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Friday November 22 2013
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short fuse. comments and rants on entertainment news.
editorial.
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Merry Crapmas, love Lily Allen
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s the nights get darker, more and more people gather around TV screens bombarded with an onslaught of advertising for Christmas. Every year, John Lewis delivers a festive message which pulls at the heart strings of the viewer, taking a classic song and getting a female artist to add a soft vocal. In 2010, Ellie Goulding’s covered Elton’s ‘Your Song’. A year on Slow Moving Millie, real name Amelia Warner, was plucked from obscurity and used to represent the Christmas campaign with a cover of the Smiths classic ‘Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want’. 2012 brought Gabrielle Aplin, an artist who describes her music as very family orientated and personal was a perfect fit for the department store’s brand. She had been under
the watchful eye of BBC Introducing before she got her big break covering ‘The Power of Love’ for John Lewis, which in many peoples minds made christmas magical again. This brings me to this year’s John Lewis christmas offering: ‘The Bear and The Hare’ featuring Keane’s ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ a song which has never really screamed Christmas at me; covered by Lily Allen. Give any audience a soft sounding vocal and cute animals and they are bound to be enticed by this advert! Lily Allen’s vocal comes in the same repetitive style of all of the females before her. Surely it’s time to break the mould and design an advert that’s a little more ‘Christmassy’? Danny Norton
We won’t keep Quiet
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t’s disappointing to see that the autocrats behind Metal Gear Solid 5 may hinder what should be a fantastic game. Hideo Kojima, the creator of the series, tweeted in September that he aimed to make the female sniper character ‘Quiet’ more ‘erotic’. In the icy world of corporate statistics, it probably seemed like another successful business move; sex sells, undeniably so. But in a culture that is constantly bombarded with degrading and objectifying images of women, is there any need to perpetuate the problem? This is not a case for outlawing ‘sexy’ female characters, but for redefining the common perception of sexy. Quiet, wearing only a pair of fishnets for armour, is an obscene example of how unrealistic female video game characters can be. And combined with the extreme violence in mondern gaming, the
artificial image may provoke negative, even violent repercussions in real life. We live in a society where people know not to shoot everything in sight, yet the sexism seen in the likes of Metal Gear Solid 5 is so ingrained into reality, it’s almost a miracle that Kojima’s tweet was called out for its misogyny. I found the grit of Lara Croft in the new Tomb Raider (with her more realistic breast-size) a lot more attractive. A real business plan would be to sell this stronger image of women, which serves both a male and female demographic. Calling a woman ‘Quiet’ in the first place has so many connotations, it’s overwhelming. It’s time for more female protagonists, more female voices. Samantha Fielding
ello from your Fuse editors! We’re here to bring you the best of the entertainment world, as always. This week we’ve been thinking too much about Lily Allen’s feminist failures and feeling violated by Robin Thicke’s latest single (what did we expect?) - although it is painfully catchy. As the days get shorter and our drafty student houses get colder and damper, we’re all counting the days down to Christmas already. We’re seeing more fluorescent lighting from the IC than we’re seeing daylight, and we can’t wait for our deadlines to bugger off. Hopefully some Fuse entertainment will help get you through. We’ve got a super arty Fuse this issue, so be sure to check out our gorgeous original artwork on our features! Love and kisses. Amelia Heathman Kaz Scattergood
This cover was created by our good pal Manuel Fuentes! Fancy drawing next issue’s cover? Email us at fuse@forgetoday.com
rkshop
DJ wo
It’s not such a wonderful idea
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t’s A Wonderful Life is arguably the best Christmas film. It recently topped the Radio Times poll of the nation’s favourite Christmas film, beating other favourites like Love, Actually and, bizarrely, Die Hard. Here and in the US, it has won the hearts of audiences of all generations since its release in 1946. The film is so beloved that a sequel is, quite honestly, unthinkable. Penned after the original fell out of copyright in the US, it is apparently based around the descendants of original protagonist George Bailey, who decided not to commit sui-
cide on Christmas Eve due to lessons on self-worth from guardian angel Clarence. Allen J Schwalb, one of the creators of the new film, admitted that ‘There is no doubt about it, there will be a ruckus’ to The Hollywood Reporter, but insisted that ‘our story’s solid.’ Yet the story reportedly rips off another Christmas classic, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. In the sequel, George’s grandson is allegedly visited by his aunt, an angel. So far, so familiar. The original’s poignant message of everyone being valuable, loved and having a purpose would be completely re-
versed in the sequel, with George’s grandson being told that it would be better if he’d never been born. Yikes. Not so “feel-good” now… After sixty years, we really should leave such the movie alone – especially if the sequel was written purely from stealing ideas from what are, for many people, Christmas traditions. Let’s let sleeping classics lie and come up with some new, original films that can be adored in decades to come. Corrigan Lowe
C
hannel your inner Annie Mac and bop your way to the Give it a Go DJ workshop. In this excellently music-orientated workshop, you’ll get a change to learn impeccable DJ skills from TTC’s favourite Andy H. You’ll how to mix and scractch
Sat Nov 30 2pm - 5pm Raynor Lounge, £3
and jam and break, just like all your favourite Radio 1 DJs. Take a moment to go all Pete Tong and learn the art of vinyl and CD DJing too. No Apple geeks here please. Please bring your favourite music on a USB stick or CD and bring a bottle of water.
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Friday November 22 2013
q&a. Luke Sital-Singh makes dreamy, atmospheric folk music that the likes of Bon Iver and Ben Howard have propelled into our music libraries and changed the way we view guitars. Amelia Heathman got the chance to talk to Luke to learn a little more about this soulful singer. Hi Luke, where are you calling us from today? I’m just walking in Tunbridge Wells where I live, I’ve just been in London so I’m coming home. I had a meeting with my lawyer, so it was very exciting. How did you get into music and deciding on it for a career? When I got into my teens I started joining bands with my friends, just for the sake of it, culturally and to have a laugh. I just never really grew out of it. All my friends at the time stopped, grew up and went to university to study proper stuff and I never grew up. It’s always stayed with me. When I got to the age where I was thinking about going to uni and things, I decided to go to music college instead because I wanted to go to uni and have that experience but I didn’t really know what else I would study apart from music. It was quite a big decision to invest three years into thinking and doing music full time. That was the turning point when I was serious about pursuing music. Did going to music college pay off? In some ways it definitely did. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to everyone. Everyone has their own experience of things, mine was really unique and completely out of luck I met certain people, some who I’m still working with now, like my producer, Ian Archer. It
can be really good but equally it can be a massive waste of time and money. But everything is a risk really, you never know what’s going to happen.
When you were featured in the Guardian ‘New Band of the Day’ series in 2012, you were unsigned. What made you decide to sign to Parlophone?
You have some big names in your influences list including Bob Dylan. How do you feel when people compare you to the likes of Bon Iver and Damien Rice?
Quite a lot of factors really. There was just something about Parlophone, the team really that seemed to get what I was doing and were really passionate about it. Also the idea of signing to the one of the last great British labels, even though it isn’t British owned anymore. But EMI and Parlophone were part of the last ‘Best of British’ label and the legacy is still there so to be a part of that was quite attractive to me.
It is pretty weird! I get the Bon Iver reference, who I absolutely love. I wrote a song, called ‘Fail For You’ which has the most comparisons to Bon Iver. I recorded that with all vocal harmonies, basically ripping Bon Iver off, because I wrote that song literally as I heard his first record. I was trying to emulate it and just play around with the style. It’s flattering for people to compare me to them because they’re heroes to me as well.
“Everything is a risk, you never know what’s going to happen”
2013 has been big for you, being voted onto Radio 1’s In New Music We Trust list and getting loads of radio plays. How are you taking this newfound popularity and support? I hope I’m taking it well! It is weird. I think I have to stop and really remember and appreciate it and know that it’s not just a dream. The radio stuff is weird, I never really thought my music would be played on the radio because it’s kind of depressing music. Especially ‘Fail ForYou’ which was my first single, that was really the kind of music I listened to all the time: slightly melancholy. I just like beautiful music and you don’t really hear beautiful music on the radio very much. Not on Radio 1 necessarily. So when that song was played, it was really weird. But yeah, just really crazy how influential it is and how many fans you can get from being played on radio stations.
