Jesus Christ! Mel Gibson’s got a new film: Edge of Darkness reviewed
Resurrected as a Boston police detective, Mel Gibson returns to the screen as a single father and honest citizen seeking retribution for his child’s murder on the doorstep of his own home. So far, so Patriot but this Martin Campbell thriller quickly takes a political turn. Based on the1980s BBC miniseries , the Cold War origins of this Edge of Darkness reworking become palpable as Craven (Mel Gibson) goes about exposing a ‘nuclear waste facility’ for what it actually is in his radioactive quest for revenge.
As he slowly transforms into what basically a UN weapons inspector with 'nothing to lose' but plenty of ammunition, the aesthetic becomes increasingly stylised despite the director’s claims to ‘realism’. As if most people stumble around with a trenchcoat, a loaded gun and a frenetic Geiger counter after they’ve been poisoned, radioactively that is. Previous to this transition, he spends his time moping about his daughter and hearing voices in a pathetic attempt to be emotive. Otherwise, it looks good, it builds tension well but at its core is just another one of Mel's angry American dad films with Ray Winstone, raincoats and radioactivity thrown in for js.
We give it a 5/10 on the Geiger counter.MK
MAN SWANS: Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake reviewed
Resurrected as a Boston police detective, Mel Gibson returns to the screen as a single father and honest citizen seeking retribution for his child’s murder on the doorstep of his own home. So far, so Patriot but this Martin Campbell thriller quickly takes a political turn. Based on the1980s BBC miniseries , the Cold War origins of this Edge of Darkness reworking become palpable as Craven (Mel Gibson) goes about exposing a ‘nuclear waste facility’ for what it actually is in his radioactive quest for revenge.
As he slowly transforms into what basically a UN weapons inspector with 'nothing to lose' but plenty of ammunition, the aesthetic becomes increasingly stylised despite the director’s claims to ‘realism’. As if most people stumble around with a trenchcoat, a loaded gun and a frenetic Geiger counter after they’ve been poisoned, radioactively that is. Previous to this transition, he spends his time moping about his daughter and hearing voices in a pathetic attempt to be emotive. Otherwise, it looks good, it builds tension well but at its core is just another one of Mel's angry American dad films with Ray Winstone, raincoats and radioactivity thrown in for js.
We give it a 5/10 on the Geiger counter.MK
We give it a 5/10 on the Geiger counter.MK
Contrary to dance pleb belief, Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake is not a ballet. First staged inSadler’s Wells in 1995, this controversial contemporary dance has returned to its original stage as the longest running dance show in the West End.It’s been 14 years since Matthew Bourne said goodbye to tutus, pointe shoes and ballet convention to choreograph a version of Swan Lake with male swans. However, the homoerotic undertones of the revised plot rattled the feathers of some early audience members. Some critics complained about its departure from traditional ballet while one girl from the local ballet school cried because it was distinctly lacking in the big white tutu department.
Over the years the male dancers have become iconic so their virile masculine physicality and their famous frayed trousers designed by Lez Brotherston which appeared at the end of Billy Elliot the movie are to be expected. However, what catches you off-guard is the intensity of the encounter between the Prince and the swans. The whole thing is delivered with such emotion. And not the faux opera house emotion of the heavily made-up Royal prima ballerinas either.From the tormented Prince to his hilarious girlfriend, who, in a clever piece of satire eats Maltesers in a theatre, are surprisingly real. It has a kind of immediacy that makes it utterly unique in the world of dance. In fact, its key critique of traditional dance performances is that they lack any kind of relation to the lives of the audience, most sharply carried out in the theatre scene. A ridiculous parody of pretentious ballets it involves all of the animal kingdom dancing with exaggerated emotion and a devil who has some absurd piece of artwork dangling distractingly from his crotch- sound familiar?
The novelty of this production and the controversy surrounding it might have attracted dance-lovers in the nineties but controversy isn’t what keeps the audiences coming. In its fifteenth year it's just as funny, just as sad and just as relevant as it used to be. They certainly don’t call it a contemporary dance for nothing.
