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The CTO’s Year-End Audit: Are You Building Your Vision or Just a Backlog?
December is the only quiet time you have. Don’t waste it clearing your inbox. Use this silence to audit your architecture against your Vision Document. Move beyond simple feature roadmaps and focus on building strategic capabilities. If your environment doesn’t support your 2026 goals, fix it now before the chaos returns.
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Heat (1995)
Can you believe this classic is 20 years old this year? It is still fresh and punchy as the day it was released. Two screen legends, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro playing opposite one another. De Niro plays Neil, the charismatic sophisticated criminal master mind with a penchant for robbing banks. Pacino on the other hand plays Vincent, a veteran in the police force whose job is to take down bad guys…
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The Ladykillers (2004)
After last nights viewing escapade, one needed something a little lighter, something that didn’t require too much thinking and would lift the spirits with a chortle or two. Interestingly this particular movie also stars J.K. Simmons doing what he does best; off beat personality. So with that, the 2004 remake, The Ladykillers, was chosen. The setup of this movie is a good old fashioned heist, involving 5 criminals of…
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Whiplash (2014)
This obscure unknown movie made quite the splash at the 2014 Oscars being nominated across the board for a number of awards including Best Picture. While getting a huge promotion boost with the Oscars (and various other awards) it still only managed to pull in $13M at the box office, which isn’t a huge amount but against a $3M budget, kept the bean counters very happy. The movie centers around…
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Pride and Glory (2008)
First off, this movie demands your attention, both physically and emotionally. For 2 hours and 10 minutes you are entering a very dramatic world of police corruption centered around a single multi-generational family. The story on the face of it, doesn’t deserve this amount of time, but it does whip by at an alarming pace. So what is the setup? Well, we have 2 brothers, a brother in-law married to…
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Viva Las Vegas (1964)
Okay so let us get this out of the way quickly, you don’t watch an Elvis Presley movie for its in-depth, multi-dimensional story line. If you even attempt to rate or review an Elvis movie on its story, then you have already missed the point of the King’s musical escapade. Long before Michael Jackson raised the bar with his highly produced mini-movies with his music videos (Thriller, Smooth Criminal etc), Elvis was…
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Burn After Reading (2008)
The Coen brothers unite for another clever character driven comedy. The setup is fairly simple but quickly turns into a farce. A gym trainer who works at the local gym where many of the government agencies come to train, finds a disk of sensitive information. He then attempts to sell it both to the USA government and the Russian embassy. The cast of this movie is outstanding with no real…
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Filth (2013)
How do you describe a movie that is quintessential Scottish to an international audience? Based on the Irwin Walsh book of the same title, we chart the journey of a corrupt, drugged fueled detective, who is manipulating his situation to gain promotion in order to win back his wife. If you are wondering the style here, then think back to the 1996 when Trainspotting hit the silver screen (complete with…
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Bottle Shock (2008)
I stumbled upon this little gem of a comedy a number of years ago, and every so often, I will throw it on in the background. The dialogue is top notch, the pace is just right and the soundtrack is extremely catchy. The movie retells the story of when Californian wine broke through to the international scene in the mid 1970′s when it won against a blind tasting contest…
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True Story (2015)
As the title suggests, this movie is based on a true story, in fact, the book of the same name True Story. Michael Finkel was a New York Times journalist who was fired after fabricating a story on African child slavery. Disgraced and excommunicated from the writing community he is struggling to find a writing gig. While he struggles, he discovers there is a mass-family murderer, Christian Longo, has taken his…
the legend that is, Alan Williamson.
For over 20 years, I’ve shared my thoughts whenever the muse strikes. It’s unpredictable, honest, unedited, and occasionally witty. I’m living the best years of my life, working harder than ever, and enjoying every second.
Alan Williamson 