Your EP Tornados came out earlier this month. Talk us through the process of its creation. I’ve got three EPs now. The other two were made up of some really old songs and some new ones whereas this latest one is really the only one which is made up of really new stuff that I’ve written in the last year or so. For that reason, it’s really exciting to me. I think it’s the strongest bunch of songs; I’ve been writing songs for the past 10 years and these are the latest and best songs I’ve written. So I’m really proud of it. And this is the purist example of what I do. There are a few more up-beat songs on there and there is me trying to make beautiful music too, which is what really moves me
If it was up to me the album would’ve been out ages ago but it is in the works, so I think it will be out in May. It’s half finished, but probably 99 per cent written, but it is half recorded. There will probably be one more single or EP before then but I’ve been working on it forever so I’m excited for it to be out for sure. You’ve released a lot of free music in the past. Will you contine doing that in the future? I’m still in the process of building an audience and building my stuff so it’s good to give stuff away so you can find new fans. Some of the biggest acts around still give out freebies and little things, obviously not entire albums but you can still hear them. I always put stuff on streaming websites like SoundCloud and that seems to be better. We put the whole EP up on SoundCloud and a blog had it exclusively so you do little things like that for people to hear it before. The thing I’m quite excited about and I hope happens is vinyl. None of my stuff has been on vinyl yet but I think the record hopefully will be. I’m looking forward to having that physical artefact for people to buy or not to buy and also for me to have, the record in big vinyl form. What’s next for you and when are you going to bring your live show to Sheffield? Next is finishing the record. The year is winding down and I’ve got a couple of gigs around Christmas and just recording and writing. I think there’s a tour planned, I don’t think it is official yet, but maybe around February or May. I don’t know if it’s going to Sheffield actually. I hopefully will be there soon ‘cause I haven’t been there for a while. There’s a few towns that I’ve been missing off and people have been complaining so I’ll hopefully be able to please everyone, one day.
When are you going to stop teasing us with EPs and bring out an album?
Tickets: £2.50
Available from the SU box office
Scott Pilgrim vs The World: Friday Nov 29 19:30
Despicable Me 2: Saturday Nov 30 15:30 & 19:30
Mud: Sunday Nov 31 15:30 & 19:30
Friday November 22 2013
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ot long ago, the idea that video games could be used a platform for for telling a story would have been inconceivable. To an outsider, knocking random pixels together didn’t warrant a narrative and it’s taken years for the gaming industry to appropriate ‘interactive storytelling’ as an objective for game development, rescuing its connotations to hapless ‘choose your own adventure’ books. Even then the mainstream video games seemed transfixed on telling the same story over and over again. Darting between the paradigm of military shooter and western RPG, the industry outright refused to innovate as a storytelling medium. The original line said that good storytelling didn’t sell and even worse, a well-crafted narrative would likely have an adverse effect on your sales. Now games like BioShock: Infinite, The Walking Dead and Spec Ops: The Line are showing that good storytelling can be profitable. It appears after a long wait for video games to catch up with cinema, television and theatre, the games industry is cementing itself as a genuine and unique vehicle for writers to express themselves. For an age, it seemed that video game storytelling was anchored to the misconception that games should imitate films in hopes of greatness. Where is gaming’s Citizen Kane, they ask. But just by taking a glance at the variety of storylines featured in most mainstream games gives you a pretty clear view that this approach has shackled the industry to the same few ideas which they have successfully sucked bone dry. Most games writers have only managed to get through a handful of films: Scarface, Alien, The Lord of the Rings, Dawn of the Dead and Full Metal Jacket. Maybe some cheap anime too. Even good games, like Dragon Age and Left 4 Dead, have unashamedly looked to their “superior” cinematic counterparts for inspiration - almost to the extent of copyright - so much that it’s embarrassing to relay the plot of a game to anyone in the outside world. It may seem trivial but video game narrative relies on writers divorcing themselves from cinematic motifs. The industry will forever be padlocked to mediocrity if it continues
ARTWORK: WILL ROSS
to chase this fallacy. Game writing should be interactive. Narrative is told through the actions of the player and the choices presented should suit the story the developers are trying to tell. This doesn’t work if the story is vomited out in cut-scenes or butchered with quick-time events. The writer can never presume the player will bother to read the text or simply hit the ‘skip’ button, so the story must be interwoven into every aspect of the gameplay from the mechanics to aesthetics – even the loading screens. The variety of storylines is also problematic. Debates over the depiction of female, BME, disabled or LGBT characters will stagnate while the diversity of stories being told is so slim. How can you even begin to write fully developed characters when you are working within the same parameters that made you ignore them in the first place? To take the former example: allowing players to opt for a ‘female’ option when the story is so overtly designed for a male lead defeats the point and inevitably cascades into the tokenisation of those characters. Elements of bad storytelling are mainly due to structural problems. The industry is still dominated by the technical side - as it should, perhaps - but this means that game writers are often brought in as an afterthought to ‘fill in the gaps’ by adding flavour to dialogue rather than producing work of their own. Similarly, triple-A releases are a collaborative effort. Game teams can span whole departments and writing teams are often isolated from the rest of development. Interactive gaming relies on all elements interweaving to tell a cohesive story and it cannot be sustained with writers simply hired for ‘snappy’ dialogue. Yet the gaming industry is still in its infancy and the prospect of being on the verge of its breakout moment may be daunting to some. But game writers need to stop walking in the shadow of their cinematic big brother and claim their rightful place as a storytelling medium. Joanne Butcher
Friday November 22 2013
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We’re Girl B
ridget Jones is the modern day heroine that everyone knows and loves. If you search for her on Twitter (a scholarly pursuit), you’ll find an abundance of women and girls all claiming to be the real-life Bridget, with massive knickers and an incurable case of verbal diarrhoea. Bridget Jones is the everywoman of contemporary literature but to reduce her to the patronisingly named “chick-lit” is to do her a disservice. What author Helen Fielding has done, and has always been able to do, is satirise the ridiculousness of life for the modern female without ever making Bridget implausible. She is no mere emblem of postmodern feminism (and no one should expect her to be). Fielding gives her a luxury that is so seldom afforded to other female characters; Bridget Jones is not only funny, interesting and likeable – she is flawed and incredibly human. Ladies in literature tend to fall into distinct categories, whether it is that of the strong (with a capital S) warrior woman or the age-old damsel-in-distress (to name just two). They often suffer from being reduced to two-dimensional stereotypes, almost always pushed to the sidelines when they reach that famous happy ending. Any depiction of their lives stops at the marital home. Fielding makes sure this doesn’t happen to Bridget, allowing her to balance the trials of marriage (including the abrupt death of her husband) and motherhood whilst simultaneously testing the ground of unfathomable technology, toy boys and romance in the hilarious manner that one would expect from Bridget Jones. Fielding is showing us continuity, teaching us that there does not have to be a choice – we can
be wife, mother and lunatic and it is completely consistent with our character. This is one of the reasons the new Bridget Jones book, Mad About the Boy, is such a clever and much-needed move. It is rare that we see a 51-year-old woman as the central character of a popular book series. Germaine Greer’s ‘The Disappearing Woman’, mentioned explicitly in the book, argues that “with each stage of their lives [...] women become less visible,” and it is clearly an influence in Fielding’s continuation of the franchise. She openly mocks the condescension inherent in the phrase “women of a certain age”, all the while writing Bridget’s new life into existence, as a mother, widow and sexual being all at once. It’s refreshing, to say the least. Nonetheless, controversy has marked the new book, with rumours of a rift between Fielding and lead actress, Renee Zellweger, tainting any hopes for a new film and the announcement of the death of Mark Darcy upsetting many fans of the series (and Colin Firth too, no doubt). Before the book was released, production company, Working Title, announced that it was working on another Bridget Jones film, quite apart from this sequel, called Bridget Jones’ Baby. Whilst Bridget Jones’ Baby seems to promise more of the happy ending we’d hoped for Bridget and Mark, I would argue that to depart from the narrative Fielding has set out for her heroine would feel fraudulent and would betray the character of Bridget herself. Life does not always turn out perfectly, it is no rom-com, and Bridget understands that more than most. Mark Darcy’s death cannot be taken back – Bridget Jones’ Baby could only be a prequel to that
event now or otherwise it is a fantasy of the film makers, desperate to keep thirsty women watching for a glimpse of Colin Firth in his lawyer-y underwear. It would feel a lot more honest to tell Bridget’s story in the way that Fielding has done. Bridget is now a single parent, thrown into a new territory of dating and motherhood and her grief exists (if Working Title are that desperate to get Firth involved, he can appear in many flashbacks as Bridge reminisces wistfully on her married life); she should be represented in film just as she is in literature. Indeed, Darcy’s death is, perhaps, necessary to let our girl go her own way – to release her from this Colin Firth-centred world. This is not Mark Darcy’s Diary, this is Bridget’s. Mark himself wouldn’t want it any other way and and I’m quite sure that we all would agree.
