Quench - Issue 59

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contents : Issue 59 - 12th November 2007 FASHION

p.08

Taking one photographer and two models deep within the archaic confines of Jacob’s Market, West Canal Wharf, Quench is proud to present the first ever Vintage fashion shoot. Mixing classic vintage clothing with some stunning modern items, the results are striking.

p.25 INTERVIEWS

God knows who let them in, but somehow Interviews managed to blag their way to The BFI London Film Festival, where they harassed all manner of directors and celebrities, from Christian Bale to Lily Allen.

VOYEUR - - - - - - - - - - - - - p.04 DEBATE - - - - - - - - - - - - - p.06 SOFIE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - p.07 GAY - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - p.14 TRAVEL - - - - - - - - - - - - - p.16 BLIND DATE - - - - - - - - - - p.19 FEATURES - - - - - - - - - - - p.20 FOOD - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -p.32

GOING OUT - - - - - - - - p.34 FINAL WHISTLE - - - - - - p.35 CULT CLASSICS - - - - - - p.36 ARTS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - p.38 DIGITAL - - - - - - - - - - - - - p.41 BOOKS - - - - - - - - - - - - - p.44 MUSIC - - - - - - - - - - - - - p.47 FILM - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - p.55

COVER: Sophie Pycroft / Ben Bryant

Editor Ben Bryant Executive Editor Amy Harrison Assistant to the Editors Elaine Morgan Arts Amy Grier, Tasha Prest-Smith Blind Date Hazel Plush Books Tom Williams Cult Classics Gareth Mogg Debate Aisling Tempany Digital Dom MukwambaSendall Fashion Jo Butler, Mary Parkes Features Gillian Couch, Chris Rogers, Jim Whiteley Film Sim Eckstein, Will Hitchins Food Daniel Smith Gay Andy Tweddle Going Out Lucy Rowe, Amelia Thomas Interviews Michael Bateson-Hill, Lucinda Day, Annika Henderson Music Kyle Ellison, Francesca Jarvis, Si Truss Travel Jim Finucane, Kirsty Page Sub Editor Graeme Porteous Proof Readers Jonny Cox, Rachel Greenwood, Adam Millward, Elaine Morgan, Aisling Tempany, Abigail Whittaker, Richard Woods

voyeur

{Voyeur}.........

IN

OUT

PHOTO: AMY HARRISON

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tigers

pandabird

e-shopper Communist Nesting Dolls “RARE. HANDMADE” £10.67 ebay.co.uk

P

ublication of the Week:

WILDLIFE PHOTO: Amy Har-

D

espite what friends, punk rockers and procrastinators worldwide might tell you, to ‘live every day as if it’s your last’ is definitely not a good idea.

Take this issue for example. Had I been living Deadline Day as if it were my last, I would definitely not have been flicking through pages on my iMac trying to make sure that headers were correctly aligned to baseline grid.

Instead, I would probably have been immersed in a Groundhog Day-like experience of calling all my friends to tell them I loved them, redrafting my will, and frantically engaging in all the activities that boring old future-assumed life doesn’t let you do. At this precise moment in time, I would be strolling naked through Tesco in a chimney-pot hat, casually teabagging the lychees as I went on my merry way.

In fact, one week into adopting my new lifestyle, I would have told my old school headmaster to “fuck off” seven times, I would have explored a variety of obscure sexual practices (another day, another bout of autoerotic-asphyxiation...), I would have bathed in raisins, shaved my head and glued my nostrils shut.

I’d probably even have spent at least one futile hour trying to reconcile with God. And all this fuelled by nothing but ice-cream and crack.

Yet still - inexplicably - I would not be dead. Once my last day was over - assuming that I hadn’t been arrested - I’d get up the next morning and do it all over again. I can think of little worse than unleashing my unconscious on the world and letting spontaneity take over full-time.

The mantra might sound good, but you only know what it really means when you’ve seen a fifty-seven-yearold punk with a receding hairline quietly nodding his head to a Buzzcocks tribute band.

BB

Since tigers are on the way out now anyway, I feel we must draw your attention to the plight of the Pandabird in China. With only twenty breeding pairs remaining, let’s make sure we all join the facebook group SAVE THE PANDABIRD and make a REAL difference to this amazing species’s survival.

www.bintmagazine.com

..

S T Y L E With Amber Duval - majestic purveyor of vulgar twattery

voyeur

Hello girls, boys and in-betweeners! Amber Duval here. I have to say, I’m still a little sore from last issue’s discipline session. They bound and gagged me for a whole week, you know! Of course, Cuthbert the butler could have undone me at any time, but once I was trussed up like a turkey, it seemed foolish not to take advantage of the situation! Anyhoo. This week’s top tip: if in doubt, overdressed is best. My dear, departed, filthy-rich Ernie used to don his coat and tails to every student bop, the silly old corpse!

He would even cover up the table legs on our seventeenth century solid oak dining table - what an antiquated twat!

Well. whatever you do, make sure you don’t look like this

This issue: Amber stalks an unfotunate chap

Just look at this trumpet-cunt!

Those horrendous colours wouldn’t look out of place on one of Ernie’s Faberge eggs.

Of course, now that Ernie’s gone, I occasionally pluck his

eggs from the mantlepiece and crush them between my thighs.

Sex tiffin! Anyway, nobody wants to see this grotesque specimen naked. He rather reminds of the time I was stalked by a nudist on

the Brecon beacons. That filthpeddler almost won my virginity, the young scamp! But all in all, this is an abhorrent selection of clothing. And just who is that gash-on-the-lash on his arm...?

IS THIS YOU?

If so, you’ve won at least 20 CD singles from our singles drawer, along with some other bits and bobs.

How super!

Pop up to the gair rhydd office on the 4th floor to collect.

....................................... voyeur@gairrhydd.com /

05

debate

myspace

-vs-

facebook

This week in Debate, it’s the clash of the social networking titans, so let the battle commence...

T

“

Myspace users are also far more attractive than facebookers

“

Who doesn’t love those hungover days spent looking at the pictures from the night before?

“

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M

“

he social networking site that is Facebook provokes many reactions, but let’s not lie to ourselves: we love it or, at the very least, love to hate it.

OK, so I’ll be the first to admit all these new applications are driving me slightly insane. No I don’t want to be a ‘zombie,’ or have to scroll through miles of crap on someone’s wall before I can write a post. And the all important question still looms, what the hell is a poke and what exactly does it imply? Friendly gesture or cheeky insinuation.

But can anyone seriously resist the phenomenon that is Fb? I thought I could, thinking it was just another Myspace knockoff. Apart from the music Myspace is really just full of posers, ‘troubled’ teenagers and random scary stalkers. Then I noticed the majority of conversations with my friends contained some reference to the site, and you know it has to be good when romantic relationships start to be defined by their Facebook profile - ‘he’s still listed as single on fb…!’ So I finally succumbed to Fb and have never looked back!

It is great for photos; who doesn’t love those hungover days spent looking at the pictures from the night before, filling in those blanks and legitimising why you are feeling so stupidly awful? Organising events has never been so easy and finding an amusing group is enough to entertain you for hours. Try as you might you can’t deny the brilliance of complete anonymity when perving on potential partners.

The fact that Facebook is the seventh most visited website out there speaks for itself. It has evolved from a student’s best tool for work-dodging to a cheap, easy and fun way to keep in contact for all.

Nicole Briggs

yspace has not been left to collect dust! It now hosts a rather elite club of those who refuse to accept the title of a ‘facebook stalker.’

OK, so you get bombarded with new bands wanting to make friends but I’d much rather check out new music than get distressed over who to throw a sheep at next! Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people on Facebook I would love to throw an animal at.

OK, so maybe the site does suffer from “unexplained technical difficulties” but what doesn’t? Myspace gives a person an opportunity to be creative with their page, and by this I do not mean adding a billion awful applications involving vampires or videos about camel toes. Where else could you plaster you page with backgrounds, songs and be friends with the infamous Tom? Myspace users are also far more attractive than Facebookers. Whether this means photoshopping an image to within an inch of its life, to the point where you look at yourself and begin to think -”I don’t know who that is but damn they’re hot!”, or simply switching the camera to black and white before precariously angling the shot to create the renowned Myspace pose.

I promise you can look at someone’s Myspace and almost orgasm then check out their facebook and almost vomit as you discover that they don’t actually have a very defined jaw line but more a kind of melted cheese face. It’s not hot.

So next time you go to stalk your ex on Facebook or log on to check whose currently fatter, lonelier and only ranked as fifth hottest out of your friends just stop and think, you could join the elite and let go of the inner stalker, get a life and get on Myspace!

Rachel Thomas

n o s n i k n Sofie Je

sofie

Autumn days when the grass is jewelled Why confusing temperatures, experimental fashion and hot alcohol make Autumn the best damn season there is

S

o it’s happened again…seasonal change is upon us.

Granted it may seem a little late in the day to be drawing these observations but that is where we’ve been all been making mistakes these last few years.

The current fluctuation in climate seems to be sending a few extra seasons flying out of the world in all directions. This is good for Topshop’s two-a-penny faux-seasons but not so great for us every day folk with normal clothes divided into four piles: shorts for summer, jumpers for autumn, coats and scarves for winter and short-trousers for spring, or something along those lines.

The most hilarious seasonal transition is the confusing Summer/ Autumn period, a time that will be known as ‘The Tepid Era’ from now on. The hippy children of the sun still cling to their flip-flops like life-rafts in a sea of blustery weather whereas the play-it-safe Sally’s of the world mummify themselves with all manner of woollen appendage. As wicker shoes disintegrate in the sporadic mini-monsoons in the latter days of the ‘tepids’ people seem to slowly slip into the worn down ruts of what is and what is not acceptable seasonal wear.

As seasons change so do the little habits and behaviours of those around us and I’m not just talking our prickly hedgehog friends. Hot drinks are glued to the mitts of surrounding masses, creating an increase in teastains and burnt tongues, to name but one example.

Full-blown Autumn time, however, means bonfire night and the firework appreciation noises that go with it hand-in-hand. Human beings love a good firework, they just can’t get enough of them– the colours, the loud noises, oh the magic! This year I found myself among a gaggle of such human beings, all practically salivating at the thought of the first bang, crash and wallop. And it was then I realised that the noises that slip out of people mouths at times of such unbridled joy and elation are not too dissimilar to what one might image their sex noises to be. Not that I make a habit of walking around guessing what different peoples sex noises are, but such things simply occur to you sometimes.

Mad-cap Autumn fashion

No more so than when you are surrounded by your friends, who you invariably know quite well, most of whom are in couples and are behaving in the typical fashion. Boy A screaming “Woo, yeah fireworks! I bloody love a good firework!” While Girl A lets out the odd “Oo.”, every now and again. Meanwhile significant others all around the country sit next to you displaying very similar audio behaviour to that you are more used to hearing in a private sphere. Interesting...

All things considered Autumn, the real one not the intermediate flipflop Vs. scarf version as previously outlined, is one hell of a month. For a start you get to crack out the old faithful set of jumpers, which I for one get very excited out. Then there are scarves, hats, mittens, snoods, body warmers, leg warmers and boots to think about, all of which buys you time until the perfect coat comes along. Not to mention the oodles of extra things they invent every year, although most of which are highly unconvincing and are best avoided, shoe-boots being a good example. Shoe-boots? What the HELL are shoe-boots? At this time of year there are pretty things in the sky, it starts to smell like Christmas and it’s the best excuse to start drinking hot alcohol you’ll get this side of a ski chalet. So wrap up warm and make the most of these low-sun soaked days in their many shades of orange and brown. I’m off to bask in the Autumn rays with my hot Pimm’s (No.3)...toodle pip!

sofie@gairrhydd.com /

07

fashion

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fashion

V

intage ixen

Walk the line between classic temptress and cutting-edge modernity to create a 21st century vamp with timeless glamour...

Photography Sophie Pycroft Models Amy Harrison, Hazel Plush Stylists Mary Parkes, Jo Butler With thanks to all those at Jacob’s Market, West Canal Wharf, Cardiff.

fashion@gairrhydd.com / 09

fashion

What is vintage fashion?

V

intage is the term given to clothing from a different era; generally clothes and jewellery that are more than twenty years old are considered vintage or antiques. Vintage has become popular in our society today, as fashion icons such as Kate Moss, Sienna Miller and Stella McCartney inspired people to recreate looks from previous decades.

High street shops have become increasingly mundane, so vintage fashion gives people the chance to express their individuality and find original clothing and accessories. Specific fairs for vintage shopping are now emerging more frequently, such as the well-known ‘Frock Me’, which happens in London and Brighton around eight times a year. There are also shops such as ‘ROKIT’ which just sell vintage clothing; Topshop even have their own vintage section now, which highlights how popular it has become. Vintage clothing can, however, just as easily be obtained from charity shops and flea markets, where you are more likely to find great bargains.

Vintage encourages creativity in fashion and highlights how some looks truly are timeless. (Lily Thompson)

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B

fashion

orn Heather Renee Sweet on the 28th Sept 1972, in Michigan USA, Dita Von Teese is the epitome of vintage glamour. Famed for her ‘lady in a giant martini glass’ burlesque act, Teese has been compared to renowned fellow burlesque artist, Gypsey Rose Lee. Her marriage to controversial singer/songwriter Marilyn Manson hailed her as a prominent fashion icon of our time; wearing a royal purple silk taffeta Vivienne Westwood gown and Christian Louboutin shoes, complemented with a tri-corn hat by Stephen Jones. (Sarah George)

“

I advocate glamour.

Every day.

Every minute.

Dita Von Teese

”

fashion Vintage Shopping in Cardiff Hobo’s – for 1970’s regalia and cheap good quality leather boots and dresses.

Charity Shops- for the thrifty among you head down to Albany Rd. There are a selection of seven treasure troves to tempt you; PDSA and Oxfam even have especially dedicated ‘retro’ sections.

Jacob’s Market – Hidden away at the bottom of St Mary’s Street, under the Brains railway bridge, this 3 storey warehouse is a vintage treasure chest. Find furniture, military regalia, jewellery and clothes that are all very affordable and desirable. We went there for our vintage photo shoot and spent hours rifling through the endless collections of bags, belts, hats and jewellery. If you haven’t been there yet, you are missing out. It’s Cardiff’s vintage gem. (Meme Sgroi and Nicole Briggs)

Blind Lemon Vintage Fair

Sunday 18th November in City Hall, £3.50 for students.This is a nationwide fair, with stalls selling Victoriana, 1970s fashions, menswear, accessories and jewellery. Find out more at www.blindlemonvintage.co.uk Win free entry and a £50 voucher to spend at the fair by answering this question: Which iconic 1960s clothing label was founded by Barbara Hulanicki?

