An Independent Film Production That Became an Excellent Big Fat Paycheck

My Big Fat Greek Wedding ? 4 Stars (Excellent)

My Big Fat Greek Wedding is simply one of the best movies ever made about close families and their traditions.

This film is on par with Fiddler on the Roof (winner of 3 Oscars among 8 nominations) and A Christmas Story (winner of no major awards and no Oscar nominations), proving that the biggest award-winners are not the only great movies.

A Christmas Story and My Big Fat Greek Wedding were matched bookends in that both films were not thought to be worthy of financing by typical Hollywood backers and ended up as independent films with limited distribution before becoming huge successes.

A Christmas Story, a low budget film that was not expected to do well, was released just before Thanksgiving in 1983. By Christmas the film had been pulled from theaters because it was thought to have been played out. It was only because of complaints from moviegoers that it was brought back to life and has since developed a loyal following of fans that will not let it die.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding was filmed because a gutsy Greek girl named Nia Vardalos believed in herself and in her one-woman stage show to keep performing until Rita Wilson saw the play. She persuaded her husband Tom Hanks to produce a movie version.

Wilson, like Vardalos, is Greek. Wilson's reward as one of the producers with her husband and Gary Goetzman was to see the project completed. The PGA Golden Laurel Awards remembered Rita Wilson by giving her the Visionary Award in 2003. The three producers also won the Golden Laurel Award for Producer of the Year.

So we have in My Big Fat Greek Wedding a low budget, independent film that was about to make Hollywood history.

To show you how dumb the Hollywood financial backers were and how smart Tom Hanks was the estimated $5 million budget for My Big Fat Greek Wedding generated worldwide revenue of $368 million.

The Hollywood backers thought America filmgoers would not accept an ethnic film. I wonder how many of the same backers recognized that Fiddler on the Roof, produced 31 years earlier in 1971, was an ethnic film about a Jewish family which broke with the tradition of arranged marriages.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) became the highest-grossing independent film of all time, surpassing The Blair Witch Project (1999). It also became the highest grossing movie never to have hit number one at the box office, surpassing Dances with Wolves (1990).

Incredibly , the film was still running in several theaters even after its initial video release.

This film is essentially the story of Toula (Nia Vardalos), a 30-year-old Greek woman who falls in love with John (Ian Miller), a non-Greek man, and struggles to get her family to accept him while both of them come to terms with their heritage, cultural identity and mutual compatibility.

As Toula says, Nice Greek girls are supposed to do three things in life: marry Greek boys, make Greek babies, and feed everyone . . . until the day we die.

Her father, Gus Portokalos (Michael Constantine) says: You better get married soon. You're starting to look old! Gus also says, There are only two kinds of people, Greeks and people who wish they were Greek. He believes any ailment can be cured with Windex.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding is the Greek community at its most accurate and best, all of the suffocating love, demanded tradition, motivation by guilt, male ego, female influence, pride of race, sibling ties, extended family, romance and sacrifice for those we love.

This film is not heavy and dripping with drama, this is a romantic comedy mixed with strong family traditions that proves Shakespeare's sage observation that all's well that ends well.

The cast is not star-studded and proves that you do not need to be a headliner to deliver a headliner's performance and then some. Joining Nia Vardalos, Michael Constantine and Ian Miller with significant and meaningful contributions were Lainie Kazan as Toula's mother Maria, Louis Mandylor as Toula's brother Nick, Andrea Martin as Aunt Voula, and Gia Carides as Cousin Nikki.

Vardalos, Constantine, Mandylor and Carides were the only true Greeks in the cast.

There is a point in the film when Toula feels she is losing the battle and laments that he man is the head of the house. Her mother Maria tells her that he man is the head, but the woman is the neck, and she can turn the head any way she wants. Maria does so in a confrontation with her husband that should make women proud.

This film will warm you heart, entertain your soul and cause you to walk away a better person for having seen this superb effort in moviemaking. Toula's personal growth as a young woman freeing herself from forced expectations against insufferable odds is so precious that you want to take her home and adopt her.

I once went to a Polish funeral and was amazed that when the funeral was over and the reception began, the whiskey flowed and all of the immediate family and friends had a heck of great party drinking, dancing and singing.

I learned more about family traditions in different cultures at that Polish funeral. Some cultures celebrate the life of a loved one after the funeral.

Despite the complications presented in My Big Fat Greek Wedding you come away wanting to be Greek because you see the love and the fun that they have much more than any disagreements or disappointments.

The interaction between Toula and her brother Nick is really sweet, touching and funny.

At one point, Nick is impressed with Toula's ability to break with tradition (he secretly wants to study art) and says, Don't let your past dictate who you are, but let it be part of who you will become. Nick, that's beautiful, replies Toula, to which Nick adds, Yeah that dear Abby really knows what she's talking about.

Nia Vardalos wrote the script and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay, was nominated for 6 other lesser screenwriting awards and won 2. My Big Fat Greek Wedding is directed by Joel Zwick who won two minor awards for his effort. I feel he deserved more recognition.

