Complete with metal canon lens cap and leather hard cover

Good working condition but both camera body and lens need CLA (was advised to have it cleaned in HongKong for about $200) – slow shutter speeds off (2nd shutter curtain does not close), crinkle in the shutter curtain, meter erratic and three or four specks of fungus on the front element.

It was owned by my grandfather, with my grandmother's name etched at the bottom

Price: Mint condition sells for about $1500. PM me your best offer.

Companies are increasingly getting their employees involved in their CSR programs. Find out why.

At the Intel factory in General Trias, Cavite, long weekends are the norm. With a compressed work-week system, most of Intel’s 4,000 employees spend longer hours on the factory floor, but go to work for only three or four days a week.

The rest of the days, though, are hardly spent lounging at home or vacationing in beaches; they’re usually spent teaching at local schools, conducting safety trainings, or doing any of Intel’s several other employee volunteer activities under its Intel Involved program.

“It’s a value at Intel,” says Chona Ignalaga, Intel's community relations and Intel Involved manager. Volunteerism has been so ingrained in the culture of Intel’s Philippine operations that about 80% of their employees—the highest participation rate among all Intel factories worldwide—do some form of volunteerism. In fact, one of the reasons for shifting to a compressed workweek in 2000 was the request of employees to spend more time with their families and for volunteering. Their volunteerism activities have become so massive that they now have their own “corporate structure” within the company.

That 80% of Intel’s employees spend most of their free time volunteering may be unusual, but among several large companies in the country, employee volunteerism is increasingly becoming a popular mode of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Continue reading at Newsbreak

The first lady and the first gentleman could someday be next

Former Philippine President Joseph Estrada is now officially a convict. The country’s anti-graft court on September 12 found the one-time actor and hero to the poor guilty of plunder and sentenced him to up to 40 years in prison, marking the first time in Philippine history that a former president has been convicted of a criminal charge.

The verdict has both positive and negative implications for President Gloria Arroyo, whose legitimacy as president after Estrada’s 2001 has long been in question. Political analysts say that Arroyo shouldn’t be rejoicing just yet. The verdict may work in her favor now, with the peso strengthening and the stock market cheering the relatively peaceful reaction to Estrada judicial demise, but the long-term impact of the decision may not be as rosy. For the first time, it means anybody, including Arroyo, could wind up in court.

Continue reading at Asia Sentinel

WASHINGTON -- News audiences are ditching television and newspapers and using the Internet as their main source of information, in a trend that could eventually see the demise of local papers, according to a new study Wednesday.

"As online use has increased, the audiences of older media have declined," Harvard University professor Thomas Patterson said in a report on the year-long study issued by Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

"In the past year alone... newspaper circulation has fallen by three percent, broadcast news has lost a million viewers," said the study, entitled "Creative Destruction: An Exploratory Look and News on the Internet."

Meanwhile, the numbers of people using the Internet as a news source have increased -- exponentially, in some cases.

Traffic to websites that post news produced by a third source, including search engines and service providers, aggregators, such as topix.net or digg.com, which use software to monitor and post web content; and blogs -- increased across the board between April 2006 and the same month in 2007.

Monthly visitors to Digg.com, an aggregator which lets users decide on site content, skyrocketed in the 12 months to April 2007, from two million to more than 15 million.

Other online news sources grew more modestly, with user rates growing by 14 percent for community websites and six percent for blogs.

The Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN websites between them have about 100 million monthly visitors, far outpacing user numbers on websites of major television networks, which averaged 7.4 million visitors a month.

"Brand name" daily newspapers, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, averaged 8.5 million monthly visitors.

But newspapers in medium-sized to small cities saw either a drop in or no change to the numbers of visitors to their websites, which have already taken readers from hard-copy editions.

The authors of the study predict that many small newspapers could have difficulty holding on to even their web audience, and counsel that they include "national and international news in the mix."

* * *

This is hardly earth-shattering news, as I'm sure we all sort of see this coming. I just found the numbers interesting. Oh, and I just want to feel a wee bit vindicated for writing for more "online media" groups than "print media", especially with old people still wrinkling their nose at me when I tell them that what I write goes on the Internet and not on print.

