The Collective Review

I am Josef Vissarionovich

Anna Blundy — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:29:17 +0000

Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000194 EndHTML:0000032510 StartFragment:0000002426 EndFragment:0000032474 SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/annablundy/Desktop/I%20Am%20Josef%20Vissarionovich.doc Chapter One The patient was crouched on his bed, rickety knees to his hollow chest, black eyes staring towards the small barred window, out to the pale grey sky. It was snowing in relentless wet streaks, but the room where he huddled was blisteringly hot. Only a few feet wide and ten feet long, it was heated by a gurgling, institutional radiator, coated in the early 1950s in thick, cream-coloured gloss paint that now came away in fat scabs. The miserable tray of food, pushed through the flap at the bottom of his rusting door some hours ago, smelt bad. The patient had spent the day so far considering this meal - potatoes in a dense glutinous gravy, oily tea and bread - and he was considering it still. In his grinding solitude he laughed a toothless echoing laugh at the walls, remembering the banquets laid out before him in reverence by Mayors, Generals, Prime-Ministers and Kings. Somewhere in the distance, carried along a maze of narrow corridors, he could hear the hollow screams of another inmate. He despised the weak and insane and did not count himself among them. How long he had been here he had no idea. Nor, indeed, did he have any clue where in all the vastness of his homeland, his empire, he was. Only that the train, a wretched lifetime ago, had creaked on for days and nights before they wheeled him off, excrement-soiled, drugged, strapped to a trolley, still wearing a fine Savile Row suit, Argyll wool as blue as a Baku sky. What had they done with the suit? What had they made, after all, of his blinding vision? For years, perhaps decades, they injected him so often that his very veins hardened against the assaults. They had resorted to jabbing his inner thighs, the skin between his toes, his buttocks, calves and the backs of his hands. He remembered, in an age when he had teeth with which to chew and hair on his head, back when he stood up to piss instead of lying damp in his own filth, how he had struggled and cried out. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ he raged. ‘Look at my face!’ It took four orderlies to restrain him, men whose breath smelt of vodka and salami, men who shoved rags in his mouth and drove cocktails of state-sanctioned poison into his blood. Deservedly? Perhaps. He smiled a papery smile at the memory of his struggle, how he had fought, how he had refused to be cowed by the rabid dogs. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ he muttered, though sometimes, nowadays, he wasn’t sure himself. Now nobody came. The snow drifted down and the summer skies sang with birds, but nobody came. That drug-induced haze that had made him vomit and had caused his skin to peel away from his flesh and his brain to bubble in the cauldron of his skull had become his natural state. The haze was consciousness. His body was no longer his servant, he who could command legions of servants, legions of bodies. But his mind flickered yet. His mind, the random, pointless sparks of a dying, sputtering engine, produced strange sensations; the chafe of a ceremonial uniform against pomaded wrists, the sweet jasmine-dense air of a Tblisi summer evening, the rush of glory in his heart as he stepped on to a flag-billowing podium, and the wind-swept roar of the grateful crowd. At night, in the screaming emptiness, he might feel a woman’s hand on his brow, light and perfumed with lemon, or, in the buttery dawn, the weight of a plump and sleepy child on his lap, a freckled girl, or, as the clanging evening rounds began, the burning glow of a good Georgian brandy in his throat and the whiff of a cigar. These things he knew, gifts from his soul, and he guarded them fiercely with his silence, for memories and desires were his only possessions now, his only clues. As he faced the plate of congealing food once more it became, for a moment, in his deceiving mind, a dish of freshly cooked plov, the lamb as tender as a girl, the rice golden as a sunset, the pomegranate seeds like rubies scattered over the food. Surely, he thought, he must be close to the end now, at last. Death would come as a friend with an outstretched hand, and a smile warm as dusk over the Caspian Sea. Eyeing now his reeking, caked slop bucket, and spurred by a last decrepit defiance, the patient crawled to the end of his metal bed, the thin mattress sagging against the ancient springs even under his slight weight. The meat hung from his brittle bones as he moved, the force of gravity seeming to pull his body down to the worms, and the pyjamas that had once strained around his belly, today looked to have been made for a man four times the size. He threw his spindly legs off the edge of the bed and positioned his feet on the concrete floor, the dark yellow toe nails long and curling. With a gasp of pain, the patient stood up, feeling the piss start to surge up in him. Proud, he began his first step, swayed slightly and then, as though bent by a light gust of wind, he came crashing down like a heap of twigs, hitting his head against the wall as he fell. Thick blood seeped slowly from his head wound and formed a trickle that crept towards the door. As his shivering eyelids closed, he heard the rustle of a woman’s satin dress above him, a champagne laugh and the heavy click of an expensive cigarette lighter. { ‘Fuck me,’ said Dima, the orderly, peering through the small square of bars in the patient’s door, ‘Governor! Stalin’s down.’ He halted his trolley outside door 368 and he would normally have reached through the flap for the tray, wincing as his vertebrae pinched that bitch of a nerve, tipped the leftovers into the bin for the pigs, and moved on. Come to think of it, it was amazing that 368 was still alive at all, given how much he ate or, rather, how little. The guy must be a hundred. Had he smelt the old corpse’s blood like a grey wolf? Unlikely, given how much of the stuff swilled around this hell -hole. Had he just sensed the stillness in there? He wasn’t sure, but today he’d pulled back the metal plate and he’d looked. His colleague came running down the corridor towards him, keys clattering wildly in his hand. ‘Dead?’ ‘Dunno. Looks like it. About time.’ The Governor peered in and then coughed up a week’s worth of phlegm. ‘No. He’s breathing. Pissed himself though. Have a look.’ Dima did not want to look again. He shook his head. Absurd to be squeamish in a job like this, like a radish on a jam donut, but he was. The Governor unclipped a big, grey walkie-talkie from his belt and hit a button. ‘Can you get a medic up here? Stalin’s down. Head bleed. Yup. 368.’ He lit a cigarette and leant against the door. ‘Hasn’t even said a word for twenty years. At least.’ Dima shrugged. ‘I’ve only been here five years, Guv,’ he said. ‘I started in ’78.’ The Governor, who was in fact, only a ward sister in anyone else’s parlance, stared up at the strip of fluorescent light that flickered sickeningly above them. ‘Got to be twenty years at least. Shit. Fucking mad fucker.’ He spat some tobacco from the end of his tongue to the Linoleum floor. ‘Go on then. Get on with it. I’ll wait with the Gen Sec.’ Dima nodded. ‘Yes, Guv.’ He moved on to the next door flap, the next tray. Twitchy, he turned back at the sound of sharp footsteps. Both men tensed and braced their shoulders. Zinaida Karlovna’s hairdo quivered and glistened and the harsh light. ‘What is going on here, Comrade?’ she demanded to know, swollen hands clasped in front of her, wedding band painfully tight on a sausage finger. ‘Drove that poor bastard into his grave,’ the Governor liked to say, though not when Zinaida Karlovna was in earshot. ‘368’s on the floor, Comrade Director. I’ve radioed for a medic.’ Zinaida Karlovna flicked open the hatch to see for herself, her uniform straining at the bosom. She glowered. ‘Open the door.’ The Governor raised his eyebrows. Zinaida Karlovna rarely showed interest in patients as far gone as 368 and she never normally stalked the corridors. It must be something to do with the delegation. Delegation would be the fucking death of them. Dima stood staring, open-mouthed, waiting to see what would unfold. ‘Get on with your round,’ the Director commanded him, taking him in with obvious distaste. She had heard that this oaf was taking the hospital’s food waste home for his pigs. Technically, this was stealing and she could have him arrested. She might yet, she thought. She didn’t want cretins like this showing up the Soviet Union’s mental health care system to the English guests. The English guests! Even the most fleeting thought of the English guests made Zinaida Karlovna puff up with pride like a courting pigeon. The Governor unlocked the patient’s door with a large metal key and had to heave himself against it to get the thing open. Zinaida Karlovna screwed her nose up at the stench. Manoeuvring her bulk with difficulty, she squatted down by the patient, exposing a vast expanse of quivering, dimpled thigh, and put her hand to his neck. ‘He’s alive,’ she said. ‘Hand me his drug charts.’ The Governor coughed as they both looked at the back of the door and the hook where no charts were to be seen. ‘There aren’t any. He hasn’t been medicated since 1972,’ he admitted. ‘We just put the food in and take slops out… once a week, Comrade Director.’ Zinaida Karlovna stared at the Governor as she raised herself up to standing. ‘When was the patient admitted?’ The Governor was beginning to feel panicked. What, was he supposed have details on all these nutters in his mind on the offchance that somebody started doing spot checks? There were over two thousand people in here. ‘I think he came in some time in ….in the mid - 50’s maybe. I was just saying to Dima, it must be twenty years since he said anything…’ ‘Are you telling me that this man has been here for thirty years and has never before been presented to me?’ The air was dense with the stink of decay, the scorching radiators in the damp winter air producing a nauseating and almost visible wave of human wretchedness. The patient lay still on the floor between them. ‘Didn’t seem any point, Comrade Director. When you came he was already off meds, too far gone. He’s not…’ the Governor gestured towards the motionless body of the patient. ‘He’s not much trouble.’ ‘What is his name? What is his crime? I need to see the paperwork on this patient, Comrade.’ ‘I’ll look it out for you. Right away. He’s an enemy of the Soviet Union.’ He was relieved to have been asked one question at last to which he knew the answer. Zinaida Karlovna nodded. ‘Is he indeed?’ she said, moving aside to let the medics in with a gurney. ‘He used to say he was Stalin,’ the Governor muttered, almost releasing a nervous laugh over the heads of the two young men in white who were securing the patient’s neck with a thick metal collar, routine procedure for a possible spinal injury. ‘Over and over again, like. We’d shut him up, you know, but as soon as the drugs wore off he’d start again. Long time ago now, of course.’ ‘Just get the floor cleaned,’ Zinaida Karlovna snapped. ‘The English will be here tomorrow.’ Zinaida Karlovna touched the small metal badge of Lenin on her lapel and came as near as she ever would to actually smiling. In his letter Michael Sanderson had suggested that a small delegation of four might come to the Soviet Union and visit Zinaida Karlovna’s esteemed institution as part of an exchange of ideas on psychiatric care for dangerous criminals. Broadmoor’s director went on to say that he very much admired what he had read about Zinaida Karlovna’s ground-breaking work and felt that he and his colleagues might have much to learn from their visit. He also extended an invitation to her and a team of her choice to come to Broadmoor at some later stage. He described the gardening project he had personally pioneered (murderers gardening!) and the art and music therapy with which he had been achieving pleasing results. Zinaida Karlovna had put her hand to her throat and felt a flush rising through her neck to inflame her already ruddy cheeks. Broadmoor! She coped effortlessly with the KGB. One man sat in front of her desk on a wooden chair and another stood ominously by the door. How long had she been in contact with this Michael Sanderson of Broadmoor? She had never even heard of him before today. Was she planning a defection? No. Did she wish to expose the failings of her country to the eyes of the western world? No! She was proud of her work, proud of her hospital, proud to protect her country from the criminal elements who would disrupt the hard work of good Soviet people. The sitting stooge accepted a glass of cognac and smiled. She had not needed to lie. ‘You have hair a bit like Margaret Thatcher,’ he said, admiringly. Privately, Zinaida Petrovna felt that she had a great deal in common with the British Prime Minister – both had worked hard in a man’s world to get where they were. Neither suffered fools gladly. She flushed deeply in florid purple patches. ‘Don’t try to flatter me, Comrade,’ she barked, standing up and offering her hand as a sign that the meeting was over, her credentials proved predictably impeccable. And now, a long and arduous year later, the delegation was almost upon them. Tomorrow was only hours away. She felt a lump rise in her throat and she stomped away from room 368, hoping she would not be too late to queue for half a loaf of rye on the way home. } ‘How are you today, Clive?’ Sanderson asked, as Clive sat down, shuffling a little in his old man’s slippers, but meeting the eyes of everyone in the room in turn. Mid-fifties, well turned out, the uniform of a comfortably off middle-aged accountant, not of the average forensic psychiatric patient. The consultation room in which the ward rounds take place is windowless, brightly lit and peppered with alarm buttons but, on the whole, the sessions are a friendly enough updates on drugs, improvement in or deterioration of behaviour and any issue the patient wishes to raise (usually an objection to being medicated at all, though in Sanderson’s view the lot of them needed a life-long soaking in Clozapine and Lithium). Michael Sanderson shot a quick glance away from the patient. The observer met his eye and raised an eyebrow. Raine was training to be a psychoanalyst and had been coming to his ward rounds for what must be coming up for a year. He enjoyed showing her the sharp end of the profession though he didn’t much fancy her chances of psychoanalysing this lot. But she was bright and enthusiastic and reminded him that he’d been idealistic once too. Wrong, but idealistic. Naïve, but idealistic. ‘Not too bad, thank you, Dr Sanderson,’ Clive answered, settling himself in the plastic chair opposite his psychiatrist. ‘My joints are bit sore. The medicine is making my bones hurt.’ This was possible, but Sanderson chose not to comment. What could he do? Take him off the meds and let him loose? Hardly. ‘I think you know everyone in here?’ Sanderson smiled. Clive had a quick glance around at the nurse, Sanjay, a young man who, though skinny, had been known to restrain even the larger patients when things got ugly; Angela, the psychologist, whose forays into the darkness of the disturbed human mind over the past thirty years had given her an exhausted look that extended even to her large collection of long grey cardigans and fatly beaded necklaces; Raine, the enthusiastic student observer of the mind in jeans, sandals and a man’s shirt, hoping to avoid notice and, of course, the two bouncers as Sanderson liked to think of them. In pride of place at the centre of the circle sat Dr Sanderson himself. ‘I think so,’ Clive nodded. The first time Raine had seen Clive on his weekly chat with the psychiatrist she sat near one of the panic buttons on the wall, clutched her standard issue alarm and gawped at the nurses and psychologists who reported on his heartening progress at the day centre where he’d enjoyed ping pong, still life drawing and pottery. Sanderson almost goaded Clive just to see Raine’s response, though he preferred not to admit that to himself. ‘So, tell us, Clive, what you remember about the murder of your wife and her manicurist?’ he asked. ‘Only what you’ve told me, doctor,’ Clive nodded, smiling almost sheepishly. ‘I came home from work and stabbed them with a steak knife.’ ‘And can you remember why you might have done that?’ Sanderson wondered, pleasantly. ‘They were evil?’ he asked, a school boy offering a hopeful, but surely wrong, answer. Today though Raine was one of the initiated and had started writing her dissertation on the meaning of delusions – a projective identification with figures of importance as a defence against feelings of helplessness and despair. Clive, who had been happy to be interviewed, was to be at the centre of her essay, immortalised as Mr C. ‘Would you like a biscuit?’ Sanderson wondered, gesturing towards the tin on the low table where he had already placed his Styrofoam cup of coffee and his hefty sheets of patient notes though, God knew, there wasn’t much more you could really say about Clive. Clive took a Bourbon biscuit and smiled. ‘So, Clive,’ Sanderson went on, as he always did, ‘have you thought any more about why you’re here?’ There was a long silence as Clive took this question seriously. ‘I know I’m here in Broadmoor, on Solent ward, and I know I committed a crime because you told me I did. But I think, as you know, that I’ve been solpanned in here and the world is trying to stop me completing my mission.’ ‘And what mission is that, Clive?’ ‘I can’t tell anyone who isn’t connected to the realm,’ Clive smiled, calmly. After a few months on Clozapine, Clive had begun to talk about his inner world. And what an inner world it was. Essentially, it had all started when he was ten and a next door neighbour had recruited him into the SAS. The next door neighbour was also called Clive and had explained to Clive Jr. that heaven was an orange in a pyramid of laser beams and that all the world’s institutions existed outside the beams. The special services were charged with attempting to rupture the beams in order to ensure that they were effective. This was a dangerous job and evil forces would try to stop him. Sometimes Clive was not sure whether the voices he heard were from the microchip installed in his brain by the SAS recruitment officer next door neighbour, or from the evil forces plotting his, and the orange realm’s destruction. When the drugs were working he said the chip might have been removed now that his mission was complete. When he was due for a top up he would insist that all the staff were colluding with the forces of evil to stop him testing the forces for good – the police, government, royal family. He was not able, however, to link this system of thought with the frenzied blood bath he had wreaked on his wife and her beauty therapist that day that had followed 30 years of ordinary, though childless, marriage. Sanderson looked over towards Angela and asked how she felt Clive had been doing this week. Angela leant forwards and her beads swung low. ‘Well, we’ve been talking a lot about your mum this week, haven’t we Clive? And we have been talking quite a bit about your negative feelings towards women.’ Clive lowered his head but didn’t say anything. Clive’s mother, a very elderly lady from South London, visited regularly and often came to the ward rounds, usually insisting that there was nothing wrong with her son and that his wife had been a horrible woman who had finally got what she deserved. Clive never mentioned the realm system when his mother was there, but a few months ago she had got a bottle of Coca Cola in past security and he had smashed it immediately after her departure and rammed into the side of his neck. He spent two weeks in intensive care. Raine recrossed her legs and Sanderson sighed. ‘Bitches and whores,’ Clive suddenly said. Everyone looked up. Not that this was in any way an unusual view to hold, (Christ, most people who are never close to being hospitalised have the same opinion, Sanderson thought) but it was a big admission for Clive, who didn’t like to put himself across as a nasty person. ‘Is that how you felt about your wife?’ Sanderson asked him, eyebrows raised, pushing his glasses back up his nose. The room held its breath. ‘Why would you say that?’ Clive asked, all genuine bafflement. ‘I think you should know that Vimto cures cancer and diabetes.’ Everyone in the room breathed out, almost relieved that no big change was afoot. People were fond of Clive in his childish bewilderment and the staff were perhaps as reluctant as he was to hear the truth of his violence. Denial is infectious. Once people were drugged up to the eyeballs, settled into a routine of activities and resigned to the length of their sentence it was often hard to imagine them butchering the innocent, though they had. No doubt. ‘Right, well, we’ll have to have a think about that,’ Sanderson smiled and stood up to indicate to Clive that his consultation was over. When he’d closed the door behind him Angela burst out laughing. ‘What’s he like?’ she snorted. ‘I know!’ Sanjay grinned. ‘I was thinking, oh my God, he’s going to confess! And then he’s just mad-as-a-fish Clive again.’ Sanderson shuffled the papers on the table and squinted at his list. ‘Right. Who shall we see next? You’re hoping I’m going to say Peter Sutcliffe aren’t you?’ he flashed a smile at Raine, but spoke before she could express a preference. ‘He’s not as interesting as you might think, actually. It’s already been a year and we’ve not really made much contact with him. Bizarrely inscrutable.’ Raine gave him one of her sexy laughs. He would have to be careful in Russia. Must remember to be a bit careful. He noticed that he had not told Bea and the kids that a young observer was coming on the trip. Was she even that young? Probably thirty-five. That made it a fifteen year age gap. I mean that hardly made him a child molester. He wondered what loss he was feeling that he should feel the need to offload it on to his wife, and he ran his hands through his thick grey hair. His youth? His idealism? Raine stood up, apologetically. She would have to leave early because there were a few things she had to do before they left tomorrow. ‘So, I’ll see you all at Heathrow?’ she said. ‘Yup. Bright and early for the Iron Curtain,’ he smiled. ‘Sanjay, can you let Raine out, please?’ ‘Sure thing, boss,’ Sanjay said, jumping up with a jangle of keys. ‘Do svidanski!’ Sanderson experimented, reaching for a biscuit. ‘It’s do svidanyie!’ Raine laughed, and picked up her bag and her notes. ‘I’ll teach you how to order a vodka when we’re on the plane.’ ‘Actually, we had better see Sutcliffe,’ Sanderson said when Raine had gone. ‘Could someone bring him in?’

Mario Kart 7: A Review

Richard Preston — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:31:38 +0000

Old Man Nintendo has done it again. The dusty, gaming legend has produced yet another solid Mario Kart title. Again. Hilariously, though, it’s also really bad.