The film garnered little attention among the big award givers but did appropriately win the People's Choice Award for Favorite Comedy. Almost as an afterthought, My Big Fat Greek Wedding won the Best Independent Comedy Film Award from the U. S. Comedy Arts Festival. It would be my pleasure if some of the Comedy Film Award judges were Greek.

There is Greek love throughout this film, from Rita Wilson's vision to the thousands of Greek Americans who said, hey, this is Greek, this is good. The Greek community really made the film become a box office record-setter while we non-Greeks came on board later and enjoyed the film just as much.

When I left the theater, I went looking for ouzo, the Greek anise-flavored liqueur so celebrated in the film at Greek gatherings. They would down a shot of ouzo and shout oumpa.

I married a girl from a very traditional Italian Catholic family. Every Christmas my wife makes Italian cookies with anise-flavored frosting, no wonder I loved My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Anyone who wants a job watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding should be Greek, love ouzo and love having fun. Others need not apply unless, of course, they might want to be Greek, want to try ouzo and have fun!

Copyright ? 2006 Ed Bagley

Ed Bagley is the author of Ed Bagley's Blog, which he publishes daily with fresh, original writing intended to delight, inform, educate and motivate readers with articles about Internet Marketing, Careers, Movies and Life. Visit Ed at . . . http://www.edbagleyblog.com

The Landing Zone: Ready for Takeoff?

One of the barriers to a clutter-free home is the landing zone. Never heard of the landing zone? It's literally the place where you land when you come in the door. The spot where you drop your keys, mail, cell phone, purse, and whatever else you need to put down. Whether it's the kitchen counter or the sofa table doesn't matter--as long as you organize it so you can find what you need when it's time to leave.

This doesn't have to be an expensive proposition. A few simple tools will cover the basics. Once you've designated your spot, a basket to hold keys and sunglasses, a small trash can to toss junk mail, and another basket for bills will suffice. The key to making this work will be to spend a few minutes everyday sorting through paper and tidying up. This should take less than 10 minutes and will work fine if you're single.

Now, if you have multiple family members or live with roommates, things can get a little complicated. In these situations it's best to spend a little more so that everyone has their own little niche. A decorative wall file is a good idea. These usually have three or four slots and at the bottom is a place to hang keys. If you need more space, try hanging one of those cubby-hole type mail sorters on the wall. That's also good for sorting schoolwork that needs to be signed. Below it, have a small table or desk of some kind. If it has drawers, that's even better. Inside you can put a small paper shredder and no one will know it's there when the doors are closed. Just shred the junk mail daily, and put the mail in its assigned cubby hole. This should take you a grand 5 minutes per day. You can also use this area to keep things like the dog leash.

It may take family members a while to get used to doing this, but lead by example. Think of how much more stress-free your day will start off when you don't have to hunt for keys, homework, or cell phones. Just grab and go.

? 2006, Clara Myers. Are you looking for tools to help organize your home? Visit the Organization 2.0 Blog at http://organize-yourself.blogspot.com

Soft But Not Dead

Looking back to these past few months we get a general picture of falling housing prices, suggesting once more that Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, encapsulated in the dictum "Everything that goes up must come down" is absolutely true and that, furthermore, it applies even to Real Estate. But when it comes to housing prices the real question becomes:"Come down from where?"

According to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (http://www.ofheo.gov/) the average price of a house rose by only 1.2 percent in the Second Quarter, the smallest gain since 1999 - but a gain nonetheless. OFHEO reports, furthermore, that the past year has seen the sharpest slowdown in the rate of growth since the Office began to keep track of the housing price index all the way back in 1975. Even so, average prices are still up by 10.1 percent compared to a year ago.

This is much stronger than the index published by the National Association of Realtors (http://www.realtor.org/), which showed a rise of only 0.9 percent in the year to July. Economic analysts generally speaking prefer the OFHEO index, since it is thought to be more reliable because it tracks price changes in successive sales of the same houses over time and therefore, unlike the NAR index, is not distorted by a shift in the mix of sales to cheaper homes.

All of which, then, brings up to mind the fact that it is not only the foresaid Newton's Law that applies to Real Estate, but also another very important scientific theory as well - Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, which can be encapsulated in the dictum "Everything is relative".

‘Stickiness' is a noun used in Economics to describe a situation in which a variable is resistant to change. Price stickiness, therefore, reflects the fact that asking prices of interests in land remain high and even increase at a time when demand lowers. For example, nominal asking prices are often said to be sticky. Market forces may reduce the real value of interests in land, but prices will tend to remain at previous levels. Stickiness normally applies in one direction, which means that a variable that is "sticky downward" will be reluctant to drop even if market conditions dictate that it should.

Price stickiness, in any market, is responsible for and reflects some confusion that exists between nominal and real values and gives rise, moreover, to a particular phenomenon known as the ‘Money Illusion'. Money illusion refers to the tendency of people to think of prices in nominal, rather than real, terms. The term was coined by John Maynard Keynes in the early twentieth century.