Laura Stanley
Friday November 22 2013
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Music editors Nicky and Rachel spoke to Sheffield’s finest gig promoters about what makes their trade tick
Bringing your bands to our city E
ver wondered what it takes to organise a gig? It’s not as hard as you might think, and with such an extensive DIY scene already in motion, Sheffield is a pretty good place to start. Semi-Detached, Get Rad, Uneven Blonde and Banana Hill, all made up of ex-students, are among Sheffield’s unsung music heroes, bringing in bands that would otherwise leave Sheffield off their tour. Not only this, but their gigs are often free, and usually pretty wild: think Blessa on a boat, tropical warehouse parties and aftershow soirees with the bands. There’s not a lot of money in the business, and it’s a huge workload; booking venues, organising posters, promoting facebook events, flyering, sorting out gear and stage management are some of the steps involved in the process, all for breaking even (or mediocre profits if you’re lucky). But this just makes it all the more impressive that these organisers have been going as long as they have, and continue to put on shows for up-and-coming bands. “The process is fairly simple. The strange thing is you can rarely predict an attendance. On occasions we have done very little and had gigs where the audience is huge. There have been occasions where the exact opposite has occurred. Strange business.” says Loic from Audacious Art Experiment. Audacious not only organise gigs, they sign a vast array of weird and wonderful bands onto their record label, putting on gigs funded by donations. For students it’s perfect; the BYOB system works out cheaper for all involved.
“Think Blessa on a boat, tropical warehouse parties and aftershow soirees” Another promoter XrayHorse Music have been going for about four years and have racked up a number of impressive artists. Promoter Emil Kazounis says “we’ve worked with people like Django Django, Seize the Chair, TOY, Drenge, Foals, Metronomy, PAWS, Is Tropical, Best Friends and Alt-J.” It’s hard to think of a cooler career; take Matt from Uneven Blonde, who scored a job down south with an indie booking agent, “which is great for him,” says Loic, “but a bummer for the city. Perhaps it’s cool though when someone else gets to have a go instead. Bands need gigs all the time and if someone feels they could do the job
Uneven Blonde did then they should give it a go.” Unfortunately, as Max Templer, organiser of Get Rad, admits, “student promoters tend to leave post-graduation!” Get Rad is a fairly new night that ex-president of Small Ideas (the Alternative Music Society) Max created after his work with the society. “After I found my feet with them, I did some work for the Harley and then decided to take the plunge myself. I’d definitely recommend starting with something like Small Ideas if you can though, you can learn the ropes and then do your own thing.” Small Ideas gives you the opportunity to take up gig promotion and bring some bands to Sheffield. “It’s totally about learning on the job,” says vice-president Kat McCarthy, “none of us are experts. Older society members will pass what they’ve learnt onto younger members but, at the end of the day, we’re all still young and inexperienced. We’re like a training camp for the next generation of promoters. Anyone can join and we make sure everyones got something to do, be it promotion, DJing, poster-making, interviewing or reviewing.” Whether you decide to turn gig promotion into a career, or keep it as a hobby, there’s no doubt it’s a lot of fun. Chris Knight from Banana Hill feels like the project is something to be proud of: “the best night we organised was Steel City Carnival, which we did in June this year with fellow Sheffield promoters the Catch Connection. It was a 12-hour dusk-til-dawn tropical warehouse party and was our first really big event. It couldn’t have gone better.” Emil from XrayHorse remembers bringing Ghostpoet to Sheffield. “The first of two shows he did with us was great. We booked him six months in advance for £300. He then went on a UK tour, got Mercury nominated and went on Jules Holland.” Kat remembers a gig that Small Ideas put on last year. “Without a doubt, the best gig was the 100% Silk showcase. Running around Tesco on the morning of the gig trying to fulfil requests for raw foodist-friendly food and lots of beer wasn’t one of our finest hours. We also spent hours blowing up balloons and adorning the room with glittery decorations, fashioning projector screens out of bedsheets. But then we also got to meet some of our idols Amanda Brown, Maria Minerva and Daniel Martin-McCormick so it evens up.” Despite our great music scene, Sheffield is still sadly missed out on a lot of bands’ schedules, and with the sheer amount of brilliant venues the city has to offer, it’s a massive shame. “Sheffield is surrounded by cities with really strong live music scenes which people in Sheffield tend to go to, which inflates the gig going figures for those cities as
well,” says Max, “this means a lot of the time bands don’t need to play Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester or that it even makes sense as the promoters in Leeds and Manchester tend to have a lot more money to play with.” It’s Sheffield’s thriving DIY scene that makes it so unique and therefore attractive both to smaller bands who need to catch a break and the venues that cater to that niche. “There are some of the best smaller sized venues in the country, along with a number of amazing independent promoters putting on underground music,” says Chris, “but the venues that have the capacity and the capital to invest in those bigger touring bands just aren’t setting themselves up for it. Obviously from a business point of view, it’s much less risk and they make a lot more money selling cut price spirits to students.”
“It’s Sheffield’s thriving DIY scene that makes it so unique” Do we even need bigger bands to come? Sheffield has a reputation for caching away hidden gems, says Chris. “You have to look under the surface to find the real wealth of what it has to offer”. The development of the underground dance music scene has helped boost the city’s appeal, too, “Venues like Hope Works, CADS (Dirty Little Secret), Yellow Arch Studios and various other warehouse spaces, plus the Fez Club, Penelopes, and the Riverside provide a healthy network of spaces for the long list of promoters who are clearly all committed to bringing their favourite acts to Sheffield, and in the process raising the profile of the city.” With the Sheffield scene being so small, it’ll soon be time to branch out and start bringing the music scene here to other cities. For Audacious, it’s more a question of knowing the whereabouts of every member. With people scattered all over the country, their plans are big. “This year we worked with Za! from Barcelona and released their record in the UK, which has cast our net a touch wider. We’ll be releasing records for the foreseeable future and the next one is a band from Manchester called Championlover. We’ve just repressed a record by Leeds band Cowtown and we’re working on getting that to every household in the EU.” As for Banana Hill, the schedule in Sheffield looks packed. Work has already begun on a second Steel City Carnival, Chris assures us, and much closer is a night at the DLS Warehouse on December 14.
Artwork: Samantha Fielding
Friday November 22 2013
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Friday November 22 2013
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The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Sam Russell contemplates the best Marvel characters How hard can it be to take a good comic book hero and put them up on a screen? With the regularity that Marvel seems to be churning out successful blockbuster adaptations, while still remaining pretty true to their sources, you’d be forgiven for thinking they had mysterious powers of their own. As more and more iconic characters continue to explode onto our screens (especially now that Netflix have just commissioned four new series) it throws a bunch more things to debate into the fanbase melting pot. Questions such as “who’s the coolest?”, “who has the best costume?” and all the other stuff that comes up on internet forums, all needs answering. It’s time to start wearing your underwear over the top of your trousers.
