Clay Advisors Shares 5 Movies That Actually Provide Good Financial Advice

There are many valuable things that movies teach us often and since they teach us things visually it is hard to forget them. Finance is something that everyone should know how to manage according to Clay Advisors. In many movies, the story gives us financial wisdom if we observe carefully. In this article, Clay Advisors suggests 5 movies are discussed that provide good financial knowledge.

Jerry Maguire

In the film, we see that Jerry works as a sports agent and though he earns a very decent amount he is not satisfied with his job. He gets kicked out of his job later and he had to manage work on his own. The film teaches us about entrepreneurship and following our dreams. It is important that we love what we are doing. If we don’t love what we are doing it would not be possible to put our efforts into it. It is also important to think about what goals are we moving towards in life and if that is something that we really want.

The company men

In the film, Bobby Walker is an employee in a shipbuilding company and due to recession, he lost his job. He used to make six-figure earnings and he used to drive a Porsche. He had to give up all his luxurious lifestyle as soon as he lost the job. We learn from this movie that it is important to save your money and prepare for an unknown emergency that can happen anytime in life. Saving is a very important habit that provides you security.

Wall Street

In this film, Bud Fox is an ambitious man who wants to work in Wall street as a stockbroker and he idolizes Gordon Gekko. Bud gives Gekko some insider information about his father’s company to get his attention. Later he realized that Gekko is too greedy and can ruin the lives of other people for money. This film makes us realize that money can play with the minds of people and how people can make irrational decisions when they let the greed of money get into their heads.

It’s a wonderful life

In this film, the lead of the movie George Bailey gets accused for theft when a large check goes missing in his firm. He tries to suicide when a guardian angel stops him and shows him how valuable his life is to his family and the community. He realizes that his life is important and that he was about to do a terrible mistake. The film teaches us that life is more valuable than money. People often have major financial setbacks but they have a whole lifetime for recovering from that and life is very valuable.

The Firm

In this film, Mitch McDeere gets offered an amazing job by a firm. Mitch just graduated from Harvard Law School and he found that the offer was unrealistic. He got a car, a free home and also high pay. He soon realized that the firm has ties to the mob. The firm tries to kill anyone who tries to quit the job. With the help of the FBI, he manages to escape. It is important that when life offers us something that is too good to be true, then we need to do some investigation before accepting it

Ismail Sirdah Discusses Event Photography

Professional photographers encounter many challenges; among them is expensive photography equipment, copyright violations and competition from other photographers. The other challenge is keeping the business afloat when work narrows down. From my personal experience, this challenge can be overcome by encouraging people to get in touch with you and making your website attractive. It also helps to attend various public events.

Read More…

Michael Luisi on the Rise and Fall of Television: The Age of Streaming

During the Golden Age of Television, which took place between the late-1940s and late-1950s, the United States saw one of the highest levels of multimedia production. With hundreds of new shows aired across the nation, people practically became TV-bound during some point of their day. As the 1960s approached however, new technology, which was vastly underestimated by existing production companies, put an end to the booming market. Once the resources to record programs came to life, people were no longer interested in waiting for their favorite shows, and they simply watched taped broadcasts without adhering to any time-based constraints instead.

Failing to Account for the Innovation

According to a plethora of seasoned veterans of the entertainment industry, one of which is entertainment executive and producer Michael Luisi, companies that cornered the market during the Golden Age made millions of dollars in profits. While such a figure may seem relatively normal nowadays, it is important to take inflation into account. For example,  $100 in 1950 would translate to north of $1,000 in 2018. Unfortunately, even after acquiring an unprecedented amount of wealth, many of these organizations soon watched their revenue figures plummet.

When people gained the ability to record TV programs, production companies could no longer gather millions of viewers at set times. That meant much lower income from advertisements and a significant drop in ratings. Hence the Golden Age came to an abrupt end, and most television-based businesses who were thriving never saw the likes of such prosperity again. Not recognizing the innovation that could threaten their status put them in a vulnerable position. So, would it be fair to assume that modern day businesses pay much more attention to technology improvements? Although it would certainly be a legitimate assumption, it is not entirely true. Ironically enough, the same scenario repeated itself just a few decades later.

