Radford (THE MERCHANT OF VENICE IL POSTINO) comes FLAWLESS a clever diamond-heist thriller set in swinging 1960s London. Demi Moore plays Laura Quinn a bright driven and beautiful executive at the London Diamond Corporation who finds herself frustrated by a glass ceiling after years of faithful employment as man after man is promoted ahead of her despite her greater experience. Michael Caine is Hobbs the nighttime janitor at London Diamond who is virtually invisible to the executives that work there but over the years has amassed a startling amount of knowledge about how the company runs. Hobbs has his own bone to pick with London Diamond. Observing Laura s frustration he convinces her to help him execute an ingenious plan to steal a hefty sum in diamonds. But unbeknownst to Laura Hobbs plans go even farther than he s! let on and together they set in motion a thrilling heist of d! izzying proportions the likes of which London has never seen.System Requirements:Running Time: 109 mintuesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA Rating: PG-13 UPC: 876964001038 Manufacturer No: 10103It would be overpraise to propose that Flawless reviews itself with its title, but... how about "supremely decorous"? It is, at any rate, a film that merits a grateful salute from audiences weary of being beaten about the head and shoulders in pursuit of an engrossing caper movie. A plot to make off with a fortune in gems from England's premier diamond company unfolds without explosions, vrooming vehicles, or rapid-fire shootouts. It's like a feature-length variation on those sly, soft-spoken Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes of the '50s, with the patient accumulation of mood, detail and character leading to wry twists and satisfying revelations. We are in 1960 and a London not yet disposed to swing. Laura Quinn (Demi Moore), the lone female officer of Lond! on Diamond Corporation, is smarter and more capable than her male colleagues, but that doesn't deter the company from promoting them over her while profiting from her talents. This has long since gotten old, so when Mr. Hobbs (Michael Caine), the mild-mannered night janitor, enlists her in a scheme to fill his thermos with two million pounds' worth of diamonds from the vault, she listens. Suffice it to say that the vault is penetrated according to plan--and then the real tension sets in. Things are not what they seem, even to those supposedly in the know (us, for instance), and distrust springs up between the conspirators as they find themselves under close scrutiny by a steely investigator (Lambert Wilson).

All this is intelligently scripted by Edward A. Anderson (a maiden effort) and directed by Michael Radford with a crisp, unostentatious eye; the cold interiors of the Lon Di headquarters, generically oppressive on first sight, take on a nuanced familiarity as the pl! ace where, for the most part, Laura Quinn spends her life. Dem! i Moore- -scarlet lips in a black-and-grey world--admirably catches Laura's not-quite-smothered ambition and frustration without breaking her cover, as it were. Michael Caine couldn't be better as Hobbs, an invisible man in plain sight (how many viewers fail to notice his first appearance in the film?); he's the master of his trade, but you knew that. There's a framing story, set more or less in the present, which seems to be an obligatory bow to feminism but sets up a tease or two of its own, then adds yet another twist to the proceedings. --Richard T. Jameson

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Deep Rising

• A band of ruthless hijackers seize the most luxurious cruise in the world only to find that all the passengers have mysteriously disappeared, but they are not alone. Something is lurking behind every deck and passageway, snatching the intruders one by one! System Requirements: Starring: Jason Flemying, Anthony Heald, Djimon Hounsou, Famke Janssen, Derrick O Connor, Kevin J. O Connor, Wes Studi

Buckle up for edge-of-your seat excitement with the explosive hit DEEP RISING, an unstoppable high seas action thriller that moves at full scream ahead! When a band of ruthless hijackers invade the world's most luxurious cruise ship, they're shocked to discover the passengers have mysteriously vanished! But that doesn't mean they are alone! Something terrifying is lurking just out of sight: a deadly force from the unexplored depths of the ocean that begins to snatch the horrified intruders one by one! T! reat Willliams (THE DEVIL'S OWN) and sexy Famke Janssen (GOLDENEYE, ROUNDERS) lead a group of survivors who must overcome incredible odds in their breathtaking battle to escape the doomed ship alive!Following in the reptilian slime trail of Anaconda, this derivative monster movie from early 1998 plays like a cross between Titanic and Tremors, with parts of Aliens tossed in for good measure. Director Stephen Sommers couldn't recognize an original idea if it swallowed him whole--which, by the way, is exactly what happens to a lot of passengers on a luxury ship that is attacked by a giant serpent-like sea creature with a voracious appetite for human flesh. Treat Williams plays the leader of a mercenary crew whose members discover the ravaged ship and wage war on the creature; Famke Janssen joins him as an onboard thief and con artist who just happens to be highly skilled with automatic weapons. Of course, the action grows more intense as the body co! unt rises and along the way the monster is gradually revealed ! in all o f its gruesome glory. A guilty pleasure if ever there was one, Deep Rising arrived in theaters shortly after another waterlogged thriller, Hard Rain, and if nothing else it provides proof that the B-movie monsters of the 1950s are alive and well and as cheesy as ever in the age of digital special effects. --Jeff Shannon