Email your answers to edwin@blindlemonvintage.co.uk

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fashion

Top 5 Vintage Fashion Icons Kate Moss This queen of style is always on trend and it is her flair for vintage that creates her enviable individuality. Buy vintage accessories to give a plain outfit your own twist!

Sarah Jessica Parker Parker’s alter ego ‘Carrie Bradshaw’ adopted a miss-match of trends and a quirky, fun style was born.

Audrey Hepburn This petite 50’s starlet used vintage to encapsulate sophisticated Hollywood glamour.

The Olsen Twins These sisters make vintage boho by throwing the “less is more” idea out the window! Sling on the jewellery and layers!

Johnny Depp This Hollywood stud is not afraid to delve into vintage fashion. To mirror his individual personality he chooses more eclectic pieces. Give it a try boys for a more laid back look! (Amy Harrison)

fashion@gairrhydd.com / 11

girls who do gay

like they’re girls who do

The street’s like a jungle nowadays with all this sexual liberation malarkey. The kids just can’t decide whether they’re bumping uglies with boys or girls.

Confused deviants spill the beans...

Schoolboy Crush

W

hen I was in year 6, my school made us watch a video about the birds and the bees. Interesting stuff. So me and my friend Matt decided to give a few things a try.

Nothing serious happened between us; some kissing, heavy petting, but it became a regular thing over time.

Being the amazingly intelligent guy I am, I passed my 11+ and attended a grammar school while Matt went to the local comprehensive. We lost contact and I didn’t see him for years.

This is until, at the start of sixth form, I saw Matt walking past me on my way to class.

Girls Gone Wild

H

ow do you react when someone leans in to kiss you? Well if you don’t fancy them you can just laugh it off. After all it’s never good when you have to spend the next two hours, or weeks, trying to get out of the situation you didn’t want to be in in the first place.

If you do like them, then you may as well go for it - unless they have a cold-sore, that’s never a good look.

But what do you do if that person is the same sex as you? And you’re straight?

For Alex the answer was simple: she was too drunk to realise what was happening at first. Dancing on the sweaty dance floor in Pulse, with Malibu and several Tequila’s helping her body to melt with the music, she was only half-aware of the friend-of-afriend bumping her hips against her own.

Then there was a palm pressing

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‘Matt!’ I shouted, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe it’s you.’

We caught up for a bit, all was great, until my friend Charlotte came over and wrapped her arms around Matt.

‘Hey Jake, you know my boyfriend?’

I was crushed! I smiled and said i had to get to class.

I hardly spoke to Matt from then, we’d say hello if we saw each other but that was it. It was sad considering the times we’d spent together, but at least it was fun seeing Charlotte and thinking ‘If only you knew…’

Jake Wassef

into the small of her back, pulling their bodies closer, a flash of a smile and then soft wet lips massaging her own. She actually enjoyed the sensation; it was different and not as rough as her boyfriend, but the alcohol had already forgotten about him.

The next day, waking up next to him, Alex suddenly recalled how she had kissed that girl all night and had had a really fun night doing so. She admits she was a little shocked.

Before last night she really couldn’t understand why her straight friends liked pulling girls on a night out. But it had been new and exciting. She didn’t tell her boyfriend: it would probably have turned him on and she was definitely not a fan of hung-over morning sex.

Out with the girls again the following Wednesday, she found herself persuading the group to go to Pulse for a second time. She just couldn’t

help thinking about that kiss: it had been different and unexpected.

This time however, no girls danced provocatively with her. She was surprised at how disappointed she was.

It was funny how she had completely forgotten she was even in a gay club the following week, let alone expecting to be hit on by a lesbian, but now that she was looking for a girl to pull she couldn’t find one!

Later, as she climbed into bed with her boyfriend and he smothered her in his kisses, she certainly wasn’t wishing she was with a girl then.

After all, girls do lack one very important thing!

For Alex, it was the alcohol that made a same-sex kiss so easy. My advice? Well, it’s as the saying goes: you never know until you’ve tried it.

Ellie Joslin

boys

Tongue Tied

T

he innocent Enid Blyton-esque days of crushes on the Head Girl are over.

Alongside the other adolescent firsts; first heartbreak, first period, first illicit downing of cider in the park, every young girl’s rite of passage now seems to include pulling a friend to the jeering cries of horny teenage boys.

My first Sapphic experience came before the lesbianic craze, only a few months after kissing my first boy and fuelled by the demon drink (three and a half watermelon Bacardi Breezers).

Perched on the edge of my bed, high on 5% alcohol and dangerous levels of sugar, we discussed every 14 year old girl’s preoccupation: boys.

Talk turned to kissing and the dangers that lay therein: teeth clashing, slobbering, inadvertent biting… and before we knew it we were nervously speculating that ‘it wouldn’t make us lesbians...’ ‘...just to practice, y’know?!’.

Twice we leaned in, but fear and giggling sent us spinning away to opposite sides of the duvet. Finally we composed ourselves, edged closer together with lips parted and excited blushes, and kissed. A few seconds later her jaw was straining against mine, attempting to lick my face.

Pulling away, confused, she embarrassedly explained that her tongue was fully attached to the bottom of her mouth so that she couldn’t move it. I’ve stuck to kissing boys since then.

o girls

Playing it Straight

S

ince a young age, I’ve generally been aware that I didn’t like girls. Being attracted to men seemed, to me, just right and so I never really questioned it.

As such, I never did more than kiss girls. It wasn’t much of an issue to me and I didn’t felt like I was missing out on anything as I was far too preoccupied with boys. And then I got to Cardiff.

I was aware that the new pastures one experiences at university were hedonistic and, once I’d arrived, I was not disappointed. Of course, I remained generally restrained when it came to extra curricular activities, but a little slap and tickle here and

gay

there was basically obligatory.

Cut to the second semester when my friend Sophie was visited by someone from home – Polly. She’d allowed herself a week’s hiatus from her own uni and I was instantly drawn to her. I don’t know what it was about her; she had a certain beauty spark.

One night Sophie and Polly went to a gig and I went to a house party. We both arrived back home at the same time and, after Sophie headed to her boyfriend’s house for the night, Polly and I spent the best part of the early hours in classic deep drunken conversation. Discussing the meaning of life soon got old and the topic of conversation moved to a new subject…

Rachael Sweet

‘You’re so fucking genuine,’ I slurred at her.

‘You’re so fucking attractive,’ she slurred back.

Before I knew it we were kissing, touching, in Sophie’s bed…

We awoke the next morning in a hungover haze, looked at each other and laughed. I took a lot from that experience and believe that it was simply a case of two humans that were drawn to each other coming together. For the time being however, I think I’ll stick to the hard stuff.

Andy Tweddle

gay@gairrhydd.com /

15

travel

the armchair traveller

If you could travel 365 days a year, life would be sweet. Unfortunately, life gets in the way. But don’t fear - Quench is here to showcase the best in travel literature to whet your appetite and get you pumped for your next trek around the globe...

City of Djinns William Dalrymple

C

ity of Djinns’, by William Dalrymple is best described as a more exotic version of Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence, chronicling Dalrymple’s vibrant and exciting adventures of living in Delhi.

In the same way as you see hoards of backpackers reading The Beach whilst in Thailand, you’ll see most travellers in India in possession of this book. Understandably so because Dalrymple’s sweet and well to-do voice is irresistibly charming, as is his dry sense of humour and intriguing observations.

He successfully paints a portrait of this city which is so difficult to capture with words: it triggers nostalgia for India if you have been there, or intrigues you enough to want to go. The amusing anecdotes of everyday life are interspersed with a detailed historical narrative which includes the retelling of the events of the partition and Indira Ghandi’s assignation. Well-written and lacking the stern academic tone of many histories, it is also highly assessable.

If the potted history of Delhi in your

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Illustration by Lianne Wilson

‘Lonely Planet’ is not ample enough to salve your interest then this book is certainly worth a read.

Sarah Shearman

travel On The Road Jack Kerouac

W

hat is to be expected of travel literature, apart from the obvious bit of travelling? Maybe the sense of freedom; from finally getting away from your world into a completely new one? Possibly the feeling of the discovery of oneself? Or perhaps, it is simply all down to the new experiences that the characters go through while on their travels. If this is what travel literature is, then Jack Kerouac defines it.

Although it could be considered as a fiction novel, On The Road is largely autobiographical, charting Kerouac’s journey from New York to the West coast with friend Neil Cassidy. We see them ducking and diving around numerous cities, meeting people from all different backgrounds, flirting with women, drinking, listening to jazz and generally being care free.

Kerouac spent seven years travelling on the road, so one thing you can’t say about his writing, is that it lacks experience.

His knowledge and understanding of what happened is clearly seen by the fact that he wrote the entire thing in a three-week creative binge, sat at his typewriter, taping the pages together as he went. The spontaneity of his writing reflects his way of travelling; just getting up and going, doing whatever felt right at the time.

There were numerous edits of the book after it was completed, however, and the characters names were changed, Kerouac becoming Salvatore Paradise, and Cassidy becoming Dean Moriarty. The story’s main focus is on Moriarty, the catalyst for Kerouac’s story and journey. Having anyone like Moriarty as a travel partner is sure to spark an interesting trip - the man breathed travelling and new experiences.

Without doubt, On The Road’s influence is huge, and for anyone seeking out a trip on the road, this should be your bible.

Gareth J. S. Mogg

Serengeti; Natural Order on the African Plain Mitsuaki Iwago

I

f you have ever been tempted by the charm of East Africa, then this book is sure to have you running to the nearest travel agents faster than you can say ‘Hakuna Matata.’

Serengeti, Natural order on the African Plain is a stunning collection of photography by Mitsuaki Iwago that captures the spirit of Tanzania’s wildlife, people and landscape. His work is of phenomenal quality and it is refreshing to see a selection of photography that encompasses so many aspects of life on the plains. No part of the Serengeti is left neglected as he captures the biggest lion to the smallest frog; the Masai tribesmen to the delicate flora and everything in between. He even has a close up of animal dung – how much more in depth can you get?!

Each image is so beautifully crafted, capturing light and movement to perfection. These photographs make you want to up and leave and experience for yourself the fantastic things you see on the page.

Kirsty Page

The Long Way Round Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman

“R

oss closed his mouth on the testicle. He chewed quickly, running his hands across his face as he tried to swallow it. Then he lurched forward and gagged.” Aaah, the return of Ewan and Charlie in Long Way Down (BBC2, Sundays, 9:00pm) feels like the arrival of two old friends.

In their previous adventure in Long Way Round the two best friends welcomed the reader into their 20,000 mile, 12 country motorbike trip around the world. Despite the decaying roads, broken bike parts and AK47 encounters the boys’ delicious sense of humour and camaraderie reached out from the pages.

But before you think it’s all a bit laddish, our narrators also come across as loving family members, the book featuring some touching moments as they reminisce about loved ones back home.

As a tale of friendship it’s touching, as a travel journal it’s inspirational, their love of the open road translating brilliantly onto page.

Colin Scott

Win Win Win Win Win For your chance to win a copy of ‘1000 places to see before you die’ by Patricia Schultz, answer this riddle...

You begin your journey in our fair city of Cardiff and hot foot it over to Dover. After battling the eas and eating your bodyweight in brie, you find yourself cruising through thr Tuscan landscape yelling ‘Buonjourno’ to everyone you see. You head from the boot to the shoe where you swiftly descend to switch continents. Four giant steps southbound through four pretty giant countries, you arrive at our chosen destination.

Where are you? Clue - this country rhymes with a particularly delicious coconut buscuit...yum.

Email travel@gairrhydd.com by November 26 with your answer.

travel@gairrhydd.com /

17

travel Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance Robert M. Pirsig

O

kay, so this book may be straddling the border between travel literature and something entirely different, but it is a stunning read based essentially around a compelling travel narrative.

It follows the author (who is never identified in the book) and his son, Chris, on a seventeen day motorcycle journey across the United States, joined for nine days by a befriended couple – John and Sylvia. However, the book is most noted for its revelationary discussions of the philosophy of science (not to put you off) that punctuate the unfolding trip, and has received widespread praise as ‘one of the most profoundly important bestsellers of our time’.

Nonetheless, whilst the depth of thought and insight is indeed formidable, it is never over-bearing, as the

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novel is continually grounded in the evolving relationship between father and son; their anxieties, squabbles, and rare moments of bonding on the road.

If you want the classic A to B travelling tale, but with an added and engrossing dimension this book cannot be recommend highly enough; philosophy and all.

Jim Finucane

Down and Out in Paris and London George Orwell

L

ike ‘Zen...’ it could be said this is not strictly a travel book, but Orwell’s masterpiece is one of those books that gives you a true insight into a certain place at a certain time.

Orwell dives headfirst into two poverty stricken European capitals in the late twenties and early thirties.

It is his time in Paris that captivated me first and foremost. Although a

thoroughly depressing account of thehardships suffered by many people during this time, it rather ironically makes one want to discover the hidden side of a city, away from the heavily trodden tourist trail, and to the places that really give a city its character.

The uncertain and weary zeitgeist of the 1920’s and early 30’s is expertly captured, and the book is full of colourful characters similar to those that the dossing traveller would inevitably stumble upon; there is Boris the once esteemed Russian who is now an unemployed waiter, and Bozo the atheist pavement artist who has more of a deep grudge against god rather than a disbelief in him. Orwell’s immaculate prose, dry wit and unpretentious tone make this, in my eyes at least, one of the best pieces of travel literature ever written.

Tom Williams

Check out books this week for their review of the latest in travel literature...

blind date

YOU’VE GOT MALE...

Up for a bit of cyber loving?

Emma Chapman explores the weird and wonderful world of internet dating

Geek alert...

questions kicked off with deceptively simple details like height, age and body type. Puzzlingly, it

included the option of admitting to “a few extra pounds”. Who would do that?

Then it was down to the nitty gritty and personal stuff: hobbies, favourite things and who would be my perfect match. I wondered if I was setting my standards a bit too high by saying Brad Pitt?

“

dent’s budget, but if you don’t find your perfect match within this time you get six months free. That’s if you still have the patience to be searching after all that time.

So, will I find the man of my dreams? Or will I decide to stick by the saying that if you stop looking for love, that’s when you’ll find it? I’ll keep you posted on my successes (or failures) of internet dating.

You could admit to a few extra pounds... who would do that?