Television and DVD Rentals

Since recorded programs eliminated the providers’ power to earn substantial income from live television, the age of digital versatile discs, better known as DVDs, ensued. Instead of watching movies and shows during their scheduled times, people could rent DVDs and watch them whenever and wherever they pleased. This approach let them take advantage of a much wider offering given that the average DVD catalog included nearly everything that was ever recorded.

So, as per the specialists like Michael Luisi, organizations who cornered the DVD market, the biggest of which would be Blockbuster, started bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars. With a booming rental sector accompanied by an upward-trending economy, suggesting that these companies would face the same destiny as their counterparts from the Golden Age seemed foolhardy. Yet, once streaming services entered the scene, history repeated itself again.

Final Fall of the Television

In 2004, Blockbuster, which reached the highest point of its existence, operated a whopping total of 9,000 stores world-wide. The problem, however, was that this took place only two years after Netflix entered the scene. Since Blockbuster’s entire business model revolved around people physically renting DVDs, the consequences of online alternatives could be damning. And they were.

Less than six years after peaking with 9,000 stores across the world, Blockbuster was forced to file for bankruptcy in 2010. Driven down to merely 25,000 employees, the company owed over $1 billion. Although they hoped to use the bankruptcy proceeding as a tool of reorganization, like many other brands who pursue this route, they continued to move on a downward-sloping spiral. As of 2019, Blockbuster has a total of three employees and only one active store in the entire world. Meanwhile, Netflix currently has 151.1 million subscribers, which excludes another five to ten million that they anticipate adding before the end of the year, and over $15.7 billion in revenues for 2018.

A New Era: The Age of Streaming

Because of how rapidly Netflix grew, Michael Luisi, who participated in strategic partnerships with studios such as Lionsgate, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros, anticipates that many other providers will enter the market. For example, people can now also sign up for platforms like Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube and probably another 20 or 30 solid options. While it started as a way to deliver movies online, streaming services now include sports, live television programs, news outlets, digital recording, satellite-based channels, and more.

Although DVDs are still around, they are mostly recognized as an obsolete alternative to streaming, not a real competitor in the television industry. In fact, a lot of cable networks are facing similar issues. Instead of signing up for services provided by local companies, which usually include Verizon, Dish, AT&T, and similar, viewers are turning to streaming solutions like the ones listed earlier. Doing so often results in significant savings as one can sign up for a selected list of programs. The days of purchasing cable packages with 500 or more channels while only watching 20 or 30 of them are slowly coming to an end. So, below are the most important revolutions that took place over the past century:

  • Live television led to the creation of the Golden Age;
  • Technology allowing people to record programs killed the Golden Age;
  • DVD rentals became the leading player in the industry;
  • Online streaming services obliterated DVD rentals;
  • Online streaming services continue to threaten every television-based alternative.


While it is impossible to accurately predict where the market will go next, as proved by many unforeseen developments in the past, it seems that online streaming is here to stay. If anything, it will probably continue improving until non-streaming services become the symbol of obsolescence.

Blade Runner 2049 Movie Review

Released in 2017, Blade Runner 2049 is an American science fiction film that was written by Michael Green and Hampton Fancher and directed by Denis Villeneuve. This is a sequel to Blade Runner produced in 1982 and it stars Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling among other prominent actors in supporting roles. Since its release this year, many film experts including Martin J. Stallone have submitted reviews and it has ranked well in the short period since it was released. Here is a comprehensive review of the movie with a focus on its plot as shared by Marty Stallone.

The movie is written focusing on events thought to take place in 2049 where bioengineered humans referred to as replicants have joined the society as slaves and servants. The manufacturer of these replicants is Niander Wallace, who poses as an ambitious and prolific industrialist. He took over the the Tyrell corporation that pioneered the production of replicants. K is a Nexus-9 replicant that was built to obey and serve as a blade runner on behalf of LAPD, and he helps to hunt down older model and rogue replicants. He spends most of his time at home hanging out with his girlfriend Joi. Joi is an artificial intelligence product made by Wallace Corporation.

K has started to investigate a trend that points to a growing freedom among replicants and this leads him to a farm in which he retires a Nexus-8 replicant by the name Sapper Morton, but while doing his duty he comes across a buried box. After some forensic analysis, it is revealed that the box had the remains of a Nexus-7 replicant that passed on due to complications that occurred during an emergency caesarean section. This disturbs K and Lieutenant Joshi because they all along thought replicants could not conceive.