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Warner Brothers Deluxe Rocking Chair, Tasmanian Devil

• Soft polyester fabric is easy to clean with mild soap and water
• Made in USA
• 5-year manufacturers warranty
• Your child's very own furniture

This wonderful story of Angus Ashabish, Lake Superior fisherman. WWII veteran, and a 'shaman' to boot, and Burl Manion, a wildlife 'technician'. Their lives and those of others around then unfurl against the backdrop of the Devil's Chair, an ancient local site of fable and love for generations of Native people.The Warner Brothers TAZ Tasmanian Devil Deluxe Rocking Chair gives your child a fun place to relax or hang out with friends and watch their favorite Taz-Mania episode. This cheerful armchair features front arm panels and durable resin rocker base. Constructed with a sturdy hard wood frame, the rocking chair is padded with polyurethane foam and upholstered in soft to the touch, yet strong polyester fabric. The chair is easy to c! lean with mild soap and water, which is sure to delight parents, too. The rocker's seat measures 13"W x 13"D and 11" from the floor. This kids chair is proudly made in the USA of wood, polyurethane and polyester.  Assembly level/degree of difficulty: Easy. Made in America

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Bait Shop

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A small time crook doesn't realize he is the bait in a sneaky government scheme to capture a killer.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 4-FEB-2003
Media Type: DVDWhen petty thief and hustler Alvin Sanders (Jamie Foxx from Any Given Sunday and The Wood) gets arrested for stealing shrimp, the worst of his problems would seem to be going to jail. Unfortunately, he ends up sharing a cell with a guy who, while stealing $42 million in gold from the Federal Reserve, double-crossed his partner--a partner with a knack for computers and a long memory. While being interrogated by a hardball Treasury agent (David Morse from The Green Mile), the double-crosser dies from heart failure. All the f! eds have are an incomprehensible message that was left with Alvin, so they decide to release him and use him as bait to catch the partner by secretly implanting a combination tracking device and electronic bug into Alvin's jaw. From that moment on, a surveillance team can follow Alvin's every move and hear his every word. Unfortunately, Alvin has a talent for getting into trouble--which means that the feds have to become his guardian angels so that he can serve his purpose. Bait certainly has its problems (there's a lot of fancy editing for no good reason, a few plot holes you could drive a truck through, and the actor playing the bad guy really wishes he was John Malkovich)--but even though it's nonsense, it's not predictable. The clever story moves along with surprising efficiency and has some successful comic bits. The characters can't be called well developed, but they aren't clichés; the movie doesn't require any great acting, but the cast is consistently engag! ing. In fact, Bait is one of the more enjoyable action ! movies o f the past few years. --Bret Fetzer Diego has gotten into trouble because of his temper before. But when he punches out a guy at school who was looking at him funny, he finds himself in juvenile court, facing the possibility of probation, or worseâ€"juvenile jail. Diego doesn’t trust or like Mr. Vidas, his assigned probation officer. But it’s either talk to Mr. Vidas, or end up in worse trouble. When Diego eventually opens up to Mr. Vidas, he begins to understand that the source of his anger is buried in his pastâ€"and to move beyond it, he must stop running from his personal demons.Live bait makes all the difference.

Sent on a mission to lure Budapest’s vampire Overlord into a trap, Connie Bence is instead caught red-handed by the dark Casanova.

Her employer has concrete proof of the dubious leader’s misdeeds but she is surprised when this ruthless killer, Rurik, offers her protection and rescues her from his own kind. It plants seeds o! f doubt in her mind and she begins to question his guilt.

Now she is thrown into his world where blackmail determines her every move and where she must betray those she cares about or let them die. The stakes are high. She either puts her trust in Rurik or leads him to his execution.

Love or life.
Live bait makes all the difference.

Sent on a mission to lure Budapest’s vampire Overlord into a trap, Connie Bence is instead caught red-handed by the dark Casanova.

Her employer has concrete proof of the dubious leader’s misdeeds but she is surprised when this ruthless killer, Rurik, offers her protection and rescues her from his own kind. It plants seeds of doubt in her mind and she begins to question his guilt.

