SOLARI HERO OF THE YEAR
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For all the years that I have enjoyed visiting San Francisco, I never thought I would see the day when the people of that fine city would deeply respect and admire a good ole Southern boy.
Madison Bumgarner has changed all of that with his astonishing performance in this years World Series, helping to lead the San Francisco Giants to his third World Series win as a member of the team. In addition to being named Hero of the Year on the Solari Report, he was named the Most Valuable Player of the 2014 World Series, the 2014 Babe Ruth Award winner, the 2014 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year and the 2014 Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year.
Madison has reminded sports fans everywhere that the heartland of America is filled with people of few words and lots of hard work, talent and character. He’s our hero!
Madison Bumgarner on Wikipedia
MOVIE OF THE YEAR
We choose movies that speak to the times. They were not necessarily published during the year.
In 2014, millions of people around the developed world struggled with the notion that their privacy is gone – invaded by intelligence operations and social media companies armed with super computers and artificial intelligence.
German film director Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others takes us into the world of East Germany in the ‘1980s’ and helps us imagine the troubling and human reality of the police state. I have lived a very similar situation in America. This is a brilliant, insightful movie on the politics and tactics of control and manipulation and the power of humanity to overcome the forces of darkness. It is has numerous insights to help you understand and navigate the world we live in now.
The Lives of Others on Wikipedia
DOCUMENTARY
In the ‘1970s’, Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky acquired the film rights to Frank Herbert’s science fiction classic Dune and invested heavily in the pre-production treatments of a story designed to promote the ideas of the personal power of the individual. Hollywood balked at the message and the length. However, the materials developed then found their way into a score of Hollywood Sci-Fi classics. This enchanting director and his story will remind you why the Internet, digital technology and the tools they help create, like crowdfunding, Netflix and Vimeo, can open up significant talent that has been kept off line.