As the originator of the beloved Chicken Soup for the Soul
series of books, author and professional speaker Jack Canfield has personally taught millions of individuals his
unique and modernized formulas for success, and The Secret Law of Attraction, a direct-address lecture in front of an engaged, all-walks-of-life audience, gives viewers an enlightening new look at how to achieve happier and healthier personal and professional lives. At a time when uncertainty and unhappiness are bubbling up and threatening to boil over in the world, it’s a welcome, streamlined piece of positive visualization and goal-oriented self-betterment.

An internationally
recognized leader in peak performance strategies, Canfield’s solutions are less rah-rah motivational coaching of uplift than source- and process-based advice. For him, it doesn’t matter if your goal is to be the top sales person in your company, become a leading architect, lose weight, become a better parent, increase confidence and self-esteem, buy your dream home or just make more money — Canfield aims to help you develop a clear, personal plan of action that will shatter stasis and transform your life into exactly what you want it to be.

For more than 30 years, Canfield
has been coaching individuals, entrepreneurs, educators and corporate
leaders to accelerate the achievement of their personal and
professional goals, live their dreams and create more joy in their
life every day. These decades of experience show. Canfield is a solid speaker, and communicates clearly — in concise and understandable language that also manages to avoid cornball platitudes. Peddling affirmation through vision boards and the like, he makes a compelling case for order and clarity of purpose as part of the foundation for happiness. Canfield explains how people without goals get used by people with them, but is also a big believer that if one is merely clear about what they’re pursuing, the how will “show up,” in his words, or reveal itself. Hence his behavioral advice to focus on a “vibrational match,” which is sort of the emotional equivalent of dressing for the job you want instead of the job you have.

There are anecdotes galore here, but the title’s greatest strength lies in Canfield’s pleasant, easygoing manner, which lends him believability as a potential guide to help you get from where you are to where you want to
be. The only time that The Secret Law of Attraction really slips up is in dealing with a question about the issue of bad things (like cancer, and the like) happening to inherently decent people, which Canfield has trouble filtering through his prism of belief that in our lives we attract everything to ourselves. Here, an awful lot of fog gets dispensed, when you just really want him to stop talking and chalk it up to something beyond any human control.

Housed in a regular Amray case, the DVD comes presented in 1.33:1 full screen, and includes as supplemental features a 14-minute audience Q&A with Canfield and an 18-minute “Life Purposes” bonus video in which Canfield talks more about locating and focusing on one’s chief goal in life. To order this, or any DVD or VHS release from WGBH Boston Video, call (800) 949-8670 or click here to visit their web site. B- (Movie) C+ (Disc)

After a protracted rights hang-up that saw its release delayed more
than a year from its Sundance 2007 bow — until after the recent Rambo sequel — the canted coming-of-age comedy Son of Rambow finally saw release earlier this spring. While it didn’t at all hook on with Stateside audiences in theaters — pulling in only $1.8 million of its $10.1 million cumulative haul — its DVD release gives fans of whimsical coming-of-age tales a chance to rediscover the movie.

Set in small town Great Britain
in the 1980s, the movie centers on floppy-armed, pint-sized, fatherless pre-teen
Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner, above right), who lives with his mother and sister as members of a puritanical
religious sect in which recorded entertainment is strictly forbidden.
When Will sees a pirated copy of First Blood, though, his imagination explodes in sugar-rush fashion.
At first blackmailed by rascally ne’er-do-well Lee Carter (Will
Poulter, above left) into helping him out on a stunt reel, Will
convinces his unlikely new pal, a wrong-side-of-the-tracks troublemaker, that they should make their own action epic. When
disenchanted French exchange student Didier (Jules Sitruk) catches wind
and demands a part in the production, suddenly everyone wants in on Will and Lee Carter’s
film.

Written and directed by Garth Jennings (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy), Son of Rambow exudes a handcrafted feel, and is at its best
when seducing us with its
madcap, visually inventive style.
Will and Lee Carter are “types,” though, and their relationship runs a
bit hot-cold; I wished the movie showed more of them actually bickering
and working things out. I was also really intrigued and amused by
Didier, and the notion — introduced in a throwaway bit late in the
movie — that he
was a bit of a poseur, which is to say alien-cool to the Brits, but a
dork to all the rest of the French kids. Jennings unfortunately wastes
the rich comic potential of this premise. Finally, the movie too is
more than a a bit unrealistic with regards to Will’s mother’s sudden slide away from the hermetic existence which they’ve been leading; that just doesn’t pass the smell test. In fact, less is more; Son of Rambow
doesn’t earn or need the tearful scene of familial reconciliation,
centering around the return of a watch belonging to Will’s late father.
This is a extra-familial story, about finding acceptance and
brotherhood outside of conventional structures.

Still, the two lead performances here — one salty, one sweet — give this movie lift. In particular the gangly Milner is unforcedly charming, and physically
sort of a live-action version of Fievel Mouskewitz, from 1986’s An American Tail. Tonally, Son of Rambow has an undeniable pinch of that same comic-tinged nostalgia that makes 1983’s A Christmas Story the de rigueur
holiday viewing for all the alt-cool Christian families out there.

Housed in a regular plastic Amray case, Son of Rambow comes presented in widescreen, enhanced for 16×9 televisions, with English and Spanish language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio tracks, and optional French, English and Spanish subtitles. Jennings and producing partner Nick Goldsmith anchor a nice audio commentary track, with Milner and Poulter sitting in as well. Two DIY supplemental shorts are also included; the first is a five-minute film that was the winner of a film-sponsored web site contest, the other is Aron, Jennings’ 10-minute 1986 short that was the inspiration for Son of Rambow. Wrapping things up is a great 26-minute making-of featurette, which includes rehearsal footage and laid-back group interview bits, and also showcases the Hammer & Tongs production offices, which consists of two barge boats on Regents Canal. (“Thus we’re an armada,” says Goldsmith, cheekily.) Previews for Shine a Light, Drillbit Taylor and American Teen are also featured. B (Movie) B+ (Disc)