Now she is thrown into his world where blackmail determines her every move and where she must betray those she cares about or let them die. The stakes are high. She either puts her trust in Rurik or leads him to h! is execution.

Love or life.
Studio: Lions Gate Hom! e Ent. Release Date: 09/02/2008 Run time: 85 minutes Rating: PgBait Shop stars the eternally affable yet exasperated comedian Bill Engvall as Bill Dugan, owner of a homey but smalltime bait shop. Bill's job and self-respect are threatened when arrogant fishing celebrity Hot Rod Johnson (Billy Ray Cyrus, better known as Miley's dad) opens a massive fishing superstore right next door. Only by challenging Hot Rod in a bass fishing tournament can Bill set things right! Bait Shop is a bundle of clumsy cliches made somewhat tolerable by a likable cast (including outlaw country music singer Billy Joe Shaver as Bill's mentor) and an enthusiastic performance by Cyrus, who clearly enjoys being the bad guy for once. High points include Bill having a bar fight while dressed in a fish costume and Bill wrestling an obviously rubber bass into his boat. There are many declarations about how fishing used to be more pure and how friendship is the most important thing in life. Extras ! include a standard-issue making-of documentary, some beautiful shots of the local landscape (which, inexplicably, never got used in the movie itself), some understandably deleted scenes and some scenes of the cast goofing around. All in all, not much effort was put into making either the movie or the DVD. --Bret Fetzer

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Abandoned: A Thriller

• ISBN13: 9780553591347
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

There are rules for dealing with ghosts. Too bad Ree Hutchins doesn't know them.

When her favorite patient at a private mental hospital passes away, psychology student Ree Hutchins mourns the elderly woman's death. But more unsettling is her growing suspicion that something unnatural is shadowing her.

Amateur ghost hunter Hayden Priest believes Ree is being haunted. Even Amelia Gray, known in Charleston as The Graveyard Queen, senses a gathering darkness. Driven by a force she doesn't understand, Ree is compelled to uncover an old secret and put abandoned souls to restâ€"before she is locked away forever....

An ebook exclusive prequel to The Graveyard Queen series.There are rule! s for dealing with ghosts. Too bad Ree Hutchins doesn't know them.

When her favorite patient at a private mental hospital passes away, psychology student Ree Hutchins mourns the elderly woman's death. But more unsettling is her growing suspicion that something unnatural is shadowing her.

Amateur ghost hunter Hayden Priest believes Ree is being haunted. Even Amelia Gray, known in Charleston as The Graveyard Queen, senses a gathering darkness. Driven by a force she doesn't understand, Ree is compelled to uncover an old secret and put abandoned souls to restâ€"before she is locked away forever....

An ebook exclusive prequel to The Graveyard Queen series.BEATEN, BLOODIED, AND BRUISED, and things are going to get worse.

Angelina awakes from a drug-induced haze, alone in the dim parking lot of a biker gang’s clubhouse. Her violent husband, who has left her there to suffer, has kidnapped their young son. The desperate woman slowly makes her way into ! the rundown building with the hope of finding help. Instead, a! gang of bikers, who intend to make the young mother their property, approaches her.
After a disheartening confrontation, a club member with a past full of disappointment and regret insists that the attractive woman ride with him. In doing so, he upsets the balance of the gang, infuriating another member in the process. As they travel across country, Angelina quickly learns that not only does she have to worry about the safety of her child, but her own safety as well.
It will take determination, inner strength, and the help of a handsome stranger in order for her to survive the ride of her life.

This romantic suspense novel will keep you speculating throughout the journey.BEATEN, BLOODIED, AND BRUISED, and things are going to get worse.

Angelina awakes from a drug-induced haze, alone in the dim parking lot of a biker gang’s clubhouse. Her violent husband, who has left her there to suffer, has kidnapped their young son. The desperate woman slowly makes h! er way into the rundown building with the hope of finding help. Instead, a gang of bikers, who intend to make the young mother their property, approaches her.
After a disheartening confrontation, a club member with a past full of disappointment and regret insists that the attractive woman ride with him. In doing so, he upsets the balance of the gang, infuriating another member in the process. As they travel across country, Angelina quickly learns that not only does she have to worry about the safety of her child, but her own safety as well.
It will take determination, inner strength, and the help of a handsome stranger in order for her to survive the ride of her life.