Confused? So was I. You’re going to need a quick history lesson first, get a cup of tea. Back in 1992, Nintendo, still one of the two kings of the world of gaming, the other being Sega, released a light-hearted racing title based on the Mario universe and its characters for its SNES console. This game was Mario Kart. It was brilliant.

Mario Kart was a subtle balance of skill and fun; from racing around colourful tracks, dropping silly, Mario-themed, race-altering weapons (great for crapping on the other players) to mastering the courses themselves. Made by gaming geniuses, the kind who knew how to innovate in their time, Mario Kart had the depth and replay value most games kill for. Indeed, it’s been ripped off countless times.

And so it began: for every new Nintendo console thereafter, a new Mario Kart title was produced. Mario Kart 64 for the Nintendo 64 (loved that one, many folks didn’t like it), Mario Kart Double Dash for the GameCube (again, not bad, but hated by many) and a remake of the original Mario Kart for the GameBoy Advance (brilliant stuff) and a couple of arcade versions. Each game would alter very little from its predecessor, including tracks from older incarnations, a couple of new weapons and maybe a new gimmick.

Then the DS came and so did the inevitable Mario Kart. Only, this time, it was perfect. With its stripped down gameplay, lack of Double Dash-like gimmicks, simple progression goals and with the quick multiplayer capabilities of the DS, Mario Kart DS was, still is, the greatest incarnation of the game to date.

Then the Wii version came out… Never played it. Moving on.

Which brings us back to the present, 2012, and Mario Kart 7. With three levels of racing difficulty, eight cups in each difficulty, each with four courses, 32 tracks in all, it’s a standard Mario Kart affair.

Thing is, 2012 is a time where, amongst other things, the way we digest our entertainment has changed quite a lot since 1992. Unfortunately, the little Italian plumber’s return to racing, in 3D no less, is bogged down in old-school gaming misery.

Don’t get me wrong; the racing in Mario Kart 7 is perfectly balanced and wonderfully challenging. It’s as good as the DS version, but this is the only quality Mario Kart 7 shares with its predecessor.

The star-rating makes a return from the DS version, but in a reduced, far more useless capacity. Earning star-ratings on Mario Kart 7 is a kudos thing and, while it worked well on the DS on Mario Kart 7 it stands out as a blunt attempt to inject modern replay value into a very tired format.

It jars with Old Man Nintendo’s retro approach to achievement and awards within a game. It’s also a completion thing; most gamers like to beat a game entirely, and why not.

Now, obtaining all three stars for every cup and every challenge on the DS was tricky, not frustrating, just challenging. On Mario Kart 7 it’s wall punching. The enemy intelligence has been ramped up to 11 making tactical racing and racing to beat the game counter-productive.

Worst of all you can’t restart a race. Only a cup. So, three races of perfect driving later and on the fourth you’re knocked about so much you get, say, two stars. Not bad, I guess. Bloody agonising, though, if you’ve already had two stars on this cup for the past 10 tries.

There are also no lap times on-screen to help you beat your best, not that it’s clear what the criteria are for three-star wins. That would be too useful.

Weirdly, the mini challenges are missing from the DS version. Not a crucial component, fair enough, but highly useful for training and getting used to the game’s AI (artificial intelligence). Without it, Mario Kart 7 feels a little light content-wise compared to other £35 games. The online play, though a huge improvement over the DS, is painfully slow to use with limited functionality, but the addition of racing communities is a nice touch.

Nintendo! What are you doing? It’s 2012, now. Games are made to be enjoyed not flung against a spike. Mario Kart 7 excels in its gameplay, making multiplayer a joy, as it was on the DS. And the new weapons included in this Mario Kart are a giggle too.

Still, to release a game this strict is arrogant. There was a time when a new Mario Kart title meant a joyous little trip back in time to when video games were less complicated and bogged down in choice. Today, though, as modern games find their balance and keep us wanton with more than just decent game-play, Mario Kart 7 feels old.

Entertainment has evolved, Old Man Nintendo. Do try to keep up.

Battlefield 3: A Review

Richard Preston — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:32:31 +0000

Well, well. Call Of Battle and Duty field, here we are again; two identical games, resting on their laurels, keeping the more blinkered among us devoted with years of £40 games we tirelessly pay for. Which came first? If you care about that kind of detail, leave.

For us normal games fans, Battlefield 3, like its more famous counterpart, the Call Of Duty series, is just a first-person shooter set in modern times. You play ‘a soldier’ and you shoot the bad guys until you reach your objectives.

There will be no bush beating here, directly or indirectly. Battlefield 3’s single player campaign is boring, especially in comparison to the untethered soap opera of Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3. Only a really bad thing when you consider Battlefield 3 is trying to compete with Modern Warfare 3.

These are top-of-the-line video games, costing millions to develop and made by the two biggest companies in gaming and each have their loyal, angry army of fanboys (see comments below) ready to defend the good name of their title. Think of Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 like religions with the fans as the Inquisition, or off on crusades. Except they wear head-guards and aren’t allowed to hold anything pointy.

Only, I don’t suffer from this faith, I’m more of a science guy. So, bring on the heresy! Both Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 suffer from a case of the repetitions. In Battlefield 3, the single-player mode is still stuck in a ’run-forward and shoot’ structure, occasionally throwing in building-toppling set-pieces, button pressing and tenuous character interaction. Were Deus Ex and Bioshock for nothing? The co-op mode, by contrast, is a glorious alternative alienating the single-player mode entirely.

Sure, Battlefield 3 is a damn site prettier than its predecessor Battlefield Bad Company 2 and that’s probably got something to do with the new tools Dice, the developers, used to build the game. Big whoop. I’m a gamer, not a software technician.

Dice, my friends, you can harp on about how great your game engine is when it does something the previous game didn’t. Buildings blew up in Bad Company 2 just like they do in Battlefield 3. Still, deep breaths here, move on. One thing Battlefield has always excelled in is online multiplayer. Again, it’s brilliant fun.

The huge maps, the slew of tanks, planes and trucks, the various weapons, the realistic sniping, they all make a return for Battlefield 3 and it is good. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of game modes and too few incentives for team-work making the console version stink like a rotten, half-baked version of its PC sibling. Dice has failed to innovate here, again, just cutting and pasting multiplayer from its last effort.

Bad Company 2 was also brilliant fun to play online and it too suffered from all the same post-game issues and accessibility problems Battlefield 3 does.

You can quit or join a game whenever you like, with absolutely no penalties. There’s no encouragement to stick around other than the love of the game or maybe you’re trying to unlock a few more items as you level up. This results in bizarrely uneven matches; a force of 12 who are up against two blokes and a dog one minute are suddenly down 10 men and heavily outnumbered the next.

You can’t quit out to the main menu after a game is over, on the pathetically constructed, bizarrely long, post-match stats screens. These clumsy displays give you a fraction of the info you’d like to see while you are able to do NOTHING but wait for the 40 seconds to count down. You can’t fiddle with your classification, choose a new gun; nothing.

But the lack of decent stats available on these screens is staggering. While you can happily hand over your email address to EA to receive the ‘Battlefeed’ to get extra stats and friend updates, you shouldn’t have to.

Halo, for example, also has an online stats thing, but it also bombards you with post-match info in the game too. Dice, really, this should have been sorted since Bad Company 2. It’s embarrassing to herald Battlefield 3 as any kind of evolution in the shooter genre when it’s still being out-performed by a 10-year-old franchise about space soldiers.

Dice has failed to deliver a decent online console experience. It's marred by regular team errors, splitting squad mates across different teams and random lost connections. Problems other developers would have fixed by now.

Then there’s the downloadable content (DLC), all the extra bits you can buy along the way to add to the game. So far, the first set of new maps was free (if you bought a specific version of Battlefield 3 - EA is looking at you, second-hand game buyers!). New updates, well, they’ll surely cost money, just as later updates for Battlefield Bad Company 2 did. For a distraction, here’s a nice article explaining how you can tell how much a game-maker respects its customers by the way it rolls out its DLC.

It’s a clumsy title, one I’ll continue to play through gritted teeth (and with a good book to hand) as playing multiplayer and co-op with friends can make Battlefield 3 feel like gaming perfection.

Gameplay-wise, Battlefield is the superior online war game for consoles. When you consider the online gaming environment is the perfect place for grown men, or angry boys, to pretend to be soldiers and act like co-ordinated teams with objectives and strategy in beautiful surroundings, Battlefield 3 is ready for that kind of fun.

It only fails in every other respect.

EDITED ON: 10/01/12. 17:12

Modern Warfare 3: A Review

Richard Preston — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:32:01 +0000

Here’s what I love about video games sequels: innovation. Gaming is perhaps in a unique position amongst modern entertainment in that it can improve on previous incarnations to everyone’s delight.

The Call Of Duty series has done this a lot, evolving the realistic modern shooter series beyond praise. Until recently.

Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3 is an annoying thing to keep on typing out or reading, so let’s call it MW3 instead. MW3 is a solid and highly engaging first person shooter. Each level is an action set-piece; throwing you through gun blasting, character exploding, shaky camera missions John McClain of Die Hard fame would respect.

The plot, thankfully, is a continuation of the story that’s been threading the Call Of Duty series together for yonks now. So, if you’re a fan, MW3 is nothing short of perfect.

I won’t give anything away here, and not because, as a Battlefield nut and addict of multiplayer online gaming, the plot passed through my brain like a whiff of fresh bread but because it feels as flamboyant as all other Call Of Duty games. They're all blurring into one.

It’s just a shame MW3 feels old. Not old like Norman Wisdom before he died; a man famous for his high-energy antics and comedy mannerisms turned into a frail but cheerful version of himself.

No, it’s more like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 4. Kinda cool looking, pretty exciting but he’s only sticking bows and ribbons on what he did in the last one.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, eh? MW3 is a money-making machine, having sold £500 million worth of game in the first five days of its release.

Changing it too much would alienate Activision Blizzard, the game’s publishers, from those they care about the most; their banks. Haw-haw! Seriously, though, Activision cares about its customers. Indeed, it cares enough not to change anything about the game for risk of upsetting those temperamental, easily upset schoolboys Activision has to call 'fans'. ‘But what about playing online?’ you say. I say, ‘Oh dear’.

Take MW3 online and it’s clear where all my formative current generation gaming hours should have been spent. This is where creeping around tiny corridors and blasting enemies with shotguns originated. This is where your kill count matters more than the objective, whatever that was again.

MW3 is where teenagers with respect disorders and large mouths perfected contempt for his fellow gamer and it’s where team-based, tactical co-ordination is favoured despite no one really wanting to chat to each other while playing, unless it’s with mates.

It’s also where downloadable content money traps were perfected. Want a green gun? Yours is grey, buy a green gun!

Plenty of other first person shooters can take your fancy over MW3; it’s done nothing to innovate its genre. Neither has its main rival, Battlefield 3.

You’d think by now there would be more to war than running and shooting. I’m pretty sure actual modern warfare is more intricate, you know, with commands and orders and teamwork and that.

The online mode is disappointing and only for the Call Of Duty faithful. Battlefield is easily the superior online experience. Plus, you can’t fly planes in MW3, kids!

The main story mode of Modern Warfare 3, however, is a lavishly exciting first person shooter experience as were the Call Of Duty games before that. It’s an achievement to keep that bar high but it’s obvious now Trinity Ward, the developers, need a new bar to aspire to.

Time to do that innovation thing again, guys.

Xbox 360 Kinect round-up

Richard Preston — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:30:53 +0000

Here’s a selection of Xbox 360 Kinect games I’ve been playing, for some reason. Yes, I know, a grown man flailing around in front of a motion sensor might seem daft, it is. It’s also a lot of fun.

The Gunstringer

A superbly presented on-rails shooter about a dead puppet? Oh yes. Set in a theatre, and introduced with a very sweet little pre-amble by the game’s developers, you take on the role of the puppeteer. Your job is to guide the mysterious Gunstringer, a skeletal cowboy, on his journey seeking out revenge on the posse that betrayed him.

It’s great fun, playing a little like Time Crisis or Sega’s House Of The Dead series, you can also play along with a friend. With one hand you guide the puppet, with the other you lock on to targets and shoot.

The narrative is carried along nicely by an old-west-style voiceover and all the while you can see the audience in the background enjoying the show. Twisted Pixel are game developers with massive gaming hearts and it shows. If you have a Kinect, get The Gunstringer.

Dance Central 2

So you pick a song and then you copy the dancer. The points you gain depend on how well you can copy computer-generated people, how much room you have and how ludicrously-limbed you’re not. I’m like a cross between John Cleese and Lee Evans with all the grace of your uncle.

The song list is confusing but that’s simply because I’m not 15. Or a girl. A few classics might have been nice, as well as a bulkier online catalogue for beefing up your song list. Still, it’s early days. I might get to dance along to Ghostbusters one day. Oh, what a day.

Kinect Sports Season 2

There’s something about sports titles on the Xbox’s Kinnect that jars with me slightly. On the PlayStation Move or the Wii, the controller acts as a register of force, regardless of how fast you swing it. On Kinnect, chucking a dart or swinging a baseball bat just isn’t as rewarding. The tactile interaction is actually quite crucial, for this sports-shy gamer, at least.

Still, as a friendly competitive distraction or for a post-Christmas (or Burns Night, considering when you’re reading this) meal activity, it’s an easy, approachable night of fun.

Review: 50/50 – Fairly Middling

Mark Davison — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:08:58 +0000

Late November seems like a terrible time to launch a movie about cancer. With everybody making themselves miserable about the nights drawing in, cold weather and the stresses of Christmas, only the most strong willed and/or masochistic are going to be eagerly queueing up to see a movie about struggling with a life-threatening illness. Although, to be fair, for much of its running time, 50/50 couldn't be much further away from the territory of Terms of Endearment or Beaches if it tried. They may share an inevitable theme of triumphing over adversity in one form of another (50/50 particularly so, it being based on the real-life experiences of writer Will Reiser), and indeed, the former even gets a name-check (along with a run down list of film stars who had cancer, it's both very funny, and an accurate portrayal of how we use movies to make sense of our everyday lives), but where those classic weepies were about women discovering their feelings and forming close bonds as a result, 50/50 is definitely aimed at the guys, and so most of its emotional bonding has to be covered up with awkwardness, good-natured but foul-mouthed ribbing and a faint whiff of misogyny. Taking the role of Reiser's fictionalised counterpart is Joseph Gordon-Levitt, arguably one of the most dependable young actors in Hollywood, and he's as solid and dependable as ever here, although, surprisingly he doesn't get much of a chance to shine. Instead, rather oddly considering the character's real-life basis, he's almost something of a cipher, and his tendency to go for inactivity and self-pity, don't make him particularly appealing. Better company are Anjelica Huston as his mother and Anna Kendrick as his therapist. While neither are that fleshed out – Huston being the usual well-meaning but demanding mother, Kendrick essentially a 'manic-pixie-dream-girl' who managed to get a proper job – both get a fair few well observed moments (in particular the scene where Huston finds out about her son's illness manages to be heartbreaking and amusing at the same time, thanks to both some sharp scripting and an excellent performance). But, the film's not really about them, as hinted at by the poster, and the production credits (and the fact that he worked with Reiser as a writer on Da Ali G Show), 50/50 is very much a Seth Rogen film, with all the positives and negatives that entails. His presence isn't unwelcome, but it is a bit like letting a bull loose in a china shop, or at least an excitable (or to be more accurate, very stoned) puppy. Rogen is, as ever, essentially playing himself and, while he may leaven some of the film's darker moments, 50/50 asks a lot of its audience to accept such a broad character. Specifically he does some really quite despicable things, and yet is expected to be excused by the audience for him being a 'guy', whereas, Bryce Dallas Howard, as Levitt's girlfriend, is outrightly vilified and given no opportunity to redeem or even explain herself. It's both a shame, as it essentially cripples what could have been an intelligent, sensitive film, and also makes you wonder what exactly Howard's done to piss off Hollywood, having only just played an irredeemable cow in The Help. It probably wouldn't matter what time of year 50/50 was released as it would still struggle a bit to find an audience – it's a bit too touchy feely for the guys, and far too misogynistic for the girls (at one point Levitt's dating history is described as being a bunch of 'needy bitches'), and, to make matters worse, the pacing's all over the place; practically racing through the set-up and the early stages of the illness, while lingering on a climactic operation for what seems like an eternity. That's not to say that it's not worthy of your time though, as it manages to be heartfelt and fairly unique take on the relatively unadventurous 'cancer movie' sub-genre. And, if you can manage to look past some wild misjudgements of tone, it's also very funny.

Pipilotti Rist’s Eyeball Massage is pure delight

Julia Kollewe — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:45:23 +0000

'Eyeball Massage' by Pipilotti Rist at the Hayward Gallery certainly lives up to its name and is pure delight. A feast for the senses. The Swiss artist (who, as a teenager, changed her name from Elisabeth, inspired by Pippi Longstocking) is one of the pioneers of video art. Her videos are everywhere - placed inside open handbags and shells, on a chair projected into people's laps, in the leaves of a giant lettuce or inserted into the floor. There is even one in the ladies' toilet (on the floor). Enter into Rist's world. "When I close my eyes, my imagination roams free. In the same way I want to create spaces for video art that rethink the very nature of the medium itself. I want to discover new ways of configuring the world, both the world outside and the world within," she says. Rist has compared video installations to a handbag, because "there is room in them for everything: painting, technology, language, music, movement, flowing pictures, poetry, commotion, premonitions of death, sex and friendliness." The works range from big installations like 'Lobe of the Lung,' which is projected onto three huge wall-sized screens, to a tiny screen on the floor, 'Selfless in the Bath of Lava' which is easy to miss. A woman cries out for help in different languages: "I am a worm and you, you are a flower. You would have done everything better. Help me. Forgive me." People seemed to love the show, lounging on cushions fashioned from clothes which looked oddly dismembered (I overheard a young woman saying "I find this a bit unnerving") in an installation entitled 'Administrating Eternity' (pictured) that was created especially for the Hayward exhibition. Rist describes it as a "forest of light," with projected images floating across gauze partitions. Others were chilling to a soothing soundtrack in the Lobe of the Lung space. This video features fields of red tulips, apples, lots of nature and the artist herself, walking through puddles and discarded fruit or bleeding underwater. It's a truly immersive experience, filmed in super-saturated colours with red dominating. Rist uses her body to explore things like sex, birth, menstruation, childhood, our relationship to nature, etc in a playful way. But she doesn't take anything too seriously - she says her declared aim is to create "places of comfort for parched minds". For me, the highlight was 'I'm not the girl who misses much' - a line from the Beatles song 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' that the scantily clad artist chants over and over again while she dances. Both the sound and the visuals are distorted and viewers are made to pop their heads through holes in a wooden panel to enter a self-contained viewing space. Seeing the other disembodied heads emerge and peer at the screen made us all smile. The whole thing is frankly hilarious, and reminded me of Beckett. The five-minute film was Rist's first video, made in 1984 when was still a student. Clearly Rist doesn't miss much. Pipilotti Rist: Eyeball Massage runs until 8 January at the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank.

Hide your pockets! Sony’s PS Vita Is Coming

Richard Preston — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:14:34 +0000

Not that I’m rubbing it in, but I’ve played on the new PlayStation portable wonder-machine. Jealous? You can say ‘yes’ here.

The PS Vita, the successor to the questionably popular PSP, will be released here in the UK on 22ndFebruary, next year. It’s a big deal because it’s the first new games console in a while, in a time where, due to the massive cost of making games, releasing a new console is a perilous and expensive venture.

Portable consoles are usually a safer bet for your top-flight manufacturers; it’s cheaper to produce, to make games for and to sell to the public. Plus, gadgets are cool.

There’s no mistaking the fact that the PS Vita is cool. Damn cool. It’s a powerful little beast, plastered in touch screens on the front and back, regular buttons and sticks and stuffed with multi-processors, tilt sensors, microphones, cameras, 3G (optional) and a headphones jack. Obviously. It also supports PS3 co-op play but, for some reason, doesn't come with a TV connection.

Take Reality Fighters – a simple PS Vita fighting game where you can use the camera to make the fighter look like you. Eerie, but fun. The camera will also happily use where ever you’re standing as the background. Fancy kicking seven shades out of Jeremy Clarkson in front of Big Ben? It can happen.