The main problem with Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man trilogy wasn’t the messy SpiderMan 3, it was that Tobey Maguire was always an out and out nerd. Admittedly, in his first few comic book appearances, way back in 1962, Spider-Man’s secret identity was a sweater-vest wearing bookworm, but he didn’t stay that way for long. That’s what’s great about this reboot. Andrew Garfield’s web-slinger follows the character’s trajectory from the books more closely, especially the Ultimate universe one. If you were a nice dude that when bitten by a radioactive spider, developed a six-pack overnight and fought off criminals in the dark, you too would probably get more confident and have a bit more to say. This Peter Parker isn’t some over the top science geek, he’s just your average teenager from Queens with great hair. That’s not to say he isn’t clever anymore, because he really is, just that his other interests are also now significant. He’s into skateboarding, photography, and for all his intelligence he doesn’t know how to eat a fish with bones in. When he dons his spandex, this SpiderMan just seems to wear it better. The punches fly more convincingly and the sarcastic quips also seem to stick better. In comparison to the earlier versions this is a film led more by a hero than the villains, and it’s this new version of Peter/Spidey that justified so quick a reboot.
Friday November 22 2013
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X-Men: First Class (2011)
Captain America (2011)
Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Iron Man (2008)
When Professor X and Magneto work together, it’s always pretty special. As one wants to enlighten humanity, the other to end it, the contrast is testament to their friendship which, despite their views, remains believable. They really are good cop, bad cop to the extreme. But we know that already. What sets X-Men: First Class apart from the rest of the X-series is that it shows the relationship blossom. It’s a story of two young idealistic men coming together amid a world that isn’t ready to accept them. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender capture the respective essences of the characters perfectly, and delicately blend them with a youthful exuberance. Seeing them in a new light, away from all the other Wolverine-centric films, really makes the film refreshingly different. The story is played out against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the 60s vibe also provides some fresh impetus for the characters. At one point the future headmaster of his eponymous ‘school for gifted youngsters’ laughably refers to auburn hair as a very groovy mutation. There’s still a massive sense of familiarity present though: the two play chess together, there are references to the Professor’s hair, and there’s a fantastic cameo by another future X-Man. However, it’s the first class performance by the main duo that renders this film so good, making the prospect of seeing them again in the upcoming Days of Future Past incredibly exciting.
In concept, Captain America is a bit rubbish. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a scrawny patriot who only gets superpowers through magic steroids. He can’t even summon up the courage to ask a woman to dance. That’s why it’s so strange that it’s this character that mostly makes the film so good. Captain America’s dated lingo and diehard patriotism actually work really well within the film’s World War II setting. He’s the idealistic embodiment of a soldier, and he absolutely thrives in his element. The captain uses his newfound muscles to great effect in beating up Nazis on the hunt of the megalomaniac Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), but it’s his heart that is his real superpower: and you can see it when he belly flops on a grenade. It’s also interesting to note that the part was apparently all but John Krasinski’s (Jim from the US The Office) before Chris Evans swooped in from nowhere. How different a film it would have been if the Star Spangled Man had spent half his time pulling enervated faces directly at the cameras.
Despite the noticeable brilliance of both Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and his troublesome brother Loki (Tom Hiddlestone), the original Thor always felt like a film being made by people with at least one eye on Avengers: Assemble. Despite this, the studios ordered “another!” and the Asgardians are brought right to the fore in their own right in this sequel. Thor is so big and colourful a character that you simply have to rush home, run around in a cape, and throw hammers at your housemates. And Hemsworth’s portrayal of the Norse god of war is spot on again. It’s not just Thor’s muscular frame that has the audience rooting for him though, it’s the fact that all of his relationships are so troubled. He has so much pressure put on him by his father, his girlfriend is a mortal who lives on Earth, and his brother, the god of mischief, seemingly can’t stop conspiring to kill him. Thankfully Loki once again plays a central role and seeing him and Thor forced together by necessity makes for some wonderful brotherly bonding. Thor’s booming presence is perfectly off-set by Loki’s snarky, sarcastic dressing down of situations. Their time onscreen together is a joy to behold, and fortunately there’s a lot of it.
Right from the very first minute, Tony Stark is pretty much the coolest person there’s ever been. Even when he enters cardiac arrest at one point he’s still brushing it off as if it’s nothing. He’s just as awesome in his tuxedo as he is in his flying gold-titanium alloy (not actually iron). The guy doesn’t even feel the need to keep his identity secret in the end, that’s how ballsy he is. The first film in the Iron Man trilogy is all about this brilliant character. It’s not about tying him in with the Avengers or how he copes after it: its lack of burden allows him to properly show himself off. We see his transition from billionaire playboy arms dealer to billionaire playboy philanthropist, and boy does he kick a lot of ass along the way. The fact that he spends billions of dollars on a flying suit to atone for his company’s errors (when it would have been far more effectively invested in sensible social/humanitarian policies) is instantly forgiven by his quick wit and winning smile. The casting is also probably the most inspired of any superhero film ever. It’s nigh on impossible to see where Robert Downey Jr. ends and Tony Stark begins. In the end Iron Man is a fantastic character, RDJ is a fantastic Iron Man, and that’s why this is the best.
Artwork: Manuel Fuentes
10
Friday November 22 2013
Fuse. games Lego Marvel sUPER HEROES Xbox 360/PS3/PC/Wii U/3DS 7/10
L
ooking at the long list of past Lego games, you could be forgiven for thinking that this cookie cutter formula of film franchise plus customisable Danish construction toy must have become tired by now. But any fan of TT games’ previous pun filled block-buster (get it?) mash-ups could tell you this couldn’t be further from the truth. Lego Marvel Super Heroes introduces the likes of Iron Man, Spiderman and Wolverine to this concept, and the results do not fail to entertain. The premise is simple: use a variety of characters to progress through levels by solving puzzles, thwarting villains, and destroying pretty much everything you see.
Football manager 2014 PC 6/10
T
he Football Manager series understands the passion and spontaneity of the world of football more than any other game on the market. It understands the freezing despair and hopelessness of the five-nil whitewash against a lower league team. It understands the glorious relief of a three-two cup win. It understands the smashed-wall frustration of injury, and the frantic madness of transfer negotiations. More than all of this, it understands what makes football fans tick. Football Manager 2014 is no exception. While a number of small innovative features find their way into the latest iteration of Football Manager, it’s the user-friendliness, AI improvement and depth which receive most of the refinement this time around. The match engine is visually sharper than ever before and the interface is clean and slick with far fewer clicks and screens required in order to get where you want to be. Perhaps the most noticeable improvement comes in the form of the tactics setup. The
Each character has their own skill set which allows them to overcome specific obstacles, such as Spiderman’s spidey sense revealing hidden objects. The levels are separated by a a vibrantly constructed Lego New York city which contains many side quests and possibilities for unlocking extra characters. There are a whopping 155 characters in total. This includes some well known Avengers as well as a few more obscure names for the hardcore Marvel fans. Whether you’re stomping around the city as the Hulk, floating around as M.O.D.O.K, crushing foes with your hammer as Thor, or flying circles around them as Captain Britain (yeah, that’s right our Captain can fly) you’ll never run out of interesting, and often amusing options. This, along with some genuinely funny dialogue gives an atmosphere of whimsy to a game which never takes itself too seriously. The game can suffer from a lack of challenge, which is inevitable due to it being aimed at a young audience and actual gameplay can often become a cycle of breaking and building.