With these revelations, Joshi advises K to destroy the evidence so as to retire the child because he believes that spreading the knowledge replicants are able to get pregnant might spark a war. However, K is disturbed by this directive that suggests he should kill someone born, yet in his understanding the baby has a soul. Therefore, K decides to visit the headquarters of Wallace Corporation and here he finds an experiment replicant that was designed by Dr. Tyrell before he died. While going about investigation, he discovers the romantic ties between him and Rick Deckard, a veteran blade runner.

When Joi returned to the farm to finally destroy the evidence, he sees hidden date that coincides with memories from his childhood that include hiding a wooden horse toy. He then insists that with this information K must be indeed a real person so he searches only to discover that on that date twins were born but despite having identical DNA their sex chromosomes did not match and only the boy was recorded as alive.

With the confusion clouding, K visits Dr. Ana for clarification, but he is informed that it is not legal to program replicants to have real human memories. The doctor also verifies his memory to be real, which points he could be one of the twins that survived. Joshi gives him a test in which he fails, so he is instructed to disappear in 48 hours, and K does exactly that.

On discovery of his disappearance, Luv gets his men to track K and they kidnap Deckard in the process leaving a severely injured K after destroying Joi’s emitter, which murdered her. The Replicant Freedom Movement rescues K and they immediately request him to be their leader. While defending Deckard, K kills Luv and he is left mortally injured. He later dies but this is after he stages the death of Deckard so as to protect him from the replicants and Wallace.

Movie Review: The Shack

The Shack is a touching movie, but it comes nowhere near to the book of the same title, which the movie is based on. Some concepts are best left to books, especially when the subject matter is one as deep and sentimental as our relationship to God, which is what The Shack is all about. That being said, the film contained excellent acting, visuals, and stayed extremely true to the message of the book. Movie expert Chris Ligori says that every movie needs to have at least one visually stunning scene that actually takes your breath away, and The Shack actually had three. Without giving too much away about the plot and the ending of the movie, I will tell you the premise and then highlight the three scenes that you should watch for if you chose to watch this movie.

The Shack, as I said, is based on the best selling novel of the same name which was written by William P. Young and hit the shelves in 2007. The premise is that a man who has been separated from belief in God goes on a journey, due to mysterious circumstances, that put him in the presence of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. This sounds pretty metaphysical, and it is! If you are looking for an action packed thriller, this is not it. However, the movie is not slow. The plot moves along quickly and although there is a great deal of heart-felt dialogue it is interspersed with a mystery-driven plot and a clear goal.

As you watch The Shack, keep an eye out for these three visually stunning scenes. The first one comes when the main character, “Mack”, (played by Sam Worthington)is in a rowboat in the middle of a lake. This scene was filmed in Vancouver, Canada, and Mack’s troubled psychology is perfectly portrayed by a leaking rowboat and then rescue by Jesus. This was one case when watching the movie was definitely better than reading the book! It included Worthington’s best performance through out the movie. As an actor, he was somewhat hard to get behind because he seemed to mumble most of his words. But in this scene, he was worthy of a Grammy.

The second scene to look for will be a scene where Mack discovers that judging others is God’s job, not his. This scene takes place in a dark cave with a stone throne, and the visuals again perfectly align with the psychological battle that is taking place.

The third scene to look for as you watch this movie is the last scene where Mack has a reunion, which I won’t go into details about because it will spoil the movie! But I will say that the director of this film, Stuart Hazeldine, was faced with a very challenging scene to put together, and he pulled it off with acclaim. Hazeldine chose to depict spiritual energy as wispy colored lights, and the effect is breathtaking.

If you choose to see The Shack after reading this review, I hope that you enjoy it! I recommend reading the book before you watch the movie. As you watch, look for the scenes that I mentioned. If you have already seen the film, what did you think?

James Knight Bafta Reviews: Manchester by the Sea

We all grieve, yet we grieve in many different ways. Manchester by the Sea, a movie that received 6 nominations at the 89th Academy Awards, won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and was nominated in four more categories is a movie that opens with a man being told that his brother has died from a heart attack. This man then shockingly learns that he has been named guardian of his brother’s son if anything were to happen to him.