This romantic suspense novel will keep you speculating throughout the journey.SAIL AWAY Adam Drake was determined to clear his name of the false charges that ruined his career at Montgomery Inns â€" and if that meant deceiving the hotelier’s beloved daughter, Marnie Montgomery, and even stowing! away on her boat, so be it. If she had secrets, he would disc! over eve ry single one.... MILLION DOLLAR BABY When Chandra Hill is awakened by a cry in the night, she is shocked to discover an abandoned newborn in her barn. Emergency room doctor Dallas O’Rourke finds himself bonding instantly with the baby â€" and the intriguing woman who brought him in. And when the baby’s adoption becomes national news, he’s stunned to realize he wants a life with them both.... “This campy cool thriller builds to a surprising cliffhanger ending.” â€"Publishers Weekly on Without Mercy (starred review)

On Christmas Eve in 1985, a hunter found a young boy's body along an icy corn field in Nebraska. The residents of Chester, Nebraska buried him as "Little Boy Blue," unclaimed and unidentified-- until a phone call from Ohio two years later led authorities to Eli Stutzman, the boy's father.

Eli Stutzman, the son of an Amish bishop, was by all appearances a dedicated farmer and family man in the country's strictest religious sect. But behi! nd his quiet façade was a man involved with pornography, sadomasochism, and drugs. After the suspicious death of his pregnant wife, Stutzman took his preschool-age son, Danny, and hit the road on a sexual odyssey ending with his conviction for murder. But the mystery of Eli Stutzman and the fate of his son didn't end on the barren Nebraska plains. It was just beginning. . .

For FBI Special Agent Smoky Barrett, her colleague’s wedding is cause for celebration. Until a woman staggers down the aisleâ€"incoherent, wearing only a white nightgown. A fingerprint check determines that she’s been missing for nearly eight years. Her coldly efficient captor toyed with her mind and body, imprisoning her, depriving her of any contact with the outside world. As Smoky fits together the pieces of what remains of the victim’s fractured life, a chilling picture emerges of a cerebral psychopath who doesn’t take murder personally, never makes a mistake, follows his own sinist! er logic, and has set the perfect trap.
  Cody McFadyen on Abandoned

I build my books around the bad guy. I have from the first. I remember making a conscious decision to build my bad guys a little bit outside the box--the box being the firm reality we all know and agree to be.

Why?

Because it’s a lot more fun to write about serial killers that way.

Think about it. Hannibal Lecter is a lot more interesting than Son of Sam. Hannibal is brilliant, complex, unclassifiable. He kills with finesse and precision. Son of Sam was an unhinged lunatic, blowing people away at random. As a character, Hannibal is much more interesting to write about (and read). Because true serial killers aren’t super villains. They’re disturbed, sordid individuals, driven by hungers and needs that usually destroy them from the inside out. A lot of the time, they! ’re socially inept, and not very smart. Their depravity is most often senseless. Writing about what they do would be like writing about a great white shark: it eats because it is hungry and it has such big sharp teeth... you can’t sustain an entire novel on pure savagery. So I like for my bad guys to have a reason for what they do, some guiding purpose. Otherwise, all I’m doing is asking you to pull up a chair and watch the feast--and while something in our reptile brains might enjoy seeing a little bit of the feast, we shy away from the full truth of it.

So when I started thinking about Abandoned, the fourth book in my series, I started by thinking about my killer. I wanted to do something different, but what? The killers in the books earlier in the series had all been pretty "hungry;" in other words, they were appetite driven. "So what," I thought, "about a killer with no appetite at all?"

I actually rejected it at first, but the idea ke! pt swimming back to the forefront. There was something terrif! ying abo ut the idea of someone operating with such cold clarity. It was haunting me--which is always a good sign! I thought about it a lot and finally realized what (for me at least) makes such a killer so chilling: that kind of coldness relegates us to nothing, nothing at all.

The killer who is purposefully cruel, the killer who drools with excitement, still needs our humanity, at whatever level. There is a validation of our value as sentient, emotional beings, even if that only means they need our fear and our horror. It’s a terrible kind of "mattering," but still, we matter.

In the world of the killer I envisaged, we don’t matter at all. There’s no intentional cruelty, no enjoyment of our suffering, no acknowledgement of the value of our existence. He assigns his victims numbers, because it’s a more economical use of oxygen than saying their names.

I saw him, he terrified me, and then I wrote him. He lies within the pages of Abandoned! . It’s my hope he’ll terrify you as well.--Cody McFadyen

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Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

• good to great book, business and investing

Foreword by Morgan Spurlock

From the bestselling author of Buyology comes a shocking insider’s look at how today’s global giants conspire to obscure the truth and manipulate our minds, all in service of  persuading us to buy.
 