“

I

f you’re fed up with trying all the usual ways to find love, there’s a much overlooked solution… Type ‘dating’ into any internet search engine and you’ll get hundreds of matchmaking sites, and, more intriguingly, thousands of single people.

Internet dating. Yes, I know you’re thinking it’s only for oldies who are clinging on to their last chance of finding love, but I’m going to try and prove you wrong. All in the name of journalism, of course.

My first port of call was Match. com, a well known site which I imagined would have thousands of single men for me at a click of a button.

Not so fast though, first I had to convince everyone that I was fabulous by creating a fantastic profile.

The site’s

After this minefield of probing questions you’re allowed to search for people in your area within certain age ranges. There were some noticeable weirdoes on the site with one man’s chosen selling point being “would love to go swinging”. Good luck to him.

Until now I didn’t realise how picky I was as I only managed to find one man’s profile that I liked the look of. What drew me in is that he said “Any girl who likes to shop will love being with me, as I’m very much the same”. Excellent, I could do with a man who doesn‘t mind lugging my shopping bags around. So I gave him a ‘wink’ which is a free way of telling the guy that you’re interested without forking out any cash… We’ll see how that goes!

It costs over £60 for six months which isn’t within the average stu-

One for the ladies

Blind Date’s favourite dating sites www.match.com www.datingdirect.com www.trustcupid.com www.friendsreuniteddating.com www.mysinglefriend.com

Interested in a blind date? Email me, your very own sultry love goddess... blinddate@gairrhydd.com / 19

features

QUESTION

IT’S PARTY TIME! 1.

Want to know what the best night out for you at the Students’ Union is? Simply answer the following questions, recording your answers and flip over to find out

2.

For breakfast, what do you eat?

A A balanced diet of muesli and fresh fruit, with some dried apricots to keep you regular.

B Your own face, because you’re still gurning.

C A big greasy guilty breakfast, which you will spend the rest of the day working off in the gym.

D Anything, you have no taste.

4.

When you wake up in the morning, do you…

A Tidy your bed, fold up your PJ’s (along the seams) and trot down to your 9 O’ clock lecture, arriving half an hour early?

B Smell, but ignore it by sliding on some deep jungle beats?

Mmmmmmmm C Stealthily sneak out of a stranger’s bed leaving nothing but a surreptitious wet patch, before heading to the gym?

D Have no opinion on anything?

3.

What arouses you?

A Daydreaming about having a sterling conversation with the hosts of Countdown (the Whiteley years, obviously).

B The barfly gig listings.

C Anything.

D Nothing. You are asexual.

You walk down the street and pass the most stunning fitty of your life. Do you…

A Blush and hide your face in the journal you were reading.

B Rush home and make them a mix tape.

C Shout sleazy onomatopoeic remarks such as ‘ha-HONK!’ and other not so onomatopoeic sleazy remarks, such as ‘AWOOOOOGGGAAAAHHHHH’ whilst heading to the gym.

D Do nothing. You are asexual.

5.

What is your general attire?

A Something that says “I’m far too clever for you” B Something that says “I’m smart, but I’m here to party” C Something that says “Look at my chest” D Something that says “I have no opinions or imagination”

20 / features@gairrhydd.com

features

7.

6.

What did you dress up as for Halloween?

A It’s not appropriate to dress up; it makes you behave differently, much like alcohol.

B A cult reference that no one else at the party understood.

C A carefully selected outfit that clearly shows your definition and taut ass.

D You don’t dress up, and when asked why, you say you have come as ‘yourself’. Very scary.

When you grow up, you want to be…

A A librarian.

B Famous, but hate it.

C Loaded and laid.

D In middle management with a good pension scheme.

8.

What did you do on Guy Fawkes’ night?

A Stayed in with your nose tucked into the history books. That’s the way to remember the famous event. (Fireworks are dangerous anyway).

B Went to the local firework display, it was a chilly night, so you could sport your new trench coat.

C Got the biggest fuckoff rockets you could find and screamed ‘ha-HONK’ as you fired them at the sky, and had a competition to see who could launch the most from their ass?

D Something unrelated and uninteresting.

10.

An ideal night out consists of…

9.

Your ideal holiday destination is…

A A night of learning, with a mild competitive edge – thrilling!

B Going out somewhere where everyone is so individual that they’re all the same.

C A night of drinking, dancing and sexing.

D Leaving the house.

A Barometer World in Devon.

B Camden.

C Ayia Napa.

D Hull

features@gairrhydd.com / 21

features

s A Y STL

MO

You are destined for intellectual supremacy in Clever Dick, Cardiff Students’ Union very own pub quiz, held in the Taf on Sundays. You could walk away with a £60 bar tab - or a very damaged ego. The risk is worth it, but can you hack the pressure? Be there for the showdown at 8pm.

MOSTL

Y Bs

Don your converses and skinny jeans ‘cos you’re heading to the big room of Solus for some alternative and indie fun. Or perhaps you fancy rubbing some more muck in your dreadies and heading into the drum n’ bass section?

Or perhaps just grab yourself a cheap pint of something and head to the sideroom for some live music. The choice is yours in Fun Factory, held in Solus on Monday nights from 10pm.

Y

MOSTL

Y Cs

Your work hard, play hard, shag hard attitude means you’re gonna love Rubber Duck held in Solus on Wednesday nights.

Jammed with people from sporty (and not-so-sporty) societies, this is your weekly chance to dress up, drink up and bash one out to some cheesy beats. Bash out a dance, that is.

22 / features@gairrhydd.com

MOSTL Ds

You seem a pretty standard sort of person, and you therefore deserve a pretty standard night out. Access All Areas on a Friday in Solus is a no frills, distinctively average night out - you’re going to love it.

features

Under the influence This week, Sam Goudie goes under the influence of Thom Yorke, and speaks out for art against consumerism. ..

R

ILLUSTRATION: Sam Goudie

adiohead is music to kill your self to, but what a beautiful coda that would be.

As a musician and singer Thom Yorke’s work with Radiohead, solo projects and various collaborations have constantly inspired me to not just belt every song and hammer every chord. His voice has the range and emotion of Buckley, yet seems so much more ethereal and effortless. The opening motif to ‘Pyramid Song’ (Amnesiac) is a case in point, a moment of haunting absolute beauty.

Yorke’s tenacity in not conforming to the ‘commercially viable’ is a valiant stand for art against consumerism. ‘Creep’ gained Radiohead a legion of everyman fans, yet the release of ‘Kid A’ and to perhaps a lesser extent, “Amnesiac’, alienated the populous. Though at the time this was seen as a commercial suicide, Thom Yorke and Radiohead were pioneers of a new sound, and as a result have achieved a longevity that hasn’t fallen into drudgery.

With the online release of ‘In Rainbows’ this month, Radiohead have shown bands that there really is no need for record labels anymore. Yorke defies commercial culture in a way that puts the power back into the hands of the artists, showing that art can still exist within the music industry, and surely that is something all musicians should be inspired by.

features@gairrhydd.com /

23

00 / sectionname@gairrhydd.com

interviews

Interviews sent 8EE@B8 ?<E;<IJFE and CL:@E;8 ;8P all the way to the big ole LAAANDAN TAAWN to stalk Christian Bale at the premier of the new Dylan biopic, talk beards with Christopher Simpson of Brick Lane, snuggle up to the lovely Chiwitel of Talk To Me and generally SCHMOOZE with the stars

“

London’s now the third largest film cent geles and New York. On any average re; we’re only after Los Anday, made here in London, with around forty about forty films are being here a year. London seems to have caug Bollywood films being made ht and producers want to come, so it grea a mood. It’s where directors t! It makes lots of money!

Mayor of London: Ken Livingstone

”

interviews@gairrhydd.com / 25

interviews

Brick Lane “I hope it will break down cultural stereotypes.”

Sarah Gavron: Director

“I

am a mother, I am a Londoner and I am a woman,” declares Sarah Gavron, director of Brick Lane, which, for the record, looks set to be the next mammoth novel- turned- blockbuster hitting our screens very shortly.

‘This means that I could emotionally connect with the story when I read it.’ Indeed, the personal ‘connection,’ with Brick Lane, that Gavron depicts is, perhaps, essential to a film of this kind; Monica Ali’s critically acclaimed novel was always a guaranteed hard act to follow.

The story itself, a depiction of a Bangladeshi woman’s internal and cultural struggles as she moves to London for an arranged marriage, is a truly beautiful one, and Gavron could clearly gush about it for hours, ‘it is such a beautiful portrait of a family. It is set against the cultural landscape of London, and at the heart of the story is Nazeem. She finds her voice and place in the world!’ Yet did this individual, the driving force to the story, prove too difficult to represent in film? ‘I wanted to put her on screen,’ states Gavron, ‘I understood that the novel is based around a very interior journey of Nanzeem’s, and I felt that if we could apply that emotion cin-

ematically, then we’d have captured the real essence of the book.’

Essence or no essence, it was inevitable that elements of the story would disappear as Brick Lane made its transition to screen, Gavron highlights that, ‘When you adapt a book, you have to be terribly disciplined in the process of distilling it. We did lose a lot but we also very much tried to retain the spirit of the novel.’

So what is the secret to good film adaptations? ‘If I knew that I’d be… a genius,’ laughs Gavron, ‘but I suppose we just followed our instincts here. We went with the story that engaged us, and that was the story of Nanzeem and her family.’

The story of Brick Lane may be one of hope, but it has not gone without its criticisms. Claims that the book presented Bangladeshis living in the area as uneducated, unsophisticated and backwards, led to protests about the film being made in the first place. This however, has not seemed to phase Gavron, ‘There was a small group of people, yes, who protested to the making of the film.’ Yet, As Gavron is quick to point out, ‘they cited scenes that are not even in the film or book.’

Far from wishing to insult them,

26 / interviews@gairrhydd.com

Gavron appears wholeheartedly passionate about inspiring the local community, ‘I hope that people get a chance to see it and make up their minds themselves.’ She is especially concerned with local women, ‘I hope it offers hope to other women. Nanzeem is a woman who comes here as an outsider and by the end of the journey, she realizes that this is a place that she can live and belong.

She still does her Namaz, and she still wears her sari, but nevertheless she recognizes that she can have a life in this country, in Britain.’

For Gavron, however, it is not just the local community, but everyone, that should be watching her film, for as she says quite adamantly, ‘I think the film is very much not about them and us. Instead it is about compassionate characters, who we can all relate to. I really hope that people across all cultures and generations can identify with it. If anything, I hope that it will break down stereotypes.’

It suddenly becomes wonderfully apparent that Gavron’s challenge to bring Brick Lane to cinema goes much deeper than her love for a touching story.

interviews

Chris Simpson Tannishtha Chatterjee

W

hat was it like working the first time, I just went ‘Wow he’s playing a character like Karim. With hot!’ and then I suddenly saw him Karim, it’s something about somewith Tannishtha?

Am I not the luckiest with this beard and I was like, you one who’s stradling different man! She plays a very quiet, demure know what, I can play that break up worlds. He’s on the cusp of his adulthood and I really like that. woman but my god she knows how scene now (giggles)!

Tannishtha, do you feel you can What do you hope the audience get to have a good time and she was from the film Tannishtha? I hope the identify with the lead protagonist? great fun to work with.

Tannishtha, it must be a huge re- people who really loved and adored I do identify in terms of my observasponsibility playing the lead protag- the book, get the same experience tions and I think as actors that’s all onist because everyone loves the from the film. The film is always a dif- we can do. We can’t live every charf e r - acter. But in terms of my observation, book?

W e l l , “I hope the people who really loved and e n t yes I do identify a lot.

Do you think the director was suce x I read t h e adored the book get the same experience peri- cessful in transforming the novel ence into a film Tannishtha? s c r i p t from the film.” b e - Yes I think so. She’s really got in the first beuniversal experience of a woman who cause goes I lived in India and so i didn’t have the whole weight of how popular the “Mostly, when we see Eastern women bebook is here, which took away the baggage. I then of course read the come independent they are westernised, book but it was probably a bit easier but this doesn’t happen here.” for me, at first, when I went into the film but now when it comes to the premier of the film, I know what it cause you transform one form of art through so many experiences in her is like! (laughs) I’m really nervous! into another form of art. So I just life and at the end, finds her own hope that it comes together and that voice in a very Nanzeem way, which (laughs).

What about the beard, Chris? did we can adapt the same feel into a is very special about the novel as well as in the film. Many times, when cinematic experience. you hate that?

Christopher, You seem to have you see eastern women becoming Well, it does get itchy and the thing is they actually lay it on piece by piece cornered the Brit-Asian film market. independent, they becomes westernand that’s why it’s so believable, so Are you just going to play every eth- ised, but this doesn’t happen here. it takes quite a while, but actually I nic role there is? Well you see I’ve She finds her voice in her own way. think it’s worth it in the end. I have played all manor of things. You name something to say about the beard! it I’ve probably played it. But what I UK release; November 16 (Tannishtha) When I met Christopher really like is that I’m not familiar with

interviews@gairrhydd.com / 27

interviews

Alfie Lily

K_\ 8cc\ej. >>%5% 5%Dlddp½’½j =`cd . . .

ALFIE ALLEN: Have you been to many premieres in the past, coming from a family like yours?

I’ve been going to premieres since I was quite young and obviously my mum produced this film, so there’s no question about going!

Do you like going to premieres and what particular films take your fancy?

I try to, I’ve got very varied taste so I don’t really mind but you’ve got to big up the home land don’t you? So British films! British films!

Have you got any plans at the moment?

Yer I’m doing Equus. I’ve got the lead. it’s gonna kick off in January, February, March, April. I tour for three months all around the UK. so I’m just gonna start rehersing for that soon.

28/ Interviews@gairrhydd.com

LILY ALLEN: Why are you here?

Mummy’s film!!!

Have you read the book?

Yer, yer it’s really good actually.

Have you seen the film?

No, it’s the first time I’ve seen it. I’m really excited to see it. Mum wouldn’t let me see it until today because she likes for me to see things finished. She’s just done The Other Boleyn Girl with Scarlet Johansson and I haven’t seen that either.

Alfie’s just announced he’s got Equus. Isn’t it a bit odd to see you brother prancing around the stage naked?!

Yer! Well, I’ve seen it all before! (laughs) He wanders around the house naked on a Sunday morning (laughs) it’s disgusting! He’s doing great though. I’m really really

proud of him.

A big week next week with MTV...

Is it? What’s happening? I don’t think I’m going actually. I’ve got to do a war child gig with Keane.

Why is that more important?