Vicarious says go see this or we're not your friend anymore.MK
MUSIC REVIEW
Florence & The Machine - Lungs
Lungs seems a fitting title of their first album as Florence certainly proves she has a big set of them. It starts off with a bang from the first track on the album, Dog Days Are Over through Drumming Song to the popular cover of You've got the Love. Florence's soulful and quirky voice captures the attention and maintains it throughout with no 'dud' songs to disappoint with. The sound is not hard to place in relation to today's indie band obsession, she has the instruments behind her but her voice is the unusual factor in this formula. With many young, brooding men heading bands it's refreshing to see a powerful and confident woman instead of a husky male. Rabbit Heart is undoubtedly a favourite on the album, with its quiet almost oriental start it moves quickly but carefully with Florence's harmonious and varied tones through to the thrilling chorus. The anticipation builds throughout and she certainly doesn't disappoint. With clever lyrics and her passionate delivery it remains something to sing along too in a car, club or any other place you and your IPod venture to. The music moves from folksy ballads like Howl, to songs that pack a punch with upbeat and rocky accompaniments such as Kiss with a Fist. Girl With One Eye compares to a sensual indie Nina Simone with her sexy deep voice and edgy aggressive lyrics. Florence accomplishes this with her seductive voice, it pulls music fans in no matter what she may be singing about. It is thrilling to hear an album that doesn't sound like it has been churned out of the Indie hit making machine. This quality effort is proof that the 'same old' is getting old and it's time for something new, Florence & The Machine's Lungs may just be it.
Jordanna Virdee
FILM REVIEW
Michael Jackson’s This Is It: Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it’s a man…no,wait, is it really though?
ALBUM REVIEW
The Temper Trap - Conditions
Conditions takes the psyche through different moods. 'Love Lost' introduces a unique subtle style with the light tinkle of the keyboard and vocals that swiftly move into the edgier rock that only appears during the chorus.The acclaimed Sweet Disposition then takes the consciousness through an eclectic melody fused with both soft and vibrant tunes. Ironically, the sound is very opposite to the visual of the cover on the CD case, which is literally dark and depressing. Half way through the album the sound moves to shouty 'indie rock'. Science of Fear and Drum Song completely swap the ambience for bass that would certainly have beers vibrating in a dark, grimy bars. Obviously, conditions change...massively.
GIG REVIEW
Arctic Monkeys, Wembley
Headlining Reading, the Arctic Monkeys had the masses flocking to other tents. With this massive slap in the face in mind, I was willing to give them a second chance at Wembley. In their shaggy haired and scruffy glory the four lads donned the stage ready for the fans to devour their lyrics. Jumping into 'A Certain Romance' through 'Sketchead' to 'Crying Lightning' the crowd had ample time to become a sweat- and beer-soaked mess. Fans launched themselves about the arena with reckless abandon meanwhile the seated crowd jumped up now feeling part of the scene.
Regrettably, it was downhill from there. Too many slow, moaning ballads kept the crowd in a limbo of anticipation for the next beer-throwing, body-slamming mosh. So far the Northern lads were failing epically, yet again! 'I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor' lifted some spirits after having to listen to relatively unknown songs that failed to grasp attention. The second to last song performed was 'When The Sun Goes Down' which is still ultimately a shit-hot tune yet their finale however was far from that. A disappointing anti-climax of a less than steller performance, the ballad was unrecognisable and yawn-worthy. In retrospect they failed to play 'Dancing Shoes', or 'Fake Tales of San Francisco', leaving some with an inadequate feeling of parting with £32.50, as well as precious Festival season time.''
We want more Anish Kapoor: the Indian sculptor's Royal Academy exhibition under review
REVIEW: Forty fully-grown adults stand in the Large Weston Room of the Royal Academy of Arts staring intently at what art students describe as 'a ritual arena in which a symbollic act of repeated violence is allowed to occur.' What this means in ordinary speak is staring at the wall waiting for a cannon to fire twenty-pound shells of wax into the wall. Every twenty minutes.
We all jump as the red wax hits it at fifty miles an hour and splashes all across the carved ceiling. A member of staff informs me that they've tried to fire the gun less regularly as the already reinforced walls of the Royal Academy are starting to cave under the pressure of Anish Kapoor's Shooting into the Corner. Even larger in scale is Svayambh, an installation occupying five galleries that will make you watch a block of wax move through doorways at snail pace for up to 45 minutes depending on how stupid you are and how long it takes you to work out it isn't going to do anything more interesting anytime soon. It smells of wax and looks so gloopy you want to touch it. In fact some idiot has already left finger prints (in spite of the rules).
More true to his usual work are Yellow and Non-objects which have the clean lines and shiny surfaces that Kapoor is well known for. They too are imposing and visually thrilling. For the most part, however, the clever part isn't the geometry or the philosophical grounding of his work. It's the fact that he's made forty fully grown adults stare at the wall waiting for some wax to fly. And then he's made them realise how absurdly idiotic they've been.
The exhibition is running until 11th December. So go see it for goodness sake.
MK
Talkin' 'bout my generation: From Generation X to X Factor!