There are some movies that you just watch and other movies that you feel. This story of grief and loss is a story that sucks you in and gives you an emotional roller coaster ride. This has a unbearable personal tragedy and guilt. But it is on the lighter side. For every time throughout the movie that you see a heartbreaking moment, there is something a little more positive that will happen. It is quite often devastating, but it is also passionate, deep and peculiarly funny.

This could be the funniest movie ever made about grief. It is a story about how difficult forgiveness can be and not just forgiving other people, but also for learning how to forgive yourself for the things that you have done to others. It is about parenting. The kind of parenting that just kind of happens unexpectantly. And it is about a very small area that depends mainly on fishing. It is a movie full of drama. It has so many things that happen that most people making a movie probably would not put all in together for the fear of possibly overdoing it. The actors are so remarkable though that they are able to do this film with all these emotions and they are able to keep it from being too much.

Most of the details about this movie will make it sound very dark and sad, but while “Manchester by the Sea” does sometimes go deep into parts of despair, most of the time throughout the film, it is a dry comedy. This film in incredibly filled with life in all of its glory and dreadfulness that you will always be more interested in finding out what is going to happen than whatever just happened. Manchester by the Sea is the kind of movie that you will want to see a more than once with someone who has not seen it yet. This way you will be able to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

James Knight Bafta Reviews: Moana

Despite its fairytale image, Disney animated movies tend more toward cultural diversity and female empowerment more so than other Hollywood studios.

The latest such Disney film, Moana, takes these concepts to new levels while still blending in its traditional methods such as Disney’s strong use of music and positive storytelling involving heroic deeds.

Moana deftly weaves together a basic tale of akin to a hero on a quest journey with its strong utilization of music scores. Given the story’s background, the Polynesian themed music adds an air of magic and of soothing quality to a common tale with a few alterations thrown in.

Of late, Disney has utilized stronger female leads and the character of Moana takes it into new territories. Moana is an actual princess of a Polynesian island village. However, she isn’t the traditional Disney princess in that she is actually more focused on her duties of being village chieftain one day. While Moana does have a bit of wanderlust flow through her as in wanting to sail beyond the local reef, it is tempered by belief in fulfilling her duties. When the village crops start to sicken and die off and the fish harvest in the local reef begins drying up, Moana realizes that she must do something to save her people. She eventually runs across Maui, a confident demi-god who is dealing with his own personal issues. Together, the pair start out on a quest designed to save Moana’s island and restore Maui’s honor.

Where the story differentiates from other Disney stories is that there is no romantic plot involved, simply a straightforward coming-of-age story of the hero. Maui is more of a mentor and guide for Moana more than anything and the comical secondary characters are reduced to a odd-thinking chicken.

Under this background, Moana succeeds in delivering a nice, short and effective tale. The movie’s simplistic storyline means that it likely won’t rank among some of Disney’s great animation films because there isn’t too much depth, but the straightforward approach keeps it from veering off course. Combined with its fine island music songs, Moana does justice to a strong Disney animated tradition in its own way.

James Knight Bafta Reviews: Moonlight

Moonlight is a mind blowing film about man who battles with finding his sexuality amidst the efficient and coldblooded sexual mistreatment that has its underlying foundations drawn from all parts of American culture.

Set principally in Miami, Florida and told in three unmistakably unique parts, Moonlight narratives the life of Chiron, at initial a young man who is criticized at school. As the motion picture advances, we consider Chiron to be a high schooler who needs to manage outrageous levels of tormenting at school and later as a full-developed man who is as yet battling with his sexuality and his bigger feeling of individual personality.

The three demonstration structure is the thing that makes Moonlight one of a kind. The three on-screen characters give a role as Chiron (Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes) are all fantastic. High praise should be awarded for picking three totally extraordinary on-screen characters who all vibe like a similar individual. I’ll give the lions share of credit to Trevante Rhodes, whose portrayal as grown-up Chiron deciphers the physical quirks and discourse of young and high school Chiron with shocking precision.

Moonlight is a lamentable and captivating motion picture. Its visuals and unique score are mind boggling, and the acting is extraordinary.  It is one of the best movies of 2016.