It’s for charity! It’s for war child.

It’s more important helping people in less fortunate situations. You’ve got to do as much as you can to help others.

Are there any plans for a family production?

God no! (ALFIE) Absolutely not! (LILlY) Is there a reason why you cancelled with Mark Ronson?

I was actually never officially asked to do it. I got put on the bill without being asked.

Brick Lane

interviews

DIRECTOR: KASI LEMMONS

ACTOR: CHIWETEL Ejiofor

K8CB KF D<%.%//// 5%FE K?< I8;@F.%%% KASI LEMMONS: Did you learn a lot about Petey?

Well, I learnt more after the movie was made, honestly. I didn’t have much to go on, i had a couple of Petey Greene Washingtons but they taped over the radio shows. They didn’t really preserve them. We’d hear rumours that someone has a collection but we never got our hands on them before i was shooting. Since we’ve done the movie, i’ve seen more and it’s really a wealth. He’s such a genius, incredible but we went on what we had and a lot of it was newspapers and articles but because we had other resources available to us, the scripture was written by his son and because Chiwetel had access to Dewey, we really felt we had a lot of emotional authenticity.

You’ve said that you know someone is right for a film as soon as they walk into a room. How do you know that?

With Chiwetel, it was when he and John sat down and they just opened the script and started to look at the papers and just played with the words. I knew immediately because the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I’m like ‘these two actors have chemistry, undeniable and I begged him to do it. I had a feeling this guy’d be great for the part and at first he was like ‘I dono’ and then we were on the phone and he started to talk about the civil rights movement and his part in it. I think he talked himself into it!

CHIWETEL EJIOFOR: You play a very restrained character. When you read it did you think perhaps, i’d like to do the Petey role?

No, I always loved the Dewey role. It really spoke to me and for that reason i was thrilled about it . I spoke to him a number of times and i really connected to the role.

Did he feel you’d done it justice?

He was very happy i think. I hope he felt that i did it justice. It was just a fascinating process and a great time.

It was just a wonderful film to be involved in.

You and John obviously have a fantastic screen chemistry. What about off screen? Did you really get on?

We had a ball! i was thrilled to be working with him and to spend time with him. I think he’s just such a gifted actor. I was thrilled and because we had friends in common, he’d worked with Sophie Okonedo on ‘Hotel Rwanda’, i had an incling that he’d be good fun to work with.

I have to ask you about the clothes because do you think you got the short straw? He has these fantastic outfits to wear and you’re in the same suit!

Yeah, the clothes were interesting. I don’t think i could have pulled off some of his clothes but i felt my 70’s stuff was pretty flamboyant as well. I didn’t think it was underplayed or downbeat, especially in the ‘fro wigs.

UK release: 30th November

Interviews@gairrhydd.com / 29

interviews

6

one Actors, legend. Buckle your seatbelt for an unconventional journey through the life and times of BOB DYLAN

ACTOR:

BEN WHISHAW

ACTOR: CHRISTIAN

BALE

DIRECTOR

: TODD

HAYNES

30/ interviews@gairrhydd.com

TODD HAYNES: How was it working with Christian again after Velvet Gold mine?

It was so fantastic. It was just too short. Working with Christian on Velvet Goldmine, where we really had time with each other, still is one of the highlights of my career. He is such an amazing actor and such a lovely, generous person and so it was just a nobrainer to want to work with him again on this one.

Obviously both of those movies are music based. Are you a muso at heart?

Sure, aren’t you?! Aren’t we all?! It’s something that will always inspire you and also remind you of your past and your childhood and kind of opens up these little time capsules, in a pure and more direct way than almost anything else.

What up and coming projects have you got going on after this then?

Nothing right now. This one has been a massive undertaking and has taken everything out of me and I’m just really enjoying the reception and enjoying promoting the movie and talking about it and hearing from people what it’s like for them when they watch it and I assume that’ll keep me busy for a little while longer.

How did you find making a film about someone who’s still alive? Was it difficult? Did you have to make sure everything was exactly perfect?

Well, the amazing thing is that

interviews

he really stayed out of our way and he gave the film and the project an initial blessing and his manager was the person we dealt with when we needed to but it was remarkable how much freedom we were given to do it the way we saw.

Has he seen the film?

Not that I know of but he has a DVD with him right now, on his tour. I hope he’s watching it right now!

How did you apply your experience, such as working on the Karen Carpenter film twenty years ago, here?

Time flies when you’re playing with Barbie Dolls (laughs)! That was a really important movie for me because it made me feel that you can approach story-telling in narrative film from unique and unexpected ways and that people really are open to that and they are open to being challenged and surprised and having emotions and unexpected connections emerge, when you switch the strategies around a bit and that’s definitely something that I try to incorporate in this movie as well but really it all comes from the subject, what the subject is and Barbies and playing with them, that kind of a traditional narrative made sense with Karen Carpenter as a subject and exploding the conventional biopic made sense when dealing with Bob Dylan.

CHRISTIAN BALE: How is it working with Todd again after Velvet Goldmine?

It’s good. That’s why I did it you know. After we worked on velvet goldmine I always said to him, let’s work on something else and so he sent me the script and I saw that it was completely chaotic and confusing. I didn’t bother reading it, I just read my little bits and went yeah sure. I’d love to work with him again. He’s really original, he’s a great guy and you know that when you’re making a movie with him, you’ll be making something very special. I’ve not seen it, it’s the first time I’ve seen it tonight.

How did you prepare for this role? You’re known for your extreme efforts (the machinist,

American Psycho...)

He always said to me, though, don’t bother trying to do some big kind of impersonation or anything like that but Todd sent us enormous amounts of scrap-books and CDs and music and pictures and DVDs and all of that and I had people to teach me how to play the guitar and how to sing.

There was a fair bit of preparation but amongst all that he was constantly saying to me, it’s not an impersonation you do, whatever you feel he represents to me.

What aspect of Dylan do you think you portrayed then?

Well I played two different characters both of which I think is kind of defined by his quest for truth. I played the original trubador, which he hated being called when he first arrived in new York.

He despises the fame and the celebrity...frankly all of this kind of stuff...and then disappears off and becomes a pastor which kind of represents his Christian era albums which is frankly the stuff I love best out of his albums.

So did you learn the guitar from scratch?

I tried!

BEN WHISHAW: You’re involved with Joan Campion in The Keats Project.

How’s that going, how do you feel about that?

I’m really really excited.

I’m just doing lots of reading at the moment because I’m filming something just before I start shooting it next year. So she’s given me lots of homework to do before I start filming the other thing. So I’m immersed in it at the moment.

And was Jane Campion a director that you’ve always been a fan of?

Yer I have actually. I’ve always watched her films. Well, since The Piano really.

Christian said earlier that when he first saw the script, he found it chaotic and confusing. Did you find that?

Yer. There was lots about it that I didn’t understand. It got clearer the more I read it and the more I talked to Todd and the more I looked into Dylan as well. I think it’s a film for people, not solely for people, but for people who are fanatics about him cos I think there are a lot of references and illusions and things that certainly went well over my head.

You’re often chosen to play quite eccentric characters.

What do you think about this?

Eccentric characters are the most interesting to play really. I don’t have a problem with that, I enjoy it.

What was it like having six different actors playing six different parts of his life and did you feel any kind of competition with any of the other actors?

Never, I didn’t meet them I didn’t even have anything to do with them ever so we were all kept quite isolated. So there was certainly no competition and I think we were all trying to, we were all quite clear that we were all portraying very different aspects of him. And that they maybe all add up to something close to him.

UK release: 30th November

interviews@gairrhydd.com @gairrhydd.com / 31

food

Going d n u o r g R e d Un What you will need to bake your KALUA PIT PIG: l 1 medium sized pig

(Or a lamb if you prefer)

If you happen to have a spare pig lying around, a bunch of big mates, a day or two to waste and a sympathetic landlord, you could always FEAST on a pit roast PIG all day long with all your friends, neighbours and their families.

T

he Kalua pig roast is part of the Luau feast of Hawaii, which is often part of wedding celebrations or birthday parties. It’s not for the faint-hearted and certainly can’t be described as fast food, but if your

l 1 apple l Some carrots, on-

ions and garlic

l Several handfuls of

rosemary and thyme

l Several large mates l Many crates of beer,

shovels and rakes

l 10 to 20 round rocks about

the size of your head

l Enough sheet metal and ply

wood to cover

l Several burlap sacks l 1 catering size roll of tinfoil

or several banana leaves

lA

butcher’s string

needle

and

l A large car full of wood. l Chicken wire fencing l Steel wire for handles

32 / food@gairrhydd.com

Warning: Fire is Dangerous!

Dan Smith, gair rhydd and Quench accept no responsibility for damage to property or self whilst attempting this recipe!

landlord will let you dig a six-foot pit in his back garden and you can find enough dry wood to fill it, why not give it a go! Uni won’t miss you for a couple of days...

food

1.

The day before you plan to feast get some of your burliest Alpha male mates around to dig a hole in your back garden. About 3 to 4 feet deep and a foot larger than the pig all around.

Making sure that they are well marinated in beer to keep them sweet.

2.

While they do that, place the pig on its back and cut off the forlegs at the shoulder. Cut into the hip joint and fold the hind legs into the cavity.

3.

Put the apple in the pig’s mouth. Stuff as many of the carrots, herbs and onions into the cavity as possible , season it and sow the sides together with the needle and string.

4.

5.

Drink another beer.

Rip the sacks so they are flat and soak them. Place some sacks down, then the foil or leaves, sacks, chicken wire and then the pig on it’s back on top of all that. Wrap each layer around and tie it all up with the steel wire.

Make sure to make some handles to lower the pig down.

6.

On the morning of the feast set a fire in the pit and add the rocks when it is well lit.

Keep feeding it until all the wood has been burned to red hot coals about 1 to 1.5 feet deep. When the coals are ready, fish out the rocks and make a well in the centre of the coals. Lower the pig in and heap the hot rocks around and rake the coals on top of the pig. Cover the pit with the steel sheet and then the plywood (for strength) and cover with earth to about a foot deep.

7.

8.

9.

Leave for about eight hours.

In the meantime, get loads of mates around and pull out a big table into the garden.

After about 8 hours uncover the pig and carefully lift it out on to the table.

Unwrap and enjoy, you deserve it! You’ve worked hard destroying your garden. Your landlord probably won’t talk to you again and I suspect you’ve lost your deposit. But who cares, you’ve got feast!

ILLUSTRATIONS: Nathan Hughes

food@gairrhydd.com / 33

going out

Coffee

and

cake

Whether it’s a sleepy Monday morning or a chilled out Wednesday afternoon, chances are that at some point you’re gonna want a decent cup of coffee and maybe something in the muffin/cookie line...So here’s a few places you can try!

Kappuccino’s

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lose to all of the Arts buildings, this little haven is divine for the ever so frequent coffee catch-ups of the average arts student.

With this in mind, Kappuccino’s is a godsend on the poverty stricken pocket belonging to the customers that frequent this hideaway. And as all hot beverages are below £1.50, rich in flavour (healing for hangovers and a sharpener for those study senses) fair-trade friendly, and costing little more than the machine mechanism of the Humanities cafe - it’s fair to say that this is the place for coffee all the way! But best is yet to come...

The freshly baked mega muffins/ cookies and pastries are matches made in heaven when accompanied by the hot drinks to die for. And, with all the treats on offer on the cakefront coming in at around a quid, you could be fiendish by falling for the temptation to try all the specialities of the day. Chances are you will be too full, as value for money is the logo of this place.

Perhaps this is why many lecturers can be found mingling amongst the students , which only adds to the charm that oozes out of Kappuccino’s - much like the ‘chocolateyness’ of its double choc muffins.

Embassy Cafe

Brazil Coffee Co.

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ucked away on Church Street, the Brazil Cafe is noted for the fact that it serves Illy coffee and features work by local artists on its walls.

The owners are understandably proud that they serve *real* coffee and try to be individual rather than just another chain! They offer a good selection of healthy food and super indulgent snacks. Worth a try!

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A

world away from the plastic wrapped, sickly-sweet offerings available in a multitude chain cafes nationwide, Embassy cafe serves real cake for real cake enthusiasts.

Tucked away in Cathays Community Centre opposite Lidl, it’s all too easy to miss this unpretentious, friendly cafe that serves superb food and the best chocolate brownies you will ever taste. The cake selection varies day to day; the coffee, naturally, is organic and fairtrade. And if you happen to be lucky enough to catch a certain sticky cake with figs in, you’d be a fool to miss it.

Stand up if you love football

final whistle

Alex Kay on moving on from the Hillsborough disaster and the future of the stand

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he first time I touched a girl’s breast was a disaster. I squeezed way too hard, the silicon implant squirted out and hit the ceiling, there was blood everywhere and I spent seven days in a young offenders institute being taught how to gently massage playdo.

But, I learned my lesson and I never made the breast mistake again.

Sometimes, we fall off that imaginary horse. It doesn’t mean we should never get back on the saddle.

Hillsborough is a bit like that.

What happened there on April 15, 1989 was horrific. In fact, the dictionary doesn’t have a word to describe just how awful it was. 96 supporters were killed in Britain’s most unprecedented crowd disaster at the time.

Liverpool fans were crushed to death when too many were allowed in to the back of an already full stand at the Leppings Lane end of the ground.

Ever since that fateful date, allstanding terraces have become out of favour in fear of such a disaster ever happening again. As such, ban-

96 DEAD: never again

ning standing at top-flight football matches in reaction to the Hillsborough disaster was a knee-jerk reaction, and I fully back the fans who want to bring standing areas back.

Standing at matches can be safe.

Plenty of stadiums in Leagues One and Two have standing areas and they do not have any more problems with safety or discipline than allseater arenas.

Banning those areas was a reaction to Hillsborough, but what happened there was not simply down to the fact that people were standing – that is common enough knowledge. Fans can benefit from standing areas if safety measures are put in place: they should not be fenced off

like they were in that semi final and they should not be squeezed in like sardines.

The city of Cardiff is a perfect example of how a standing area can be beneficial and safe. Ninian Park has a standing area for Bluebirds fans and plenty of families choose to buy tickets for there. They argue the atmosphere is better, tickets are cheaper and that they are not at all squashed. If the numbers going in are controlled, a repeat of Hillsborough could easily be avoided.

So, safety, if properly monitored and thought out, is not an issue. So why bring it back? Quite simply, football is a passionate sport. It is not natural to sit quietly while your team blaze over the bar from six yards or the ref sends off your captain. Fans should be allowed to express themselves and to have fun. We cannot continue to be haunted by a terrible past.