Proceeds from the Switchfoot concert will benefit International Justice Mission, a non-profit organization that provides pro-bono legal services to children victimized by human trafficking. Check out their nicely done ad in youtube: Dare You to Move

I interviewed these guys for a story I wrote for Newsbreak's special human trafficking issue (coming out later this month). They're a good, dedicated bunch. Though I like Switchfoot, I didn't really consider going to the concert. Now, after seeing the ad, I think I will. Hope to see you there!

Switchfoot Concert
September 10, 2007
Cuneta Astrodome

I don't know if IJM is selling tickets, but you can check out the switchfoot manila blog for details on how to get tickets.

If you were to choose between two brands of sneakers, both of similar designs and quality, but you knew that one of the brands employed children in their factories in third world countries, which would you choose?

If you’re socially conscious, chances are you’d go for the brand with the clean reputation. This—to influence consumer preferences—is why many companies today are investing not only in becoming socially responsible corporations, but in making sure that their customers know about it.

“It helps the reputation of the company,” says Figaro CEO Chit Juan. “Customers feel good when they know that the company they are patronizing is not only interested in financial returns, but in social and environmental profits as well.”

Thus, we see advertisements showing how oil companies are exerting efforts to find sustainable sources of energy. We see in newspapers photos of executives handing over large sums written in even larger checks to non-government organizations and charities. We read the names of large corporations printed boldly on donated school buildings.

These brand-building, reputation-enhancing communications efforts are not targeted to customers alone, but to all of a company’s stakeholders. Mario Deriquito, director of Ayala Foundation’s Center for Social Development, says that CSR, according to the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, helps make the company the employer, supplier, neighbor, and investment of choice.

As such, they’re not channeled through advertising and PR efforts alone, but through annual reports, company newsletters and Web sites as well.

Figaro, for example, provides its customers and the members of its Coffee Club with newsletters that detail the company’s CSR activities. As a result, Juan says they get unsolicited PR when customers talk about these activities or even blog about them.

Corporate Reputation

PR executive Larry Zuritan calls this reputation corporate equity, or the sum of all the positive attributes of a company which it has communicated over time and which can be translated into financial profits. A 2002 study by British Telecom says that corporate social responsibility (CSR) accounts for 25% of the reputation asset of a company.

Deriquito says that in Ayala Corporation, for example, a potential foreign investor once asked to see the annual report not of the corporation, but of the Ayala Foundation. How socially responsible the company they were planning on investing in was a major deciding factor, a concept known as socially responsible investing. Corporations in developed countries, where CSR is more mature, apply the same socially responsible standards in choosing the companies they want to partner or deal with.

Fortunately for Ayala, they have been preparing annual reports for the Foundation for several years already, providing evidence of the company’s CSR activities. Zurita says that a number of local companies still choose to keep mum about their CSR work out of a sense of propriety, or the Filipino culture of delicadeza, if you will.

In the case of employees, well-communicated CSR values, often through internal publications and activities they participate in, help to increase their job satisfaction and commitment to their companies. In addition, they become part of the company’s communication channels, spreading the good news through word of mouth.

“CSR is really about business advocating social development causes. There are too many, but by communicating it to the general public, we are helping identify the most the important issues,” says Globe Telecom’s Jeffrery Tarayao.

For example, he says that by publicizing the work of the Philippine Businesses for Education, the people are made aware that education is a priority issue. In doing so, people and other organizations can choose to rally around the same cause.

“If you communicate CSR to the public well, you deepen understanding of issues,” Tarayao adds. Thus, he says that a CSR story should not only be on how a company, for instance, donates P1 million to a school; it should be about the need for more classrooms and teacher training.

To achieve this, Deriquito says that there should be a reorientation so that efforts to communicate CSR are not focused on the donors, but on the issues. Journalists, he says, should learn to ask the right questions and should challenge companies to make sure that their CSR is genuine and sustainable.

On the other hand, companies and PR firms should also learn to communicate issues, and not dwell too much on promoting the company brand. “Most PRs are focused on PR; not on communicating the issues,” Zurita says.

There’s an added benefit to this, says Zurita, because issue-oriented CSR stories are more appealing to media and the public. “They’re easier to sell,” he says. And if the media picks up a company’s CSR story, the benefits to the company’s brand and reputation become merely icing on the cake.