Marketing visionary Martin Lindstrom has been on the front lines of the branding wars for over twenty years.  Here, he turns the spotlight on his own industry, drawing on all he has witnessed behind closed doors, exposing for the first time the full extent of the psychological tricks and traps that companies devise to win our hard-earned dollars.
 
Picking up from where Vance Packard's bestselling classic, The Hidden Persuaders, left off more than half-a-century ago, Lindstrom reveals:
 
   • New findings that reveal how advertisers and marketers intentionally target chil! dren at an alarmingly young age â€" starting when they are still in the womb!
   • Shocking results of an fMRI study which uncovered what heterosexual men really think about when they see sexually provocative advertising (hint: it isn’t their girlfriends).
   • How marketers and retailers stoke the flames of public panic and capitalize on paranoia over global contagions, extreme weather events, and food contamination scares.
   • The first ever neuroscientific evidence proving how addicted we all are to our iPhones and our Blackberry’s (and the shocking reality of cell phone addiction - it can be harder to shake than addictions to drugs and alcohol).
   • How companies of all stripes are secretly mining our digital footprints to uncover some of the most intimate details of our private lives, then using that information to target us with ads and offers ‘perfectly tailored’ to our psychological profiles.
   ! • How certain companies, like the maker of one popular lip ! balm, pu rposely adjust their formulas in order to make their products chemically addictive.   
   • What a 3-month long guerilla marketing experiment, conducted specifically for this book, tells us about the most powerful hidden persuader of them all.
   • And much, much more. 
 This searing expose introduces a new class of tricks, techniques, and seductions â€" the Hidden Persuaders of the 21st century- and shows why they are more insidious and pervasive than ever. Foreword by Morgan Spurlock

From the bestselling author of Buyology comes a shocking insider’s look at how today’s global giants conspire to obscure the truth and manipulate our minds, all in service of  persuading us to buy.
 
Marketing visionary Martin Lindstrom has been on the front lines of the branding wars for over twenty years.  Here, he turns the spotlight on his own industry, drawing on all he has witnessed behind closed doors, exposing for the first time ! the full extent of the psychological tricks and traps that companies devise to win our hard-earned dollars.
 
Picking up from where Vance Packard's bestselling classic, The Hidden Persuaders, left off more than half-a-century ago, Lindstrom reveals:
 
   • New findings that reveal how advertisers and marketers intentionally target children at an alarmingly young age â€" starting when they are still in the womb!
   • Shocking results of an fMRI study which uncovered what heterosexual men really think about when they see sexually provocative advertising (hint: it isn’t their girlfriends).
   • How marketers and retailers stoke the flames of public panic and capitalize on paranoia over global contagions, extreme weather events, and food contamination scares.
   • The first ever neuroscientific evidence proving how addicted we all are to our iPhones and our Blackberry’s (and the shocking reality of cell phone ! addiction - it can be harder to shake than addictions to drugs! and alc ohol).
   • How companies of all stripes are secretly mining our digital footprints to uncover some of the most intimate details of our private lives, then using that information to target us with ads and offers ‘perfectly tailored’ to our psychological profiles.
   • How certain companies, like the maker of one popular lip balm, purposely adjust their formulas in order to make their products chemically addictive.   
   • What a 3-month long guerilla marketing experiment, conducted specifically for this book, tells us about the most powerful hidden persuader of them all.
   • And much, much more. 
 This searing expose introduces a new class of tricks, techniques, and seductions â€" the Hidden Persuaders of the 21st century- and shows why they are more insidious and pervasive than ever. 

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Amazon Exclusive: Steven D. Levitt Reviews BrandWashed

Steven D. Levitt is the best-selling author of Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics and a professor of economics at the University of Chicago. He is a recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded to the most influential economist under the age of forty.

Why do we always grab for the-second-newspaper-from-the-top of a stack of newspapers? When we talk on our cell phones why do most of us walk in a slowly decreasing circle? Do you know that "Competitive Altruism"--e.g. keeping up with that neighbor of ours who also owns a spiffy Prius--usually lies behind our decision to buy a bagful of organic apples and shut off the sprinkler?

The strange ways in which we consumers walk, talk, and whip out our wallets underscore BrandWashed, Martin Lindstrom's fascinatin! g, entertaining, occasionally shocking expose of the drivers a! dvertise rs and marketers use to make us buy. I consider Martin a kindred spirit. He enjoys nothing more than uncovering the hidden incentives behind all kinds of human behavior and social phenomena, and the differences between how we say we act versus how we actually act (in econo-speak, we call this declared preferences versus revealed preferences).