Yes, we should all learn from Hillsborough, but the US didn’t ban all Presidents from going out in public after Kennedy was shot, and we must not continue to deny fans a potentially wonderful experience.

finalwhistle@gairrhydd.com / 35

ts ... n e s e r p s c i Cult Class

cult classics

Cult Classics’ very own Australian, Elise Thurtell, tells you why this modern cult classic is a name to remember

L

adies and gentlemen, it is my extreme pleasure and possibly the reason for my existence, to introduce you to your new favourite Australian. No, it is not an addition to the cast of Neighbours. It is none other than the amazingly incredible, incredibly amazing … Gotye!

And no, you’re wrong, it’s actually pronounced ‘gore-ti-yeah’ (not goatee, got ye or goiter). But no matter how you say it, you are going to want to remember this name.

Okay, enough hype you say, just who/what the hell is Gotye? I was getting to that. Gotye* is the pseudonym employed by Wally de Backer when creating his very unique brand of music. Though I’m hesitant to even mention the chronically overused word ‘genius’, it seems exceedingly appropriate for someone who independently wrote, performed, produced and compiled two mindblowing albums (not to mention the CD released by various esteemed artists, ‘Mixed Blood’, comprised of remixes and cover versions of his songs the artists created out of respect for his work).

You will also struggle to avoid the term when you hear the pulse-quickening, heart-melting, groove-inducing music, a simultaneous sensation that is less painful than it sounds.

Wally’s latest album is entitled ‘Like Drawing Blood’, referring, not to Wally’s vampiristic tendencies as I always assumed, but to the process of crafting the album, that Wally survived

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(thank god).

The construction of this album was as difficult as forcing blood from a stone because Wally insists on utilising samples. He stubbornly collects fragments of melodies and snippets of percussion, and meticulously moulds them together with live instruments and vocals until it gels so smoothly it’s seamless. Not only was the sampling arduous, but he also recorded the entire album in his bedroom. Several bedrooms in fact, as de Backer moved house more often than some witnesses on relocation programs.

This album can convert anyone into a sadist. You won’t care just how much Wally suffered; you’ll derive pleasure from this masterpiece he agonised over.

But we Australian’s are not heartless. We nominated the clever boy for some pretty neat ARIAs (they’re Aussie awards, dear), including Best Male Artist, Best Independent Release, and Album of the Year, of which he deservedly won the Best Male Artist award!

And now that this rant’s over, there’s nothing left for you to do but listen. I recommend ‘Hearts A Mess’ (yours will be after listening to it), Learnalilgivinanlovin (as funky as the title is hard to read), and Thanks For Your Time (well worth yours).

Let your chubby little fingers type in his website address, do some clicking, play some tracks, and once I have converted you, there is no need to thank me. Really, don’t mention it.

After all, it is my purpose in life.

* If you’re wondering how this exotic and sexy alias was created, Gotye is the amalgamation of Wouter (his given name, Flemish in origin), and Gaultier (its French equivalent). Originally from Belgium, now living in Australia, he is also a drummer in the band, The Basics, and the proud owner of many fine hats.

cult classics

Cult Classics caught up with Wally and asked the nice fellow some questions.

Here is Wally in his own words ...

Due to the unique way in which you compose your songs, you’ve been considered to be something of a modern cult classic. How does this make you feel?

If that were the case it’s pretty cool! I guess perhaps there’s a cult thing overseas because I haven’t released any music outside Australia, but here in Oz things are moving slowly towards the mainstream. I’ve sold quite a few records now and won an ARIA award the other day, so I guess holding to any cult status (if there was any in the first place) is kinda hard. But then again, perhaps my perception of what is mainstream and what is underground/cult is skewed in terms of numbers of fans/market size etc What initially inspired you to create songs through this sampling process?

I love music, it’s possibly the most transcendent thing I know. Sampling, when I started dabbling in it, was such a breath of fresh air. It combined so many things I loved about music: collecting obscure stuff, allowing music I discover to directly influence what I create (and “tipping the hat” to stuff I like), messing with computers and techy stuff, and writing songs. Also, sampling gave me a vision for finishing exciting sounding music on my own terms and in the luxury of my own surroundings rather than having to go to studios.

Any thoughts on a UK tour soon? Is Wales set for the ‘Gotye revolution’?

Hopefully in the next year. A Gotye release will come out in Europe in 2008 methinks

Away from Gotye, you play with your band, ‘The Basics’ as drummer and vocalist. Which do you find to be closer to your musical passion, so to speak?

There are elements of both bands that are passions of mine. I want music to be off-the-cuff, fun and exciting. The Basics as a live band allow more of that side of my character I think. I also get to beat the living daylights of drums which is nice. Gotye satisfies my music-fan, producer inclinations more I suppose And finally, what does the future hold for Gotye?

Lots and lots of chocolate. And maybe some new music.

Find Wally at: www.gotye.com www.myspace.com/gotye www.myspace.com/thebasics

ILLUSTRATION: GOTYE

What is the most rewarding thing for you in music?

Listening back to stuff you’ve created and getting even a faint whiff of that transcendent feeling I described earlier. It happens extremely rarely, but when you get that feeling it’s a real buzz.

classics@gairrhydd.com / 37

arts

Sexing It Up

This week, Arts have been getting into the nitty gritty of performance and visual arts. From sex-striking women in ancient Greece, sexual abuse in a Welsh village, to the reality of contemporary urban living, we remain fearless in the face of adversity Sherman Theatre 2-3 November

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hock-a-block with sexual innuendoes, yet with a focus on the futility of war and racial conflict, Lisa’s Sex Strike made for intriguing and often surprising viewing. Based on the Ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes, first staged in 411 BC, the women in this modern adaptation by Blake Morrison belong to different racial groups and live in a northern town plagued by racism and violence.

Sex strikes by women have occurred all over the world in reaction to various issues, from civil wars to abortion laws.

One of the most recent was in September 2006, when the wives and girlfriends of gang members in one of Colombia’s most violent cities imposed a sex ban in a bid to encourage their men to give up fighting. The play engaged with this issue with panache, as it did with the encampment of the women in the factory workplace of their husbands (which supplied arms for war), blockades by female groups being another common phenomenon in the real world.

The melting pot of assorted topics to be addressed, from the personal to the political to the religious, meant the play sometimes appeared disjointed. The first half had some real moments of hilarity, such as Carol’s (Sally Harman) dismayed, high-pitched response to Lisa’s idea of a sex strike, ‘I said I’d give up me life…not shagging’, or the smug set of policeman whose kitsch chorus

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ended with the self-satisfied (and ironically, untrue) affirmation: ‘…and the crime rate is decreasing thanks to us’. The women declared their temporary break from sex over a double page spread of David Beckham in Heat magazine, which was another nice touch.

“

It was a surreal experience watching this surrounded by tittering OAPs

“

Lisa’s Sex Strike

Unfortunately, the second half was a confused mixture of sexual fantasy, grief and bitterness that each character had lost a family member through war or fights, and the redemption of the cold-hearted factory owner, Prutt (Simon Holland Roberts). Predictably, the abandoned men came crawling to the factory, desperate for sex, their desire manifested in what the programme respectfully terms ‘giant erect phalluses’, which were made of red wool and strapped onto their trousers. This was funny – at first.

When said phalluses were actually given their own song to perform, this device lost its comical edge.

It was a surreal experience watching this surrounded by tittering OAPs. This was, essentially, a play that you either loved or hated. The frequent rhyming couplets in the script endowed it with an unnatural, singsong element, and the humour was often slapstick and bawdy. Thankfully, sultry accompanying music and moments of pure quirkiness, such as the arrival of Mama Pax (Eve Polycarpou), the goddess figure, squeezed onto a motorised tricycle covered in peace signs, flowers and caricatures of politicians, or the jazz-infused song, ‘Got the celibacy blues, girl’, which managed to save the day.

Most of all, it was the snippets of the play that made us pause to consider, for example, how clothes display our sexuality as well as our identity, or the meaning of the Islamic veil from a woman’s perspective, or the comparison of a multicoloured, striped jumper to a town of integrated cultures and beliefs, that made Lisa’s Sex Strike a success.

Tasha Prest-Smith

arts

What’s On

Innocence and Despair Blink

Chapter Arts Centre 2-3 November

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hen I was offered the chance to review Ian Rowlands’s play ‘Blink’ I wasn’t at all sure what to expect.

The only information that I had was that it was about life in a small Welsh village. This was perhaps a good thing, because if someone had given me a brief description of ‘Blink’ before I saw it I am not so sure I would have gone.

‘Blink’ is a piece of work that deals with sexual abuse which stays hidden for years. The script is littered with monologues, all set on a stage featuring a giant slanted bed.

All of this screams a melodramatic drama student’s dream and everyone else’s suffering. ‘Blink’ was not any of that. So, I must be grateful to the editor for allowing me to enjoy an evening of theatre that really made me think.

Sexual abuse is a risky subject and something so easily done badly but Rowlands does it, for want of a more appropriate word, beautifully.

He deals with the erosive nature of guilt felt by those abused. The set worked in a practical rather than purely symbolic way. It meant something, as did the monologues. All of this was greatly helped by some very good acting.

I liked this play because it was simple even with the giant bed and huge issues. There was nothing forced about the artistic devices.

There is nothing pretentious about this piece of drama. It is a worthwhile and intelligent play.

Rosie Beynon

g39 gallery 29 September-3 November

I

have always thought of ‘innocence’ and ‘despair’ as two very separate terms. Expecting something along the lines of pictures of cherubs opposing pictures of people crying into their hands, (my naïve interpretation of innocence and despair) I got Gaia Persico’s gentle but ominous animations, Holly Davey’s sinister black and white self portraits and Marko Maetamm’s bleeding houses and horrific tale of frustration and confusion…So not exactly a barrel of laughs, but still weirdly captivating.

In one of her photographs, Davey swings barefoot from the roof of a subway, reminiscent of childhood freedom and also of suicide. Persico’s animations consisting of repetitive but barely noticeable actions are based on her own lonely observations from a hotel room window. The images are simple, endearing and childlike, but provoke a desire for the unknown and so ultimately are frustrating.

But these pieces were nothing compared to Maetamm’s gritty and chilling story of his torment in juggling art with family resulting in his family’s murder, aptly displayed on a screen in the gallery’s bare bricked, windowless, almost pitch black cellar.

The whole thing was ambiguous – with a wavering line between fact and fiction and humour and horror. So it seems somewhat morbid that the artists present the idea that innocence and despair are not separate but actually coexist which makes for an unsettling but thoroughly interesting exhibition.

Emily Bratt

QUIRKY ARTS EVENING Robert Greygrass Chapter Arts Centre 27 November 7.30pm Greygrass grew up in Hayward, California - far from his mother’s Lakota and Cherokee roots. He has faced many of the problems facing urban Indians. Join him as he explores his Lakota heritage in such diverse areas as Sundance, vision quests, sweats and listening to the Elders.

NEW TALENT Scriptslam Sherman Theatre 15 November 8pm This one off night at the Sherman showcases five new script-writing talents, who all write 10 minute pieces for the occasion. At the end of the night the audience get to vote for the best one - theatre at your fingertips.

ART EXHIBITION Loner’s Island g39 Gallery 23 November-21 January A fusion of sculpture, technology, photography and surreal paintings, this exhibition is a place of melancholy, danger, wonderment and disinterested curiosity. It is full of discovery, boredom and potential pitfalls, an aesthetic and conceptual island where both spectator and creator is dragged between extremes of naivete, mean-spirited sophistication, calculated ugliness, the sublime and the ridiculous.

COMEDY DRAMA The Comedy of Errors New Theatre 20-24 November 7.30pm; matinees Thurs and Sat 2.30pm Brothers, sisters and servants find themselves confused, baffled and bewildered by the events of a single day. A story of mistaken identity and family reunion, this is one of Shakespeare’s funniest plays. Starring Siobhan Redmond as Adriana and Jason Merrells and Simon Merrells as the twins Syrcause and Epheus.

arts@gairrhydd.com / 39

arts

November blues getting you down?

Tutors and essays too much to handle?

Fear not, Arts are here with the all singing, all dancing performance of Disney’s High School Musical...

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This amateur production of High could be as critical and sarcastic as I like about this show, but the truth is, School Musical sucked me into a going to see it was the ultimate guilty cheese vortex from which there was no escape, and before I knew it, I pleasure and I had a blast!

The songs and storyline translate was singing and clapping along with perfectly onto the stage, creating a the seven year old girl sitting next to sing-along atmosphere that even the me whilst desperately coveting her most hardened cynic would find hard pink flashing wand…escapist theatre has never been so good – Go Wildto resist.

Produced by the Orbit Amateur cats Go! Amy Grier Theatre Company, the young cast members in this production showed real talent. Smiling and doing jazz hands for 90 minutes a night can’t be easy, but they kept the energy going and the audience (of which I was the oldest by about 10 years) loved it.

The first half got off to a bit of a nervous start, but Smith’s singing voice was superb, even if his dancing doesn’t quite match his vocal abilities. It must be hard to capture the awkwardness of teen angst while continually bursting into song, but somehow it worked. One of the best comic performances of the night came from drama-bitch Sharpay (Olivia Clements) who managed the role brilliantly.

But the real star of the show was undoubtedly Reid (Gabriella) whose voice actually gave The New Theatre me goosebumps.

30th October - 3rd November

“

This amateur production sucked me into a cheese vortex from which there was no escape

“

H

ow can you not love High School Musical? Whether you genuinely love it, or just love to hate it, it is hard to deny the kinetic catchiness of this Disney ensemble.

Based on the 2006 film, written

by Peter Barsocchini for the Disney Channel, High School Musical has been a smash hit world wide and has been compared to everything from Grease to Romeo and Juliet.

The story is the time old tale of the new-girl geek meets school-stud, who are both united over their mutual love of sporadically breaking into song. They overcome the adversity which separates them, and make the world a better place in the process.

The recipe is simple: Troy Bolton (Joe Smith) is captain of the Wildcats basketball team: they are the t-birds for a new generation, and what they lack in leather they make up for in hair-gel and hormones.

He falls for Gabriella Montez (Becci Reid), one of the ‘Brainiacs’, and together with the ‘Thespians’ and the ‘Skater dudes’ they struggle to make the cut for the winter musical.

Another helping of social stereotypes anyone? Just in case you weren’t full, there is also an overbearing coach/ father and a batty old drama teacher to complete the circle.