With all these reasons, it is logical that companies communicate their CSR activities, right? Not quite.

Continue reading at Newsbreak Online

Look at what the owl delivered to my doorstep:


Yipeeeee!

They came without warning, trickling in almost unnoticed until there were too many to ignore. It seemed, all of a sudden, that South Koreans were practically everywhere in the Philippines – in malls, universities, the country’s top resorts, and even on local television shows.

By now, Koreans are in almost all of the Philippines major urban areas. From up north in the cool city of Baguio to Davao City down south in Mindanao, Korean restaurants and groceries, bearing Korean-language signs, can be seen. They have established everything, from churches, hotels and resorts to gigantic manufacturing facilities. There are even Korean-only suburbs in Cavite.

Koreans have invaded the Philippines, and Filipinos for the most part are welcoming them with open arms.

It isn’t hard to see why. Less than four hours away by plane from Seoul, the Philippines has an English-speaking population known for hospitality, a significantly lower cost of living, and some of the most postcard-perfect beaches in the world. At the same time, Koreans are bringing in buckets of dollars into the Philippines both through consumer spending and direct investments.

The numbers prove it. In 2006, Koreans took the number one spot both in tourist arrivals and foreign investment in the Philippines.  More than 570,000 Koreans visited the country last year, overtaking arrivals from the US, which includes returning overseas Filipino residents and workers. On the resort island of Boracay alone, arguably the most famous tourist spot in the country, 65 percent of the visitors who enjoyed the powdery white sand last year were Koreans.

South Korea, accounting for $1.2 billion of the $3.5 billion in investments that entered the Philippines in 2006, is now also the nation’s biggest source of foreign direct investment, followed by the US and Japan. A large bulk of this figure is courtesy of Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Co., which is building a $1 billion shipyard – the fourth-largest in the world – inside the Subic Bay Freeport Zone in Zambales Province north of Manila.

“The Philippines’s location and manpower makes it one of the best destinations for Korean businesses,” says Jae J. Jang, president of the Korean Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines. Around 250 large factories in special economic zones in the Philippines are Korean-owned. Koreans are also among the top investors in the tourism industry.

There are now over 100,000 Koreans living here also, each of whom are estimated to spend an average of $800-$1000 per month, which adds up to almost $1 billion in consumer spending each year. Koreans in the Philippines significantly outnumber those in neighboring Indonesia, estimated at 23,000, and Singapore, with only about 8,000.

But instead of embracing all that is Filipino, Koreans, it seems, prefer to bring Korea with them. Wherever they settle, Korean establishments soon rise. Mini-Korean communities are now scattered all over the country. Aside from the usual restaurants and groceries, there are Korean internet cafes, salons, spas, and churches. All have prominent Korean-language signs and few offer any English explanation. It is not unusual to find Korea grocers here who even import Korean-made Coke and Lay’s potato chips from back home, even though identical products are available locally.

Continue reading at Asia Sentinel

A career in show business used to be a sure ticket to landing a job as an elected servant of the people in the Philippines. Judging from the results of the recent mid-term elections, surer preparation for office might be involvement in the armed overthrow of the government. “Coup plotter,” in local parlance, appears to be the new must-have credential.

Popular actors Richard Gomez and Cesar Montano, two of 57 celebrities running in the elections, failed to win Senate seats despite their large fan base. Only 42 percent of celebrity aspirants made it first across the finishing line, according to the ABS-CBN television network.

But former Navy Lieutenant Antonio Trillanes IV – running from the detention cell where he is awaiting trial for a failed coup attempt – won his Senate race. Trillanes grabbed the spotlight in 2003 when he led a band of soldiers to take over part of a Makati shopping mall in a bid to oust the government. He was one of 12 senators elected in the May polls.

Despite having to conduct his campaign from prison, Trillanes garnered more than 11 million votes, becoming the seventh opposition candidate to squeeze into the Senate this time after the traditionally long manual count of votes. He joins former Col. Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan, who has been leading coup attempts since he helped push Ferdinand Marcos from office in 1986. Honasan, who was implicated in several coup attempts against former President Corazon Aquino in the 1980s, was arrested, pardoned in 1992 and served in the Senate from 1995 to 2004.