old statistical sliders which were used to determine the way the match was played are banished back to whichever mathematical hole they came from. In their place comes a distinctly more humanised system, using worded commands such as ‘go route one’ instead of ambiguous numbers. It is a more basic system and one which maintains control, even if only in a more generalised manner. A host of new features comes in with the transfer process. There are new real life clauses including being able to offer loan players in transfers, requesting a loan-back deal and agent fees. The optional ‘live’ method of transfer negotiation allows the player to undertake discussion across the phone, on the go, as opposed to the original pen and paper mode. Like a tiki-taka goal, Football Manager 2014 takes the simplest parts of the game and intertwines them with the most complicated parts in order to achieve a clinical finish. And like a tiki-taka goal, it does so in an efficient and stylish manner. Jack Stacey
This style can also lead to horribly stagnant points in gameplay if you can’t quite find the thing you’re supposed to break/ build, leading you to hopelessly run around in circles flailing at anything that looks like it could be destroyed. The game still suffers from the bugs that plagued every previous game, but each iteration has slowly improved in this respect and the platforming elements can be hampered by some unwieldy controls and awkward camera angles. Despite this though, Lego Marvel Super Heroes is a fun filled experience, which can provide hours of entertainment in the mighty Marvel manner. Kareem Elsaid
call of duty: Ghosts Xbox 360/PS3/PC 2/10
A
nother year, another Call of Duty. While not quite as morally repulsive as some of the previous incarnations of the series, Call of Duty: Ghosts suffers from being a soulless, corporate product. Nowhere is this better exemplified than the soul-crushingly dull campaign. When writing assessments in Western Bank are more exhilarating than shooting scores of bad guys, then something is seriously wrong. The story attempts to sidestep the murky ethics of Black Ops and Modern Warfare by making sure that none of the obvious bogeymen of extreme right-wing nuts are the bad guys. Instead, South America unites and declares war on that poor underdog of the world stage: the US. If you make the ill-fated mistake of buying this game, be prepared for lots of nonsense acronyms, bland shooting and unmemorable environments. The multiplayer remains largely unchanged. The maps are a little bit more dynamic and interactive this time round, but it doesn’t make much of a difference to gameplay. Everything is so chaotic already that a bit of rain halfway through the match will not be noticed much. Being set in the near future, you would think that Ghosts would at least have some imaginative, fictional weapons. That isn’t the case. There are the usual weapon classes seen in every other Call of Duty game. Extinction mode feels like a poor man’s Left 4 Dead, right down to the propane tanks. Zombies need little context to be cool. Simply slapping generic, reptilian/insectoid aliens are not cool. The aliens in Halo were memorable because they had distin-
guishable traits, both in appearance and personality. The aliens in Extinction mode could have been lifted from any B-grade sci-fi action game. Last year’s Spec Ops: The Line called into question the morality of modern military shooters like Call of Duty and Battlefield. Ghosts attempts to side-step this difficult quandary with its fantasy setting and its boring story about some fictional Special Forces group. Either way, this is a paint-by-numbers game and signifies the very worst of the triple-A gaming scene. Unimaginative, boring and utterly soulless. If you’ve played a Call of Duty game before, don’t waste your money on this one. If you’ve never played one of these games and want to try it, buy one of the older games for a cheaper price. Don’t let Activision get away with selling you this gruel. Joe Brennan
11
Friday November 22 2013
Fuse. arts
SUTCO: ENRON Drama Studio 8/10
B BOOK CORNER DEAR POPSY
E.ric Bishop-Potter 8/10
D
ear Popsy is about a private schoolboy named Basil Leaf. He has been sent to the exclusive St. Clouds School, where he meets a colourful group of characters. There’s Bletchworth, who absolutely adores leather, the utterly immoral Father Absolute and many, many more. Throughout the course of the book, Basil and his chums indulge in, ahem, rather saucy activities. The sticky situations these characters find themselves in just gets more and more hilarious the further you read. While most of the humour is light-hearted, Popsy isn’t afraid to
Lizzy, Darcy and Jane The Lantern Theatre 7/10
T
o celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice, Madcap Theatre productions have brought Joanna Norland’s Lizzy, Darcy and Jane to the quaint Lantern Theatre in Sheffield. The play discovers the very real life, loves and tribulations of Jane Austen and mixes this with the fictitious characters from Pride and Prejudice to create a somewhat confusing, yet interesting, version of reality. Elizabeth Bennett is created as both an endearing heroine of the novel, with an outspoken and witty character, but also Austen’s admirable confidant. The audience is taken through different stages of Austen’s life, and sees that the misfortune Austen suffers in her life manifests itself in the novel. When Austen’s first taste of love sours, the writing of the novel temporarily alters, forcing Elizabeth Bennett to marry the comically unattractive
ased on the real-life story of the American energy company Enron, Lucy Prebble’s 2009 play of the same name is brought to life by SuTCo in a well-acted, visual spectacle. Tracking the rise and fall of the titular company, the play focuses on three of the key players in this modern tale of corporate arrogance. Jeffery Skilling (Tom Boxall) is made CEO of Enron by Ken Lay (Tom Lodge). Skillings’ immense ambitions for the company leave him without profits, so he turns to the naïve Andy Fastow (Will Taylor), and the two embark on a nefarious scheme that eventually leads to one of the most catastrophic scan-
dals in the corporate world. The acting is mostly solid. Boxall occasionally trips on his lines, but otherwise he is excellent at making Skilling seem as slimy and self-deluding as possible. The most memorable performance comes from Taylor as Fastow. Initially a character who simply serves as comic relief, he becomes more complex as he finds himself embroiled in the corruption of Enron. Taylor showcases his range by being able to confidently channel both comedy and drama. The true star of Enron though is the visual design. The action is set against a huge cyclorama, where video is projected. The multimedia segments sometimes include footage of Clinton and Bush, serving to contextualise the events of the story. In one scene a disorienting,
matrix-style graphics sequence is used to compliment an impressive movement sequence that wonderfully conveys the hectic trading room floor. The scale of the cyclorama serves to make these characters, who think they are too big to fail, look minuscule. The play also features metaphorical velociraptors with glowing red eyes, as well as a grotesque and darkly hilarious representation of Lehman Brothers as a two-headed monster. The spectacular visual design combined with the rage-inducing real-life story makes for another successful SuTCo production.
clear to the audience, with the need to rely on dialogue to differentiate from character to character rather than the acting itself. The concept of Austen being able to meet characters from the novel is intelligent, and provides for interesting viewing. However some inside jokes
have previously read the novel would have been able to keep up with the humour of the play, thus leaving some members of the audience occasionally alienated from the play’s action.
Joe Brennan
venture into darker areas. It manages to eke out some dark laughs from insanity and Basil’s callousness, as a result of his lofty position in society. The story is told through Basil’s postcards to his father (the eponymous Popsy). This format makes the book a great read for busy students, because it is easy to pick up, read for five minutes, and then put back down again. Aside from an abrupt ending that wraps things up a little too quickly, Dear Popsy is a great, accessible read. Ex-private school students will find plenty to laugh about, but the book is great for anyone yearning for a bit of laughter when deadlines are looming. A word of advice though: don’t read this one in a silent study area. Joe Brennan
and unpleasant Mr Collins rather than the agreeable Mr Darcy. The play offers insight into how a 19th Century society functioned, and draws parallels between Austen and Elizabeth Bennett, both of whom wish to marry for love rather than economic security. It is also impressive to note that there are only six actors, many of whom take up multiple challenging roles. This was overall executed well, creating diverse and at time laugh-out-loud moments within the play. However, due to the confusing nature of the play and the constant
shift b e -
tween fact and fiction, the change in c haracter wasn’t always made
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meant that only audience
that
Jo Gallacher
members
Friday November 22 2013
12
Fuse. music
ARCADE FIRE REFLEKTOR 8/10
I
t’s hard for a band such as Arcade Fire to take a bold change in direction, especially when their own brand of lavish, expansive, multi–instrumental art rock has been so particularly well established (and of course well received) on their first two albums Funeral and Neon Bible. It’s also difficult for them create a fourth album that can live up to The Suburbs, their brilliantly dark, sprawling and empirical third album. Reflektor, the band’s aforementioned fourth album, is impressive in many ways. It has faint echoes of the existential themes conveyed in The Suburbs, but this album is a pulsing, electronic work of “death disco”, somewhat different to their original epic “baroque pop”. It’s a work obsessed and fixated with the subject of death, the departed, the afterlife (lead singer Win Butler declaring on the title track that he will “see you on the other side”) and ghosts, projected through a sound that is completely alien and yet strangely wellsuited to the band. Reflektor is a double album, with many of the songs being especially lengthy and perhaps hard for the listener to comprehend upon the first few listens. It takes a
while to really hear the gloriously subtle dance grooves of the title track, but once got, becomes totally consuming. There certainly are hints of their trademark, heroic choruses in songs like ‘We Exist’ and ‘Here Comes The Night Time’, and the swinging lilt of ‘You Already Know’ could easily be a track off The Suburbs, but these are beautifully
complimented by soft, mesmeric riffs. Whereas before the band might have developed these tracks into huge, sweeping anthems, now they carefully work with these new sounds to create something understated and elusive. ‘Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice)’ is an astonishing example of this. Maybe Reflektor is too long and slightly too ambitious, but at certain points, the result of this new direction is stunning. Rachel Bell
Read more reviews online at Forge Today
B
lood Orange, aka Dev Hynes, can most certainly do no wrong. From penning top tracks for Solange, Sky Ferreria and the new Sugababes reformation, MKS, Hynes has encapsulated all that is good and great about pop music in 2013. His newest offering, Cupid Deluxe, the sophomore follow up to Coastal Grooves, builds upon the smooth R’n’B influences and electronic undertones that made Coastal Grooves and Blood Orange so brilliant in the first place. Lead track ‘Chamkay’ has been enjoying some decent airplay, including Annie Mac’s Sunday night show on
E
lla Yelich-O’Connor’s (aka Lorde) debut album Pure Heroine has slipped into the charts effortlessly. At just 17 years old, she is the youngest artist to have topped the US chart since Tiffany in 1987, a pretty huge success for the young New Zealander. Although an intelligent, opinionated and slick first album, it would be a push to say it truly lives up to the hype surrounding her. The standout track from Pure Heroine is without question ‘Royals.’ With a hauntingly dreamlike vocal, Lorde gives a moody and melancholic insight into teenage life in the depths of suburbia. Despite pretentious undertones, this is an addictive track with a simplistic hook that lingers long after the first listen. However, this is the only highlight. There are hints of potential on the album, but at no point do these moments become anything great. Affected and forced, it has a sound and lyrical style that fails to push any musical boundaries.