It’s this kind of reality augmentation the PS Vita will languish in, eventually. Like the PSP before it, the PS Vita will also have its own versions of the PS3’s top games, even though it isn’t as powerful – but you’ll be forgiven for thinking it is a pocket PS3 with your untrained eye.

Uncharted, Little Big Planet, Ridge Racer, some pool game or something, Wipeout and Resistance will be available around launch. Whether you enjoy playing fully immersive TV console games on the move is up to you and your ability to pull yourself away from an absorbing game mid-commute. Personally, I prefer Mario Kart to Ridge Racer on the way to work. It’s quicker.

Still, you’ll look dapper playing your PS Vita surrounded by folks on their iPhones. Stupid iPhone gamers, right? Yeah!

The PS Vita will come ready to upload everything you do and play onto Facebook, Twitter, take your pick. Sony has aimed squarely at the times we live in, where the consumer is the king in a land created by the manufacturer.

We want convenience; they want to sell us convenience. It works. Only, there’s a problem. How we, the lovely public, use our tech is a private thing we don’t really talk about. Companies like Sony want to sell us something we’ll use but without the proper feedback they just aim at what they think we like and hope for the best.

Apple aimed for the bullseye and ended up obliterating the target entirely. A new target was built. Nintendo had a go at this new target missing the centre with the 3DS so now it’s Sony’s turn with the PS Vita. I’m dubious it’s going to hit the middle – if, indeed, Sony is aiming that way.

We’re living in strange time indeed when the PS Vita’s biggest rival is a phone. But that’s how it is. The iPhone can do everything the PS Vita can do. And if it can’t, it’s not worth writing about, even though it’ll be a matter of months before it can.

What of the Vita's 'rival' the Nintendo 3DS? Well, let's put it this way; judging by Nintendo's continually weak European support, the fact it's basically a slightly more powerful DS with a screen gimmick and that every key title is a re-hash, the 3DS is barely a spot on this new generation of handheld gaming.

In an optimistic world, the PS Vita will sit in a place comfortably behind the iPhone. The Vita is a gamer’s gaming machine, just as the underwhelming PSP was, the die-hard fans will get one and a whole bunch of children will too but that doesn't mean it'll succeed.

The simplicity of the Vita’s new menu system, the many useful functions, the download-only software platform and, most probably, a very funky advertising blitz will be lost on the iPhone-casual masses. Good luck, Vita.

Polishing the Halo

Richard Preston — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:18:01 +0000

Do you remember 2001? What a year; it felt like the future had arrived, despite the lack of hover cars.

Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter began their ownership of cinema goers’ hearts, Russell Crowe dominated the Oscars, we saw the launch of Wikipedia and the death of George Harrison. Fittingly, then, it was also the year Halo was released.

Halo Combat Evolved was, I’m told, a revelation in console gaming. It became so popular that it was declared by many in gaming as the Xbox’s first must-have title, kick-starting the franchise that would propel the Xbox brand into super-stardom.

Now, 10 years later, it’s time to revisit this ancient classic with Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary (CEA). Yes, it’s a remake.

Normally I’m not a fan of remakes, but Halo CEA is more of an education than a remake. It’s a Halo education. Did you know games used to be much, much harder in the past? They did. The further back you go, the more difficult they get. They do! Try playing through Mario 3 again but this time without trying to punch your TV.

Halo CEA is a temperamental first person shooter, dripping in the Xbox 360’s now standard high-definition graphics. It’s a paced, long, plot-heavy game punctuated with a slightly clichéd, video game-typical back story that, even the most hating of Halo haters would admit, has been highly influential.

In the far future, when humans are out populating the galaxy, a huge ring in space is discovered. This ring, or ‘Halo’ is apparently very powerful and the Human race needs to stop its enemies, the evil and highly religious Covenant, from uncovering this power first.

You are the Master Chief, who is (amongst) the last of the Spartans – a questionably-bread army of super-duper mega-soldiers; taller, faster, wiser, manlier than normal Earth soldiers.

Details are a little hazy after that. There’s something about sentient artificial intelligences and the Master Chief is some kind of last hope.

Regardless, you have to shoot your way through fields and corridors (with emphasis on the corridors) until you stop the covenant from doing whatever it is they’re doing. It’s a Nolan-style approach: the more complicated it is the cleverer it is.

Games like the Halo titles work on two levels; you like the story or you’re not bothered by it. Halo CEA plays the same as its offspring; controls, mission objectives, level design, these are now standard throughout the franchise. They’re solid and logical making Halo CEA easy to get into but perhaps only for Halo fans.

If you’re new to the whole Halo thing, start with Halo Reach – the plot will make more sense and it’s a far more forgiving gaming experience.

Halo CEA still plays like a 2001 title, influenced by old school games. There are huge gaps between checkpoints and you spend most of your time surrounded by giant metal walls blasting varying mixtures of aliens to progress.

If anything, it’s a testament to how much games now pander to the weak-minded, lazy gamer or, if you prefer, how games have evolved their challenges beyond simple level progression and boss fights. It’s a frustrating title, far more so than Reach and it’s long. So, so long.

Yet these are testaments to what Halo has done for console gaming and grown as the Xbox’s Alpha first person shooter series. If nothing else, Halo CEA proves how well evolved this gaming franchise is.

Crucially, this is the first Halo title to be developed by 343 Industries before next year’s Halo 4 and not the award-winning, franchise owning Bungie who gave up all things Halo to work on new titles. They’re probably sick to the back teeth of all the Spartan this and Master Chief that.

Still, 343 Industries should be commended. They haven’t tinkered too much with what made Halo so popular, even with the addition of lobbing grenades by shouting at your Kinnect sensor.

It’s a pure conversion that, had Bungie done this instead, would have had a number of charming executive decisions thrown in to bring Halo CEA properly up to par with its successors, changing the original just enough to make it different. Something only Bungie could do with its matured sense of gaming humour and its over-familiarity with the franchise.

343 were wise in changing pretty much nothing but the presentation. This is apparent in the multiplayer especially. Halo CEA comes with a slice of Halo Reach multiplayer, giving you a bunch of new maps based on this updated classic populated with the armour, physics and game modes of Halo Reach. Genius.

You don’t need Halo Reach to play this, it’ll just give you more playing options if you do. The last thing us Halo fans need is to waste time ranking up all over again upon every release. That’s what Battlefield is for.

Thankfully, Halo CEA is an unhampered slice of gaming past presented for fans that have shown loyalty with their wallets and dedication with their free time. Please, though, don’t play Combat Evolved Anniversary if you’ve never loved a Halo game before now.

Batman Arkham City: A Review

Richard Preston — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 13:59:58 +0000

Moreish. That’s what Batman: Arkham City is; it’s moreish. Just as Maoam can’t be left alone or like those tea cakes you probably shouldn’t have bought, some video games are so much fun that walking away is tough.

Batman: Arkham City is just such a game; it’s an evolved balance of adventure, combat, story, character and it’s beautiful to look at. I imagine it’s a lot like dating a female Army officer, I imagine.

It’s a sequel to 2009’s Arkham Asylum, the first Batman game I can remember which follows the events of the comic books and not the movies – Burton’s or Nolan’s, take your pick.

This was a huge deal: it had to exist alongside Christian Bale’s new, darker big-screen Batman yet it also cast aside the mantle of every licensed video game being a load of rubbish. It struck a very delicate yet brilliant balance. Arkham Asylum was above average and highly compelling. How do you top that?

You make it bigger. Much, much bigger. Arkham City tells the tale of Gotham City’s futile attempts at policing a broken city. Led by Doctor Hugo Strange (one of Batman’s less famous foes), the city is segregated with a giant wall. Batman is suspicious and, as Bruce Wayne, tries to do something about it, only to be arrested and thrown into Arkham City for his efforts.

Turns out Strange knows Bruce Wayne is Batman, or the Batman if that’s how you flow, and he wants to blow up Arkham City, cleaning the place up for good. He’s mad, hence the name.

From the start, Arkham City sets the bar very high, throwing you into the action via the opening sequences in a fashion so effortlessly cool and seamless you know the makers, Rocksteady, are masters of their medium.

The pace never falters, building your skill set, just as with its predecessor, and teaching you Batman’s many, many bat-skills. Even the most ham-fisted among you will dart The World’s Greatest Detective around like a pro, the skilled among you will relish the ballet of kicking the crap out of an army of bad guys single-handed and look awesome doing it.

Arkham City is very similar to Arkham Asylum; the controls are identical, thankfully, visually it’s consistent but, most importantly, the learning curve and structure are the same. This is game engineering at its finest; if it aint broke don’t improve it. Purely from a gameplay perspective, having played Arkham Asylum before Arkham City is a huge help. Or, perhaps, any other game.

We live in a time where games like Arkham City are rife. Just Cause, Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed, they’re all very similar in gameplay, structure and design. Batman: Arkham City stands out mainly because it’s using the most iconic villains of all time with determined characteristics most writers would kill for. And because it's Batman

The Joker is bat-shit crazy (pun intended), the Penguin is a selfish little thug and Catwoman is an opportunistic scoundrel. Even the reason you’re picking up the controller is a character trait buried deep within your psyche garnered from buying the game; you’re Batman. You must do good, you must win. You’re Batman!

As a non-purist (I’ve only read about three Batman comics in my life), the movies are where I get my Bat-knowledge, with a little Adam West thrown in, Arkham City is an education. Featuring almost every villain from Bruce Wayne’s world, the game is accurate and detailed. Purists should love this, amateurs will simply admire the backstories.

At (and this is a guess) 50 times the size of Arkham Asylum, and (this is another guess) a million hours longer than Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City still feels too short. Completing it in two days, I still can’t put it down, which is really upsetting my copy of Battlefield 3. From the Riddler trophy searches to the plethora of puzzle rooms and challenge maps on the menu screen, via the game’s main story and every single side-quest, Arkham City is unquestionably the most compelling gaming experience this year.

The only thing I could possibly bring it up on, feeling the need to nit-pick just a little, is the downloadable content (DLC).

Buying this game from Tesco, and other UK retailers, you’ll get the free Catwoman side missions – telling the tale of the sexy burglar separate from The Dark Knight’s one. A Nightwing update was also released, at a price. A reasonable price. Alas, it’s just a new costume and funkier moves for the non-story challenge maps – a huge opportunity wasted.

American gamers were lucky enough to get a Robin expansion pack and different Batman costumes, like a Batman Beyond skin. Very cool. Us UK gamers wont see this stuff until later in the year, that’s an annoying thing. Mainly because I want to play more Arkham City. Now.

And so do you, you probably just don’t know it yet. And even if you have, play it again. Go on, just one more. You know you want to.

You’re Batman!

Dancing to the beat of the taiko drum

Katherine Wildman — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:55:59 +0000

As the white fabric danced and swirled across the stage, illuminated in a UV light like some strange underwater creature or a wisp of smoke, I felt my eyes begin to close. The lilting sound of Nobuko Miyazake’s flute reached my ears and then there was a pause – before the walls and the floor of The Sage theatre began to throb in time with the taiko drums that filed the stage. This tightly choreographed Tomoe piece brought to a close the first ‘darker’ half of the Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers performance at The Sage on Sunday night. The Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers are the UK’s longest established group and the only European touring professional taiko group. The Wikipedia definition of taiko drumming: “Taiko (太鼓 ?) means "drum" in Japanese. Outside Japan, the word is often used to refer to any of the various Japanese drums (和太鼓, "wa-daiko", "Japanese drum", in Japanese) and to the relatively recent art-form of ensemble taiko drumming (sometimes called more specifically, "kumi-daiko" (組太鼓)).” The performance on Sunday night began with a piece called Belenos or ‘new dawn’ and took the audience on a journey which involved the middle-eastern jazz flute, an enormous gong and megaphone poetry that reminded me of the fantastic The The album ‘Mind Bomb’. With dry ice, atmospheric lighting and Miyazaki’s ethereal flute playing, the sheer physicality of this form of drumming was cleverly emphasized. Yatai Bayashi, a taiko piece from Chichibu, featured an especially physically method of playing. The drummers lay on the floor, their drums held between their legs, and came into a half sit-up to play. The piece is traditionally played inside festival floats at the annual December night festival – hence the space saving position of the drummers - and the strength needed would have challenged even the strongest athlete. From the Shichisan Stomp to Torodoki “rumble of thunder” the Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers succeeded in their aim to ‘awaken and join with the spirit of their drums.

Turner Prize 2011 at BALTIC

Katherine Wildman — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:36:02 +0000

From bath bombs to dog shit bins ... the Turner Prize 2011 opened to crowds at BALTIC last week

: Turner Prize 2011 at BALTIC

Thankfully the North wind did not blow quite as hard as it can last Friday night as crowds of visitors queued up outside BALTIC in Gateshead for a chance to see this year's Turner Prize nominees. The BALTIC building reached capacity at around 7pm and from then on it was strictly on- in one-out policy as the region's art fans gathered to see what has been dubbed 'Arguably the world's most prestigious and best known award for contemporary art, the Turner Prize.' This is the first year that the prize hasn't been hosted by a Tate venue. The work of Karla Black, Martin Boyce, George Shaw and Hilary Lloyd is on show throughout the third floor of BALTIC - with a cafe dedicated to discussion and feedback of the exhibition on the second floor. Friday Night's Alright for a Party As the queues both outside the building and down the stairwell leading to the exhibition showed no sign of dying down on Friday night, the opening time on the third floor was extended for an hour but still many people - me included - didn't see the works on show until the following day. Despite - or perhaps because of - the popularity of the Prize launch the atmosphere inside was brilliant. Strangers chatted in the glass elevators that rose and fell on the face of the building, people in the discussion cafe swapped pencils to write down their thoughts on the work and there was a buzz that extended far beyond the DJ's in the booth at the Preview Party. The Nominees Karla Black Karla Black's sculptures and installations climb all over the room she has filled on the 3rd floor. Crumbled bath bombs, chalks, shampoo and shaving foam explode from sheets of cellophane and paper. "I think about art in general as a boxed little bit of civilised society where permission is given for us to really behave as the animals we are." Black explains on the video installation in the 2nd floor cafe. "A painting is an escape, its supposed to take us elsewhere. Sculpture is the opposite. It's absolutely here and rooted ... It's its physicality that really matters."

: Feedback in the 2nd Floor Gallery

Martin Boyce Martin Boyce has created an interactive landscape on the 3rd floor that includes a library table, fallen leaves, a patterned ventilation grid and a wooden panel with the words 'petrified songs' scattered across its surface. Most of his work since 2005 has been influenced by an image of four concrete trees by the artists Jan and Joel Martel which completely fascinated him when he came across it. "If the trees were made of concrete what were the leaves made of - and what happening in the autumn? Did fragments of concrete fall from the trees?" Hilary Lloyd Hilary Lloyd says that she isn't a film maker. She just uses film and video "like you'd use pencil or a pair of scissors." What makes her work unique is that what is filmed is what you see. There is no editing process, rather a collaged effect is created with various images shown simultaneously. The videos are displayed on a number of large screen which do, Lloyd muses "get in the way". The experience of viewing her work pulls you into the present and draws attention to the details of everyday life, like the moon in the sky and the structures beneath a motorway being built. "There's an idea with art that you should 'get it' and I don't think that's it at all."

: Feedback for George Shaw

George Shaw George Shaw showed an exhibition of his work, The Sly and Unseen Day, at BALTIC earlier in the year. Interviewed for the Turner Prize exhibition he explained his ambition "to make a painting that my professor of fine art could talk about with my mum - nether of them condescending to each other." Shaw seems to want to bypass that special language that seems to be needed to understand contemporary art and to focus instead on communication. His paintings of the landscape of his childhood on a council estate in Coventry use Humbrol paint, "They are humble paints, made for painting bits of radiator that you’ve missed out… they’re not made for saying the great things in life like oil paint is made for – flesh and life and death and skulls and Jesus." His work confronts life rather than relaxing into a comfortable situation. "In many ways the paintings are painting my way out of this world" (Shaw looks into the camera at this point and smiles) "Sounds a bit bleak really doesn't it?" The Turner Prize The winner of the Turner Prize will be announced at BALTIC on Monday 5 December 2011. For more information go to www.tate.org.uk You can join the Turner Prize debate on Twitter by using the hashtag #TP2011

We Need to talk about Kevin

Von Von Lamunu — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:45:33 +0000

The pressure felt by Tilda Swinton and Lynne Ramsay not only to secure the rights but to deliver on the film adaptation of ‘We need to talk about Kevin’ must have been immense. The frank, intimate and self realizing nuanced narrative tone of the letters in Lionel Shriver’s hugely successful best seller wouldn’t be easy to portray on screen without some alteration. Lynne Ramsey has succeeded in bringing Shriver’s novel to cinematic life, whilst retaining her own creative direction as a director. ‘We need to talk about Kevin’ is Lynne Ramsey’s triumphant return to film since her last celebrated project ‘Morvern Caller’ almost ten years ago. Told in a fractured narrative, with extreme close ups, playing with scale of food, space and colour she repels yet intrigues us. It may take viewers a while to come into focus with Ramsey’s vision but it’s a film which is compelling viewing both narrative and cinematography. The mind boggles at the notion she may have taken on the project of directing ‘The Lovely Bones’ but was pipped to the post by Peter Jackson. Tilda Swinton plays the emotional draining but enlightening role of Eva a woman who ponders her role as mother, parent and ex wife in the aftermath of an epic atrocity committed by her son. Kevin is brought to life by a career changing performance by Ezra Miller who wears sadistic, sinister teen deviance well. Have we been here before? Some would argue yes with Gus Van Sant’s ‘Elephant’, Oliver Stone’s ‘Natural Born Killers’. Although the role of modern instant fame and the need for recognition on any scale from the media is portrayed here as with the latter, all roads lead back to the role of Eva Khatchadourian in Kevin’s early life. Is her resistance to nurturing him in the conventional mother role the reason for his later acts or was he just born a sociopath. Is her resistance fueled by her initial blasé attitude towards having a family and missing her continental and cultural lifestyle. All of ‘Thursday’ could be read as a way to simply to taunt her. Although he acts aloof and uninterested there is a disturbing atmosphere that suggests he enjoys her extremely trying and difficult visits to prison as he can dig the knife in further. Even after his 15mins are up. It’s seems that Kevin is lacking natural empathy for other people. Whilst this maybe true to a certain extent it is clear he enjoys manipulating and making Eva suffer which would mean he would have to recognize pain and anguish as emotions and a way to hurt her. Making him no less human, should we try to understand him. Does this derive from his feelings of being unloved and unwanted by Eva as a child. These are left open for viewers to ponder as we experience Eva living in the everyday aftermath of his mess, whilst trying to process her potential part played with in the proceeding moments. Its to be applauded the specific and sharp direction Ramsey and Swinton took the book. It’s a stripped adaptation and by nature many lovers of the book will acutely point out various points which were disgarded in order to bring their vision to the silver screen. The key performances by Swinton, Miller and C Reilly, combined with the cinematography used to created Eva’s now distorted jointed world say as much as the book without shouting lifted lines or sequences from Lionel Shriver’s novel. There is a particular moment when Eva comes in contact with a victim which does not appear in the novel which is profound, heartbreaking and actually gives viewers a sense of hope and humanity. Whilst ‘Columbine’ may seem more relevant to those reading the novel at the time of release, the film actually comes at a moment when people are worried about what to do with modern youth again. ‘London Riots’ and ‘Norway Shootings ‘ have contributed to making this film adaptation just as relevant. Like the book it raises more question than it answers, about the nature of parenthood, society and responsibility.