Sarah*, 22, an undergraduate, still feels burning shame when recalling her dad's 60th birthday party. After knocking back her third Vodka Coke, she was about ready to hail a cab and pass out in it. Her dad and his entourage of aging city bankers, were just getting started.
Young people like Sarah* are not alone in their reluctance to party as hard as the freedom pass wielders lurking in the corner of your average Central London nightclub. According to sociologists, cycles of generational change can adequately explain this distressing phenomenon. Repelled by the behaviour of our parents, the theory goes that we’re disinclined to repeat their mistakes. Thus, Generation Y has embraced stability and conventional values just as vehemently as the babyboomers had rebelled against them. According to popular American authors, Strauss and Howe, we’re also locked in a cycle of ‘crisis’; unlike our parents who had a major war behind them, we feel that the episodic disasters since the 90s are part of a build-up to a catastrophe of even greater proportions.
A survey of 100 University of London students suggest that we are simply more traditional and stable than our parents: 72% claimed to be in a relationship and when pressed on their drug taking, 68% only' fessed up to the odd toke of a 'dubie' at a particularly riotous house party. My own experiences corroborate this; while my American mother loves to remind me how she skipped her high school prom in favour of an anti war demonstration, my most rebellious memories revolve around smuggling contraband Smirnoff Ice past an overzealous PE teacher. Contrary to the media hype of today’s troubled youth, the US News World Report released in May 1999, reported that alcohol consumption among 17- 18 year olds had dropped from 20% since 1980 and drug usage, teen pregnancy and homicide rates had also decreased.
The recent Taylor Swift and Kanye West scandal was both an example of MTV's marketing genius, and proof that the public will side with the innocent girl next door over the bad boy, who even the President deigned to call a 'jackass' on national television. Whereas the babyboomers and Generation X had made rock gods out of the Rolling Stones, Kurt Cobain and the Sex Pistols, our pop stars are so PG that a stint on the Disney channel now seems to be a prerequisite to career success. Even the iPhone has jumped on the 'born-again' bandwagon, with a new application available this month where users can download a purity ring for just 59p.
Advances in science have confounded our piteous attempts at rebellion as quite frankly, we know too much. While our parents could legitimately argue that they didn't know that cigarettes were bad for you, a typical pack of Marlboro Lites could confront you with anything from images of decaying, yellowing organs to warnings of 'low sperm counts'. As a result, we're no longer interested in the romanticism of the 'live fast, die young' message and instead we want to remain healthy and wrinkle free for as long as possible. Generation Y are also more fiscally cautious. As demonstrated by the rather uplifting Times ad campaign featuring a graduating class under a giant banner with the words “unemployment is at an all time high”, it's no longer viable for us to believe that a good education will automatically pave the way for a comfortable, middle-class life. Instead of partying through our student years without a care in the world, we're facing a prospect of insurmountable overdraft in a limited graduate job market. Joy.
The sad fact is that sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll have been replaced by puppy love, Pinot Grigio and sentimental Indie music. On the upside, if there’s any truth to the pendulum theory, we owe it to our future children to make the most out of our youth, lest Generation Z become a population of pill poppers. So the next time you're contemplating a night in to watch the X Factor, just say no.
CF
Young people like Sarah* are not alone in their reluctance to party as hard as the freedom pass wielders lurking in the corner of your average Central London nightclub. According to sociologists, cycles of generational change can adequately explain this distressing phenomenon. Repelled by the behaviour of our parents, the theory goes that we’re disinclined to repeat their mistakes. Thus, Generation Y has embraced stability and conventional values just as vehemently as the babyboomers had rebelled against them. According to popular American authors, Strauss and Howe, we’re also locked in a cycle of ‘crisis’; unlike our parents who had a major war behind them, we feel that the episodic disasters since the 90s are part of a build-up to a catastrophe of even greater proportions.
A survey of 100 University of London students suggest that we are simply more traditional and stable than our parents: 72% claimed to be in a relationship and when pressed on their drug taking, 68% only' fessed up to the odd toke of a 'dubie' at a particularly riotous house party. My own experiences corroborate this; while my American mother loves to remind me how she skipped her high school prom in favour of an anti war demonstration, my most rebellious memories revolve around smuggling contraband Smirnoff Ice past an overzealous PE teacher. Contrary to the media hype of today’s troubled youth, the US News World Report released in May 1999, reported that alcohol consumption among 17- 18 year olds had dropped from 20% since 1980 and drug usage, teen pregnancy and homicide rates had also decreased.