It is easy to feel that this plot has been done a million times over, ‘She’s all that’, ‘American Pie’, and ‘Clueless’ as well as countless other girl-meets-boy films follow the same format: but Shakespeare himself wasn’t adverse to a little bit of plagiarism, so who are we to criticise? I

DIGITAL \:101101010010100010001 digital

0011001101100110011001110110110 0110110010011000101001010101010

Digital gatecrashes shindig A ward shows are funny things, a bunch of people who share a similar background, usually a professional one, all get together, get pissed up and are forced to either publicly congratulate their rivals whist they smugly rub their victories in their faces, or become the type of bastards who revel in rubbing it in themselves. Once you get an award in your hand I don’t think you can stop that arrogance taking over you.

This year’s Golden Joysticks held at the Park Lane Hilton London seemed no exception; there was a lot of (sometimes well deserved) gloating going on. Whilst speaking to a Product Manager on games for Microsoft (who surprisingly got offended when I asked a question about future features for the Xbox360 right after feeding me a well rehearsed speil on Xbox Live for god knows how long) I was allowed to hold one of the four awards they took home for Gears of War this year.

I instantly wanted to tell him that as soon as Sony reduced the price of their Playstation 3 the Xbox360 would be fucked, and to stop going on about Gears of War because it’s

a year old now, it only won three awards anyway and I just got one just for talking to him. Then one of the PR assistants, that would (if trade description laws were universal) only be able to refer to themselves as handlers, made me give it back. I got the overwhelming urge to tell them that the statuette felt cheap, I could instantly identify with Kanye West in a way I never thought possible.

There were some truly great moments of the years conspicuously

sponsored Golden Joysticks. The winners of The Sun’s ‘Family’ Game of the Year Award: Wii Sports being accompanied everywhere they went by page three girls with The Sun’s logo emblazoned across their chests.

The award’s host David Mitchell semi-seriously telling the 750 attendees “We in television used to be accused of corrupting the youth of today,” “Now you are.” and being met in way of a response by a claps and cheers that gave you the impression that the games industry are genuinely proud of themselves if that is the case. An argument I wandered into in the toilets where two drunken man-boys seemed ready to come to blows over the effective implementation of cell shaded graphics, and the near euphoric joy of bedroom games developer Tom Dowding who won two and a half thousand pounds and a work placement with Electronic Arts for a mobile phone game he developed in his spare time called Let it Grow.

They lay on enough free, yet nasty, wine to have me in their pockets for life. Maybe this is what the Oscars were like before the TV cameras turned up.

Dom Mukwamba-Sendall

Girls Choice Game of the Year: Guitar Hero II Family Game of the Year: Wii Sports Handheld Game of the Year: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories Innovation of the Year: Nintendo Wii Soundtrack of the Year: Guitar Hero II All-Nighter award: Gears of War Online Game of the Year: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade UK Developer of the Year: Codemasters One to Watch: Assassin’s Creed Nintendo Editor’s Choice Award: Gears of War Nintendo Game of the Year: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess PlayStation Game of the Year: God of War II The PC Game of the Year: The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar Xbox Game of the Year: Gears of War Ultimate Game of the Year: Gears of War

The Sun, a family institution

digital@gairrhydd.com / 41

digital

Digital Love...

Metroid Prime 3 Corruption Nintendo Wii

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outed as the best first-personshooter currently on the market, Corruption is set six months after it’s predecessor, Echoes. The player takes the role of bounty hunter Samus Aran as she fights to save each of the Galactic Federation’s planets from being devastated by a mutative substance known as ‘Phazon’, which is being carried to them by gigantic spores called Leviathans. It’s not long however until you come face-to-face with Samus’s alter ego inventively named Dark Samus. In their first encounter non-dark Samus is infected with the corruptive Phazon. which happens to work out as rather advantageous for her as she becomes equipped with a Phazon Enhancement Device which allows her to enter into ‘Hypermode’. Hypermode boosts Samus’s weapons and strength and gives the player a whole new range of abilities.

These new powers however, must be used sparingly as powering your new abilities sap’s Samus’s health and if used flippantly you risk overdose and death, unless that is, you fire furiously to vent it from your system.

As such hypermode can only be used within a strict time limit.

Retro-studios has taken first person shooters to a whole new level with Corruption by adding the ability to interact with the landscape by changing into the Morph Ball, viewed in the third person. This allows a level of exploration that has rarely been achieved in other FPS games.

Metroid’s unique exploration mode is complimented by the immense detail of the game, especially it’s level design. There are so many different layers to the environment that can be re-explored once your missions are completed, and retracing your steps is always a thoroughly enjoy-

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able process.

However by far the best feature of Metroid Prime 3 is the unique way you can interact with the game, provided by the Wii controls.

The sensitivity of this control system is honed to perfection and allows for a precise fluid aiming action. As well as aiming and shooting with the Wii-mote you get to physically interact with your surroundings by using the Nunchuck to grapple and pull objects by thrusting it forwards and pulling and even get to open locks and grab handles by pulling, twisting and pushing the Wiimote. This new level of control, above all else, we feel is the most novel and fulfilling enhancement the Wii has to offer, bringing gaming to a whole new and wonderful level of excellence.

On top of all of this Nintendo and Retro-studios have outdone themselves with the quality of the graphics and the intricacies of play, all adding to a truly satisfying and thrilling game we would recommend to anyone.

Naomi Ham & Rob Harvey

THIS WEEK: We get some damn good games

digital

Wipeout Pulse SCEE PSP

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass Nintendo DS

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he previous handheld incarnations of Zelda, while being excellent, have never managed to capture the depth and feeling of the other titles in the series. With a new format comes a new chance to achieve what has previously been lacking. Fortunately, at the helm of Phantom Hourglass is Eiji Aonuma, co-director of Ocarina of Time.

The plot carries on directly from where Wind Waker left off, with Link and Petra (a piratical Princess Zelda) sailing off into the tastefully celshaded sunset. In a heart-warmingly predictable turn of events Petra is spirited away by a ghostly ship. Cue heroics.

My shallow synopsis, however, does not do the opening scenes justice. It cannot be stressed enough just how beautiful the cel-shaded graphics are for the beginning sequence. It’s a mystery how they’ve squeezed the DS to output such visual wonderment. While the game looks excellent throughout, some of the indoor interiors are a bit bland, and lacking in detail. One look at superb facial animations will remedy any disappointment at this though.

The game, as ever, is action-adventure based fun, with the occasional rpg-esque element (although sadly a bit less than normal). As it’s a direct sequel to Wind Waker, there’s a fair bit o f

T sailing involved. This is no longer the pinnacle/nadir of boredom it once was, yet is still lacking. Thankfully, you no longer pilot your ship, instead, plotting your route on a map with the stylus.

The stylus is used to (possibly) the best effect yet seen on DS, proving to be highly intuitive and never a chore.

The boomerang has never seen it so good.

The main fault with the game lies with it’s increased allowance for the “casual gamer”, who seemingly enjoys combat which, in essence, is a piece of piss. Or puzzles which a four year old would roll it’s eyes at.

It’s not all bad though, some of the boss battles being pretty original and challenging and many good puzzles.

It’s enough to placate the vacuous bastards who might accuse Nintendo of “dumbing down”.

It’s Zelda, it’s the best game on the DS (except Advance Wars),and it’s got things that closely resemble Graboids* in it, go and buy it. *see “Tremors” for details.

Zac Arundel

he aim of Wipeout is to race around the sci-fi track as fast as possible. You gain more energy and more speed by absorbing power ups and by running over arrows on the track.

Every time you hit a wall or get blasted by a rival you lose energy.

This leads to frenetic battles with the other players as you desperately try to keep your ship in the centre of the track, negotiating loops and sideways corkscrews, all the time trying to avoid a missile from behind and trying to blow up the racer in front. And it is a lot of fun to play. The tracks are short and sweet and the action is fast and furious. Perfect for small 5-minute races on the bus, or for mammoth sessions trying to cut split- seconds off your best lap record.

There are a plethora of power ups to collect and use, and each of the seven tracks has it’s own aesthetic and special features.

There is also endless replay value as new tracks, vehicles and skins are available for download from the official wipeout-game. com website. An online multiplayer mode is another reason to be excited about Pulse. Even without the downloadable content, Pulse will still take a great amount of time to complete. The single player mode consists of 16 “grids” with each grid having 8-16 challenges. These range from straightforward races and time trials, to the special “Zone” challenges where your ship gets faster and faster. You see how long you can survive at insane speeds before you crash, blowing yourself up. Pulse is a very, very good game with solid controls and fluid graphics, and it will definitely have you coming back for “just one more go”.

Luc Tudor

digital@gairrhydd.com / 43

??

books

[C`k\iXip XYlj\T ] ?

This week, Books casts a suspicious eye over a genre Amazon has described as ‘True Survival and Endurance’ autobiographies

“

There is still something fishy about the whole thing, something eerily voyeuristic

“

I was intrigued by the love affair that some of the staff had with this genre; regularly swapping and rec-

44 / books@gairrhydd.com

“

Tesco’s books section seems to specialise in stocking them

“

W

orking in a hospital coffee shop back home throughout the summer, something struck me. After a few hours of serving lattes to pensioners, sick people and hospital staff, a well deserved lunch break was met by a staff table full of tabloids, trashy women’s magazines and each week a different book.

Being a pretentious journo-student, I brushed away the red-tops and reached instead for the book. I forget the title, but from reading the blurb and a few pages I can surmise that it was called something along the lines of “I was raped as a child and suffered all sorts of horrific experiences and now I’m writing it all down and selling it so as to earn big bucks and get my name on the Tesco paperback chart.” Each week a different tale of disgusting abuse, innocence lost and demons finally exorcised in the form of literature.

ommending similar titles amongst each other and occasionally with our regular customers in the form of nurses and clerical staff. What voyeuristic pleasures are derived from reading such accounts of horrific brutality and unthinkable monstrosities? Much academic work has been conducted on the pleasures of horror, and why it is that audiences love to be scared and horrified by a text, with varied and conflicted theories being the product. Perhaps some of these theories could be applied to the pleasures gained from reading such literature.

Child abuse, in all of its forms is still one of the most taboo issues in society. Paedophiles are sometimes viewed as more monstrous than murderers or terrorists in the press, and televised child abuse campaigns such as those of the NSPCC are designed to strike sorrow, charity and a vigilante state of mind into all of us. These types of abuse books have also become increasingly popular; Tesco’s books section seems to specialise in stocking them, while WH Smith has a whole stand dedicated to this type of literature. It is hard to narrow down my exact gripe with this genre, but something strikes me as simply not right.

Perhaps it is the exploitative aspect of it; these authors seem all too eager to make a quick buck out of their shocking stories, even if it means recounting and publicising cruel and oppressive aspects of their pasts. Perhaps it is the way they are written; even the king of this genre, David Peltzer who kick started the

movement with A Child Called It is an extremely bad writer, his prose straight from a tele-movie and full of undesirable clichés. Perhaps it is the marketing of it all; Amazon groups the books under the ‘True stories of survival and endurance’ section.

Each front cover is strikingly similar, featuring more often than not a child cutting a lonely figure, sometimes with eyes that pierce the lens, and always in a sickly soft focus. Then there are the titles. Oh, the titles.

There are some real humdingers such as Ma, He Sold Me For a Few Cigarettes, Tell Me Why, Mummy, Why Do Monsters Come Out at Night?, Silent Boy, Please, Daddy, No and the straight-to-the-point No One Wants You. Like it or not, we have witnessed a silent new genre over the past few years. These books sell by the truckload, and consumers readily snap them up. Perhaps they do offer some comfort for the author as well as some abuse victims who find solace in other victim’s stories. However, personally there is still something fishy about the whole thing, something eerily voyeuristic, but I can’t quite pinpoint what.

Tom Williams

books

...REVIEWS...reviews...REVIEWS...

A Golden Age ... Tahmima Anam ... John Murray

“D

ear Husband, I lost our children today.”

It is March 1959 and Rehana Haque is a young mother speaking to her husband’s grave.

Following claims that she is an unfit mother her children have been taken into the custody of her brother-in-law.

12 years later and Rehana is preparing a party to celebrate the anniversary of her son and daughter’s return to Dhaka, East Pakistan. Now nineteen, Sohail is eloquent and peaceful, quietly nursing a love for the girl-next-door. Meanwhile, 17-yearold Maya provides a more turbulent presence, actively protesting against oppression by dressing entirely in white. Both are idealistically adolescent and anxious for change. As the party approaches, Rehana eagerly attempts to protect her son’s heart whilst convincing an unyielding Maya

to eat more and wear a prettier sari.

This bizarre juxtaposition of family normality alongside growing political tension is unnerving and days later on 25 March 1971 East Pakistan is brutally invaded.

Tahmima Anam’s debut novel A Golden Age is a sensitive portrait of a fiercely protective mother going beyond her own limits for the love of her children. It is a story of love within war. Over the coming pages the consequences of the invasion are glimpsed and Anam’s presence is forgotten due to her careful narrative. Consequently the reader can only watch helplessly as Rehana, Sohail and Maya become buried in the heart of the guerrilla resistance, bloodying their bodies and their minds. Amongst bomb plots, refugees, and military atrocities, Anam highlights the realities of a harrowing and shockingly recent war. Arguably it

is the way in which intimate character details dart through this highly political text that is most striking. Anam weaves fiction with reality, resulting in nine haunting chapters filled with hysteria, torture and even genocide, which are impossible to dismiss.

Sara Maden

Paris Noir ... Maxim Jakubowski ... Serpent’s

T

he second in a series of collected short stories focussing on the darker side of city life to be edited by Jakubowski, Paris Noir is an uber-cool, impressive anthology full of dark short stories which are both chilling and evocative in equal measure.

All of the contributors have lived in Paris at some point or other, and translate their experiences of the Paris that the tourists don’t see into compelling short fiction. Tales of heavy drinkers, drifters, racists and the socially elite anti-bourgeois are perfectly set against the brooding and sinister City of Light; the side streets, dive bars and cheap hotel rooms.

Featuring a plethora of talent from

both sides of the Atlantic such as Stella Duffy, Cara Black and Jerome Charyn, the collection drips with authenticity and a strangely accessible pretension. There is also a story from Cardiff’s own John Williams, author of The Cardiff Trilogy, whose nostalgic yet regretful ‘New Shoes’ accounts a group of South Wales buskers out of their depth in trendy Paris and is one of the strongest pieces in the book.