UPCOMING: X
DOT COM
James Karanicholas Physics Favourite band: Flogging Molly Favourite track right now: ‘Terror Shark’ - Municipal Waste
CUPID DELUXE 7/10
PURE HEROINE 4/10
Harry Moss Physics Favourite band: Drenge Favourite track right now: ‘Pokemon City Limits’ - Onsind
More reviews online
BLOOD ORANGE
LORDE
WHAT’S ON YOUR PLAYLIST?
Radio 1. The track encapsulates some seriously groovy beats and woozy saxophone to accompany an earnest break-up: “I’ll leave you with your feelings/I’ll leave your with your lies.” ‘You’re Not Good Enough’ features Samantha Urbani from Friends, and the two use their delicate voices for truth and hurt; the repetition of the line “I never was in love/You know that you were never good enough”. It’s rare to find music with such an honest opinion but Blood Orange seems intent on supplying the cruellest of break up albums. The album switches from the delicate and gentle to a more energetic tempo, with Prince-esque crooning, dance-worthy beats and even some rap gems, allowing for the listener
The minimalist production becomes repetitive, with every track eventually sounding like a quiet mumble over indistinguishable beats and clicks. She sounds bored, and so are we. Tracks such as ‘Ribs’ and ‘White Teeth Teens’ continue with the theme of teenage boredom. It often sounds like an overdramatic diary entry accompanied by an overproduced dark, electronic and depressing sound. This album is a perfect example of a relatively new artist stuck with a sound that is holding them back from revealing their true potential. Despite this, the popularity and success of Pure Heroine cannot be ignored. There is certainly something here – with a little less pretention and a bit more variety in production
to find something different in every track on the album. It is surprising to find anything so multi-genre that works so well, making Cupid Deluxe an instant necessary addition to the wealth of music that has come out of 2013. And, to top it all off Cupid Deluxe is always characterised by the hazyHynes esque style which have propelled Solange and Sky Ferreria into mainstream success this year, and if there is any justice in the music world, this album should do the same for Blood Orange. Amelia Heathman
and vocal she could be brilliant. But for now, it’s an album that massively lacks originality, and has unfortunately only produced one worthwhile track. Josie Kirk
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Lorde: Garth Badger
FOALS:CCTV SESSIONS / SONDRE LERCHE:PUBLIC HI-FI SESSIONS / BRITNEY SPEARS:BRITNEY JEAN
13
Friday November 22 2013
Fuse. music
GARY NUMAN
Monday November 11 O2 Academy
G
ary Numan cannot be accused of living in the past. Despite reaching the height of his fame in the early 1980s and being on something of a downward career trajectory ever since, the self-proclaimed ‘King of Synth-Pop’ sounds as fresh and original as ever. His new album, Splinter, is his highest charting album since 1983, and the infamously inanimate Numan seemed buoyed by his recent chart success, giving an energetic performance that seemed somewhat at odds with the disinterested robotic Tubeway Army persona of his early days. The angst is still there however, and his songs about the crushing loneliness of urban alienation have surprisingly lost little of their bite, given that they’re now being performed by a 55-year-old family man and resident of Santa Monica California, to an audience of former New Romantics. Songs from Splinter make up just over half of the setlist, whilst Numan skates around his back catalogue the rest of the time just enough to keep everyone happy. The sound and the visual effects are certainly impressive; at times it’s like being at a rather less energetic Prodigy gig
if they’d been fronted by an androgynous arm-flailing Billie-Joe Armstrong lookalike and backed by a succession of different ultrasound images. Numan seems to have consciously veered away from what is expected of him stylistically, rejecting the bottled nostalgia that a number of his 80s chart compatriots seem to be selling on their endless tours of O2 Academies. There’s nothing sentimental about this Gary Numan, as is demonstrated by his decision to end on a new song after a hit-infused encore consisting of ‘Cars’ and a mesmerising piano-led performance of ‘Are Friends Electric?’ which was undoubtedly the most well received section of the gig. The audience pounced upon their first opportunity to participate.