The recent Taylor Swift and Kanye West scandal was both an example of MTV's marketing genius, and proof that the public will side with the innocent girl next door over the bad boy, who even the President deigned to call a 'jackass' on national television. Whereas the babyboomers and Generation X had made rock gods out of the Rolling Stones, Kurt Cobain and the Sex Pistols, our pop stars are so PG that a stint on the Disney channel now seems to be a prerequisite to career success. Even the iPhone has jumped on the 'born-again' bandwagon, with a new application available this month where users can download a purity ring for just 59p.
Advances in science have confounded our piteous attempts at rebellion as quite frankly, we know too much. While our parents could legitimately argue that they didn't know that cigarettes were bad for you, a typical pack of Marlboro Lites could confront you with anything from images of decaying, yellowing organs to warnings of 'low sperm counts'. As a result, we're no longer interested in the romanticism of the 'live fast, die young' message and instead we want to remain healthy and wrinkle free for as long as possible. Generation Y are also more fiscally cautious. As demonstrated by the rather uplifting Times ad campaign featuring a graduating class under a giant banner with the words “unemployment is at an all time high”, it's no longer viable for us to believe that a good education will automatically pave the way for a comfortable, middle-class life. Instead of partying through our student years without a care in the world, we're facing a prospect of insurmountable overdraft in a limited graduate job market. Joy.
The sad fact is that sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll have been replaced by puppy love, Pinot Grigio and sentimental Indie music. On the upside, if there’s any truth to the pendulum theory, we owe it to our future children to make the most out of our youth, lest Generation Z become a population of pill poppers. So the next time you're contemplating a night in to watch the X Factor, just say no.
CF
THURSDAY, 29 OCTOBER 2009
The Great Debate: Ben Kelly tells us what's good, what's bad and who's an idiot
Here at Vicarious we've got some serious pop culture issues so we got our e-hero, Youtube superstar Ben Kelly, to settle them for us. Tell us what you'd choose and why by clicking COMMENTS below!
1.Gaga or Britney? Gaga all the way - she has more talent in her disco stick than Britney has in her whole body.
2. Paris or Perez Hilton? Perez Hilton - he's the lesser of two evils.
3. iPhone or Blackberry? iPhone - I don't own either, but since I love iPods...
4. London or New York? New York - because if you can make it there you can make it anywhere. Apparently
5. IKEA or Habitat? Habitat - Ikea is mental these days - like the TK Maxx of home furnishings.
6. Girls or boys? Boys.what can I say...I'm biased.
7. Boris or Ken? Boris - because he's a bit of an idiot, but an unashamed one.
8. Staying in or going out? Going out - no one sees you when you're at home.
9. Skinny or baggy? Skinny all the way - I could never be anything else!
10. Girls Aloud or The Saturdays? Girls Aloud - since the Spice Girls weren't an option...
1.Gaga or Britney? Gaga all the way - she has more talent in her disco stick than Britney has in her whole body.
2. Paris or Perez Hilton? Perez Hilton - he's the lesser of two evils.
3. iPhone or Blackberry? iPhone - I don't own either, but since I love iPods...
4. London or New York? New York - because if you can make it there you can make it anywhere. Apparently
5. IKEA or Habitat? Habitat - Ikea is mental these days - like the TK Maxx of home furnishings.
6. Girls or boys? Boys.what can I say...I'm biased.
7. Boris or Ken? Boris - because he's a bit of an idiot, but an unashamed one.
8. Staying in or going out? Going out - no one sees you when you're at home.
9. Skinny or baggy? Skinny all the way - I could never be anything else!
10. Girls Aloud or The Saturdays? Girls Aloud - since the Spice Girls weren't an option...
THEATRE REVIEW
Into the Woods-Bloomsbury Theatre (Dec 3-5)
What do you get when you mix a few Brothers Grimm characters and a baker with erectile dysfunction? According to 70s author Bruno Bettelheim, a neighbourhood saga rivaling Eastenders. Well, naturally when the whole damn thing was set to music in hit Broadway musical Into The Woods, things got even more messed up. It’s got the lot: adultery, bi-polar, domestic violence, drugs (boy buys beans and thinks he climbs a magic beanstalk to giant land and we’re supposed to believe those beans weren’t mind-altering substances?), the list goes on... All in all, nothing worse than an average day at UCL in exam time so who better to interpret this complicated web of relationships than UCLU’s Musical Theatre Society?
When their Baker and his Wife set off into the woods to lift a curse of impotency placed by the Witch, they were lucky enough to encounter some creatures as talented as themselves. A Bloomsbury spectacular from start to finish, Into the Woods was perfectly designed, conducted and directed, not to mention sung. It seems that Musical Theatre Society can really perform. As for the impotent Baker, with the help of some friends in the woods, so could he…
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