Speed 2: Cruise Control

Speed 2: Cruise Control is a 1997 American disaster thriller film, and a sequel to the enormously popular Speed (1994). The film was produced and directed by Jan de Bont, and written by Randall McCormick and Jeff Nathanson, based on a story by de Bont and McCormick. Sandra Bullock stars in the film, reprising her role from Speed, while Jason Patric and Willem Dafoe co-star. The film was released by 20th Century Fox on June 13, 1997.

The plot involves couple Annie and Alex taking a vacation in the Caribbean aboard a luxury cruise ship, which is hijacked by a villain named Geiger who hacked into the ship's computer system. As they are trapped aboard the ship, Annie and Alex work with the ship's first officer to try to stop the ship, which they discover is programmed to crash into an oil tanker.

De Bont came up with the idea for the film after he had a recurring nightmare about a cruise ship crashing into an island. Speed star Keanu Reeves was initially supposed to reprise his role as Jack Traven for the sequel, but decided not to commit and was replaced by Patric prior to filming. Production took place aboard Seabourn Legend, the ship on which the film is set. The film's final scene, where the ship crashes into the island of Saint Martin, cost almost a quarter of the film's budget, and set records as the largest and most expensive stunt ever filmed. Many interior scenes aboard the ship were shot on soundstages in the Greater Los Angeles Area. The film's soundtrack featured mostly reggae music. Mark Mancina returned to compose the film score, which was released as an album 13 years after the film's release.

Greeks (finance)

In mathematical finance, the Greeks are the quantities representing the sensitivity of the price of derivatives such as options to a change in underlying parameters on which the value of an instrument or portfolio of financial instruments is dependent. The name is used because the most common of these sensitivities are denoted by Greek letters (as are some other finance measures). Collectively these have also been called the risk sensitivities,risk measures or hedge parameters.

Use of the Greeks

The Greeks are vital tools in risk management. Each Greek measures the sensitivity of the value of a portfolio to a small change in a given underlying parameter, so that component risks may be treated in isolation, and the portfolio rebalanced accordingly to achieve a desired exposure; see for example delta hedging.

The Greeks in the Black–Scholes model are relatively easy to calculate, a desirable property of financial models, and are very useful for derivatives traders, especially those who seek to hedge their portfolios from adverse changes in market conditions. For this reason, those Greeks which are particularly useful for hedging—such as delta, theta, and vega—are well-defined for measuring changes in Price, Time and Volatility. Although rho is a primary input into the Black–Scholes model, the overall impact on the value of an option corresponding to changes in the risk-free interest rate is generally insignificant and therefore higher-order derivatives involving the risk-free interest rate are not common.

Lotna

Lotna is a Polish war film released in 1959 and directed by Andrzej Wajda.

Overview

This highly symbolic movie is both the director's tribute to the long and glorious history of the Polish cavalry, as well as a more ambiguous portrait of the passing of an era. Wajda was the son of a Polish Cavalry officer who was murdered by the Soviets during the Katyn massacre.

The horse Lotna represents the entire Romantic tradition in culture, a tradition that had a huge influence in the course of Polish history and the formation of Polish literature. Lotna is Wajda's meditation on the historical breaking point that was 1939, as well as a reflection on the ending of an entire era for literature and culture in Poland and in Europe as a whole. Writing of the film, Wajda states that it "held great hopes for him, perhaps more than any other." Sadly, Wajda came to think of Lotna "a failure as a film."

The film remains highly controversial, as Wajda includes a mythical scene in which Polish horsemen suicidally charge a unit of German tanks, an event that never actually happened.

Speed (Montgomery Gentry song)

"Speed" is a song written by Jeffrey Steele and Chris Wallin, and recorded by American country music duo Montgomery Gentry. It was released in December 2002 as the second single from their album My Town. The title from the cover of this single borrows its font from Speed Racer.

"She Couldn't Change Me" was included as a B-side.

Music video

The music video was directed by Trey Fanjoy. A young man trades his old truck for a car with speed as his truck just brings back memories of his ex-lover. He buys the car, then he drives the car really fast, but as he keeps seeing the memory of his ex-lover on the road, he jumps out of the car, and then he heads out running into the field. The duo is performing the song in the middle of a two-lane road at a night time setting.

Chart positions

"Speed" debuted at #57 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs for the week of December 28, 2002.

Year-end charts

References

External links