He is currently facing charges for involvement in the 2003 shopping mall putsch and has also been accused of trying to overthrow President Gloria Macapgal Arroyo in 2006. He recently gave himself up, was granted bail and successfully ran for the Senate again.

Trillanes’ new status does not affect the charges against him and he will remain in prison since he is not eligible for bail. The courts have yet to decide how he will serve from behind bars, but in the permissive legal environment of the Philippines he is likely to receive permission to attend Senate sessions until a verdict is reached in his case. If found guilty, he will cease to become a senator. Of course, it could take years for a verdict to be delivered in courts that proceed at glacial speed.

Trillanes’ unexpected victory in nationwide voting for Senate is one of the few surprises from the May 14 balloting, in which half of the Senate's 24 seats, all 256 House of Representatives seats and all local elective positions were up for grabs. Overall results turned out pretty much as predicted by several surveys, political analysts, and even the administration and opposition camps themselves: with the opposition winning big in the Senate, and the administration dominating the House of Representatives.

Continue reading at Asia Sentinel

Instructions: Each player starts with 7 random habits/facts about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. At the end of your blog, you need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

(I'm deviating from my usual Multiply content because Carmela tagged me =P)

1. I sleep where I work (I work from home 70% of the time, and half my room is my "home office")
2. I'm a frustrated artist (Tried my hand at drawing/sketching when I was in HS; graphic design when I was in college; and now photography. Sigh. Still haven't accepted that I simply am not a creative person.)
3. I maintain 4 blogs (This, my personal blog, moolah matters, and purple pantry - which my sister and I will soon launch.)
4. I watch a movie every Wednesday night (for my movie review racket with Businessworld)
5. A personal goal is to travel to a new place and study something new every year.
6. I studied piano, taekwondo, Chinese, and French but know none of these now.
7. I have to munch on something while writing (chips, chocolates, nuts, etc.)

I tag Joyce, Jorem, Sheila, Sofie, Elaine, AnneMac, Bea - people who are more likely to answer this.

Monday, May 14, millions of Filipinos will once again march off to their precincts to cast their ballots. At stake are 12 of 24 Senate seats, the entire House of Representatives and all elective local government positions.

But the real battle is for the political future of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who still has three years to run on her troubled term in office.

In a country where politics is a perpetual muddle and few things are ever settled one way or another, the poll has come down to a match between the “Genuine Opposition,” a coalition of Arroyo foes who would like to oust her from office, and her “Team Unity,” a pro-administration coalition. Issues seem even more absent than usual, with the subtext of the campaign being that if the opposition could grab hold of both houses they would impeach Arroyo for a variety of sins — including alleged past electoral fraud and many presumed irregularities related to a scandal-plagued administration.

In Arroyo’s favor is a relatively healthy economy expected to grow by as much as 6.7 percent through 2008, generating a certain amount of citizen well-being. Unemployment is down slightly, to 9.1 percent in January although underemployment is endemic, with one in every five employed Filipinos underemployed. Exports were up sharply in the first quarter, rising at a 13.1 percent annual pace, driven by electronics. Inward remittances from the 9 million-odd Filipinos overseas continue strong. Foreign direct investment was highlighted by the recent decision by Texas Instruments to choose the Clark industrial zone over China to build a US$1 billion electronics plant. The call center business is booming. The peso continues to appreciate steadily against the US dollar – or the weakening dollar continues to fall against the peso. Arroyo’s economics team has cut the Philippines fiscal deficit. Tax collections, an ever-present problem in a nation of serial tax evaders, are up strongly.

Nonetheless, “every midterm election is a referendum on the sitting administration,” says Manuel Quezon III, a respected political columnist. “What makes the present election different is that it comes on the heels of two failed impeachment attempts that are clearly on the public's mind.”

Arroyo’s legitimacy as the Philippines’ 14^th president has never been accepted widely. She took office after the controversial ouster of President Joseph Estrada in 2001 by the military, business leaders and the Roman Catholic Church. Estrada was himself in the midst of an impeachment process that had not yet run its course and the ouster was regarded by his supporters as a de facto coup.

The 2004 presidential election was Arroyo’s chance to legitimize her claim to power, but it was marred by accusations of massive electoral fraud, including what are famously known as the “Hello Garci” audio tapes, which appear to catch her discussing vote-rigging with an election official whose nickname is Garci.

