Archives for March 2012

“Chronicle,” a Movie Shot Where?

Mar 29, 2012 by Ted Botha Leave a Comment

Is this Cape Town?

I don’t know about you, but if a movie is shot in South Africa I can tell. Within five seconds of a Volvo ad screening on TV, I can detect Chapman’s Peak or the Karoo or a shot in Cape Town central – no matter how hard they try to disguise it. So blow me down (and away) if one of 2011’s blockbusters (and one of my favorite movies), Chronicle, wasn’t shot in South Africa and I didn’t even smell a rat or fynbos or the salty spray of the Atlantic at Clifton for one milisecond. Even if you check out the photo to the left, try and see Cape Town in there somewhere. As one American critic noted, director Josh Trank did an amazing job with the movie, not least of all in transforming South Africa into Seattle.

The story in Chronicle is a simple one. Three high-school kids discover a hole in the ground that seems to have been made by a meteorite, go into the hole, and then, zap!, something happens to them. They all inexplicably develop telekinetic powers – they can do fun things like move cars by pointing their fingers and they can fly – and plenty other things an 18-year-old could have fun (and get into trouble) with. But all of a sudden, of course, things start to go wrong in a bad way. It’s a very smart movie, written by Max Landis (whose father, John, made movies like American Werewolf in London) that has you guessing all the time. And I don’t mean just the location.

Pasop, Goldman Sachs!

Mar 14, 2012 by Ted Botha Leave a Comment

The New York Times today carried an op-ed piece by South African-born, Rhodes graduate Greg Smith decrying the state of his employer, Goldman Sachs. Titled “Why I am Leaving Goldman Sachs,” it pulls no punches in saying what most of us probably have suspected for a long time but few people in the industry actually admit to – that Wall Street is greedy and doesn’t care about its clients.Instead of putting customers first, Smith says, it puts them close to last.

Greg Smith's Bio in the Times

The op-ed has generated a slew of comments already, most of them praising Smith, and the Times has now added an article about the controversy, saying that people on Wall Street might be prompted to (but probably won’t) do a bit of soul searching. It is titled “A Public Exit from Goldman Sachs Hits at a Wounded Wall Street.”

Smith, who is a hero to many for his honesty, will doubtlessly be persona non grata in financial circles for a long time to come. However, he will probably be swamped with invitations from the lecture circuit. The ink on his op-ed is barely dry, and already the daggers are out. In Forbes, a columnist says that Smith was not a top executive and he is suffering from a midlife crisis.

In Smith’s article he says that he has worked for Goldman Sachs for twelve years, in New York and London, and the company he joined is not the one he works for now. Things have changed radically.

“I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm for many years,” he writes. Many of his criticisms cut deep. “Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.” Perhaps most cutting of all is this comment: “It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off… It astounds me how little senior management gets a basic truth: If clients don’t trust you they will eventually stop doing business with you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are.”

The biography of Smith in the Times says that he will be resigning from his position at Goldman Sachs today.

Farewell, Oh Bicycle!

Mar 9, 2012 by Ted Botha Leave a Comment

What My Bike Looked Like

New York City finally got my bicycle. I knew it would happen sooner or later. The warnings were there. The last time I went to the bike shop to check on which locks were best, the owner said, “If you want to park your bike on the street in Manhattan, my advice is, ‘Don’t.” He showed me a variety of chains, but said that all of them were useless against someone who wanted to steal your bike. Plus, you had to get special locks for your seat and your wheels, because those got stolen even if the frame was left behind.

So I knew the odds.

Bicycle theft in the city is out of control, and there is, according to the New York Times, a flourishing trade in stolen bikes. The thousands of young guys crisscrossing the city to deliver takeout pizza and Chinese to apartments here and there all use bicycles, and even they get their bicycles stolen. One of the delivery guys even stolen my bicycle a few months ago from outside my front door. He had to carry it down five flights of stairs, although that didn’t deter him. But him we got on camera, leaving the building with two bicycles, so the police knew where to go looking for it.

This time I wasn’t as lucky. I went to have lunch on Prince Street, in the middle of trendy SoHo. Even though the bike was locked and in full view of the restaurant, I told the manager I had my bike parked out front. Could he please keep an eye on it every now and then. There was also a camera focused on the bike spot. During lunch I glanced outside occasionally to see if the bike was still there. Five minutes before leaving, I saw it was gone.

I got that horrible feeling one always gets at the moment you realize you’ve been robbed. I saw all the hundreds of miles I have cycled around Manhattan, the trips up and down the Hudson and East rivers, vanish in front of me. And yet there was also a momentary sense of relief – weirdly – because I knew I wouldn’t have to be petrified anymore of my bike being stolen. Because it was no long my possession to be worried about.

The police came an hour later, the manager was less than helpful, and the restaurant’s camera wasn’t actually switched on. So there is no evidence and no bike. So I guess it’s back to walking.

Postscript: Only a few days after the above theft, documentary filmmaker Casey Neistat and his brother made a short film on how easy it is to steal a bike in New York City. It’s both funny and scary.