Melancholia – Film Review

Von Von Lamunu — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:25:33 +0000

Melencholia explores the nature of depression, happiness and family discontent in epic fashion via an apocalypse at an extravagant wedding. “I may have made a film I don’t like.” Why? … “This film is perilously close to the aesthetic of American mainstream films.” This being of tamer subdued statements, it’s easy to find Lars Von Trier pretentious or perhaps misunderstood when speaking publicly about his work, which can lead to his pieces being over shadowed. The opening 8min overture is a theatrical, dramatic collection of beautiful apocalyptic images set to Wagner's ‘Tristan and Isolde’. The ethereal dream like compositions echo sequences similar to Emmanuel Lubezki and Terrence Malick’s cinematography collaboration on ‘The Tree of Life’ as well photographer Gregory Crewdson’s work with the almost static picture like use of frames, heavily lit other worldly lighting. The film is divided into two sections the first being Justine (Dunst). Justine a discontented advertising executive tries her best to play happy bride, sister, daughter only to fail. The awkward contrived atmosphere of the wedding reception proceeded by the inner family squabbling causes her to dissociate herself with the celebrations. She seems to fall into her familiar mental space of solitude and depression. The marriage falls apart almost immediately, sending her into a deeper episode. The second section called ‘Claire’ after Justine’s sister (Gainsbourg), explores in more detail the nature of the two sisters relationship and perhaps the effect of Justine’s depression on it. Gainsbourg delivers an intriguing cold acidic performance but then only to give into natural hysteria due to Melancholia’s looming collision. Claire initially has to take care of a ‘rock bottom’ Justine who eventually ends up being the more stable of the two. As Justine has resigned to her own personal world collapsing she is able to face a real apocalypse with calm, somber sense of acceptance instead of Claire’s panic and hysteria. Reading reviews from Cannes hailing ‘Melancholia’ as Kirsten Dunst’s break out role seemed comical as the 29year old actress has had a major presence in Hollywood most of her life. However her performance here does progress her career in a different direction. Her ability to consistently draw out an emotionally rattled yet reserved subtle performance is brilliant. There is no impending doom which keeps audiences at the edge of seats awaiting a science fiction climax, this is settled in a strange wonderful tone during the opening. Lars Von Trier has produced an unapologetic, self interested piece of work which is cathartic for him as a director yet sometimes long winded and lethargic for audiences. Where ‘Dogville’ and ‘The Idiots’ explored social structure and the nature of humanity when this is altered, Melancholia is about dread. There is an unexplored look at family dysfunction, we are never sure how close Justine and Claire are to their mother and her charming father disappears in Justine’s time of need. There is a larger sense that none of it matters at the end of the world. In a literal form the planet ‘Melancholia’ and the end of the world is a narrative vehicle to explore depression an individual scale and perhaps to address his own demons on a cinematic scale.

Alois Nebel: Stunning Czech animation reflects on recent history

Julia Kollewe — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:11:56 +0000

Alois Nebel is a moody Czech rotoscope animation in black and white about a railway man haunted by his memories of the final stages of the Second World War. Adapted from the graphic novels of Jaroslav Rudiš and Jaromír 99, Tomás Lunák's feature film debut is a sophisticated reflection on recent central European history. Visually, it is stunning, with some resemblance to German Expressionism. Ever since Art Spiegelman's Maus tackled the Holocaust in a comic-book format, graphic novels and then animation have been very successful at dealing with serious subjects – for example, Joe Sacco's Palestine and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (2007), a coming-of-age story of an Iranian girl during the Islamic Revolution. Waltz with Bashir (2008), which recalled the horrors of the 1982 Lebanon war, was one of the first animated documentaries. Alois Nebel uses flashbacks, like Waltz with Bashir. Its creator, the Israeli film maker Ari Folman, explained why he opted for animation: "If it was a classic documentary, it would have shown middle-aged men telling their war experiences and it would have to be covered with footage that you could never find and wouldn’t come close to resembling what they went through. It would be a boring film." The same applies to Alois Nebel, even though it is not a documentary. But it deals with real trauma and is based on real stories. In a 2004 interview with Radio Prague, Rudis, co-creator of the graphic novels, said much of Czech fiction is observation from real life. Alois Nebel comes from a German-Czech family and like his father before him is station master at Bílý Potok (German: Weißbach or white creek), a remote village near Jesenik in the former Sudetenland on the Czech-Polish border, which is known as the wettest place in the Czech Republic (it rains a lot in the film). It is 1989 and the Berlin wall has come down. But Nebel, a middle-aged taciturn character who prefers timetables and his cat to people, is stuck in the past. Every now and then a fog descends on him (Nebel is German for fog but read backwards means life) and he relives the traumatic events of 1945 when some 3 million Germans were expelled from the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. In the sanatorium where Nebel’s scheming switchman Wachek, who does a roaring black market trade with the Russians and covets Nebel’s job, despatches him, he is mockingly called Mr Fog. Nebel recovers, however, and when he is released from the sanatorium finds the world has changed – communism has ended, and his job has gone. So he goes to the main railway station in Prague in the hope of finding work. In the sanatorium, Nebel encounters a mysterious young man again who doesn’t speak (nicknamed the mute) and turns up at the station one day while he is still station master. After being arrested, the young man is tortured with electric shocks but won’t say a word. He carries an old photo that was taken at Bílý Potok station decades earlier. Gradually the mystery of who he is and the story behind the photo unravels. This is what keeps the plot ticking over. But the film is as much about Nebel’s inner world and how he perceives the changing world he finds himself in during the late 80s and early 90s. As Rudis put it: “Through these 'foggy trains' on his railway he sees the whole century pass by, good and bad sides. There are German soldiers and there are Soviet soldiers, there is everything that destroyed this region in the last century." Aside from the war memories, the film does a good job of depicting the murky corruption of communism and its end. The melancholy of Nebel’s world is well captured by the Expressionist black and white, and grey tones. This atmospheric Czech animation also evokes fairy tales and culminates in a dramatic, stormy night scene in the dark forest. On a technical level, it is a rotoscope animation which means animators traced over live-action film movement, frame by frame, so the animated characters move like real people. It also uses cinematic-style lighting and effects to make it look real. Alois Nebel is showing at the London Film Festival on Tuesday, 25 October, at 20:30 and on Thurday, 27 October at 15:30. Visit the LFF website for more information and to book.

Credit-card shredding Frieze delights

Julia Kollewe — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:22:58 +0000

Fashion week is over - now it's art week. Frieze, one of the world's biggest contemporary art fairs, is in full swing after the celebrity-studded private view in London's Regent's Park on Wednesday night. A number of other, smaller fairs and exhibitions have sprung up in Frieze week such as Sunday, in a basement warehouse off Baker Street, now in its second year. This year's Frieze art fair, the ninth so far, has a fun feel to it, perhaps to lighten the mood amid all the economic doom and gloom. Last year we had David Shrigley doing tattoes; this year we have Michael Landy's Credit Card Destroying Machine. The huge Jean Tinguely-inspired contraption, pieced together from a random collection of found objects such as mannequin limbs and Mickey Mouse figures, is surrounded by tiny bits of shredded credit cards on the floor. In return for a drawing made by the machine that bears Landy's signature, people have to hand over a valid credit card for shredding. An assistant feeds pre-signed sheets of paper into the machine and off it goes, with a marker pen attached to a metal arm doing an automated random drawing (you can choose the colour). Some 300 credit cards were shredded during the first day alone (including the private view). Landy, of course, is best known for shredding all his worldly possessions a few years ago. I do wonder, though, whether the piece isn't somewhat flawed. Surely most people will hand over the credit card simply because they want a Landy work as an investment? Another delightful piece is French artist Pierre Huyghe's Acquarium which is one of the eight site-specific works created for the fair (Frieze Projects). It's a fish tank populated by a giant hermit crab carrying a head modelled on Brancusi's famous Sleeping Muse bronze on its back, along with smaller arrow crabs. Visitors are a bit worried about the weight of the head, but a Frieze assistant explains to me that the head, which is made of resin and pounded bronze, is actually lighter than the shells hermit crabs normally carry. Some even live in coke cans or flower pots and get through two or three shells in their lifetime (usually 20-25 years). Elsewhere, in the Frame section (which is dedicated to galleries under six years old) Paul Johnson at London's Ancient & Modern Gallery stand has made a big ochre-coloured modern temple entirely from papier-mâché that rests on (papier-mâché) tyres and is reminiscent of a mud hut. Also in the Frame part, a striking work is Crush - a full-size naked body cast of Romanian arist Andra Ursuta at the Ramiken Crucible Gallery. The 'skin' is dark and looks oddly deflated, like a bog body, but is also covered in drips of silicone resembling semen - which made me shudder. Mistaking Frieze for the London boat show, German artist Christian Jankowski is selling a speedboat - either new for €500,000 (£436,000) or as a "sculpture" featuring his signature for €625,000 (£545,500). "I was very interested in having this luxurious object competing with art," he told the BBC. "A normal vessel would lose value over the years, but with art it's the opposite. I hope the collector will stay in dialogue with me and create some journeys into the art world with that boat." Hm... As usual, Tate Modern has had its pick and snapped up pieces like Portuguese artist Helena Almeida's darkly humorous ink drawings and the poignant Tumour sculpture by Polish artist Alina Szapocznikow. It includes a crushed-up photo of the artist and was made in 1969, four years before her death from cancer. The Sculpture Park outside the Frieze tent is free and features pieces like Gavin Turk's Ajar - a free-standing open door, with peeling paint, that leads nowhere. The Frieze art fair at London's Regent Park runs until Sunday. It is open 12pm to 7pm on Friday and Saturday, and 12pm to 6pm on Sunday.

The Somnambulists tells haunting stories of soldiers in Iraq

Julia Kollewe — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 11:53:01 +0000

Richard Jobson's The Somnambulists, shot earlier this year, takes its inspiration from an eponymous 2008 exhibition of photographs by Joanna Kane in Edinburgh. At first glance the portraits seemed to depict a series of sleeping people, but turned out to be death masks. The film, which shows 15 British servicemen and women who served in Basra in Iraq telling their stories, creates a similar haunting impression. Played by a cast of unknown actors, who voice the testimonies gathered from real life soldiers, they emerge from the dark one by one to deliver their monologues, like Shakespearean actors. You only see their heads, seemingly floating in space, forcing you to focus on the words and the faces, although I couldn't help wondering what had happened to their bodies. Had they lost limbs? Most are regular soldiers, but there are also a bomb disposal expert, a sniper, two medics, a commanding officer. Most of them are young, and several recount that they joined the army simply because they couldn't get a job. One young black female medic says she wanted to be a doctor but her family couldn't afford to pay for her medical training while the army offered it for free. Basra was hell, most agree, apart from one chap who loved the camaraderie and the sense of belonging to a community which he'd never experienced before. Unlike many of the others who have been worn down by the daily roadside bombs and other attacks ("contacts" in military speak), he doesn't hate the Iraqis. "What if they had liberated us from Tony Blair?" he asks, eliciting a rare laugh from the audience. By contrast, another does not remember any camaraderie. When he returned from a particularly bloody patrol, everyone was shouting his name. It turns out his fellow soldiers had taken bets on him, making him the favourite not to return. Another recounts how his partner made him vote Labour because she thought Tony Blair would change the world. "It changed our world," he says, bitterly. The first person to testify in the film, a young Northerner, recalls how his former maths teacher, Mr McKilroy, remained silent when he encountered him in uniform after his first tour in Basra. He was hoping his former teacher would at least ask: "How are you?" or "What's it like out there?" But nothing. The testimonies are interspersed with black and white footage that offers poetic (sometimes bordering on kitsch) glimpses of the servicemen's lives back in Britain. The relatives who got left behind (also played by actors) stare directly at the camera. Most of this film makes uncomfortable viewing. Often the testimonies tail off making you wonder what happened next. All this is very effective. However, the film's slick, stylised look detracts somewhat from the gripping, often moving accounts. Why use actors and not real people? It also gets a bit repetitive. The credits reveal that the testimonies are drawn from a long list of servicemen and women while the people in the film are simply referred to as man #1, man #2, woman #1, etc. Have the accounts been amalgamated from several sources? This is slightly disappointing and further reduces the authenticity. Even so, this film is worth watching for the valuable insights it gives into the lives of those who have gone out to Iraq to fight Blair's war. Jobson said in May when he started shooting the film: "Like many people I was angered by the Iraq war and like most people did nothing about it. This is my response to that apathy. In the film although it appears that the speakers are the ghostly presence, it is in fact we the audience who are the somnambulists, it is we who were sleep walking in the build up to the war and its tragic aftermath." The Somnambulists (UK, 96min) will be screened at the London Film Festival on Friday, 14 October, at 21:00, on Saturday, 15 October, at 15:30, and on Monday, 17 October, at 13:00. Go to the LFF website (http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff) for further details and to book.

Forza 4: A Review

Richard Preston — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:20:50 +0000

Cars. They’ve never really interested me. Much to the disappointment of my dad, my science teachers and the legacy of my gender, the geek side of me won through leaving cars and their engines in the same bucket as football, the army, page three girls and heavy drinking.

Car games, then, are nowhere to be found on my gaming shelves, not ones like Forza 4, anyway. Titles like Burnout Paradise of the Need For Speed games are car-centric, but those are arcade racers – easily accessible mechanics with a dumbed down scale of differences between motors.

Forza 4 is a game for motor engine fanatics; it’s for ‘car nuts’, ‘petrol heads’, it deals with torque, engine tuning, tyre choices, suspension set ups and very complicated courses. There are no power-ups, no weapons, no shortcuts, this is just racing real-world style. Forza 4 should bore me to tears but it really doesn’t. It’s fantastic.

Forza’s creators, Turn 10, have found a healthy balance between car-fanatic and fans of simple competitive racing – the kind who want to switch on a console, press ‘drive’ and have fun. Unlike its rival, a certain Gran Turismo – famous for having graphics so realistic and such a wide variety of cars it’s easy to mistake it as real life – Forza 4 drip feeds you the car count and eases you into its spectacular visuals.

OK, maybe not spectacular; the Xbox 360 is around six years old now so we’ve pretty much seen the best it can do. The car models look fantastic, the background of the racing courses significantly less so. Mustn’t grumble though, I’m racing not sight-seeing.

Forza 4 literally drops you behind the wheel of a Ferrari straight away. Afterwards, you’re free to adjust the simplified, computer aided controls any way you like. Personally, I like automatic gears and ABS breaking but everything else on manual. See that? I have NO IDEA what ABS breaking is! This is awesome.

Like a lot of modern games, the career mode works on an experience point basis; the more you earn the more cars you can buy. You’re also awarded cars as you level up. After a while you start fiddling with better engine parts and tuning set-ups without realising you’re only one paunch off becoming Jeremy Clarkson.

Talking of which, Forza 4 has taken the planet’s Top Gear love one step further than the ‘rival’ and its efforts by filling the game with commentary on certain cars by the aforementioned Mr Clarkson. There’s also the Top Gear test track, the reasonably priced car and, as a separate download, the Top Gear car-football pitch. More than that, Forza 4’s presentation is remarkably Top Gear, almost like Turn 10 pinched the show’s designers.

Still, it should save the BBC a lot of money producing their own car-nutter racing title and, you know what, it feels like a nice touch; it’s personal. It adds a warmth to Forza’s stark CGI racing tracks and sterile engine mechanics.

Having found my perfect driving set up and, after a few long yet enjoyable racing sessions, the intricacies of Forza’s car fleet become apparent. As you’d expect (or not expect if you don’t know racing actually is), the cars each handle a little differently; I found myself favouring a number of cars while relishing the drifts and the overtaking as I bomb it to the finishing line.

After a while, it’s clear the cars are not the element to be taming. It’s the tracks. There are only a dozen or so in the game, for now at least, with different variations of each. They teach you about driving lines, when to decelerate and just how far to push which ever car you’re in.

Word of warning, however. By the time you hit the ‘pro’ stages in Forza 4, racing is a test of preparation and endurance – the races can take forever and keeping a level head round every single corner is mentally testing. But that’s just another element of Forza’s beauty. This is what racing is about and it’s something Forza 4 does very well.

It’s a subtle learning curve which has you thinking like Jensen Button in just a few hours. This the game’s greatest achievement; turning a car-luddite like me into a petrol-head, OK, a virtual petrol head, and loving it.

It’s a beautifully presented game, too. The menus are easy to navigate, the race options are clear and complimentary to your skill level and the room for customisation is nerdtastic.

The custom decal designer makes a return from previous Forza titles to great effect. If you have the time, patience and a wicked eye you can create anything to stick on your car. Anything. I actually mean that.

As for online: phew! There’s only so much space I’m given to write these things, you know. Forza 4 is stuffed with different racing modes to test your skills out properly. Let’s face it, even the toughest computer-controlled cars are no match for Johnny Human.

I took it online and got pulverised. Many times. There’s a very high standard of driving online, presumably from the folks who were playing Forza 1, 2 and 3 for all this time.

That doesn’t matter though. Everyone’s a winner online and every car is available to race with. This is pea-cock gaming at its finest. It’s about showing off, it’s about good driving.

However, if you want that Bugatti Veyron to tune and custom for yourself without earning 1.3 million credits, you can spend real-life credits (money) on gamerpoints to buy car tokens to trade for the likes of a virtual Bugatti Veyron. A shallow cash-cow disguised as a bloody good idea.

There are also hundreds of second hand cars to buy, being sold by fellow players, as well as a slew of user-created decals to stick on your four-wheeled thunder machines.

Forza 4 is due to have a wealth of downloadable content (DLC) available eventually, from new cars to, hopefully, a lot more tracks. Regardless, this is an impressively full game; stuffed with multiplayer options from the get-go and is endlessly playable (until you reach your skill height and can’t get past the last race on professional – stupid bloody corners!). If you only ever get into one slightly hardcore racing game make it Forza 4. It’ll treat you right.

Perhaps the greatest quality of Forza 4 though, for me, is how it taught me to talk about cars. Thanks, Forza 4, thanks Turn 10. Just, please, I don’t want to turn into Jeremy Clarkson.

Video Review: Johnny English Reborn – Afterbirth

Joe West — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 16:23:00 +0000

Joe West wants Rowan Atkinson to stop taking hits to the nads in Johnny English Reborn. Follow on Twitter @joejwest

Doctor Who Series 5, Episode 13 – The Wedding of River Song: A Review

Mark Davison — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:46:27 +0000

Well, here we are at the end, and as they might say on (*spits*) The X Factor, what an emotional journey it's been. As if the labyrinthine plots (by Saturday teatime drama standards at least) weren't exhausting enough, there've also been my valiant, but ultimately doomed, attempts to get these reviews up on time. Unfortunately I couldn't even manage it for the season finale, but then I'm actually quite glad that I didn't even try this week. Predictably, being a Moffat-penned episode things in The Wedding of River Song got complicated; being a season-finale things got even more complicated; and being a single episode story things got so insanely complicated that the reams of exposition ran the risk of tying themselves up in knots (it's all very well describing any complicated plot machinations as being 'timey-wimey' but it doesn't really provide a satisfying explanation for some of Moffat's more outlandish plot ideas) and it took a couple of goes to get my head around it After my first viewing I was convinced that they'd dropped the ball and that The Wedding of River Song was a disappointing conclusion, with numerous gaping plot holes at its heart, but, having had the time to give it a second viewing, it all (just about) made sense. I'm not saying that it was a great episode; there were some fun moments for the fans with several reappearances of minor characters (and a touching one in the acknowledgment of the death of Nicholas Courtney), some great design moments such as the cars attached to hot air balloons (although not so much from a hair design stand-point, Matt Smith does not look good with long hair unfortunately), a fantastic turn from Karen Gillan (I really think that she's proven herself to be the star of Moffat's Who, and I'm very glad that, despite earlier reports, she's still around for at least another season), and a fun Indiana Jones nod, but the rush and sheer amount of exposition required to cover a complicated plot was ridiculous. (To be fair it wasn't all bad; the Dalek encounter was just the right length for me, providing a reminder of the brilliance of the initial Christopher Ecceleston episode with them, but not dragging on like most, if not all, subsequent Dalek stories have.) Perhaps most galling was that, after being hinted at for four years, River's wedding to the Doctor added up to very little, in fact, other than Amy's confrontation with Madame Kavarian, as well as perhaps her relationship with alternate-Rory, and a creepy reveal of The Silence, none of the emotional peaks really worked. Of course, there's also the problem that this year's finale was very similar to last year's, The Big Bang, once again involving a frantic race to stop the end of everything, and get around a seemingly watertight character death (and in both cases with not the most satisfying explanation). It did make sense though – after the first viewing I was convinced that River's distress signal contradicted the Doctor's assertion that time was 'dying' but then, the Doctor did specify that the time decay was spreading outwards (I suppose River reaching out from it was no more ludicrous than the 'bubble' outside of the universe in The Doctor's Wife, and that didn't stop that episode from being amazing). I was also a bit annoyed that the Doctor's robotic double started regenerating when shot, but then, such trickery would be necessary if the Doctor wanted people to think that he was well and truly dead. I suppose the question does remain; why was the Doctor ok with allowing River to be charged a crime she didn't actually do? Was it the fact that he'd already seen how she'd turned out in the future that set his mind at rest: yes, she'd go to prison for his 'murder' but she wouldn't have any trouble in getting herself out? Besides, it's always a bit of an unsatisfying twist when it turns out that characters have been lying for no good reason. Actually, now I come to think about it I'm a bit confused as to why the Doctor felt the need to disappear. Will next year's season answer that question? Does it need to? (After all, I'm pretty psyched that they're finally asking the question “Doctor Who?”, even if it will be a year too early for the 50^th anniversary in 2013.) Whatever happens, hopefully Moffat will manage to use the half-season length to tell a simpler story, rather than frantically jamming a thirteen-episode long story into six, but, even though I don't expect he'll be able to do that, I'm still looking forward to it.