Since then, Arroyo has dodged two impeachment attempts and has been accused of trying to maintain herself in power by trying to amend the constitution, a ploy that was foiled by public opposition and, eventually, the Supreme Court. For these mid-terms, analysts say that Arroyo needs to have enough numbers in both legislative houses to make her last three years in office smooth. Otherwise, she could find herself facing charges yet again.

Meanwhile, the traditional election death toll continues to rise. According to the police, almost 100 people have been killed in politically-motivated incidents since the election campaign started in January.

As ever, there is also the edge of the bizarre about some of the comings and goings. The former army colonel and serial coup plotter, Gregorio Honasan, was granted bail from continuing charges related to his latest attempt to overthrow her government in 2006 so that he could run for the senate. One of Honasan’s allies, Navy Lieutenant Antonio Trillanes, who is in jail for a failed coup he led in 2003, is also running for a senate seat from prison. "There are no more reasons for her to stay," Trillanes told reporters who visited him in a military prison, according to Reuters. "If you want to really serve our people, she must be removed first. Genuine reforms could only be carried out under a fresh government."

There is also celebrity boxer Manny Pacquiao, who may yet decide that it is much safer in the boxing ring, where he is a champion, than in the political arena. He is running for a house seat in his Mindanao hometown, but he has since been accused of being a shill for Arroyo, whose husband has been a big backer of his career. Opposition politicians want him investigated and he says he is the victim of numerous death threats related to his political aspirations. “Pacquiao is being used to disable an opponent of the president,” Segundo Romero, an analyst at the Development Academy of the Philippines, told Bloomberg.

But every seat counts for Arroyo and Pacquiao, a national hero, seems like he cannot lose, assuming he doesn’t get shot.

“If the midterm election is viewed from the point of view of impeachment, and not just expressing approval or disapproval of the incumbent president, then two contests are in play: the need [for the opposition] to elect close to 80 opposition members of the House, and the election of opposition members of the Senate,” notes Quezon.

Based on pre-election surveys, it is likely that Arroyo will lose the battle for the Senate but retain control over Congress – which is hardly surprising.

Read more at Asia Sentinel

Wahab Akbar has been governor of the strife-torn island of Basilan in Mindanao for the past nine years. Now he is running for Congress. But that's okay because Jum, his first wife, is running for the position he is vacating. Cherry, his second wife, is running for mayor of Isabela City, the capital of the island province. Nur-in, his third wife is running for mayor of Lamitan, another large city in Basilan. And six other relatives – five nephews and a niece – are all running for mayor in Basilan's other smaller towns.

If they all win in the May 14 mid-term elections, the politics of Basilan will practically be a family monopoly. Akbar boasted recently that this would mean greater harmony for an area routinely beset by Muslim separatist rebels because the local government would be united.

In some places, it might seem odd to have the Akbars controlling things to such an extent, but in the Philippines, the only thing unusual in the situation is that Akbar has exercised his prerogative as a Muslim to have several wives. Other than that, keeping politics all in the family is a Philippine tradition that runs deep.

Read more at Asia Sentinel

For decades, actors of Asian descent have been trying make it big by breaking into mainstream Hollywood, usually with limited success. Thirty-one year old Christine Gambito, an American born to Filipino immigrants in Virginia, took a different route and achieved what others have been trying to do for years in only a matter of months – become famous.

With a little help from technology, Christine is now one of the most popular faces on the Internet. Proof of this is that an entry from her video blog, or vlog, HappySlip.com, garnered enough votes to be named second Best Comedy at the 2006 YouTube video awards.

Read more at Asia Sentinel

Presidential spouse Mike Arroyo discovers the pleasures of filing suit against reporters and politicians who cross him. He and the Mrs. may end up the losers. Read more at Asia Sentinel

Like most people, I am making my way through this twenty-something life on an employee’s income. Let’s face it, more often than not, we want to buy and experience more than what we can afford. Join me in my quest to becoming debt-free and a bajiliionaire by the time i retire - http://jetskee.wordpress.com.