There are a couple of weak contributions, however, such as Jason Starr’s ‘Bar Fight’ which builds up an effective air of suspense, only to climax with a feeble ending that would not look out of place in a primary school pupil’s English homework.

However, the rest of the collection makes up for this, making Paris Noir

an essential addition to any Noir fan’s book-shelf.

Tom Williams

Last year gair rhydd presented an anthology of your poetry, short stories and art in creative words...

WANTED: writers and illustrators for the next volume email: books@gairrhydd.com with your submissions by 20/11/2007 books@gairrhydd.com / 45

00 / sectionname@gairrhydd.com

music

IN MUSIC THIS WEEK

animalcollective

musiceditorial

I

t’s unfortunate that people that go to gigs are some of most irritating people in the world. Time after time an experience that is supposed to be special is destroyed by groups of people that seem intent on behaving like miniature versions of the artist on stage.

Because, let’s face it rockstars are twats - often brilliantly gifted twats, but twats nonetheless. This of course is why we adore them, because they become caricatures of themselves to the extent to which they can’t be considered real people. The small, annoying, probably chubbier chaps down the front, on the other hand, I can’t tolerate.

Take the recent Kate Nash gig

albums:mcfly

live:katenash

at the union for a beautifully illustrated example. Whilst there is no possible reason why a girl should ever wear a dress to a gig,

cause me actual physical pain.

It gets worse I’m afraid with bands of a more masculine variety. Somewhere in the last few decades of live music the reasonably pleasurable activity ‘dancing’ has been needlessly replaced with others that I can’t begin to understand such as ‘pushing’, ‘flailing’ and ‘moshing’.

Basically what this means is that live music has been taken over by boys. I use the term boys not in reference to the male gender, but instead to sweaty, pissed up lager louts whose entire vocabulary can be reduced to a series of grunts, swear words and more grunts.

Oh look, I’ve turned into a 50 year old woman. Joy. KE

it’s Kate Nash, and I can see that it’s in keeping with the general theme. But high heels? Really? I can’t decide whether these girls were trying to obstruct my view or

loveletters

Bill Wilson declares his undying love for Cursive

I

downloaded a Cursive track several years ago, ‘A Red So Deep’, after reading a good review of their album. I didn’t like it at all; I put it on to a mini disc for later listening.

A month or so later on a family holiday in France consisting of long car drives, the eclectic indie/ punk sound found a place in my heart. They seem to refine their sound in every album. I think my

favourite has to be ‘Domestica’ because of incredible songs like ‘Lament of Pretty Baby’, but l love the ‘Ugly Organ’ with cello ripping through the tracks. For instant gratification I’d recommend ‘Art is Hard’.

Cursive’s latest release ‘Happy Hollow’ features a brass section - listen to the delicate but dark ‘Into the Fold’ for an example.

On discovering Cursive I delved

into their record label’s (Saddle Creek) other artists and developed a love affair for them; uncovering gems such as Bright Eyes, Azure Ray, Desaparecidos, Two Gallants etc.

So give this unique band a chance. You might not like them at first but if you persevere there is a place in everybody’s hearts for Cursive.

music@gairrhydd.com / 47

music

Animal Collective

Kyle Ellison catches up with Animal Collective’s Panda Bear to discuss influences, playing live and all things Strawberry Jam

S

tanding to the side of stage watching Animal Collective soundcheck feels like spying on your madcap neighbours having another heated domestic. It’s fascinating, thrilling and entrancing but at the same time has a voyeuristiclike quality to it that leaves me feeling hopelessly awkward and nervous. Up on stage I don’t see three ordinary human beings, but instead the selflabelled characters that they play in the band; Panda Bear, Geologist and Avey Tare.

It comes to my surprise when meeting Noah Lennox (Panda Bear), then, that he is in fact a nice, friendly sort of chap and not the crazed indie loon that I had anticipated.

Listening to the bands latest album Strawberry Jam could perhaps help you understand where I went wrong.

The chaotic mesh of ideas and influences doesn’t sound like something man-made, it’s unaffected and raw and this is why it’s strange to reduce all this down to a conversation between two people.

Lennox points out that the new record was actually designed to sound like it’s Strawberry theme, explaining how parts of the record ap-

pear “sweet”, “futuristic”, “sharp’” and at times “goopy”. Elaborating on how this concept came about he describes; “It came from being on an aeroplane, getting a tray of food and opening the strawberry jam packet. With the light shining through the window it

“I thought it would be great if we could get the songs to sound like strawberry jam itself”

48 / music@gairrhydd.com

looked so weird and sharp and I thought if we could get the songs to sound like that, it’d be great.”

It’s a unique approach to making music and that’s probably why the end product is so original and distinctive. For inspiration outside the world of fruit preserves, however, Noah talks extensively about the music that he listens to recreationally as he singles out friends Gang Gang Dance, Black Dice and Deerhoof as well as Atlanta bands such as

Black Lips and Deerhunter. Outside of the states he points out German minimalist artist Pantha Du Prince, Mercury Prize winners Klaxons and Cardiff’s own John Mouse as artists he’s been listening to – completing a diverse range of influences.

With the focus back on tonight’s show he explains the difficulty of adapting songs to play without fourth member Deakin, and how this dictates areas of the bands setlist. He also goes onto reveal how the strains of being on the road are beginning to show.

“It’s starting to get to that point where I’m feeling we’ve played too many shows this year.” Explains Noah, before re-considering.

“I don’t mean to sound like I’m going through the motions, but I’m in a zone where the shows are going so fast and I want to make sure we do them well”.

If Noah and his band members were feeling the strain then it didn’t show later as they emerged on stage, once again hiding behind the Panda Bear persona it’s like our conversation had never happened and I’m once again drawn into a state of awestruck idolisation.

JUSTINTIMBERLAKE

music

THE FUTURE’S BRIGHT, THE FUTURE’S SEXY

FRANCESCA JARVIS LOOKS AT HOW ONE BOY ENTWINED MUSIC & SEX, WITH CLIMACTIC RESULTS...

Enter stage right Mr Justin Timberlake. A man famous for shagging the most mental pop starlet of the 1990s and a man spawn from the deep suppression of manufactured music. It’s a story most are probably familiar with. The All-American boy gone AWOL from the band who provided the platform for success. Think Ginger Spice, Robbie Williams and fellow American Gwen Stefani. It is perhaps the latter that has proved the most successful musical transformation. All but gone is the don’t-give-afuck attitude, sweaty demeanour and dirty almost-punk of No Doubt, leaving us with the gloss of multi-million dollar video shoots and duets with the questionable Akon.

“

And yet here is a man who has managed to shrug off the aura of robotic cheese with an effortless ease, and who has almost single handedly transformed the state of alpha male pop music into something credible.

His debut album, although flawed, produced slices of musical gold such as the stunningly anthemic Cry Me A River, which was to mark the start of the Timbaland/Timberlake union that would later prove utterly devastating.

It was only with Timberlake’s second offering, FutureSex/LoveSounds that the former *Nsync frontman began to be recognised for something other than for topping the sexiest men polls and his celebrity conquests. Of course, his reputation precedes him, yet Timberlake successfully upped his game to the next level entirely, creating an album so wonderfully produced that now he tops the best album polls instead.

Putting aside the deliciously dirty SexyBack, singles LoveStoned and What Goes Around/Comes Around are almost flawless contrasts of each other; the former relies on its heavy basslines, drumbeats and oozes sensuality, whereas the latter is a beautiful construct of strings alongside an addictive chorus and mysteriously personal lyrics. My Love is the type of song that propels artists from “good” to “fucking excellent”, and even the filler tracks are slicker than your average.

As well as best pal Timbaland, Timberlake boasts an impressive collaboration record, from Pharrell Williams to Janet Jackson, T.I to Nelly Furtado, and you know you’re doing something right when your worldwide tour grosses $52 milllion. And now Madonna has recruited him to help rejuvenate her ever-flagging musical career. He might be a rumoured self-centred prick, a casanova ruled by his penis, but this man is shaping the face of mainstream music. And that face is fucking sexy.

“

We live in a generation where the lines of musical genres are becoming increasingly blurred; R’n’B producers are hooking up with pop-punksters; UK grindie acts are collaborating with indie popstars, and it’s becoming more and more acceptable to listen to music for the music, rather than the scene that surrounds it.

this man is re-shaping the face of mainstream music... music@gairrhydd.com / 49

music

STARS

In Our Bedroom After the War Arts & Crafts

S

SONS & DAUGHTERS: Incestuous...?

REMI NICOLE copy of every other ranting guitarMy Conscience and I Island Wank

O

h goody, a new female singer/songwriter. Again. In her attempt to join the ranks of KT Tunstell, Lily Allen and Kate Walsh et al, Remi Nicole brings us her debut album My Conscience and I. But you’d be forgiven if you thought you’d heard it before- it’s a carbon

SONS AND DAUGHTERS This Gift Domino

S

Family Fortunes

ons and Daughters second album ‘The Repulsion Box’ saw the band combine the basic, blues-heavy tone of their first album with subtle new pop sensibilities, to

50 / music@gairrhydd.com

twanging girlie. Nicole even manages to squeeze out the token ‘lundun’ accent when crooning out her miserable lyrics. True to the form, though, her songs are annoyingly catchy, especially the new single Rock N Roll, a rant about the unoriginal ferretflashing, hotpants-wearing pop girls around in the charts, highly ironic if you ask me. It’s just yet another whiny album from yet another ‘new pop sensation’.

Bleugh.

3/10 Hazel Plush

a large degree of success.

This Gift sees the Scots perfect this sound, with twelve tracks of rumbling rhythm sections and tightly rationed guitar that provides both instant and long-term satisfaction.

This time around, not so much taut and aggressive, tracks propel forward more confidently and freely than in previous records.

The bands most unique factor comes in Adele Bethel’s wholesome vocals, which ooze a passion and en-

Gang-stars

tars’ follow up to 2004’s Set Yourself On Fire is a perfectly good record, though far from spectacular.

They’ve stuck with the same glossy melodramatic indie pop formula that has served them well, but rather than expand on their sound, they’ve mellowed down the orchestration and turned up the melodrama.

The upshot of this approach is that the vocals and lyrics come to the foreground, with mixed results.

You see the band works best when ‘to me to you’ boy girl lyrics are employed, and this works fantastically on tracks like The Night Starts Here.

But when each vocalist goes solo over a whole song, Stars lose that ‘X-Factor’ which makes them and it all gets a bit dull.

The record tails off towards the end, and Take Me To The Riot is so bad it’s an anthem Bono would be proud of, but this is a good record, it has great production, some nice moments, and would be good backing music for a light lunch.

6.5/10 Guy Fernyhough

“

Stars lose that X-factor, and it all gets a bit dull

”

ticement like few others, whilst drummer David Gow’s counteractive backing vocals add a tangible urgency and chemistry throughout.

The combination of danceable guitar hooks with the continued gothic and sinister-feeling undertones is in many ways an unexpected triumph – that’s what makes Sons and Daughters so special, be sure to catch them soon at Swn. 9/10 Jim Finucane

THE HOOSIERS

Greatest Hits Island

The Trick To Life RCA

that’s right... Mcfly

...is don’t eat yellow snow

O

h joy, yet another indie band!

The Hoosiers are an indie pop band, whose members hail from the UK and Sweden.

Their debut album, The Trick To Life, was released with the benefit of two singles, Worried About Ray and Goodbye Mr A, remarkably penetrating the top 10; an astonishing feat for any band.

The album was produced by Toby Grafty-Smith (ex-Jamiroquai member) who gives the album a high quality sound. Vocalist and guitar player, Irwin Sparkes has a feminine voice that fails to stimulate and gets more dreary as the album goes on. Bass player Martin Skarendahl fails to make himself known and Alphonso Sharland’s drumming is simple at best.

The albums saving grace are the lyrics which demonstrate more intelligence then most of their peers.

They have the ability to be dark and thought-provoking. This can clearly be seen in A Sadness Runs Through Him and Cops And Robbers. Stefan Uddholm’s artwork is also inspiring giving the album an eye catching quality.

On the whole this is a fairly average indie album with the lyrics and artwork being the only standouts.

Musically it comes close to mediocre. If you are getting bored of indie, keep well away from this item.

4/10 Roddy Waldron

music

MCFLY

I

am, quite shamelessly (or shamefully perhaps) a bit of a Mcfly fan. I like their energy, I like their likeability. So obviously, I really rather liked their greatest hits.

I don’t think I can say much new about an album featuring songs we’ve all heard before. Obviously (pun intended, sorry) it still sounds good.

However, there is a very large black mark on this album and it comes in the shape of a dire cover

version of Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. Hear that? That is the sound of Freddie Mercury rotating (faster than the speed of light) in his grave, and you can be assured he isn’t floating around in ecstasy either. Tragic is one word, sick inducing is another.

And, hard as it is to admit, Baby Coming Back and Transylvania are a bit crap too - but the rest of it is laugh a minute, sing a long genius.

But there’s no real need to buy it, because you’ve probably downloaded it all already (there’s one new track “The Way You Make Me Feel”, and its kinda ok) and put the singles on a CD. Like, err, they have.

8/10 Jake Yorath

Pick he Of T

WALLIS BIRD Spoons Bird Records

S

Fork-yea!

inger songwriters are fairly ubiquitous today. Good ones however are few and far between. Wallis Bird is one artist you certainly will want to hear.

She has an amazing, powerful voice, 11 tracks of expressive building melodies and great variation and

k e e W

her songs are brilliantly played, with acoustic guitar and piano forming the base. Smooth slow ones combine with euphoric crescendos, making her music incredibly enjoyable and an album you can play and replay many times.

Blossoms in the Street has a brilliant blues, rock riff and is only one of many standout tracks on the album alongside Moodsets, a solid album ably was. Average in the extreme.

8/10 Gareth Ludkin

music@gairrhydd.com /

51

music

31/10/07

LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE Enter Shikari Great Hall

T

01/11/07

he doors have barely opened as Cardiff’s Student Union is illuminated by the light of a thousand glow sticks, albeit most of them in the hands of 14 year-olds.

Hundred Reasons effectively unleash the energy of the enthusiastic crowd as they echo choruses of the old favourites, yet new material unfortunately fails to make as much of an impact.

There is a reason why Enter Shikari have been labeled one of the most explosive live bands today as the raw energy and passion of their set is indisputable. Lasers, wolf costumes and face-paint galore further

Iron and Wine The Point

I

01/11/07

t has taken five years and three studio albums for Sam Beam (aka Iron and Wine) to bring his unique brand of folk rock to a by now ardent Welsh public.