Review: Drive – Hell on Wheels

Mark Davison — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:45:24 +0000

Would it be excessive to describe Drive as action cinema's punk rock moment? Yes, probably. But then such bold statements seem necessary to justify adding yet another enthusiastic review to the already sizeable pile that the film's attracted. And, for that matter, to work out what makes a movie based around fairly unoriginal, unremarkable plotting feel so essential. If a musical comparison was to be drawn with Drive, odds are it wouldn't be punk. Given that the film mostly unfolds to the sounds of supercool pulsating electro (a late dip into light opera takes things a bit too far, but it's the only weak link on the soundtrack), it comes in right on trend with the current eighties revival. And to cement the link further, there's the clothes, sunglasses, and the lurid pink titles (and even a moment where Gosling's unnamed protagonist cradles a young child in his manly arms, like the return of the infamous Athena poster). Not to mention the fact that the film, in a way, harks back to the era's action cinema; its outsider on a bloody mission plot fitting neatly into the grimy wave of revenge flicks that sprung up around First Blood. But while the music might not be punk, the attitude sure is. Action films over the past decade have, like prog-rock, become ridiculously bloated, over-long, and often boringly waffled on about space, and, like how the luddite simplicity of punk rock acted as a much needed refresher to prog, Drive's straightforwardness feels like a welcome respite from the excesses of Michael Bay and his imitators. Perhaps the most striking thing about Drive is the sheer amount of spite the film has for Hollywood, and even by extension, in the spirit of Godard's Le Mepris, the role of Europeans (like director Nicholas Winding Refn) within that system: Albert Brooks' (oddly eyebrow-less) antagonist Bernie spits out the assessment of the soft-core flicks he used to produce, “Some critics called them European, I thought they were shit”. Bernie's background in movie production also serves to neatly undermine the dream-like, aspirational nature of the Hollywood-created myth, as in truth, it's all just product: it's not a case of William Goldman's 'Nobody knows anything', but rather 'Nobody gives a shit'. At the risk of getting myself into some rather dodgy territory, perhaps it's significant that Brooks and the brilliant-as-ever Ron Perlman portray Jewish inductees to the mafia, reflecting the frequent (and racist) observation that the town is run by the Jews. But where Drive's attack on Hollywood mores matters most is in its treatment of violence. Wisely, instead of featuring yet another dashing, indestructible hero who commits oddly bloodless mass murder, Drive's hero is distant, awkward and, with his quickness to violence, possibly mentally ill. To once again run the risk of causing offence, I was convinced that Gosling was playing his character as being somewhere on the autistic spectrum, effortlessly elegant when behind the wheel but otherwise struggling to connect emotionally with the characters, even taking a while to warm to love interest Irene (a perhaps miscast, but still reliably luminous Carey Mulligan) and her young son. In particular his scenes with Christina Hendricks' Blanche look almost as uncomfortable for him to get through as they are for the audience to watch. While Drive does fall into the usual action movie trap of not knowing what to do with its female characters, they do serve the purpose of making the already sickening violence seem even more uncomfortably real; Blanche's terrified screams and Irene's catatonic shock linger in the memory long after the movie ends. (That's not to say that Drive always goes for realism over style: at one point Gosling disguises himself with a mask stolen from a film set - which, perhaps intentionally, looks rather like a hairless Tom Cruise - and yet doesn't think to remove his distinctive, and by now blood-stained, jacket; a particularly violent scene takes place in the dressing room of a strip-club, presumably so the background can be filled with seemingly bored topless women looking on; and Refn does sort of have his cake and eat it by presenting his protagonist as both dangerous oddball and superhero, as highlighted by the relentlessly catchy vocal hook from College's A Real Hero, but then these touches don't undermine the film. And they are very cool.) There's also the matter of motive. 'Driver' might only involve himself because of that classic narrative device 'love', but the rest of the characters are fighting for survival. There's no hint that the sack of cash that acts as the film's McGuffin will improve anybody's lives should they manage to get their hands on it: Irene will still remain a downtrodden single mother; Bernie will still continue to operate out of a run-down pizza parlour (complete with greasy-looking photos and blown light bulbs around the menu); Driver wouldn't really care for it; and his boss Shannon (a grizzled, endearingly pathetic Bryan Cranston) would inevitable blow it. If all that wasn't enough in the way of punk attitude, Drive even has it's own Sex Pistols on the Bill Grundy show moment with Refn's sweary BBC Breakfast News appearance. Although his confusion seems fair; it was a bit ludicrous having a discussion about such a painfully violent movie at nine in the morning. So Drive might be a punk action film, a brutal burst of energy that hopefully will prove something of an inspiration for potential filmmakers in the audience. But even if it isn't, there are many other things that Drive might be: it might be the most thrilling film of 2011; it might even be the most cutting movie about movies since Mulholland Drive (coincidentally both movies won the Best Director award at Cannes, a decade apart). What it definitely is is a film that's genuinely adult, in the best sense of the word.

BYTES FROM THE INGLORIOUS SUMMER

Stuart Colman — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:21:24 +0000

Autumn in the Big Apple is a true delight, and, quite frankly, the season couldn't have made its presence any sooner. Summer 2011 dispensed weather extremes of the highest order, to the point where New Yorkers, not the most tolerant souls at the best of times, became fed up to the back teeth with freaky forecasts and unimaginable conditions. So, being as the mysteries of meteorology have now become an everyday news item, I offer no excuse for dispensing the accompanying address about the region's climate. As an aside, at least the subject makes a change from the interminable round of political prospectors who've been boring us mindless in the media, and will continue to do so for another twelve months as they gear up for the 2012 Presidential Election. The chaos first reigned back in July when soaring temperatures began to melt the mercury on thermometers and barometers everywhere you went. Here in our 33rd floor apartment, Annie and I cranked up what is normally an efficient and responsive air-conditioning system to gain some relief. But on the day that a record high of 108 degrees was recorded a few miles away at Newark International Airport, the coolant began to boil, not to mention those who it was supposed to be refrigerating. Having lived in the south and visited sweat-boxes like South Africa and Hong Kong, I can honestly say that I have never felt so uncomfortable in my life. All in all, the atmosphere became little short of brutal for the next several weeks. Somehow we learned to live with the humidity, the kind that belonged in a rain forest rather than a normally temperate metropolis like Manhattan. But then, just when things began to settle down, along came the next challenge. An Indiana Jones scenario not usually associated with the local terrain. On what started out as an ordinary Tuesday afternoon late in August, tremors from a 5.8 magnitude earthquake epicenter-ed in Virginia shook the city and sent seismologists racing to their digitizers and accelerometers. Whilst not on a level of the truly serious earth-moving moments felt by Californians, the shock waves nevertheless did tens of millions of dollars worth of damage to buildings and infrastructure. What the hell was going on? Well, nothing compared to the next round of fun and frolics that blew in just a few days later. "In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen". So said the Hungarian film producer, Gabriel Pascal. Once upon a time the man's assertion (it evolved in "Pygmalion") could logically be extended around the New York area to include Harlem, Hoboken and Hell's Kitchen but not any more. The final weekend in August was the date on the calendar when we were introduced to Ms. Irene. Hurricane Irene, to be precise. This enormous ball of Atlantic tempestuousness barreled inland at speeds approaching 110 miles-per-hour, and it landed a direct hit on the city. The Mayor of New York, Mike Bloomberg, straightaway put into action a well-rehearsed strategy that involved evacuations and closures throughout the whole of Manhattan. To see Times Square totally empty as the rain lashed down and the winds did their worst, was a sight I shall never forget. Curfews were put in place and all but official vehicles disappeared off the streets. It was as near as you could get to a futuristic doomsday movie out of Hollywood. What nobody had foreseen was the flood damage that would be caused upstate in the Hudson Valley and along the shores of Connecticut. To that end, it was good to know that such notable area residents as Ernest Borgnine, Ronnie Spector and Keith Richards were not baling water or stuck up trees. It is all a good deal calmer now, with the prospect of some far more agreeable conditions settling in for the immediate future. Hopefully, the long-range forecast will be kind to Charleston, South Carolina, (a truly delightful part of the world) as the Colmans are due to attend a society wedding there in a few days time. Much shopping has been done upfront, with the result that yours truly will be decked-out in a brand new suit from Macys, whilst Annie will be proudly showing off a little figure-hugging number from Bloomingdales. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, because the weather aberrations we've suffered have been playing havoc with the lady's wardrobe of late.

Las Acacias: a delicate take on the road movie

Julia Kollewe — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:05:53 +0000

Las Acacias is a delicate take on the road movie with sparse dialogue where subtle glances and small gestures say it all. The plot is simple: a middle-aged truck driver gives a young mother with her baby a lift from Paraguay to Buenos Aires. Ruben (played by German De Silva) drives a huge red truck loaded with timber, and agrees to take Jacinta (Hebe Duarte) along who hopes to find work in Argentina. Ruben's boss, who also employs Jacinta's sister, failed to mention the baby, however... Crammed into the cab of the truck, they don't speak for a long time, and when Jacinta's 5-month-old daughter Anahi (Nayra Calle Mamani) starts crying and Ruben is forced to stop so Jacinta can warm her bottle and feed her, he briefly considers offloading them on a bus. But that day's bus has already gone, so they continue on their 1500 km motorway journey together. Slowly the three get to know each other, and Ruben is soon charmed by both Jacinta and Anahi, who manages to break the ice. When asked whether he has a family, he hesitates before saying 'no,' but then confesses he has a son whom he hasn't seen for eight years. Jacinta, who exudes quiet dignity throughout, abstains from prying further into his private life. The trio's newfound familiarity comes to an abrupt end when they arrive at Jacinta's cousin's house in Buenos Aires. While the slow pace and long takes won't be to everyone's liking, this is an assured debut from writer/director Pablo Giorgelli with nuanced performances from the main characters. Las Acacias (Argentina/Spain, 85min) will be screened at the London Film Festival on Monday, 17 October, at 18:00, and on Tuesday, 18 October, at 15:00. Go to the LFF website (http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff) for further details and to book.

Living in rhythm

Kristina Dryza — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 10:22:02 +0000

Oh my! Over a year since my last post. There really isn't a worthy explanation and I’m not even going to try. Let's just sweep it under the carpet like no time has passed and get on with the business of today. And what’s currently of interest to me is rhythm, which is in all creation, and what my future novel is about. ‘Grace and the Wind’ is a unique cross between young adult fiction and spiritual self-help literature. The protagonist is an outcast teenager who learns from an unusual spiritual guide, the Wind, how to synchronize with nature’s rhythms so she can flow through life and live in grace. When meeting people at parties and telling them I’ve written a book on rhythm, many literally sing back to me, “Hit me with your rhythm stick / Hit me slowly, hit me quick / Hit me! Hit me! Hit me!” I kid you not. I now stop them after the first “hit me,” explaining that if they carry on, I really will hit them. “Rhythm as in nature’s cycles,” I clarify. Glazed eyes. So in the interest of preventing awkwardness at any future social gatherings (on both sides) this – in an exceedingly schoolmarmish tone – is what I mean by rhythm. All of nature’s cycles have a wonderful way of reminding us of life’s bigger picture – that we’re not the ones personally bringing the sun up and down each day. Tidal, lunar, circadian and seasonal rhythms influence our lives in profound ways and it’s by cultivating our relationship with these rhythms – and aligning to their energy – that we enter a state of flow. (I won’t even contemplate explaining flow in this article!) Bringing total presence to each unique moment of time, we become a channel for grace (ditto describing grace – it’s for another time) to surge through our lives. When we’re in the ocean and experience the gravitational pull of the tide’s ebb and flow we feel the life force of something greater than ourselves. And just as the ocean isn’t afraid of its own waves, neither should we fear our own emotions as they come crashing onto the shores of our consciousness. We can’t physically stop the waves from rising, cresting and breaking, but that’s exactly what we do when we don’t allow our emotions to fully express themselves through us. If we feel out of balance (which is most of us, most of the time!) we should first connect to the wisdom of nature’s rhythms and the intelligence that lies therein. The ocean’s effortless ebb and flow teaches us to allow, not force. It reminds us that rhythm arises from alternation as one state smoothly transitions to the next. Life is not static, it’s transitional. We’re continually adjusting, fluctuating and oscillating as we experience simultaneous dissonance and harmony, and just like the ocean, we can encompass the equilibrium. In ancient times people counted time by the moon’s phases, not calendars. The moon’s cycles told them when to plant, harvest, hunt and gather. Because the moon’s gravitational force pulls on the ocean’s waters and since humans are mostly composed of water, our relationship to the moon is one of the most significant unions we’ll ever form. But does today’s average urban dweller even think to amalgamate their lives with the moon’s cycles? (Judging by my conversational experiences at the local pub, no.) Witnessing the moon’s contraction and expansion can help us escape our either/or thinking, reminding us that life is a process, that each phase is part of a wider whole. The ritual of self-reflection in tandem with each of the moon’s phases reminds us where we are in our own life’s journey and to not get too attached to one stage as another will soon appear. All things in nature exist in their own strength, bringing an irreplaceable vibration to the world as each element is in harmony with the moment. Unfortunately our constant exposure to artificial lighting and the multitude of lights emitted from our digital devices – let alone jet lag – means we’re not in sync with the rhythms of the rising and setting sun. Work or school tends to dictate our circadian rhythms (the roughly 24-hour cycle going on within our own bodies) more than nature. [This is where I now hit my stride as the poor person who innocently asked, “Rhythm? Do you mean like in music?” wishes they’d just kept their mouth shut.] It’s crucial to harmonize with the light-dark cycle, which is the inherited blueprint our body’s cells and organs follow. Our body is part of the universe, so while our heartbeat belongs to us, it also belongs to the heavens. The rhythmic rise and fall of our breath is the very essence of life itself. In bringing ourselves into line with the sun’s exultant path across the sky, we never witness it struggling to rise or set as it does so effortlessly. It’s a reminder for us to go about our days with equal ease. (The person at the receiving end of this lecture is by now hoping they can smoothly slip away to knock back a G and T or two!) By not integrating, referencing and living the movements of the cosmos, we miss the miracle of how each day comes to be and how quickly it vanishes like an apparition into the night sky. By being one with the seasons as they fleetingly make their way through us, we feel the abundance of the earth, its nourishment and wholesomeness. When eating seasonally we also notice everything else special about that time of year: what insects are buzzing about, which plants are blooming, the changes in the air (lots of nodding of heads here, especially by the foodies who worship asparagus season as the highlight of their year). It’s a particular point in time on the calendar that can’t be frozen; it must pass. By trying to capture the ephemeral we only diminish its beauty and imprison its legacy. Nature is continuously in a state of growth, decay and shape-shifting, like a wave that forms, breaks and disappears back into itself. All natural processes are cyclical, not linear, and these sequences aren’t something to conquer. Imposing our own timetable on a flower’s birth is impossible (no matter how much we may try!). When we can accept what is and surrender to a force greater than our own limited personalities, we become an unobstructed vessel for life to flow through us. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” (Only the very brave would now start singing, “Turn! Turn! Turn!”) Everything occurs at the exact moment it’s meant to so instead of striving and struggling to make things happen in our own lives, why can’t we – like nature – let moments run their course? Why can’t we trust that the deeper intelligence orchestrating the cosmos is also operating within us for our own greater good? To conclude, when living in rhythm we’re magnetic – we’ve plugged into the source of creation. Dwelling in the womb of nature, the artificial falls by the wayside and our sense of unity with the divine returns. It’s not enough to mentally understand this though; it needs to be known as a truth through direct experience. Begin by sensing nature’s aliveness, its pulsating energy, both in the earth and your body, and have faith that the current of life will carry you to wherever it needs. And if that’s too hard to trust in . . . well . . . just silently murmur to yourself, “Hit me with your rhythm stick / Hit me! Hit me!”