GLASS ANIMALS
Saturday November 9 The Bowery
D SAN FERMIN
Saturday November 9 The Great Gatsby
U
pstairs in the Great Gatsby – Sheffield’s homage to Fitzgerald – is where Brooklyn-based San Fermin play the third gig of their first UK tour, supported by local Sheffield two-piece L’Amour Des Rêves. Before beginning, L’Amour ask the crowd to move a little closer towards them. There’s a real intimacy between them and their audience from the very start, which deepens as their set progresses. Lyrically and melodically, they achieve an endearing sincerity to their sound, thriving upon the charming vocal relationship the two-piece achieve. Contrasting to L’Amour, San Fermin is a much larger band. Up front are three vocalists, baritone Allen Tate, soprano Jess Wolf and alto
Holly Laesig, the latter two of Brooklyn-based Lucius, another band to watch out for. Brass, strings, guitars and drums accompany them, over a piano/synth played by Ellis Ludwig-Leone, San Fermin’s spiritual leader, composer and conductor. Ludwig-Leone’s role as conductor is crucial to the medley of San Fermin. Facing a huge instrumental depth, Ludwig-Leone is able to achieve an excellent balance: the brass never threatens to impinge upon the vocals, you can always hear the violin counterpoints – and there are a fair few violin counterpoints. The music glows with ingenious harmonies – credit to Ludwig-Leone’s stellar, at times baroque craft – which are all beautifully enabled through the music’s discipline. San Fermin’s control does not mean their performance lacks soul. Wonderfully lively and charismatic through-
out, the band performs with a contagious vigor. In songs like ‘Sonsick’ they amass an incredible energy and an atmosphere like the ‘Chicago’ of Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois. Even more like Sufjan is their ability to portray an array of feeling with consistent, musical integrity. The somberness of ‘Daedalus’ never feels weak or fatigued but instead is delivered with the rest of the set’s same, strong vitality. The crowd asks both bands for encores, both of which are thoroughly deserved. L’Amour Des Rêves and San Fermin deliver charming and stellar performances. This being only their first UK tour and album, expect to be hearing more of San Fermin in the future. Joe Vaughan
eep and shattering basslines entwine with the hauntingly silken voice of lead vocalist Drew McFarlane as Oxford based band, Glass Animals, take to the stage at the Bowery. The band’s travels commenced in Glasgow on November 8 with Sheffield being the second leg of their week long cross-country tour. After a brilliant set by Woman’s Hour, Glass Animals open with the track, ‘Exxus’, from their latest work, Black Mambo / Exxus EP, released in July. The small but keen audience at the Bowery is transfixed on the whimsical synths and experimental keyboard strokes that the band produces. The lyrics are liquid, ac-
If there is one criticism, it’d be that towards the end some of the more similar-sounding songs start to blur into an indistinct electronic haze, but even this isn’t a wholly unpleasant sensation. There are certainly worse ways to spend an evening. Chris Smith
Gary Numan: Anna Wieczerzak companied by the backing vocals of Joe Seaward and Dave Bayley. Lovers of bands like Alt-J and Purity Ring will find themselves crazy over the eccentric yet inventive use of musical instruments that this band have perfected. Part of the way through, Glass Animals descend into more familiar electronic rock sounds as the drummer, Edmund Irwin-Singer taps away at his drums in swift speeds to match the neoR&B kind of tempo. They also feature their brand new track ‘Psylla’, which is out now. The band head-bob to their own music and McFarlane is rocking around the stage on his guitar, encapsulating the animated yet oddly calming vibe of the band. McFarlane thanks the listeners after every track they
play, only to be replied with the applause of an audience who are eager for more. The one hour for which Glass Animals are on stage seems to pass away in an instant as they announce their final track, ‘Black Mambo’. The pizzicato sounds of this track pierce through, as the crowd sways to the chorus. From start to finish, Glass Animals hold every single person’s attention on every chord they play. As they finish their final track, the audience erupts into applause, wrapping up what has been a very successful gig for this up and coming band. Watch this band closely, because if their current track record is anything to go by, this gig is only the beginning of their peak. Niki Kesharaju
Glass Animals: Niki Kesharaju
UPCOMING: SLOW CLUB:CATHEDRAL NOV 23 / FOY VANCE:LEADMILL NOV 29/ PAPA ROACH:O2 ACADEMY DEC 2
Friday November 22 2013
14
Fuse. screen
Don jon
Dir: Joseph Gordon-Levitt 6/10
A the counselor Dir: Ridley Scott 5/10
W
hen Pacific Rim flopped onto our screens like a misjudged trampoline stunt, director Guillermo del Toro was left alone to hang his head in shame, probably in some dark corner. Ridley Scott, your time of brilliance is up. What can be pulled from The Counselor in terms of plot is that one Mexican cartel is after $20m in drugs that high-flying billionaire Reiner (Javier Bardem) and his counsellor, simply named Counselor (Michael Fassbender), are sending to Mexico, hidden inside a sewage refuse truck. All of this is happening courtesy of middle man Westray (Brad Pitt), who thinks he’s a cowboy. However, Reiner’s mistress Malkina (Cameron Diaz), a cheating, cheetah-loving nymphomanic, double-crosses the whole gang, aiding in the kidnapping of the Counselor’s wife, Laura (Penélope Cruz) for blackmail. One notable feature of this film
is that once it’s over, the only character whose name you can remember doesn’t actually have a name. Perhaps, in fairness, this is the fault of writer Cormac McCarthy, in all his aged wisdom, for writing such a strange, elongated script. Nearly every word spoken by any main character could easily be a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche or Confucius - it’s all philosophical nonsense that leaves the audience perpetually wondering what the bloody hell’s happening. Regardless, Bardem shines as ever, his chubby cheeks and enchanting smile guiding us through what could easily pass for a film adaptation of someone’s Wikipedia-thriving dissertation. Gone is Diaz’s typical vacuous role; instead we see a dangerously provocative, yet maliciously imaginative woman with a narcotic personality and wonderful posture. There are other characters, that much is certain. But they deserve as much recognition here as they received throughout the film. For those expecting graphic gore and perpetual violence, there is some reprise, and it’s called a bolito. This ingenious mechanical de-
vice is draped around one’s neck, and uses a tiny motor to pull a steel cable made from “some unholy alloy” until the looped cable tightens to zero, severing the neck’s cartoid arteries and eventually slicing the head clean off. Another instance of decapitation is where one man is garotted by a similar wire strung across a road. A flash of light causes him to raise his head from his motorbike in shock, just long enough for him to lose it. This film isn’t for the faint-hearted. The Counselor simply isn’t up to scratch. From the Alien saga to the likes of Gladiator and Blade Runner, the expectations for Scott’s latest film were huge. He simply couldn’t fill his boots this time round. Having said that, what it lacks in story and scripting is more than made up for with sweeping landscapes, Almodóvar-esque colouring and, when necessary, wonderfully eccentric decapitation. Oh, and Brad Pitt is a cowboy. Hilarious.
lthough Don Jon is worth seeing, it could have been so much more. It marks the writing and directorial debut of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Levitt is also the star as Jon, a porn addict. As the audience, we gain a privileged look into Jon’s life. We see how he is shaped by his family, particularly his domineering father (Tony Danza). More interestingly, and perhaps more problematically, the relationship Jon has with his girlfriend Barbara is explored, as well as his interactions with an acquaintance called Esther (Julianne Moore). The first 20 minutes of the film are incredible. The opening credits stylishly establish the hyper-sexualised society we live in, which is the closest thing this film has to a villain. Jon is introduced as the ideal man of this world. He’s ultra-confident, has an amazing body, can get any girl he wants, but he is hopelessly addicted to internet porn. One of the main problems with the film is that it attempts to make a connection between porn and bad rom-coms, saying both lead to unfulfilling relationships. This aspect of the film is central to Jon and Barbara’s relationship. The problem is that Jon’s porn habit is ex-
plained in great detail by the man himself in the opening narration. In contrast, Barbara’s obsession with romcoms is seen only through Jon’s eyes and is not explored in enough detail. This weakens the film’s argument about porn and romcoms being parallel. The third act is where the film stumbles most. When the drama is reaching its pinnacle, Jon is never seen to be emotionally exposed all that much. He always seems to maintain his macho persona, which means his redemption does not have any emotional weight to it. The resolution of the film does not feel satisfying either, as it resorts to the same rushed, schmaltzy cheese that mediocre romcoms rely on. It is embarrassingly ironic, considering Don Jon parodies those films in an earlier scene. It’s a shame that the film has these problems because it stains an otherwise excellent performance by Moore as the enigmatic and emotionally scarred Esther. Tony Danza and Glenne Headley overact as his parents though, feeling like pantomime characters in a film brimming with brash personalities. That being said, they are never boring to watch. The strong beginning of Don Jon still merits a recommendation, but the film is ultimately deflated by its disappointing second half. Joe Brennan
Will Ross
CULT CORNER Battle Royale 2 Dir: Kinji Fukasaku
T
he original Battle Royale is basically The Hunger Games. Released in 2000 (eight years prior to Susanne Collins’s first novel), it tells the story of a government punishing a rebellion by forcing children to compete in a fight to the death, winner-takes-all tournament. Sounds familiar right? The second film, however, is just a mess of explosions and gore. Three years have passed since the original Battle Royale finished and survivor Nanahara Shuya (Tatsuya Fujiwara) is now wanted for terrorist activities. The fascist Japanese Government changes the rules of the BR act and sends another 40 children, led by new hotshot Taku-
ma Aoi (Shugo Oshinari), to Battle Island. Their mission: kill Shuya in an attempt to quell the threat. Whilst the original film was a brilliant critique of modern culture; the sequel seems to have opted in favour of more cheesy explosions, more ridiculously gory deaths, and an uncomfortable political message. The ridiculous tone of the film is set early on with the shot of a city crumbling to the tune of ‘Dies Irae’. From then on the film trundles on, punctuated only by our group of heroes exploding one by one. Undoubtedly it’s a flawed film, and iconic director Kinji Fukasaku inconvenienced things a bit by sadly passing away one scene into filming. The plot is messy at best and the political monologues are just torturous. However, certain parts are so bad you can’t help but enjoy them.