Money illusion does influence people perceptions of outcomes. Experiments have shown that people generally perceive a 2 percent cut in nominal income as unfair, but see a 2 percent rise in nominal income where there is 4 percent inflation as fair, despite the fact that the two situations are almost rational equivalents. The same happens in Real Estate, where the trend is for asking prices to remain high or even increase when selling prices are dropping.

Furthermore, money illusion means nominal changes in price can influence demand even if real prices have remained constant, thus causing what it is normally referred to as ‘market disequilibrium'. Adam Smith maintained that the free market would tend towards economic equilibrium through the price mechanism, that is any excess inventory will lead to price cuts which will decrease the quantity supplied and increase the quantity demanded.

There are, however, exceptions to the rule. One such exception is the situation wherein market participants are always trying to take advantage of the pricing system, thus infusing some dynamism in the market. This situation arises in markets that are ‘imperfect', such as Real Estate, where information about goods is not shared equally and evenly by market participants.

This explains, therefore, the OFHEO price index as above and its increase of 10.1 percent compared to one year ago, which increase is by no means unique to the United States. A similar study conducted by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight to compare markets outside the United States with the domestic ones has found that prices in Canada are up 10.8 percent to a year ago. Denmark tops the list with a staggering 23.6 percent increase, while the lowest index goes to Japan, where housing prices have actually decreased to the tune of - 3.9 percent over the last twelve months.

Luigi Frascati

Luigi Frascati is a Real Estate Agent based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He holds a Bachelor Degree in Economics and maintains a weblog entitled the Real Estate Chronicle at http://wwwrealestatechronicle.blogspot.com where you can find the full collection of his articles on Real Estate Economics and Finance. Luigi is associated with the Sutton Group, the largest real estate organization in Canada, and is based with Sutton-Centre Realty in Burnaby, BC.

Luigi is very proud to be an EzineArticles Platinum Expert Author. Your rating at the footer of this Article is very much appreciated. Thank you.

How To Properly Install A New Video Card

Copyright 2006 Otis Cooper



Your video card is one of those components in your computer you want to both learn as much about it as possible and to learn how to remove the old one and install a new card quickly.Playing those awesome games will be that much more enjoyable with one of those muscle bound video cards boosting video performance to the max.



Having the most up to date video quality is without a doubt the number three upgrade consideration. Upgrading the Hard Drive and RAM Memory are in front of all others.



Learning to remove your system unit cover,locate your video card,removing the old card so you can install a faster one can be educational and make it fun in the process.



After choosing the video card that you know is compatible with your monitor,open the system unit after the system is turned off,unplugged, and all peripherals are disconnected.



You want to stop and remove any electrical static charge your yourself by touching a metal object.This reduces the chance of damaging any chips in the computer.



You may want to lay the system unit on its side for easier access to the empty expansion bays. Locate the empty AGP Slot to insert the video card and remove the cover plate at the rear of the case with a screwdriver.



Save the screw to secure the card later.Newer motherboards are now equipped with the PCI Express slot.Check your motherboard manual if you are in doubt as to which type of slot you have



Before removing the new card from its protective wrap,ground yourself to remove any and all electrical static charge from your body.Now you can carefully and firmly inserted the card into the Accelerated Graphics Port.



Aligned the card in the port and slowly but firmly pushed the card in the AGP Port.You may use a slight rocking back and forth motion to seat the card in the port.



Check to be sure it has been pushed all the way in the slot for a solid connection.Secure the card to the case with the screw you saved from the cover plate earlier.



Check and double check your installation process before replacing the cover onto the system unit case.With the cover replaced,reconnect peripherals and turn on the computer.



The operating system should detect the new video card and install the device driver software that will allow the card to talk to the computer.A cdrom should have come with the new card with the device drivers and other useful software.



And you should now be able to experience the ultimate in crisp,clear quality graphics on your monitor.Its that easy to install and setup your video card.



The new PCI Express technology comes with some other benefits as well. For one, the amount of trace routes on motherboards are reduced by the circuitry of motherboards. When using 4 routes instead of 32 for a basic connection, the motherboard manufacturerswill no doubt favor this technology.This greatly reduces the costs of producing motherboards in the long term.



PCI Express connectors are similar in appearance and connection method to 32-bit PCI slots. PCI Express 1X slots are about the size of current modem riser,close to 1 long.The X16 interface has 164-pins for graphics is very similar in appearance to the standard AGP port. The flexibility to adapt to PCI express devices of different bandwidths is built into the midrange X4 and X8 slots that we have seen.



The biggest impact that PCI Express has made on the desktop market is with the PCIe,the x16 graphics slot. Found in the latest Intel and AMD-based chipsets, This new technology has replaced AGP 8x as the platform of choice for graphics cards.You will want to understand the new PCI Express card as much as possible since it is the most recent video display technology.



When you purchase your next computer,forget the Advanced Graphics Port or the AGP card,be certain your new computer comes with the new PCI Express video card install.You will be glad you did especially if you love those new high resolution games they keep coming out with.







Otis F. Cooper is solely dedicated to boosting the knowledge and confidence of every computer user. Use his informative articles and videos to understand all about the PC. Read more in depth articles for pc training and repair at http://www.repairarticles.com