Marketing and advertising are smarty-pants industries. They know a whole lot about us. A global marketing guru for such companies as Pepsico, Disney, McDonald's, and Microsoft, Martin takes us backstage to expose the ruses and tricks companies and marketers use to get us to spend mad money. Such as nostalgia, fear, peer pressure, celebrity, and the inclusion of magical ingredients and elixirs that promise to banish all human worry and make you look sixteen forever--well, at least until you die. Last but never least, there's sex. I promise you'll get a kick out of reading who the real audience for pretty-boy teen singers is, h! ow men really respond to male-underwear ads, and the drunken research Unilever commissioned before the company rolled out its randy TV ads for Axe deodorant and body spray.

I've read the first chapter of dozens of business books over the last five years; rarely do I make it any further. Indeed, I've only read two business books from cover to cover in that time period: Buyology and BrandWashed. It is no coincidence that Martin Lindstrom is the author of both of those books. Simply put, Martin Lindstrom is the most innovative and creative marketer on the planet. BrandWashed is smart, thought-provoking, and laugh out loud funny. It's even better than Buyology, if that is possible. --Steven D. Levitt

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The Challenge:
Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered int! o the DNA of an enterprise from the verybeginning.

But! what ab out the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?

The Study:
For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?

The Standards:
Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.

T! he Comparisons:
The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good?

Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't.

The Findings:
The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:

• Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.
• The Hedgehog Concept: (Simp! licity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great req! uires tr anscending the curse of competence.
• A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.
• The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

“Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.”

Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?

Five years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, "Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?" In Good to Great Collins, the author of Built to Last, concludes that it is possible, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers ! began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11--including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo--and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management, or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not so great, the book offers a well-reasoned road map to excellence that any organization would do well to consider. Like Built to Last, Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading an! d rereading for years to come. --Harry C. Edwards

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Everyone's Hero : Widescreen Edition

• Widescreen

Ten-year-old baseball fanatic Yankee Irving (voiced by newcomer Jake T. Austin) is always the last one picked for sandlot baseball games. But when Babe Ruth's prized bat is stolen during the 1932 World Series, Yankee steps up to the plate to help retrieve it for his beloved idol. He embarks on a wild cross-country journey that teaches him the stuff real heroes are made of, and along the way, Yankee learns the importance of perseverance and the true meaning of friendship.

A talking baseball and a talking bat might not be the most likely characters to inspire a personal revelation about perseverance and self-esteem, but in Everyone's Hero it's just those two things that help young Yankee Irving (Jake T. Austin) overcome his reputation as a baseball loser and become a true American hero. A ten-year old spurned by the neighborhood kids because of his repeated strike-outs at ba! t, Yankee is at a point of personal crisis. A chance encounter with a talking foul ball named Screwie (Rob Reiner) and some time spent with his father (Mandy Patinkin), who's a janitor for the New York Yankees, gives Yankee cause for some serious reflection. When Babe Ruth's famous bat "Darlin'" (Whoopi Goldberg) is stolen by opposing teammate Lefty Maginnis (William H. Macy) and Yankee's father is fired as a result of the theft, it suddenly falls to Yankee and his new friend Screwie to find Darlin' and return her to Babe Ruth before the Chicago Cubs loose the final game of the World Series to the New York Yankees. The combined efforts of Screwie, Darlin', and new friend Marti Brewster (Raven-Symoné) aid Yankee in conquering his own self-doubt and infuse him with the self-confidence and strength to profoundly affect both his family and the entire baseball world. Produced by Christopher Reeve, this CGI animated presentation features a great cast of characters and voice tale! nt, and an important message about the power of perseverance. ! (Ages 5 and older) --Tami Horiuchi

Beyond Everyone's Hero

Everyone's Hero: The Movie Storybook (Paperback)

More Sports-Themed Family Films

Nothing is Impossible: Reflections on a New Life by Christopher Reeve

Stills from Everyone's Hero

EVERYONE'S HERO/FIREHOUSE DOG - DVD Movie

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Praise for Marie Force:

"If you are looking for a great love story that will make you smile and cry, this is the one."
-Enchanted by Books

"A solid contemporary with a lot to love...sweet, tender, modern romance, with likable, real characters that might have you looking at your next airline ticket with a new sparkle in your eye."
-Alpha Heroes

(20101220)DVD

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