Flirting with Disaster: Why Accidents Are Rarely Accidental

• ISBN13: 9781402753039
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Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 04/15/2011 Rating: RSometimes a filmmaker's second movie gets labeled as a sophomore slump. David O. Russell (Spanking the Monkey) shreds that fate with Flirting with Disaster, an outrageous, free-spirited comedy about private people forced into public situations. Mel Coplin (Ben Stiller) finds the opportunity he's been waiting a lifetime for: an adoption agency rep (Téa Leoni) has located his birth parents and the agency will fly him to California if they can record the reunion. With wife Nancy (Patricia Arquette) and new son in tow, the neurotic Mel is compelled to discover his origins, despite the protests of his neurotic adoptive parents (! a wonderful Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal). To give away the plot any more would be a crime, but as the title states, Mel is on a collision course of Oedipal proportions. Russell, who made incest an intriguing black-comedy topic in Spanking, is very liberal with sex and permits dangerous situations. His characters mix it up at a moment's notice. The two women along for the ride are not just bit players: Leoni (Deep Impact) keeps her high-energy comic routine flying, while the grounded Arquette keeps the baby in arm, despite the mad wanderings of her husband. Stiller is a perfect comic foil. --Doug Thomas There's a fine line between desire and disaster. At least, that's what improper Southern belle Maggie Forsythe thinks when unceremoniously dumped by a fiance even her mother approved of. Maggie has never cared what anyone thinks, so why is she hiding away from her South Carolina Lowcountry home?

Then an intervention by friends shows her she has op! tions. Lots of them! And one includes a man who can make her f! orget al l about being jilted.

But one look at Maggie convinces project foreman Josh Parker that he's corn bread to her caviar. Sure, they have enough sparks to ignite a bonfire, but growing up broke has made him wary of sweetâ€"teaâ€"swilling debutantes. So why is he suddenly singing "Tea for Two"?Written and directed by David O. Russell (THREE KINGS, SPANKING THE MONKEY), this hysterically original comedy was cheered by critics and audiences nationwide. In a quest to find his biological parents, Mel Coplin (Ben Stiller, DUPLEX, MEET THE PARENTS) -- joined by his wife (Patricia Arquette, HUMAN NATURE, HOLES), and a sexy adoption counselor (Téa Leoni, PEOPLE I KNOW, HOLLYWOOD ENDING ) -- embarks on a cross country search for his "roots." Yet as he careens from one outrageous situation to another, Mel finds himself tempted by the seductive counselor -- even as his wife starts a flirtation of her own! By the time they meet up with his free-spirited birth parents, the whole situation! is spinning hysterically out of control! Also starring Mary Tyler Moore, Alan Alda, and Lily Tomlin, this hilarious hit is sure to entertain everyone!Sometimes a filmmaker's second movie gets labeled as a sophomore slump. David O. Russell (Spanking the Monkey) shreds that fate with Flirting with Disaster, an outrageous, free-spirited comedy about private people forced into public situations. Mel Coplin (Ben Stiller) finds the opportunity he's been waiting a lifetime for: an adoption agency rep (Téa Leoni) has located his birth parents and the agency will fly him to California if they can record the reunion. With wife Nancy (Patricia Arquette) and new son in tow, the neurotic Mel is compelled to discover his origins, despite the protests of his neurotic adoptive parents (a wonderful Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal). To give away the plot any more would be a crime, but as the title states, Mel is on a collision course of Oedipal proportions. Russell, who mad! e incest an intriguing black-comedy topic in Spanking, ! is very liberal with sex and permits dangerous situations. His characters mix it up at a moment's notice. The two women along for the ride are not just bit players: Leoni (Deep Impact) keeps her high-energy comic routine flying, while the grounded Arquette keeps the baby in arm, despite the mad wanderings of her husband. Stiller is a perfect comic foil. --Doug Thomas Sometimes a filmmaker's second movie gets labeled as a sophomore slump. David O. Russell (Spanking the Monkey) shreds that fate with Flirting with Disaster, an outrageous, free-spirited comedy about private people forced into public situations. Mel Coplin (Ben Stiller) finds the opportunity he's been waiting a lifetime for: an adoption agency rep (Téa Leoni) has located his birth parents and the agency will fly him to California if they can record the reunion. With wife Nancy (Patricia Arquette) and new son in tow, the neurotic Mel is compelled to discover his origins, despite the protests o! f his neurotic adoptive parents (a wonderful Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal). To give away the plot any more would be a crime, but as the title states, Mel is on a collision course of Oedipal proportions. Russell, who made incest an intriguing black-comedy topic in Spanking, is very liberal with sex and permits dangerous situations. His characters mix it up at a moment's notice. The two women along for the ride are not just bit players: Leoni (Deep Impact) keeps her high-energy comic routine flying, while the grounded Arquette keeps the baby in arm, despite the mad wanderings of her husband. Stiller is a perfect comic foil. --Doug Thomas After a disappointing relationship, heiress Libby Carlyle needed to change her life. So she winged a prayer heavenward and traded places with her less privileged best friend. No sooner did she step into her new waitress shoes than Libby fell in love with her very stern, very handsome boss, Carson Davies. If she could! only find a way to reveal her true identity… .

Determine! d to suc ceed, Carson ran himself ragged and relied only on himself. When he looked up from his blinders, he noticed a beautiful woman working for him. Suddenly, he wanted to be with her and share her faith in God. But did he dare trust these budding feelings, or the voice inside that urged him to believe?After a disappointing relationship, heiress Libby Carlyle needed to change her life. So she winged a prayer heavenward and traded places with her less privileged best friend. No sooner did she step into her new waitress shoes than Libby fell in love with her very stern, very handsome boss, Carson Davies. If she could only find a way to reveal her true identity… .

Determined to succeed, Carson ran himself ragged and relied only on himself. When he looked up from his blinders, he noticed a beautiful woman working for him. Suddenly, he wanted to be with her and share her faith in God. But did he dare trust these budding feelings, or the voice inside that urged him to believe?

Chernobyl and Katrina.  ChallengerandColumbia. BP and Vioxx. The Iraq War.  Were these unavoidable misfortunes that no one could possibly have imagined?  Hardly. All of them were disasters that could have been prevented, or whose damaging repercussions could have been mitigated.

            Despite warnings of impending disaster, preemptive action is rarely taken by those who have the ability to do so.  How do smart, high-powered people, leaders of global corporations, national institutions, even nations, often get it so wrong? While most investigations focus on the technical causes of disaster,Flirting With Disasterexamines the psychological, social, and cultural impediments to whistle-blowing, showing what we can do to reduce the possibility of disasters happening at all.

            An! alyzing such phenomena as bystander behavior and the butterfly effect, amid a series of instructive case studiesâ€"not only the aforementioned shuttle crashes, natural disasters, and industrial accidents, but also Arthur Andersen’s shady accounting at Enron; the 1994 Mexican peso crisis that nearly caused an international monetary meltdown; and the American sub-prime lending crisis that emerged in August 2007, revealing the country’s unhealthy dependence on consumer creditâ€"Marc Gerstein, an organizational psychologist,urges a re-evaluation of the timidity, distorted thinking, errors of judgment and self-serving conduct that result in disasters from the boardroom to the halls of academe to the Oval Office. Daniel Ellsberg, renowned and respected for releasing the Pentagon Papers, offers a foreword and a powerful afterword addressing what happens “When Leaders are the Problem.”

      Â!  Â Â Â Â Flirting With Disasteris a must-read for those who want to foster truth-telling in their organizations, and head off disasters in the making.  At once alarming, entertaining and hopeful, this is a book that offers very real and practical lessons for everyday life.