Vide review: Crazy, Stupid, Love – Too, Many, Commas

Joe West — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:19:59 +0000

Joe West examines Ryan Gosling's manhood for flaws in Crazy, Stupid, Love Follow on Twitter @joejwest

No Need to Hack Phones – We Stitch Ourselves up

Anna Blundy — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 17:25:43 +0000

Anyone who has ever written a feature for the Daily Mail knows what it feels like. You only have to read the features pages to understand that something strange is going on – lots of first person pieces all written in the same style, with the same vocabulary, the same mawkish self-revelatory nature and bizarre turn of phrase. Who are these people who all write exactly alike, suffer bereavements, mental health problems, addictions and family troubles, wear brightly-coloured dresses and too much make-up? Well, we are the unprincipled writers who will do almost anything for the money. The Mail is the only paper that still pays decent rates and so we email them, call them and go into the office to meet them, desperately hoping that our own first person trauma will take the commissioning editor’s fancy. I drink a lot! My dad died! I’ve had Botox! I noticed recently that The Mail was running lots of stories about female journalists going off to war though their children begged them not to. Reading these pieces, I can hear the Daily Mail commissioner sending the journalist’s first person copy back to her with the questions in bold: ‘PLEASE INSERT A LINE ABOUT HOW YOUR CHILDREN FEEL ABOUT YOUR JOB WHEN YOU LEAVE FOR A WAR. ARE THEY UPSET? HOW OLD ARE THEY? WHAT ARE THEIR NAMES? HOW DOES YOUR HUSBAND FEEL ABOUT IT ALL?’ (The gaze of the man is on all Daily Mail women, from the too-fat/too-thin celebrities to the ideal housewife in lavender, from dowdy politicians to sponging, single mothers). Then, in this strange and brainwashy way, the war correspondent, who wants the cash and has a book out, herself writes a tortuous Daily Mail sentence something like this: ‘When I left to cover the recent conflict in HellHole last week my children, Amy, 5, and Ben, 12, begged me not to go; my husband, Luke, is more sanguine.’ The Daily Mail commissioner will cut the word sanguine, replace it with the word ‘resigned’ and add a few other words that render the sentence meaningless – and perhaps even a cheeky little exclamation mark: ‘My long-suffering husband, Luke, is, thank goodness, rather more used to my peccadilloes!’ I knew all this, but I still quite wanted to write my piece. My own father was a war correspondent, killed on the job in El Salvador in 1989. I feel sad for the kids left behind by war correspondents, male and female, and I wanted to write about that from the perspective of an anxious child, watching the news, hoping their parent will come home safely. It seemed perfect – a story I actually wanted to write and some decent pay for a change. I emailed Femail at The Daily Mail. The idea was taken to conference and I got a quick reply - they wanted 1800 words focusing on my feelings when my father was away and my feelings now about war correspondents leaving their children. I wrote the piece, slightly embarrassed about having churned out yet another piece about my dad. His death has defined my whole life and I write about little else. The same picture, provided by myself, always gets used with the story (a lovely photo that his girlfriend, Shirley, took of me and dad in Greece in 1982) and I can hear my friends groan at reading the same old crap again (a few friends in particular). But, what the hell, I need the work and this was a slightly different point really – about life not being in the extremes of war and death, but in the boring bits in between, the bits you miss if you don’t show up. That’s what’s sad about leaving your kids behind for war – something I personally chose not to do when I had the very brief (and usually regretted) opportunity. A few days after filing I got my copy back with massive edits in block capitals throughout the text. ‘HOW DID YOU FEEL?’ ‘HOW DOES YOUR HUSBAND FEEL?’ The capitals were things the person working on my piece wanted me to add. However, the rest of the text had been heavily cut and rewritten, but the changes were unmarked. If I’d been in a hurry I could easily have missed them. Lines like; ‘I strongly disagree with Janine di Giovanni,’ (I don’t) and ‘That made me sit bolt upright’ (it didn’t) had been inserted. Bear in mind, this was an emotional first person piece, so to slip in first person additions about feelings this copy editor had obviously not had, and under my name, was distinctly odd. I mentioned this to her and she said, very sweetly, that these were only suggestions and I must, of course, write in my own voice. Fair enough, I thought. Oh, and I was instructed that the paper does not begin paragraphs with the letter ‘I’, even as the first letter of a longer word. The copy editor herself admitted that this was weird. So, I reworked the piece as requested, hardly noticing that instead of reworking the piece I had written myself, I was now reworking the someone else’s reworking - restructured, heavily cut and angled as an attack on women leaving their children for war. Don’t get me wrong – I hate to see people macho-ing off to have fun in the basement bar of a war -torn hotel, feeling at the centre of life and death, important, endangered, living for the moment…adrenalin addiction blah blah blah. But I’m only jealous really, and feel left behind even by people to whom I’m not remotely related. The attack on Janine di Giovanni (a friend and a brilliant journalist who can live her life exactly as she chooses, without any input from me, obviously) kept reappearing and I kept deleting it. I deleted it a few times too many and the piece I had thought hard about and cared very much about got spiked. I knew it had been spiked because, after a flurry of frantic emails back and forth as deadline approached, The Mail suddenly stopped replying to my messages about the piece. Eventually, still desperate to insert a line about Harry Evans making a speech at my father’s funeral about why journalism is worth dying for (oh, please), I received this: ‘Just to keep you in the loop, the piece is not in tomorrow's paper but will be relisted next week and beyond if need be. Do speak to X if you have any queries then.’ I emailed X about invoicing for a kill fee (since now it was as near explicit as they get that the article had been killed), but I got no reply. Over the past ten years or so it has become acceptable simply to ignore correspondence from journalists as a way of rejecting their pitches, or even, in my recent experience, as a painless way of sacking them from a regular slot after years of working together. It is hard even to feel properly upset about it, as it’s just the deal these days. Of course, the spike meant that I didn’t get to the next phase of feature writing for The Mail - being styled and photographed. There is a tacit understanding (whether true or false in actuality) that the editor of The Daily Mail doesn’t like women to appear on the pages of the paper wearing either trousers or dark colours. Last time I was styled for them someone came round with a rack of red and purple evening dresses and lots of matching satin shoes. Just have a look at the paper and you’ll see that this is something of a theme. Anyway, the whole experience was so depressing that I pitched this here article to a magazine I thought might like it. The editor sympathised with my experience and had, indeed, once shared it, however, they couldn’t take the Mail-bashing piece because it might start people complaining about their own editorial practices. She said The Mail quite often bought pieces from her magazine, tried to get the journalist to rewrite in weirdy Mail style and from weirdy Mail angle (ideally starting what they would probably call a ‘cat fight’) and then spiked them if ‘the writer wouldn’t play ball.’ I won’t drag anyone else in here, but I have lots of journalist friends who have been invited to stitch themselves up, expose themselves far beyond what they intended and make themselves look stupid in words and pictures all for a bit of book publicity and a few hundred quid. I am not denying that we do this to ourselves, but the process is designed to produce an article that we did not initially know we were writing. It is a very complex deception. I now know that what they wanted from me was a piece saying; ‘How dare Janine di Giovanni and Alex Crawford leave their poor children to go away to war. They are women and should stay at home with the children.’ That’s not the piece I intended to write but that would have been the essence of the headline. I am acutely aware that I will no longer be on the receiving end of that few hundred Associated Press quid and very welcome book publicity, but I have started to think that we shouldn’t do it and we shouldn’t keep quiet about it. Just because our phones aren’t being hacked, doesn’t mean we haven’t been exposed and embarrassed in the press – we do it to ourselves without quite allowing ourselves to notice. PS. I am 41, have just ‘penned’ another frivolous piece, am thinking of ‘stepping out’ in a new pair of shoes, worrying about ‘taking a tumble’, considering why I got sucked into ‘THAT’ correspondence and wondering; ‘Why the glum face, Mr Cameron?’ etc. etc. in Mail style ad nauseum.

We Know It and They Know It: It’s The Emperor’s New Clothes

Anna Blundy — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:52:45 +0000

We Know It and They Know It - It's The Emperor's New Clothes (A quick response to all your comments and messages – could probably do with a really good Daily Mail-style edit…) The response to a blog I wrote about writing for The Daily Mail has been astonishing. I have had hundreds of messages, mostly from journalists who have had similar experiences writing for The Mail and other papers and magazines. Predictably, there were a few ‘well, you are crap so what do you expect’ comments and one superb one, obviously from someone at The Mail disguising themselves as a real person, talking about the paper’s journalistic integrity, universal popularity and high standards of editorial precision. Brilliant! All very funny and, as I hope was clear in the original blog, the main point is that we all collude in the whole humiliating charade. We beg to be allowed to write about our crises, partly in the hope of reaching out to people, perhaps offering some solidarity, but mainly in the hope of raking in some cash for writing the piece as well as we can, as meaningfully as we can, within the format. I am the first to admit that if The Mail offered me a two hundred grand a year column I would suck it right on up. Anyone who says they wouldn’t is lying or already rich. They don’t use me much because they don’t like my writing. All fair. But there is another point here, and a rather bleaker one. I (and, yup, there’s a par beginning with an ‘I’) got one message from someone who has written a lot for The Mail. She said, simply: ‘I hate everything I write for them.’ Another said: 'Most of us has written for The Mail at some stage or another - I under pseudonym - and I don't suppose any of us is proud of it, but they pay so damn well.' I got at least twenty messages from women (and one man!) who had indeed written features for The Mail and been humiliated by the lurid headline and the embarrassing rewrite. A lot more from people who had been interviewed by them, not realising how they would appear in print. Okay, so, of course, The Daily Mail can be great fun (I love the heart-warming animal stories). It has a house style and invites only the kinds of features that sit well with the rest of its content. It has every right to demand whatever it likes of its contributors and to write whatever attention-grabbing headlines it desires. The depressing thing is that everyone involved in the features process on The Mail, and most of the other papers, from the commissioners to the writers, finds it ridiculous. Everyone knows it’s (largely misogynistic) bollocks, but as long as you don’t say so directly in the office or on the phone, you can still thrive. The editors are apologetic, the writers a bit cowed. We all of us get together and produce a piece, a product, that none of us really wants to read, that none of us, if we’re honest, would dream of reading. It’s a perfect piece of Soviet satire. Danil Kharms couldn’t have made it up. We all toil over something we know is meaningless but we are all to afraid to admit that it’s meaningless in case we get carted off to Siberia (or, in this case, get consigned to writing for free on the internet. Ha! That is a Russian laugh, ie. a bleak sort of despairing noise, a mockery of actual amusement). A friend of mine, a beautiful, intelligent woman, became a section editor on a Murdoch paper a few years ago. ‘I’m on the Tits Section,’ she said, knowing I would understand. Actually, I made up the section name myself years earlier when I seemed to write about little else, and there’s not even much of them to write about, God knows. She meant, clearly, that her pages of the paper would be full of blandly confessional stuff about how women can make themselves more attractive to men, better mothers and bigger consumers of the products these pages are actually put together to advertise. Someone on the Telegraph said to me recently; ‘We’d love to change that section completely but the advertisers won’t let us.’ Straightforward enough. Almost everyone who has ever commissioned me to write a feature has rolled their eyes and said; ‘Well, you know what The Times/The Mail/The Telegraph/The Guardian is like.’ What they mean is that they’d like to produce better journalism, but they are Mailifying in order to chase sales. That is, they are going for the lowest common denominator, spelling out the complexity of human existence, particularly female existence, in garish, infantalising colour. There is a simpler world where women suffer but have long hair and satin shoes. Maybe, the reader thinks, I am a bit like them…Maybe my difficult life is simpler than I think… But is this really what readers demand? Or, rather, would readers demand it if they knew that it was produced for them by people who themselves think it’s crap? It seems so patronising to the readers and so soul destroying for the people who have to churn it out (not just the writers). I (there I go again) am not knocking voyeuristic first person journalism itself. I know that a lot of people hate it but I am not one of them. My first ever piece was a G2 front for The Guardian about a million years ago. I’d been chatting about a Russian boyfriend I used to have and the G2 editor (Roger Alton – now at The Times and always brutally honest) asked me to do a piece. I loved writing about the romance and snow and…well…you get it. It didn’t get rewritten in the first person by someone who wasn’t me and, though I hated the headline (Married To The Mobski – I didn’t marry him and ‘ski’ is an adjectival ending etc. etc.), it felt like something worthwhile – a nice little read for someone on the tube. That kind of entertainment journalism is not for everyone, but it’s pretty innocent. However, it becomes a lot less innocent, basically seedy, if it isn’t really what the author wanted to say, is skewed into salaciousness and turned into something both homogeneous and fake (a horrendous combination). That has nothing to do with style guides – it is dishonest manipulation. Another message I got said; ‘Writing for The Times always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.’ This bad taste is experienced and accepted by the editors as well as the writers. The attitude is: ‘It’s what sells, so let’s swallow our pride, be slick and produce it well.’ Again, sort of fine. Newspapers are businesses and they’re all just trying to boost sales. It’s just that I don’t think many of their readers really know how it’s done. A former magazine editor said to me this week: ‘Hacking phones? I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. We all used to hack phones back then!’ If you had someone’s mobile number, you dialled it, put in the answering service code and got their messages. Apparently, hacks used to sit around restaurant tables doing it to their friends and any celebrities whose numbers they had - just for fun. So, back to the essential point, which is that you don’t have to hack people’s phones to stitch them up. You just have to tell someone what to do and give them enough money to ensure that they’ll swallow the bad taste, shut their eyes to the subtle deception and get on with it. And, hell, there are plenty of us out there willing, no, clamouring to take part (though my own chances are diminishing somewhat….).

Gears Of War 3: A Review

Richard Preston — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:42:44 +0000

I love a good cliché. Don’t you? The way a whole subject or personality is summed up one easy-to-notice bite and damages everything it was trying so hard to cultivate in its own style.

Things like grumpy commuters, Hollywood hot-shots like Charlie Sheen or moaning about not having the heart to dump someone even though you’re not that into them anymore. So cute.

Then there’s Gears Of War 3. This ‘blockbuster release’ is the third instalment of an Xbox exclusive, third person shooter series, set on a planet where insect-like aliens commit genocide against Humanity.

You take control of the hulking, great big muscle-men (and women) of the army you’re rooting for, or ‘Gears’ as they’re known. They quip and blast their way through hours and hours of storyline while guts explode, rockets explode and, ok, everything explodes.

Yup, it’s a video game cliché; probably the biggest I’ve ever played. When I picked Halo as my go-to no-brainer console shooter of choice, I expected I’d picked one of the beefier-plotted, hard-man character, drab-coloured shooty games out there. Turns out I’d picked the colourful, subtle, well-acted game with the engaging plot.

Since it’s the third in the series, and eagerly awaited at that (though by whom, I wonder. 15-year-old boys spring to a mind struggling to comprehend how a game like Gears garners any critical success at all) the plot of Gears Of War 3 is quite complicated.

Which is a shame as the plot is pretty compelling especially for those who’ve become loyal, passionate fans of the Gears Of War brand and its universe (see comments below), it’s just the dialogue that stinks. Though, as it turns out, playing the first two games is a pre-requisite for believing the Gears Trilogy is the greatest first-person video game story ever written. It isn’t, no. See Bioshock for that.

Well, here’s a Gears 3 summery; Fenix, the main muscle-man, is in jail. Then he isn’t. The planet he and his team are on is over run by aliens, or two different types of alien, and the humans are surviving like scavengers, hiding out on a massive floating war base (or ‘boat’). Then Fenix’s dad is still alive (who knew!) and he’s a top scientist and then the ex-President shows up like he didn’t run away at the first sign of trouble, years ago. Then he dies. In short: it’s bad. Humanity is on its knees and the death toll is extravagant; it’s a dark time. Not that the Gears give a shit, oh no.

They prattle through Humanity’s final mission to save itself with Die Hard-like comebacks and breeze through the barren landscapes, littered with death and bodies, joking away like they’re somehow aware it’s all just a video game and, no matter how bad it gets, take comfort knowing you can switch the Xbox off and have a nice cup of tea whenever you like. Or maybe it’s brilliantly witty dialogue. Nah, it’s not that. Really, it’s not that.

Epic, the makers of the Gears Of War series have excelled in one slightly unnoticeable place, though. The controls are seamless. Really, playing Gears Of War 3 is fluid and borderline enjoyable, if the plot, design and colour pallet didn’t get in the way.

Running to cover, picking off aliens, reloading and running to the next cover point is brilliantly executed. Three games in, however, and that’s pretty much what people expect. As someone else pointed out; video games mature and ripen with sequels, films rot (generally speaking).

Then there’s the multiplayer. This is top-notch too. The Gears series always excelled in multiplayer gaming with many different game modes, upgrades and compelling play – even if the delicately engineered ‘cover and shoot’ mechanics are chucked away in favour of blasting your foe till death. And repeat.

Gears Of War 3 expands on all this fun, however, with effortless integration of online modes, more options within the modes and a plethora of co-op options. Nerdy, endlessly good stuff.

The opposite of this, though, is Gears Of War 3 having game modes greyed out while it waits for the right time to release them as downloadable content (DLC). This feels like a slight punch in the neck, to be honest. The cherry on that would be, I dunno, dozens upon dozens of useless funky patterns to cover your guns or muscle-men in, costing dozens upon dozens of pounds. Bad DLC management, Epic. Bad.

Worse of all, though, is the cliché Gears Of War 3 perpetrates. This could be a Duke Nukem-style game; deliberately exaggerating gaming’s biggest clichés – like hulking men, pithy dialogue, endless bloodshed, wise-cracking ballsy women you only find in games like this – to celebrate a withering genre of shooter. But, it just isn’t. All the Gears Of War titles are this obvious. The game HAD to be like this.

Gaming is a platform of infinite ideas and at a time when cost and trends push games into the same narrow genres, with Gears Of War 3, Epic does nothing more than cement the baggage its more innovative peers struggle to drop.

Video Review: Killer Elite – Brown Bread in the water

Joe West — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:24:11 +0000

Joe West squares up to Jason Statham in Killer Elite Follow on Twitter @joejwest

Doctor Who Series 6, Episode 12 – Closing Time: A Review

Mark Davison — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:22:29 +0000

No, I'm still not keen on James Corden, although I have changed my reasons as to why; in my review for his episode last year, I claimed that it was because of his propensity for fat and gay jokes, during Closing Time, I realised that he only has two expressions – either wildly exclamatory or self-pitying whine – neither of which are much fun to watch. But despite that, and the unfortunate underuse of Daisy Haggard, Closing Time was a very enjoyable episode. The setting did allow for some fun characters and jokes – such as the very 'chavvy' shop assistant being subdued by the Doctor's shushing trick (although I expect that it was described as only working on lower life forms means that somebody will have complained to the BBC about class prejudice) – but, more importantly, the simplicity of the set-up (the very first episode of the new Who, Rose, being fairly similar) meant that there was some room to play around. There were quite a lot of nice little callbacks and meta jokes, such as the Doctor, when working in the toy department, comparing Yappy the robot dog to K9; the callback to the last episode of the first half of this series in which the Doctor made the rather spurious claim that he could 'speak baby'; the cheap, but still amusing, 'got an app for that' gag; or the confusion over Craig being a 'partner' or a 'companion' - yet another Who gay joke, and although I do somewhat sympathise with those who think that it's getting laid on a bit thick now, it's nice that the show continues to acknowledge its sizeable gay fanbase as there are an awful lot of them out there after all (incidentally has anybody worked out why this is the case? I have my own theories as to the Doctor providing a safe, supportive substitute father figure in childhood, but I've not given much thought to the subject). Other than James Corden, there were aspects that I had problems with, namely the Cyberman creation process (I didn't actually have much of a problem with the Cybermen themselves this time, which might be a first for the new Who), as it was a much more clean, painless affair than the horrifyingly bloody version we saw in series 2. Although of course, I seem to recall that they didn't show it in much detail back then, and besides, if it had been quite so drastic, it would have meant that Craig would have come to a sticky end without finding out that he was a devoted dad after all. Which would have been a bit of downer for Saturday night viewing, even for people like me who hate James Corden. I wasn't overly sure about the Amy and Rory cameo, although I'm not going to go so far as to claim that the episode would have been better of without it in, as it did, in a way, provide further evidence of Amy being the most interesting companion in the new Who – where Rose would have spent her time away from the Doctor moping around and Martha and Donna would have loudly insisted they didn't care while going on with their boring mundane lives, at least Amy took some initiative (was the 'girl who's tired of waiting' tagline on the poster just a little in-joke, or was it another case of her trying to get the Doctor's attention?) I also didn't care for the moment where the Doctor gave an inspiring speech to the loveable urchins before flying off to his death – I know that it was his way of getting River's attention, but it just reminded me of the horribly saccharine final moments of David Tennant's Doctor. Actually, I'm still not sure why the Doctor had to go to his death (or rather, what he believes to be his death as we all know that he'll be fine) at that moment, but then that's the problem with a time-travelling drama, it's very hard to actually keep characters within the traditional cause-and-effect cycle, and so very flimsy rules have to be introduced to try and keep this in check. But it does lead very neatly into the final episode of the series. How they're going to fit it all in, I have no idea, but it's going to be fun finding out.