A fire in the election commission headquarters has turned the heat up on the current election campaign. Fingers are pointing everywhere. Read more at www.asiasentinel.com

Out of 946 billionaires in this year's Forbes list, 60% are self-made. That's over 500 people across the globe who made oodles of money from scratch. Yes, it's possible. In fact, two of them (the self-made ones) are Filipinos - Henry Sy and Lucio Tan.

These people made it because of ingenuity - overpriced coffee and frozen dumplings, fictional boy wizards and search engines, vast media conglomerates and towering real estate, and of course, softwares and kickass mp3 players.

The average age of billionaires is 62 - that gives me around 35 years or so to make it to the list. If they can do it, so can we, right?

(NOTE: From now on, I'll put real blog posts here, and all of my published work in the reviews section)

Although it is based on the heroic stand made at the Battle of Thermopylae held some 2,500 years ago, 300 is not a history film. Despite the fact that practically a third of the film showcases clashing shields and torsos being ripped by mean-looking swords, 300 is not an epic war film. No single genre, it seems, can completely encapsulate the kind of movie 300 is. It is more than just an incredibly sexy, gloriously brutal, immensely entertaining, testosterone-laden fight film; it is a stunning work of art.

Gerard Butler as King Leonidas in fine, fighting form

And it should be. Based on Sin City creator Frank Miller’s award-winning graphic novel of the same title, 300 is practically a moving comic book, much like Sin City the movie. Each scene is a visual masterpiece, excellently colored in subdued dark undertones, with each frame seemingly a painting. Never mind the airbrushed six-packs or the unmoving painted clouds, each image is a sight to behold. This isn’t realism; it’s art.

Of course, it helps that underneath all this visual glory lies an incredible tale of 300 courageous Spartan soldiers, led by their brave King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), who set out to defy the greedy and pompous Persian empire, which was on a country-collecting warpath.

Despite the lack of support from their council, after a nymph-like erotic dancer cum oracle said that Sparta shouldn’t go to war, the King gathered 300 of the most badass soldiers Sparta has and marched off to Thermopylae. This narrow pass is a choke point where millions of King Xerxes’s (Rodrigo Santoro) soldiers will be rendered useless by the few but mean and sexy Spartan killing machines.

These scantily-clad soldiers, we are told at the beginning of the film, are raised to fight and die for the glory and honor of Sparta. From the age of seven, they are thrown into the wild to learn how to be fearless and merciless. They are not blacksmiths or fishermen called off to war duty. They were bred and formed for one thing and one thing only: to kill.

While the king is away defending his country and satisfying a manly need to shed blood, his gorgeous yet cunning wife, Queen Gorgo (Lena Heady), schemes to persuade the council to send in reinforcements, to no avail, leading to — my favorite part in epic war films — a heroic last stand in the face of certain death.

The entire story is effectively told as a narrative, much like how tales in the past were passed on from generation to generation in grand oral fashion before being set on ink and paper. As such, the focus is on telling the story, not on character development or on conflicting emotions.

But you don’t really watch a film like 300 for the story. You don’t go into the theater expecting heart-wrenching heroics or tear-jerking sacrifices. 300 is a fight film. You watch it for the gore and the blood-smeared, muscle-ripped bodies, like a spectator in a gladiator match. You watch it to see a gracefully choreographed, poetically rendered killing spree, highlighted by an intense Matrix-style musical score. You watch it to savor the vivid slow motion shots of limbs being severed, bodies being decapitated, and computer-rendered blood spattering all over the place. Ah, such beauty.

Butler, who played the title role in the Phantom of the Opera, delivers a mighty performance as the fearless and arrogant king. Singing masked phantoms be damned; Butler is a brutally sexy and vicious fighting king.

Kudos to Director Zack Snyder for having enough vision and creativity to conceptualize a film like this, and for having the guts to stick to what he wanted. He took a risk, and his gamble may not appeal to everyone, but I believe that had he taken the safer route and created a period war film like The Kingdom of Heaven or Braveheart or Gladiator, 300 would simply have been "just another war film." It could have been excellent still, but not uniquely remarkable.

At 117 minutes long, 300 is a tightly made success. It is every bit a guy’s film, yet it has 300 pieces of sexy man-bodies for girls to drool over. It is perhaps wise for the weak-stomached to stay away, but they would be missing out on an intensely entertaining movie.

(This review appears in the 9-10 March 2007 issue of Businessworld Weekender)