The terrible acting for one (especially Shugu Oshinari’s ridiculous, bulging eyes), and the shock factor in which characters’ back stories are introduced before they meet their grizzly ends. The original Battle Royale is a fantastic film, and this, quite simply, is not. Die-hard fans of the original will enjoy bits that are more of the same but it’s just too much longer and heavier. Sam Russell
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DOT COM
Friday November 22 2013
Dom Hemingway Dir: Richard Shepard 6/10
R
eleased from prison after 12 years, safe-cracker Dom Hemingway (Jude Law) has a lot of catching up to do. With ex-partners ready to screw him over and a daughter who wants nothing to do with him, the world is out to get this verbose, violent, vulgar specimen. Before Dom Hemingway can be criticised, it must be said how brave this film is. The transformation that Jude Law goes through to create the rotting, overweight, has-been title character is staggering and only matched in recent times by James McAvoy in Filth. It’s a daring and effective play against type. The film is billed as ‘from the producer of Sexy Beast’ and thus forces comparisons with the 90s crime classic. In many ways, Dom Hemingway is something of a spiritual sequel to that film and others of its 90s ilk. It’s easy to draw parallels between Dom and characters like Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast or Paul Bettany in Gangster No. 1 in his rough eloquence, erratic behaviour and violent tendencies. But where those older flicks seemed to admire their fascinating protagonists, Dom Hem-
ingway is more like a jaded spiritual sequel, exposing its enigma as the pathetic creature he really is. While Law spits half-Shakespearean soliloquies about his penis or opens a safe by thrusting his crotch against it, the character’s attempts to mythologise himself are exposed as efforts to mask the hapless moron underneath. Dom is a decaying, laughable stereotype. The rest of the cast is a strong set, with Richard E. Grant having enormous fun as Dom’s onehanded sidekick Dickie - “I thought the black glove was just a fashion statement!” - and Emilia Clarke of Game of Thrones effectively selling her part as Dom’s bitter, estranged daughter. Richard Shepard, who both writes and directs,
crafts a highly stylised film. It’s interspersed with almost poetic dialogue, filled with a roaring soundtrack of British rock and split up by knowing title cards for each ‘chapter’. The choices he makes are interesting, but they’re also perhaps the film’s downfall. Shepard’s writing and direction seem to be at odds
with the cast’s performances. Where the actors are fantastic at scratching away the su-
Rhys Handley
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SMALL SCREEN Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D - The Hub Creator: Joss Whedon
gravity
Dir: Alfonso Cuarón 8/10
D
irector of Children of Men Alfonso Cuarón brings the world the highly-anticipated space thriller Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Described by Avatar director and all-round special effects guru James Cameron as “the greatest space film ever done”, Gravity has received extremely positive feedback from across the pond. Bullock, who has been tipped for an Oscar nomination for her performance, plays medical engineer and newbie astronaut Dr Ryan Stone. Her first trip off earth hits trouble when space debris hits their shuttle, destroying it and killing all of its crew apart from herself and space veteran Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney). The pair find themselves all alone and without contact with earth. It is up to their own initiative to find a solution and quick - before the debris
strikes again. Cuarón’s attention to detail rewards the audience with one of the most visually pleasing films ever made. A film that had been in development hell for several years due to Cuarón and his team’s ambitious technological needs; the end result proves that it was more than worth the wait. Bullock spoke of how it was the most surreal movie she has ever worked on. For the spacewalk scenes, everything other than the actors’ facial expressions were added digitally afterwards to allow Cuarón to create an atmosphere as accurate a representation of space as possible. Bullock’s strong performance cannot be ignored, despite the enchanting nature of the special effects. The Oscar winner demonstrated a depth of character that deserves praise in an environment that could easily see it overlooked. Vulnerable, yet with a hidden steely determination, Dr Ryan Stone fights against the odds
15 perficial surfaces of their characters and finding pathetic humanity underneath, Shepard’s aping of classic Tarantino-isms pushes for the ‘legend’ that Dom wants you to believe about himself, rather than the human wreckage that Law is trying to show you underneath. Another mis-step comes in his choice to divide the two key plots - Dom retrieving his reward from his Russian crime boss and his troubles with his daughter - over the two halves of the film. One plot is allowed to end before the other begins, meaning neither feels like a real journey you can invest in, rather two episodes of a sub-par TV series. Gory, sweary and brash, Dom Hemingway is a film just like its title character - distinctive and enjoyable, but not quite as good or as clever as it thinks it is.
in a very dignified manner. Clooney, the only other actor who sees actual face-time in the film, once again shines in the flamboyant, charmer role as Matt Kowalsky. He offers comedic relief to an otherwise serious, straight-edged piece of cinema. Gravity is a visual masterpiece that will leave space fans licking their lips. From the beauty of earth, and the meticulous planning of Bullock and Clooney’s exact movements, to the beautiful silence of space that encapsulates our screen: Cuarón’s attention to detail will no doubt put him as a front runner when it’s time for awards season. The only disappointment about the film is its unnecessary Armageddon-lite clichéd phrases (“It’s time to stop driving. It’s time to go home”) that plague the final scenes of the film. Thankfully such grievances can be forgiven because of the overriding positives of a very special film. Matthew Watson
W
ith tranquilising, quick escapes, and level eight clearance, episode seven is another thriller, building on the success of last week’s episode. The team make a visit to the centre of all S.H.I.E.L.D activity, the titular ‘hub’. Once there they meet Agent Hand (Saffron Burrows) who needs a team of two to go into South Osetia and disable a weapon there. Ward and Fitz are chosen to go, presenting us with a relationship that has yet to be explored between the two. And explore it they do. What begins as an sibling dynamic soon transforms into one of two equals working side by side. The two haven’t had much interaction together in the series so far, so this episode is a gem for humour and character development. Building on last week and creating a sense of over-arching continuity, Simmons worries about Fitz, warning him to be careful since it’s only he’s still new to field work. He tells her in return not to do anything dangerous while he’s gone, “like jumping out a plane”. When they arrive, Ward uses his contact Uri to try and get them across the border and into South Osetia, but this backfires when it turns out Uri is in fact dead. Af-
ter some quick thinking from Fitz, surprising Ward with his ability to charm the locals, the two make it to the location of the weapon. Skye, meanwhile, is unhappy with her meagre clearance, which allows her access to very little information. She coerces Simmons into helping her do what she does best: hack S.H.I.E.L.D’s mainframe to find out more info on Ward and Fitz’s mission. After Simmons awkwardly flirts with another agent, compliments his bald head, and then tranquilises him, Skye manages to find out that Ward and Fitz’s mission has no extraction. May, Skye, and Simmons decide to take matters into their own hands, plotting to extract “the boys” from the mission themselves, until Coulson stops them in their tracks. And then joins them in a rescue, which is a tad too ‘just in the nick of time’. ‘The Hub’ gives us a lovely reference to ‘Barton and Romanov’ which is dropped into conversation nicely without sounding too contrived, and the storyline about Skye’s parents is also moved along subtly, without overshadowing the rest of the action. The post-credit scene this week is perhaps the best yet; Coulson attempts to find out information about his recuperation only to be told he doesn’t have the clearance. This gives substance the mystery we’ve been pondering all along – is there something wrong with Coulson? It’s going to be difficult to wait until next week to find out. Kate Lovatt
FORGE’S DESERT ISLAND Every fortnight, we ask a couple of our editors to pick their Fuseesque desert island necessities. This issue we ask our news editors which items they couldn’t live without.
MUSIC: Pinball Wizard: The Collection - The Who GAMES: Star W ars Battlefront:
ARTS: Flat Earth New sDavies
Aidan Phillips:
News editor
SCREEN: Rocky IV
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Nick
aralyze e- Age P o t s ie b a Lull s of the Ston : C I MUS Queen late! u c i t r A : GAMES e Proulx i n n A e g Close Ran ARTS: e Slayer ir p m a V e h t : Buffy
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MUSIC: Revolutionary Immor tal TechVolume 2 nique GAMES: BioS ho ck
ARTS: The Bloody C hambe
Lauren Archer
: News editor
SCREEN:
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