Video Review: Drive – Silent but Violent

Joe West — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:21:53 +0000

Joe West enthuses about Ryan Gosling's latest movie Drive Follow on Twitter @joejwest

Video Review: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – Pass me the Soviets

Joe West — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:03:10 +0000

Joe West hides behind some 1970s curtains, peeking out at Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Follow on Twitter @joejwest

Showboaters – Reaching for the Dream

Uprising — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 09:22:01 +0000

Showboaters is a new eight-part reality TV programme filmed onboard a cruise ship, which sees 10 amateur entertainers battle it out to win The Grand Prize; a contract to perform as part of the theatre show team onboard Thomson Dream, in the Caribbean! I caught up with Benjamin Johnson, a singer/songwriter from Northampton and one of the contestants on the show hoping for the grand prize... How did you get into singing and songwriting? I pretty much sang before I spoke. At 4 years old I was singing 'Love Changes Everything' by Michael Ball on camera...scary times. My first songwriting experience though was when I was about 5 years old, during a storm, called 'Thunder and Lightning'. Creative eh?! Haha. Do you come from a musical family? My mum's side of the family are all very artistic and creative within music and the arts. My nan was an actress, as well as my mum as a Musical Theatre artist, and my aunty took the rock and roll route with a touring band. My late great uncle also owns a performing arts school on the outskirts of London, and I always wanted to be part of that from point one. Is there anyone who inspires/ influences you? Who? Why? The people that inspire me are the people that succeed. No matter what it is, if someone accomplishes a goal, it inspires me. Musicians that inspire me vary from all genres. I have a lot of respect for Beyonce who has made the woman she is today by using her own voice and talent, rather than being some pop puppet. My friends in every day life inspire me, and drive me, as does listening to a random song on a radio. It is amazing what the smallest thing can do to make you driven or open your eyes. You recently appeared on sky one's Showboaters. What made you want to appear on the show? I wanted to appear on the show because the show offered people the chance to sing, move, create, and live a fantastic journey. All the things that I have been striving for for years. Some people hate reality TV contestants and see it as an easy way in, but there is no easy way, and if you want to find your way 'in' at all, you have got to take every opportunity as if it is your first and last. That is why, I took on the challenge and opportunity. Tell us a little about it. So from November last year, the auditions started, and these went on through to February 2011. Ten final contestants boarded a cruise ship, and we set sail across the Caribbean. Each week, we would be put into rival teams and go through a series of challenges, including a weekly production show for the crew and passengers. Whichever team was voted the least favourite, two members from that team would then fly home the following day. Rather intense. Was it what you expected? I went into it expecting nothing. I went into it to run away from what was going on around me at the time. It was an excuse to run away from things and focus on what makes me happy; music. The experience was very intense however, and so were some people, and that is something you've got to expect after seeing some of the people on other random reality shows. I don’t regret it though, as it has made me more driven to get my music and voice heard, and I got killer experience from it, and a tan! What were your favourite bits from the show? My favourite bits of the shows were the big production performances of course! I mean, we are talking big staging, costumes, lights, the works. Every time I would be standing there on that stage singing to 800+ people, I would be thinking 'Yes...this is where I want to be!' And the worst? There always has to be dramas in showbiz. That's all I am saying haha. Whats next for Benjamin Johnson? I am currently working on new material, recording, producing, and just trying to get heard. It is very hard, and so many people are doing the same thing, but you’ve just got to try don’t you? I love doing it, and I do not see any reason to stop yet. I just hope that one day soon, I will be performing my music, rather than pouring pints! Showboaters will be on air on Sky 1 from Tuesday 13th September. Benjamin Johnson in photo above styled by Sandy Samra (http://sandysamra.tumblr.com/) and photography by Laimonas (http://www.laimonas.co.uk/)

Super Supple Skin

Laia Farran Graves — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 08:51:24 +0000

For great skin all over check out Viridian's brand new Organic Ultimate Beauty Skin Repair Topical Oil. The blend of organically-sourced oils and plants combine to provide an effective topical oil to help soothe dryness, combat weathered, aged and damaged skin and improve the appearance of stretch marks and uneven skin tone. And – for the boys out there – it can also be used as a shaving oil. It's slightly scented with heavenly Lavander and other ingredients, including Rosehip seed oil, Jojoba oil, Sunflower seed oil, Borage, Vitamin E, Vitamin A and Calendula. Use it twice a day in your body, face or hands. It's worth noting that this product is made of 100% active ingredients (you can even use it if you are pregnant!) so you won’t find any nasty additives, fillers, artificial flavours, colourings, binders or coatings in it. Pump-action 100ml bottle: £15.15, available from all good independent health stores nationwide. www.viridian-nutrition.com

Video Review: Fright Night 3D – Fangs for the Mammaries

Joe West — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 08:45:47 +0000

Joe West is literally impressed with Fright Night 3D Follow on Twitter @joejwest

Video Review: Cowboys & Aliens – Sith and Wesson

Joe West — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 08:45:01 +0000

Joe West pulls over the spittoon in preparation to tackle Cowboys & Aliens Follow on Twitter @joejwest

Doctor Who Series 6, Episode 9 – Night Terrors: A Review

Mark Davison — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 08:37:52 +0000

I went into this episode with decidedly mixed feelings – the new Who hasn't had the best track records when it comes to modern day domestic drama (remember Fear Her? And I'm not looking forward to the upcoming follow-up to last year's The Lodger), but I quite like Mark Gatiss, even if he was responsible for last year's Daleks-by-numbers episode. The line-up of guest actors didn't really inspire confidence either - I have a rather irrational dislike for Daniel Mays (or it might be rational, as he always seems to be his same annoying self, including here – although to be fair he wasn't playing an outright 'geezer'), but on the other hand I quite like Emma Cunniffe (shame she was barely in it). I was probably right to be wary as I found the episode really quite annoying. Mainly because it revolved mostly around an eight-year old boy hyperventilating. After Let's Kill Hitler's manic plot, this week seemed rather lacking, although it does make it mercifully easier to write about . And some of the lines of dialogue really didn't ring true at all – particularly the exchange between Mays' Alex and the cartoonishly evil landlord (I had no problem with his dog though). Other than the obvious Fear Her comparison (and, it must be said, this episode never approached the awfulness of that one), I was reminded of Moffat's magnificent The Girl in the Fireplace, or at least the opening of it where clockwork robots invaded the future Madame de Pompadour's bedroom (the bizarre wooden doll monsters were even dressed for roughly the same period). And the old lady being sucked into the bin bags was rather like what happened to Mickey back in the first episode of the Who revival. Was the evil Dollhouse setting where the climax of the episode happened original though? I can't think of any similar settings in past Who adventures off the top of my head, but it does feel like something that would have been used at some point – perhaps in a Patrick Troughton story. To be positive about the episode, I liked the setting – Doctor Who may have already done the council estate thing with Rose's storyline, but this block seemed to be much more imposing and menacing - and although the decor was rather too retro (had they just unearthed the Nelson Mandela House set from Only Fools and Horses?), the subdued lighting rather suited Matt Smith's mug (yes, weird thing to notice, which might suggest the bulk of the episode wasn't good enough to hold my attention – I also found myself a bit distracted by some of the editing as it's not often that you see 'wipes' used in Who). There were a few funny lines here and there too, which were much appreciated, in particular the woman's bending the Doctor's ear over the state of the bins (that most British of complaints), and Rory's conviction that he was dead 'again'. But it was a bit of a poor show really, and, judging by the action heavy trailer for next week's episode, I don't have particularly high hopes for that one either.

Doctor Who Series 6, Episode 8 – Let’s Kill Hitler: A Review

Mark Davison — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 08:36:44 +0000

This mid-season break has really thrown off my timing, hence the lateness of this review (in my defense I'm not one of those 'legitimate' TV critics who get to watch and write about this stuff in advance, I wish I was though as it would mean that I'd be getting paid for coming up with this nonsense). Although it did provide me with the opportunity to blog about a series that turned out to be a massive waste of time, and catch a few episodes of the new run of Torchwood, which proved to be a handy reminder of Russell T. Davies' worst traits when he was in charge of Doctor Who. Compare Miracle Day's over-serious take on ridiculous characters and subject matter and its stretching things out much further than they should go with Steven Moffat's run on Who which has, in many ways, the complete opposite approach, in particular his tendency to squeeze about three episode's worth of story into each one. Don't get me wrong, I did love Davies' take on the show when it started, but it did get very dreary towards the end, and am still finding the mad inventiveness of Moffat's Who quite refreshing (I expect Moffat didn't have his own sci-fi show before this as TV commissioners took his complicated plot-lines for the ramblings of a mad-man). And Let's Kill Hitler was a very Moffat episode - whirlwind to the point of exhausting, but so stuffed full of events and one-liners that even when one fell flat, there was another one along in a minute. So much so that I had to watch it twice before even starting on this review, and I still feel like I should have given it another run-through, but there's not really enough time, so feel free to mention your favourite bits, or the worst bits, that I've inevitably forgotten about, in the comments section The sheer energy of the episode did help though as it could have been controversial if it had taken itself a bit more seriously – mainly the Third Reich setting (I liked River's 'I was just on my way to a gay gypsy bar mitzvah for the disabled' line), and the use of Hitler as a villain (I liked the fact that it turned out he was mainly included to provide a ridiculous title rather than do much – I think we've all had our fill of dramas featuring him for a while). I would have thought that the Doctor's 'You big ginge' insult would have drawn a few complaints, but apparently the only one the press dug up was something about one of the German lines apparently sounding like 'fuck', which I didn't notice either time I watched the episode. Of course it was also a very River Song episode (despite the name, I actually didn't twig instantly that Mel was in fact Melody/River) which is, in my opinion, a very good thing – I've spotted some sniffy comments about the character and Moffat's fondness for her here and there but I'm still enjoying both her character and Alex Kingston's obvious enthusiasm for a playing a kick-arse role. In fact I'd gladly watch her own spin-off series if there was one, even though we know the most important parts of her story now – we've now covered how it starts and how it ends, so there should only be a few key details to be filled in (in particular does she marry/kill the Doctor?) which I expect will happen by the end of this season (I expect the rather clumsy reminder about her being the little girl in spacesuit in the opening double bill – 'the last time I did this I was a girl in New York' – was Moffat attempting to draw us along that line of thinking again, as was the more obvious questioning from Amy at the end of the episode about why the future River was locked up at the end of the episode, it's not going to be that obvious though, surely?). Either way, it's been fascinating to see the progression of the character, from a guest role in season four, to this. You do wonder if it's all been planned by Moffat since introducing her in the Silence in the Library, but while he obviously had a basic idea of who/what she was before taking over as showrunner, I expect he's only been filling in the details as he's been going along – otherwise Mel would have featured in an earlier episode. On a related note, there was a lot of speculation as to whether Amy and Rory would leave at the end of this season to take care of their daughter, but will this be ruled out now - as they only became a couple thanks to the influence of the older version of their daughter, wouldn't it be too much of a paradox to have them then go back and rescue her as a baby/young girl? I'm hoping that Moffat isn't going to do what Davies never had the courage to and actually kill a companion (or two) off – yes, it should happen sometime, but I'd rather it didn't have to happen with the still very enjoyable Amy and Rory. I can see it happening in a few weeks though, and am kind of dreading the thought of it.

Madelson: The Real PM? DVD Review

Joe West — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:30:15 +0000

Peter Mandelson drifts around like a bespectacled apparition, as sinister when licking yoghurt from his tie as his is when berating the then Shadow Chancellor George Osborne after the first televised leaders’ debate during the 2010 election campaign. Mandelson: The Real PM? is a documentary which attempts to expose the man behind the death mask. It is an often compelling, entirely partisan piece of work which charts almost 10 months in the life of arguably the most powerful man in British politics at the time, and while its motives are blatant and its aims ambitious and unachieved, it is essential viewing for anyone who has an interest in the mechanisms of power which govern our lives. The film delves briefly into Mandelson’s backstory, exploring his twin dismissals from government, his rivalry with Gordon Brown, his return to the thick of it and his management of the Labour campaign during the general elections last year. But all of this is ultimately peripheral to what is essentially a close study of an odd, ambitious man, his exterior mildness hiding an eloquent cruelty of wit within. Mandelson is shown to relish attacking rivals with barbed phrases delivered flippantly. He constantly belittles Osborne, Cameron and Brown both in public forums backed up by braying cronies and in the relative intimacy of the interviewee’s chair. He is shown to be almost immune to exhaustion, quietly vain and particular about his appearance and also a formidable multitasker. He is also portrayed as being reliant on human contact and is happy to admit that he cannot imagine slowing the pace of his working life or ever stepping out of the spotlight. The ominous keys and strings which fill the film’s sound track are a little ham-fisted, but filmmaker Hannah Rothschild does a good job of mingling news clips, talking heads, straight up interviews and fly-on-the-wall sessions to give a comprehensive look at Mandelson’s world. The extra features on the DVD amount to a few extended interview clips in which he opines about what it takes to be a politician, what he thinks of journalists and where the Tories can shove it. If you can get over how much he looks like the Demon Headmaster then Mandelson: The Real PM? is worth catching. Particularly as BBC4, the channel upon which it originally aired, looks set to get the chop and it might never see the light of day on TV again. Follow on Twitter @joejwest

The Hour – Episode 6: A Review

Mark Davison — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:08:42 +0000

I think this whole series can be summed up with one word – actually not even a word in fact, but rather a mere sound, and that sound is 'meh'. Despite having an impeccable cast, and being handsomely filmed and designed (the anachronisms in the script have been written about in far more depth by people more knowledgable of the period than me, but the accounts of the details the production designers brought in to evoke the era are very impressive), and occasionally threatening to get quite good, The Hour very much ended on a damp squib. I'm really not sure where to start on picking apart this final episode (whether this will be the absolute final episode remains to be seen however - the Guardian reported earlier in the week that Morgan is working on scripts for series 2 but, I would still be surprised if it was renewed judging by the reaction this series had), there seemed to be so many things wrong with it. Although, admittedly, there's also the small matter of the fact that I got bored and nodded off at the halfway point of the episode so things that were already hopelessly muddled and nonsensical were made even more so – I did think that I should probably go back and watch those ten minutes before writing this review, but despite having sat through the previous five episodes, I really couldn't be bothered, which says it all really. Perhaps the most pointless thing in the episode, and in fact the series as a whole, was Issac. Not only was there a fair amount of chatter at the start of the episode about his satirical sketch that had somehow ended up in the broadcast, due to there being, as Bel pointed out, a lack of useable footage for any of the week's top news stories, but there was also his burgeoining romance with the equally pointless, and irritating, secretary Sissy (her complaining to Bel after the demise of the show that she couldn't bear to go back to the mailroom was both irritating and inappropriate). When a series gives more screen-time to two such weak characters than its greatest asset - Anna Chancellor's Lix - there's something very wrong with it. As for the most perplexing thing about this episode, I'm not sure I could pin it down. Was it the heartfelt speech from Lord Elms at how concerned he was about disappointing the young Freddie when he took him in as an evacuee, or Bel's continuing career in television production. It's a shame that after being so incredible in the Crimson Petal and the White, Romola Garai was stuck with such a wet role here - her comeback to Hector's 'I love you' was nicely sharp (even though I could have done without the return of the jazzy sax in their scenes) but the rest, not so much. For a start it's kind of unbelievable that she would be able to leave a massive gap in the schedule of the live show she was producing for some mysterious last-minute story from Freddie and when she started going on about the job being the thing she had been waiting for her whole life – despite being 28 (I'm still not sure if a 28 year old woman would be able to produce a news show in the BBC of the 1950s), I kind of wanted to slap her in the face. Instead she got the cliched appreciative slow-clap to commend her bravery from her crew at the end of the broadcast (which wasn't as sickening as Hector describing Freddie as 'a hero'). The most obvious candidate for the most credibility-stretching moment though was the reveal as Clarence as a Soviet spy, which was hard to swallow as it necessitated both a serious jump to conclusions from Freddie and a whole ream of expository dialogue (it would've made more sense if Lix had been the spy, and I was sort of expecting that to be the case – although I suppose Morgan wanted to keep her on in case there is a second run). It also meant that the series ended on a complete anti-climax - not only was it unclear if Bel's firing still stood but absolutely nothing happened with Clarence after his ridiculously long speech, which felt like a bit of a slap in the face after sitting through six hours of this stuff. There were a few moments that struck a chord with issues in the BBC and British society today, particularly Bel's aspirations to provide balanced journalism – still a stick that the BBC news-output is beaten with today, but it really just wasn't enough to raise any more than fleeting interest. But never mind, Doctor Who's back this weekend, and I have a feeling that those recaps will be a lot more enjoyable.

The Hour – Episode 5: A Review

Mark Davison — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:04:48 +0000

I suppose at least last week’s backwards step of an episode at least meant that The Hour was going somewhere – even if it was in the wrong direction – this week’s was just static. Quite literally in places as there was an awful lot of watching people watching TV (if the Mad Men comparison can be invoked again that’s something that that show did much better, possibly because the characters are a lot warmer and more likeable, which is not something that you normally can say about Mad Men). Being the penultimate episode, we were given an answer, or at least a half answer, as to who was at the heart of the conspiracy (pretty much everyone), and who Brightstone was (it being a Russian codeword for young, well-connected Brits who might make good spies, so once again pretty much everyone). It wasn’t the most satisfying of reveals, but with one episode left there’s still time to turn it around, and, to give the show some credit, it was an interesting development having the very Russian Kish on the side of the British, while the very British Professor Darrall was recruiting for the Russians. Otherwise... Bel and Hector’s affair was uncovered, which was hardly surprising as they weren’t being particularly discrete (the first scene of the episode in fact being Freddie pretty much walking in on them, although Freddie being as self-absorbed as he is, he didn’t really notice) and Ben Whishaw looking alarmingly like my gran when Hector, to avoid the ever-present MI6 agents, disguised him with the aid of a woman’s scarf that had been conveniently left behind in the studio (it did get them past the agents outside though, so it’s fair to say that MI6 didn’t have their best men on the job). And that was about it – it being a rather slow paced episode of an already glacially slow series. But something should happen next week, it’s the last episode - it has to.

The Mormons are finally coming to London

Richard Preston — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 08:38:49 +0000

So, there’s this musical that’s taken New York and Broadway by storm. It’s about Mormons and it’s probably the most hilarious, cutting, well-observed piece of stage performance you haven’t seen.

Now, finally, The Book Of Mormon is coming to the West End, I’ve been told.

Written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park and Team America fame, along with Robert Lopez of Avenue Q, The Book Of Mormon has been storming my iTunes for weeks now. It tells the story of two young Mormons, fresh out of Mormon school, ready to change the world with their eager, happy ways. However, instead of being sent somewhere lovely and sunny, like Florida, they’re sent to Uganda where they’re confronted with famine, female circumcision and AIDS.

To the likes of me, the 30-something, South Park-loving, Parker and Stone aficionados, The Book Of Mormon has been an eagerly awaited masterpiece long before it scooped up multiple Tonys, and numerous other awards.

Parker and Stone have been writing brilliant satire for years, though lost on those of you who dismiss South Park as simply puerile toilet humour. To me, and other South Park fans, their song writing skills had never been in question, their script-writing genius unparalleled. Just check out South Park The Movie’s Blame Canada, which was nominated for an Oscar, It's Easy M'kay or Team America’s montage song.

The Book Of Mormon is the platform which is opening the eyes of millions to the pair’s talents. It’s been a long time coming and I couldn’t be happier or more excited.

Waiting for it to come to the West End, though, is a tough one. I’ve been told by a friend who knows a guy who knows a guy that the show will be hitting London in January. I wish I could tell you more than that but, at this stage, I cant. Plus, you still don't know why Book Of Mormon is such a big deal.

Maybe it’s because the humour that’s been tickling me for years is finally becoming accepted or maybe it’s because musical theatre really needed a kick in the funny bone like this.

Avenue Q aside, the musical theatre genre, from this grumpy media-twat’s point of view, has been nothing but a slew of re-hashes, movie remakes and band homages.

Also, bear in mind South Park’s solid history of pissing people off. From Scientology, where Tom Cruise wouldn’t come out the closet, to toying with the fear of depicting the Prophet Mohammed or the episode where Cartman, in an effort to get back at a school bully, feeds the bully the remains of his own parents, South Park can be very controversial.

So, what of the Book Of Mormon? Well, yes, it’s controversial but it’s also very warming. The Mormon Church has said it doesn’t mind the show and, indeed, helps enforce their follower’s faith. That’s great, but as Matt Stone himself said, ‘If you’re going to pick on a religion the safest bet is probably the Mormons. They’re such a happy bunch’.

Now we wait. We wait for official word on The Book Of Mormon coming to the UK and we wait for the hype machine to kick in and the talk show interviews and the bus posters and the word-of-mouth. However, when you DO finally hear about it, book tickets straight away. DO NOT WAIT.

In the meantime, I’d like to leave you with words from The Book Of Mormon musical itself; “Hasa Diga Eebowai”.

Review: The Devil’s Double – Skin Deep

Mark Davison — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 09:27:34 +0000

It’s hard to work out what the most ludicrous thing about The Devil’s Double is. It might be that Hollywood has decided to turn a particularly unpleasant part of Iraq’s recent history into an action spectacular, that Lee Tamahori got the gig to direct despite having a career filled with (far) more downs than ups, or his slightly dubious decision to cast the very English Dominic Cooper as not one but two Iraqis (and if that wasn’t enough, there’s also the presence of the very French Ludivine Saignier). Sadly, the plot is so ludicrous that it’s unfortunately true (in part at least), it being based on the book by Latif Yahia about his experiences as an unwilling double for Uday Hussein, the horrifically sadistic elder son of Saddam. It’s a fascinating story, shame about the film though. Cooper clearly threw himself into the hard work of portraying both Latif and Uday but unfortunately it’s pretty much impossible to work out if he did a good job or not. Neither character is given the time to be fleshed out – Uday merely being manic energy, bad teeth and high-pitched voice and Latif’s sole character trait being that he tends to sweep his hair back. Despite what the trailer would have you believe, there are no attempts to explore what being forced to extinguish your identity does to a person. The Devil’s Double is also incredibly gruesome, perhaps excessively so. It could be argued that as the acts committed by Saddam’s regime were so horrific if they are going to be shown on film they should look as repellent as possible, but in actuality, much of it just comes across as puerile – Tamahouri is unable to resist leering over the gore and tits on display and the slow-mo gun battles look cheap and tacky. It’s not a surprise that the positive quote on the poster comes from Loaded magazine - Uday’s sharp clothes and prodigious cocaine consumption strongly resemble the central character of that mag’s pinnacle of filmmaking, Scarface’s Tony Montana, and the film barely has any more emotional maturity than that grotesque celebration of excess. The story is interesting enough to ensure that the film could never be a complete waste of time, and there’s a lot of incidental detail to stimulate the interest such as the exoticism of the settings and the music (and conversely the familiarity of some of it – the pleasantly nostalgic likes of Dead or Alive and Frankie Goes to Hollywood often playing at the clubs that Uday’s sizeable entourage hangs out at). But when everything from the casting to character motivations is inconsistent, it mostly just comes across as a missed opportunity.

The Hour, Episode 4 – A Review

Mark Davison — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 09:26:00 +0000

Oh dear. After last week’s surprisingly gripping episode, it all took a step backwards again this time. Not that it isn't all impeccably made drama, but it feels like the impeccably made drama from about three different shows all bolted together. There were some very weird lurches in tone this week - going from Freddie essentially interrogating Tish's widow (Jessica Hynes - always a pleasure to see) to the 'comedy' secretary fussing over Freddie's birthday cake in the next scene. Just about the only point where these strands came together in a satisfying way, for me, was when questioned about his experiences of MI6 Hector, in his nice-but-dim way, recalled the recruiter who took an interest in him at University being a 'frightfully nice chap'. I'm not convinced that, this late into the series, that the shady goings on will have a satisfying conclusion - I can't think of any of the characters already introduced being an exciting candidate for 'Brightstone' and/or responsible for Ruth's death. That being said, I don't have a clue as to who it could be - everybody seems to be shifty and untrustworthy, which resulted in some odd scenes, and even odder line readings - in particular the scene where Freddie confronted Ruth's mother. It was interesting, and Juliet Stevenson's always reliable, but I did start having unpleasant flashbacks to Fiona Shaw's OTT performance in The Black Dahlia - hopefully, if Stevenson's revealed to be at the centre of this conspiracy she won't have the opportunity to have a full-on meltdown. The inner workings of TV (and its relationship to politics - it's quite amazing seeing how much a thick pair of glasses and a different hair-do changes Julian Rhind-Tutt from his usual dashing self to the pig-like government minister) continues to be the more interesting strand, despite the unconvincing comedy characters. Perhaps because it's the easiest section to link to today - this week's oddly coincidental timing came from their discussion on how to cover uprisings in Hungary - straight afterwards you could flick over to BBC1 and see how the news currently covers such subjects (of course, that's not to say that Britain's recent riots had much in common with the anti-Soviet demonstrations in the mid-50s). It might also be because I'm a nerd and interested in the workings of TV broadcasting at the time, although I am surprised that Freddie still has a career as he barely seems to do any work, just occasionally wandering in to disrupt broadcasts. And I could do with them cutting down a bit on pointing out how sickeningly young the characters are - it's making me feel a bit old and washed up. Which might explain why the only character I've really taken a shine to is Anna Chancellor's, well that and her waspish sense of humour and flamboyant attitude (I particularly liked her line to Freddie, 'come on dear boy, a glorious woman is taking you away'). Two more episodes to go then. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all ties together, even though I'm prepared for it to being disjointed and unsatisfying (like every other episode except the last one).

Britain’s Streets Ruled By Thugs

Uprising — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 11:00:09 +0000

London’s burning and Birmingham has fallen into mayhem. There is anarchy in the UK and arson attacks on the streets; what is happening to our cities in Britain? On Saturday August 6th, a peaceful protest turned into a war zone with hell-bent riots where businesses such as Currys, Comet, Poundstretcher and JD Sport were all ransacked and looted. On the following Monday, two girls who took part in more riots in Croydon boasted to the BBC World Service they ‘were showing the police and the rich that we can do what we want’. Is this the mentality of the youth of today? Many buildings have been burnt down, such as a carpet shop in Croydon, one which provided a service for over 100 years was left to burn with no police or fire service present. A listed building dating back to the 1930s was burnt to the ground in Tottenham Hale as well as a Sony warehouse in Enfield. It’s London destroyed by thugs. Other TV and Internet images appeared through the week, such as a woman calmly walking across the street with a shopping basket full of stuff she’s just looted, as if she was in a supermarket. Kids as young as 8 were acting as look-outs for their thuggish order siblings, parents actually collecting their darling offspring in car parks, in their people carriers, knowing they’d just looted a store and were ready to fill up the cars with the stolen goods. The rioters targeted businesses and residential properties. People were left helpless and running for their lives and were forced to jump from burning buildings to escape the fires. Scenes of the rioting varied from cars set alight, shops looted with thugs ripping TVs off betting shops walls, to an empty, looted Currys on Sunday night. The four nights of mayhem in London were repeated in other cities throughout Britain. Are the children out of control and why are they doing this to our communities? Is it just because they come from deprived areas, poor communities, dysfunctional families with high unemployment? Does this instill thoughts of little or no opportunities for their future? Or is it because of a more straight forward reason: sinister, selfish, gluttonous opportunistic greed? Because the scum appear to have absolutely no regard for others in any of the communities targeted. The country has been complaining for some time about gang warfare and out of control teenagers, so why has it taken so long for the government to see that this is a real problem? Is it because now, finally, it’s affecting the functioning of London and other major cities in Britain? The problem stems from the peer pressure gangs use against young children and power that they have. Adults have been powerless for years; rights taken away from teachers and the police that have allowed teenagers to develop gang cultures uninhibited and enforce this way of thinking. They have lost all sense of respect, community, family, while the concept of law and order doesn't seem to exist in their culture or upbringing. Thanks to social networking, like Blackberry phones, communicating with each other is easy; they can organise their crimes and cause disruption to the lives of ordinary people and say ‘stuff you’ in the process. They called the police “feds” and while wearing their “ballys” (balaclavas) brought vans, hampers, the lot; it’s the swagger language they use to communicate to each other. Then, armed with their ghetto gear, hoodies and, in some cases, knives, they headed to the nearest city/town to terrorise and bully communities regardless of colour or beliefs. However, it’s not just the typical swaggering yobs that have been dragged into this mayhem, it’s since emerged the people that have so far been arrested since Monday night have ranged from a millionaire’s daughter, age 19, a graduate, aged 24, and teacher, aged 31, who, ironically, works with unprivileged kids. There were also a pair of twins, Icha and Micha Livingstone, both age 19, teenage students. Their mother claimed, “They were just in the area and police rounded everyone up and this will kill them.” Yeah, well, I’m not convinced by these reasons! Excuses are pouring in and some are as flippant as, “I got caught up in the anarchy mindset” or that “I didn't intend to cause any trouble and I am a good person, I don’t like crime or stealing.” These are not excuses. I believe these responses are lame and that some parents are defending their children by claiming they are good people. Good people don’t go around venting revenge on people’s lives, burning cars and destroying businesses for the fun of it, all whilst looking for opportunities to rob businesses blind. These are ordinary folk who have done nothing wrong no matter how angry you are at society. Even more shocking is that fact that half the people that have been arrested for rioting and looting shops are old enough to know better and have decent jobs and careers. You can’t go around blaming Facebook and Twitter social networking sites either, it just doesn't convince me. It is down to the people who use their services, not the service itself. People using the sites could have said no to the planned looting and rioting in the streets. The accused even seem to have the front to demand privacy from being identified outside the Courts; it’s just laughable. Well, I hope they enjoy their stolen HDTVs, Adidas trainers, new PlayStations and thousands of pounds of food. You wanted to cause mayhem and go on the rampage at all hours of the night, so when you lose your job, you've no one to blame but yourself – so well done. The problem with English law is it’s too soft. As the girls from Croydon said, “We can do want we like” getting nothing more than a light ASBO order. This has to change and it has to change NOW. There should be no more freebies for rioting opportunists or soft sentences for these low life cretins, who think it’s their God-given right to go around destroying properties, businesses and homes. The government has to start using hard punishments that demonstrate that this kind of aggressive, violent, thuggish, criminal behaviour will not be tolerated in a way that will make possible perpetrators stop and think; is having a criminal record, ruining my career prospects and losing a perfectly good job really worth a stolen £300 HDTV? You can’t tell me that an 11-year-old does not know the difference between right and wrong! Especially when we all know that they should have been at home in their beds during the riots but instead they were out at all hours causing criminal damage and looking to smash in the next JD Sport shop window for those must-have trainers. Rioting is not normal and I certainly don’t want it to become a way of life in the UK. The fight back has begun.

The Hour – Episode 3: A Review

Mark Davison — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 15:41:48 +0000

Well that was... better. I’m still not convinced that it deserved the ‘smouldering drama’ tag that the announcer gave it this week, but at least something happened. It’s still painfully slow though – I think I would’ve enjoyed the past few episodes if each had been split in half (it’s not like they’re really relying on dramatic cliff-hangers), as I’ve found that my attention’s started to wander around the half hour point (that might say more about me than the programme itself though, to be fair). Of course, it might not be a coincidence that my warming to the series coincided with them toning down the jazzy soundtrack. Not that I don’t mind a bit of jazz (can’t say I know much about it though), but it was a bit incessant in the first couple of episodes. Instead the aspect they laid on a bit too thickly this week was the notion of people knowing things that they probably shouldn’t. If the myriad secrets that were starting to be uncovered weren’t enough – on a related note, I knew that there’d be a closet case somewhere in the story, even if I did incorrectly identify who it would be – the phrases ‘he knows’ and ‘the man who knew’ popped up more than once, the latter coming from the rather conveniently titled TV drama starring Ruth’s former fiancé (and the aforementioned closet case), which did at least provide some more ‘how did they do that?’ fun with the focusing on the well-oiled machine of live TV drama in the 50s. A bit of a niche area of interest perhaps, but I was certainly intrigued to learn more about it. The biggie though was Burn Gorman’s Thomas Tish, who proved himself to be the most conspicuous spy imaginable – not only acting suspiciously around the office (I’m surprised the BBC allowed him in the building at all given his Russian heritage and the era, and the fact that his expressionless face and oddly shiny skin made him look like a Doctor Who monster), but even telling Freddie that he had killed the Professor, and, for that matter, informing Freddie that the enigmatic ‘Brightstone’ was a person rather than an object (before quickly offing himself for reasons that are pretty much unclear at the moment, and will probably remain so). Otherwise we got to see a lot of Ben Whishaw with his top off, which wasn’t particularly appealing – he’s so thin that I’m amazed that his body can actually handle the weight of the gel in his hair; Anna Chancellor’s developing into sort of the maternal/matronly figure in the office, albeit a maternal/matronly figure with a bit of an attitude (I suppose if this is Mad Men in the 50’s, even though everybody’s realised that it’s not really that at all by now, or at least I hope they have, then she’d be the Joan), and is without a doubt my favourite character, even if I can’t actually remember what she’s called, and can’t really be bothered to look it up either; and Bel and Hector’s relationship starting to heat up a bit, despite not only Hector’s wife being around but also a bunch of toffs who thought that playing Sardines while drunk would make up for their lost childhoods (meaning that no cupboard or hidey-hole was safe). While the eccentricities of the upper classes have been effectively skewed on TV numerous times over the years, I thought that The Hour did quite well here – not only in mining the situation for some much needed humour (Hector’s look of horror when Freddy came out incorrectly dressed for dinner was quite delightful) but also conveying just how oddly incestuous the UK elites are, with politicians, actors and journalists all mingling with the obscenely wealthy over the dinner table. Expect more of the same next week, with added Jessica Hynes as Tish’s widow. The long-time Spaced fan in me is rather looking forward to it.

HUMAN’S RIGHTS FROM THE BIG APPLE

Stuart Colman — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:18:51 +0000

Once upon a time there was a lawyer, a school master, a mariner, an accountant, a bookmaker, a salesman and a chiropodist. Together they ventured forth into the waters of the North Sea that lapped around the South Bay in their home town of Scarborough, North Yorkshire. The only thing was, they chose to dip their toes and every other part of their shivering bodies into the foaming briny during the middle of winter. Fortunately, the task was made that much easier in that they emerged from the frozen depths and plunged into a Victorian bath tub that a French Maid had thoughtfully filled with hot water. For the final touch, a case of chilled champagne, glassware and crisp white napkins had been thoughtfully placed close at hand. In due course, the seven less than temperate eccentrics adopted the name "The Sons of Neptune" and the local press was invited along to report on the proceedings. Whilst all of this might sound like a barrel of fun, there was an underlying current - in more senses than one. Freddie Drabble, Geoff Nunn, Captain Sydney Smith, Chris Found, Cecil Ridley, Bryan Dew and Charles White, were in fact drawing attention in their own sweet way to Scarborough Town Council's decision to pump untreated sewage directly into the North Sea. Aside of all the high jinks and the jackass jocularity, the task in question was an extremely serious one. Apart from anything else it showed just how out of touch the authorities were with environmental developments. It was also out of kilter with the wacky ways of the Neptune's star turn, Charles 'Dr Rock' White. This Dublin-born podiatrist has long been larger than life, both literally and figuratively. He broadcasts regularly on the BBC, he has written articles for the Observer and the Independent, and he's authored books about his rock & roll heroes, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. His personal philosophy to "live life to the full 'cause this ain't no rehearsal" sums the good doctor up better than any ham-fisted P.R. release. Charles White is now the Neptunes' number one son, in that he has written "The Adventures of The Sons of Neptune" which was published on August 1st. Within the book's 310 purified pages, he tells how the group fought a 20 year battle that fundamentally changed EU laws on the dumping of toxic disease-laden sludge into our seas without proper treatment. When the establishment cut off the democratic life line, the Sons, supported by the worlds leading scientists, came up with their outrageous stunts and adopted catch phrases such as "Britannia Waives The Rules" in order to enlist the mainstream media to get their message spread world-wide. The good news is that the Sons of Neptune's bizarre efforts have paid off. From the days when raw human waste along with 180,000 gallons of detergent was being pumped directly into the ocean and the council treated the immediate coastline as a treatment plant on the basis that the sea would kill off bacteria, Yorkshire Water is now planning to invest more than £40 million to upgrade Scarborough’s sewage network with the aim of attaining the new EU excellent standard for bathing water off the Yorkshire Coast. To underline the point, a blue flag is already flying in the North Bay. Congratulations are therefore in order and Knighthoods cannot be ruled out. Just one question remains for the man at the helm. Does a news conscious chiropodist with a freshly-published book keep his clippings?

Horrible Bosses: An Average Appraisal

Salty Or Sweet — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:30:16 +0000

Killing your boss is something many of us privately fanaticise about. That’s the promising idea of this latest comedy from director Seth Gordon. Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis star as the three victims of power-hungry employers - Kevin Spacey on brilliantly dry form as a corporate manager, Jennifer Anniston as a nymphomaniac dentist and Colin Farrell as a coke-head. In an attempt to rid themselves of these tyrants they hatch a plan to kill all three and agree to let one of the other people do the dirty work so they cannot be linked to the murder. In many ways the film is a hark-back to the Strangers on a Train premise – something which the film actually references. It starts off in a highly entertaining manner as we are introduced to the three gloriously over-the-top bosses. All three chew the scenery and carry off their parts with relish and indeed the film is at its best when these three are onscreen. However the film loses its way around the half way mark and feels at least twenty minutes too long. What could have been a relatively short, sharp, B-movie comedy becomes a by-the-numbers affair with the usual lengthy bumbling protagonist routine. I was feeling restless by the time they entered the separate houses and actually wished for more screen time with the bosses themselves. Scenarios appear which, although entertaining on their own, do little to move the story forward - a cameo by Jamie Foxx is a prime example. It’s no help that the three leads range from being entertaining to annoying and both Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis unfortunately fall into the latter category. The squeaky, high-pitched clumsiness from Day’s character becomes irritating and Jason’s Sudeikis’s womaniser comes off as unsympathetic. As mentioned the film does have a few very funny moments but one can’t help but feel that a tighter film is lurking in there somewhere. While by no means “horrible”, Bosses is a comedy that underperforms.

The Hour – Episode 2: A Review

Mark Davison — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 08:20:51 +0000

As if the temptation last week to write snarky comments based on the title wasn't hard enough to resist ('The Hour? It felt more like three'), this time there was the matter of bad reviews to avoid. Not reviews for the programme itself (which, seem to have been quite universally unimpressed - it's always slightly alarming to be on the same side as one of Peter Hitchins' Daily Mail columns, although it's unlikely that my review will end up descending into a crazy anti-BBC rant like his did), but for the titular show-within-a-show. Although, judging by the cool critical reponse the show has received, there was perhaps something knowing about having the BBC2 announcer introduce the show with 'As The Hour fails to impress its audience, can the team turn things around?' In other words, I'm sort of regretting making the commitment to review the whole of the series at the moment. It still seems like an intelligent, interesting and promising concept, but has hardly delivered on the dramatic stakes so far. Hopefully the series will soon start to follow the advice given by Bel to Hector and will 'do better'. That's not to say that there weren't a few plot developments to get stuck into. The Suez crisis reared its ugly head, and a fair chunk of the second half of the episode was devoted to trying to get an interview on the subject, which was actually pretty interesting. Elsewhere the Ruth Elms suicide case gave Freddy something to obsess over (which included sticking newspaper clippings on a wall and joining them all together with string in a seemingly arbitrary way, which is probably one of those things that we see all the time on the telly and in films, but has never actually been done in real life) as it turns out (surprise!) that she probably didn't kill herself, and Burn Gorman's murderer continued to look a bit weird and shifty, but was now doing so in the newsroom as he, for some nefarious purpose no doubt, got himself hired as The Hour's Arabic translator. The plot's looking like it's going to get so thick and convoluted that I didn't even think of the Mad Men comparison this week, or the State of Play one for that matter. Instead, with much of the action revolving around miserable people standing under umbrellas spying on each other, it was quite Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy instead – the hinted at phone tapping seemed like something out of a cold war era spy drama, not to mention the hidden clues left by the murdered academic in the Evening Standard crosswords. Which was one of a few points where the scheduling seemed particularly serendipitous, recalling the supposed Rebekah Brooks slamming in the last News of the World puzzle from a couple of weeks ago, other details that now seemed quite relevant were the sniping at fat cats abusing 'fleet street expense accounts' and the pondering of 'Do we live in a democracy of under the illusion of one?' (although, admittedly both are sayings and sentiments that have been used so often that they're verging on cliche) . The pacing remains a problem however as there's so much that feels unnecessary – during my first viewing of the episode, I fell asleep for ten minutes and missed practically nothing. Given that the series is set during the height of rationing, it's somewhat ironic that any dramatic meat is surrounded by a heavy layer of fat. To be fair, there were some flashes of humour to liven things up a bit, even if they weren't entirely successful. I liked the rather dejected looking astronaut/nerd in a spacesuit standing ignored in the corner of the newsroom, the frantically incomprehensible hand gestures used as a method of direction during a live broadcast, and the monk walking through the studio corridor, closely followed by an extravagantly dressed showgirl. On the other hand the characters intended as light-relief – Bel's lush of a mother and the overenthusiastic secretary – seemed a little too broad, they definitely have the potential to become irritating as the weeks go on. But, to confuse the meat metaphor further, things are definitely still a bit too dry. Perhaps that's why they included the shot of Freddy and Bel jumping up and down on a bed during the trailer for the next episode. Unless so little happens next week that that's one of the more dramatic moments, in which case expect a far less forgiving review than this one.

Video Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 – Disenchanted

Joe West — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:47:38 +0000

Joe West polishes his wand one last time to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Follow on Twitter @joejwest