My God was it worth the wait! Accompanied by seven band members Iron and Wine embraced this live performance with consummate ease balancing a delicate composition of instruments, from accordion to violin, to create an experience like no other.

Beams delicate, velvety voice

Kate Nash Great Hall

I

t’s a great tragedy when headline acts get upstaged by 3 men donning lights on their t-shirts and doing fabulously camp upper-body dance routines.

A great tragedy. Unfortunately this is exactly what happened to Little Miss Nash, who, armed with her piano, backing band and quaint stage

52 / music@gairrhydd.com

set, should be very disappointed with herself.

Metronomy are everything she should be; exciting, engaging, entertaining. They deliver their set with an authoritative energy that seems lost on the mass of high heels in the audience. It is perhaps unfortunate that after their support slots with CSS and Justice next month, that their electronica-influenced production will undoubtedly draw comparisons with Klaxons. Attention: Metronomy are not nu-fucking-rave.

As for Kate Nash, she drowned in

create something of a spectacle.

The pace of the evening only stops momentarily for the more melodic Adieu, revealing the band’s harmonic prowess. The St Albans quartet thrives in the intimacy as their trademark electronic trance hypnotises the crowd into a whirl of anticipation before literally igniting the venue in a ferocious metalcore assault.

Such intensity is felt with songs reaching anthemic proportions, including a ‘special treat’ in the form of an Insomnia cover that is simply electrifying with an almost sinister edge, something that is no doubt appropriate for the night’s Halloween festivities.

Sorry, these boys are on to a winner.

Amy Walker

softens the room and his humble nature and gentle smile leave you feeling truly lifted. Every element of this performance was constructed so meticulously and with such attention to detail, yet it all felt so effortless.

Songs both new and old were greeted with roars of appreciation from fans who were left, after an hour and a half, yearning for more.

The presence of eight musicians so in-tune, so in-synch, simply left me awe-struck.

As close to perfection as any band could hope to come, I haven’t felt like this in a very long time.

Adam Woodward

her own performance in a venue that made her seem little girl lost. Her voice is as delightful as it seems on record and she owns the piano, but ultimately her live show just doesn’t translate. There’s nothing new, nothing compelling, nothing exciting. Her tirade of ballads, played one after the other is bland, and unexpected of a girl stamping multicoloured marks all over pop music. In a disappointing twist to the Nash fairytale, the girl’s gone and lost all that glitters.

Francesca Jarvis

music

29/10/07

LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE Hadouken TJ’s, Newport

28/10/07

K

The Twang Great Hall

S

21/10/07

unday night saw the invasion of the Great Hall by countless chavs: the air was thick with lynx, the bar probably ran out of Strongbow and I spent most of the night dodging fists. Who can we thank for encouraging such a questionable lot into our lovely Union?

The Twang, of course.

The Birmingham 5-piece have been around for about a year now, but after their atrocious set at Barfly back in March hopes weren’t high for their attempt at the Great Hall.

The band played through most of debut album Love It When I Feel

T

Furthest Drive Home Barfly

he fact that it’s so mind numbingly cold outside tonight is quite possibly the reason why Kid, Keep Dancing, a local powerpop quintet start off playing in front of an empty Barfly.

Unfortunately for them, their catchy punk-filled, synth-driven num-

Like This, obviously comfortable in its familiarity but not complacent in its popularity with the crowd. Frontmen Martin Saunders and Phil Etheridge staggered boozily across the stage with all the self assurance and cockiness of typical brummie lads, spurting clever lyrics of drugs, booze and women.

For me, though, the highlight had to be the encore of Bran Van 3000’s Drinking In LA, initially a bizarre choice but turning out to be a fantastic reworking, suiting Etheridge’s vocals perfectly.

A million miles away from their Barfly performance, this was top stuff.

The Twang have evolved, no longer just a confused indie band heavily reliant on inspiration from fellow brummies The Streets, now they’re really coming into their own.

Hazel Plush bers are taken in only by the cavernous space around them. Female fronted Working Class Heroes don’t fair much better as they go through the motions, one song fading into the next. Despite a strong voice, the rest of the band find it hard to conjure up anything decent to support her lyrical lines.

Just as I begin to regret having left the confines of my abode, up step highlight of the evening Not Advised, who inject a much needed slice of slickness into the proceedings.

The five piece from Southampton

nowing nothing about Hadouken except for having heard a couple of their cool, urban-sounding songs plugged on Radio 1, I made my way to Newport with an open mind.

Only to get to TJ’s and be faced by a crowd of fans aged roughly between 13 and 16 with skinny jeans and strange hair-dos.

After an hour and a half of waiting in the packed out bar area being eyed suspiciously by an assortment of bizarrely dressed teenagers, everyone was eventually let into the venue where support act Shut Your Eyes And You’ll Burst Into Flames got the crowd warmed up with a short but enthusiastic and thoroughly enjoyable set.

Unfortunately, the long wait for Hadouken themselves to appear tempered the atmosphere. Nevertheless, the mood picked up when they took to the stage and no one else seemed surprised to find that these tunes I heard on the radio were coming from a group of cutesy young things with posh accents.

Although their songs are catchy, from what I could see the bouncing teeny-boppers Hadouken lacked the visible passion and stage presence that could have made them a believable urban band. I couldn’t help wondering what all the Radio 1 hype is about.

To quote my date that evening, we seem to have encountered the next generation’s Vanilla Ice. Rebecca Ganz bounce around the stage, using each others adrenaline to fuel their own, producing a set full of catchy hooks and tap your feet choruses, deservedly drawing the biggest crowd forward, to the now reasonably filled venue.

Furthest Drive Home close the night, all too often producing a sound too polished for their own good, as one song becomes hard to differentiate from the next. Disappointing.

Pete Rollins

music@gairrhydd.com /

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music

L I S T I N G S 12/11 - 25/11 TUESDAY 13th NOVEMBER Foo Fighters @ CIA Dopamine @ Barfly Nina Hynes + Little My @ Buffalo Bar THURSDAY 15th NOVEMBER Rilo Kiley @ Bristol Anson Rooms Tokyo Dragons @ Clwb Ifor Bach Enrique Iglesias @ CIA Yacht @ Bristol Thekla FRIDAY 16th NOVEMBER Caribou @ Clwb Ifor Bach Scouting For Girls @ The Point May Contain Nuts @ Barfly SUNDAY 18th NOVEMBER

THE HIVES

Calvin Harris @ Cardiff SU Pram @ Clwb WEDNESDAY 21st NOVEMBER Efterklang @ Bristol Thekla New Pornographers @ Bristol Trinity Dirty Projectors @ Bristol Louisiana SATURDAY 24th NOVEMBER Kaiser Chiefs + We Are Scientists @ CIA Patrick Wolf @ Bristol Trinity To My By @ Barfly Chromeo @ Bristol Thekla SUNDAY 25th NOVEMBER Wedding Present @ The Point Akron/Family @ The Croft

GIG PICK CARIBOU Clwb Ifor Bach

delic pop from the one man psyca Andorra the new album ash with aw , ord is one damn fine rec factor y that is Caribou it he reps ha ur ful vocals. Rumo ss bli d an ies lod me glorious this is true d very well live, whether licates this joyous soun out. nd fi g on down to Clwb to or not it’s worth gettin

TEENAGERS Starlett Johnasson Merlock

Ooh La La, just when you thought The Teenagers couldn’t get anymore arousing they whip out this little guilty pleasure. It’s dirty but accessible - like sneaking a peek at Page 3 boobies.. More perfect pop punk from the Parisian pervs.. 10/10 MH

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S I N G L E S

BONDE DO ROLE Marina Gasolina Domino

Although at first it sounds like a playground fight between Moloko and CSS, the pumping beats and cutting vocals have potential. Please persevere because those bongo beats and samba synths are hard to resist. The delightful remixes on the EP from Peaches and my personal fav Fake Blood will make you move or at the very least it should provoke a toetap. 7/10 NB

Tick Tick Boom Polydor

Sweden´s most rspected rock band have done another cracking tune. Tick, Tick, Boom will be another classic tune from the Hives, the song has all elements you can ask for if you are a fan of them. A swinging melody, then add some rock´n roll and a place on BBC radio 1:s playlist. 8/10 KS

BEARSUIT

Foxy Boxer Fantastic Plastic

Bearsuit are one of the greatest bands to come out of Norwich. Their up-front rock is fast and energetic. This recent single, taken from their album oh:io, is punchy, hook ridden and an irresistible tune to dance to.

9/10 GL

HADOUKEN Leap Of Faith Atlantic

Now I remember why we liked nu-metal…and why we ridicule it now. Any musical talent is extinguished by a weak De La Rocha impersonation, supported by overproduction, ordinary guitars and semi-melodies. Listenable maybe, but there’s no semblance of identity. 5/10 TV

m l i F

film

THE BUZZ...

The latest news, rumours and conjecture

“

Quote of the week

I am a God. I’m not “the God”...

I don’t think

We explore the dead pan world of Bill Murray in this weeks Top 5

”

THE SPLICE OF LIFE: If you look to the right of this page you will see one of a collection of images from the upcoming (far far away in the distant future) Splice. The movie will star Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley as some sort of whizz kid genetic scientists who engineer the perfect human using animal DNA. Vincenzo Natali, the man who brought us Cube, takes the helm and, even more interestingly, it is produced by everyone’s favourite Spanish film maker Guillermo Del Toro. As of yet no more information has been released about the film as production has only just begun, however check out http:// www.aintitcool.com/node/34683 for more images. I’m excited already…

SYLVESTER HAS A DEATH WISH: An audible yawn was heard across the Office as I heard this news today; Stallone is apparently in line to remake Charles Bronson’s Death Wish. An average film re made by an average director; what more could you want? Perhaps an egg and cress sandwich. It’s been a slow week.

I mean, I really couldn’t care less about this and have nothing even remotely funny to say about it. Sorry.

ARE YOU WEARING A JUMPER? This isn’t strictly hot of the press news but there are couple of great looking trailers up for Jumper. If this film hasn’t come to your attention yet I’m pretty sure it will soon. The movie is set in an alternative reality where certain people exist who can “jump” around, meaning they can teleport completely freely anywhere in the world. Now this is an interesting premise which could have been easily have been handled badly but from the looks of the trailers we’re in for an action filled treat. It’s nice to see a science fiction film with “super powers” that isn’t a comic book movie. Hayden Christensen is our hero who comes to realise that he is not the only jumper around and that with great power comes great responsibility (sorry, I had to go there).

TALES FROM THE

BACK ROW

What’s that? A weekend in London? Together?

One Hotel room?

London PART 1 HOW WAS IT FOR WILL? Heaven. That’s how it was. When the email arrived inviting us to London

by Fox to watch the new Wes Anderson feature my jaw dropped. A night alone with Sim. My knees started trembling instantly with thoughts of steaming hot bubble baths in a private hotel suite, Belgian Chocolate and perfectly judged mood lighting.

But then the nerves kicked in. What if i said the wrong thing or didn’t look right or my touch wasn’t soft enough. I decided to take it slowly, I think the hand action of last week might have given out the wrong (or right) signals. More next week when things get a little steamy in the bathroom...

HOW WAS IT FOR SIM? A couple of weeks ago we recieved an email inviting us to meet Wes Anderson. Imagine my predicament when I found out that they had only allocated us one hotel room. Had Will not been acting so strangely the last few weeks then perhaps I wouldn’t have minded sharing a bed with him for one night. With his behaviour resembling that of Quagmire however, I am unashamed to say that I was woried about my fragile sense of innocence. Will didn’t really help matters by repeatedly asking what type of chocolate I liked best and showing me the expensive bath salts he had ‘bought especially’. I responed by going on a shopping trip of my own...for pepper spray.

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LATEST RELEASES LATEST RELEASES LATEST RELEASES

THE DARJEELING LIMITED Dir: Wes Anderson Cast: Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman Out November 23rd, 91mins

Synopsis: Following a near fatal motorbike accident, Francis (Wilson) organises a reunion with his estranged brothers Peter (Brody), who is struggling to come to terms with looming parenthood, and Jack, a writer obsessed with his ex girlfriend. As their journey progresses however, what was conceived as a spiritual journey towards reconciliation turns into a prescription drug fuelled, chaotic debacle.

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t’s been more than three years since Anderson’s last directorial outing, the wildly eccentric but beautifully tragic The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and were it not

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for an overplayed DVD collection of his films, the world would’ve been a lonely place. Thankfully, Mr Anderson’s staple diet of dysfunctional families and quirky characters have endured, as manifest in the quirkily profound and headily exotic The Darjeeling Limited.

The film opens in a typically eccentric (but brilliant) manner. Bill Murray, having sped through the streets of an un-named Indian town in a tut tut (filmed in proper car chase style), arrives at an equally un-named train station. Exiting his chariot in a hurry, he runs through the station and after the moving train (Anderson capturing the moment with a characteristic ultra slow-mo tracking shot). Cue Adrien Brody slowly edging into frame, overtaking the hapless Murray and hopping on the back of the train.

Turning around, he sees a forlorn Murray resigning to the fact he can’t make it on board, and the train disappears into the distance. Murray has literally been left behind, and, after appearing in the last three Anderson movies, we know that The Darjeeling Limited has no place for Bill Murray.

This achingly brilliant scene typifies Anderson’s clever use of meta-

phor in the film. The luggage that the brothers jealously carry every where with them clearly represents the emotional baggage that each of them respectively carry, but the effortless style with which this is carried off makes it anything but the clunky awkward metaphor it could so easily have been, and transform it into a subtle and nuanced element of the story telling.

The inimitable style with which Anderson handles the movie however, is secondary to the well developed and fully flushed out characters that so beautifully occupy the screen.

Wilson, in a typically strong performance, exudes a painful sense of fragility as the physically damaged and somewhat neurotic Francis, a sense that is no doubt heightened to something bordering on tragic in view of Wilson’s own recent troubles.

Schwartzman too puts in a wonderful performance as youngest brother Jack, who, despite his back-story being explored in the short film Hotel Chevalier that precedes the main feature, remains effortlessly enigmatic throughout. For me though, it is Brody that stands out in The Darjeeling Limited.

LATEST RELEASES LATEST RELEASES LATEST RELEASES ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE Dir: Shekhar Kapur Cast:Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush Out Now, 114 mins

Synopsis: In the late 16th-Century, King Philip of Spain has amassed the largest naval army ever seen, and is preparing for holy war against an antiCatholic England. Queen Elizabeth must lead her country against overwhelming odds, putting her personal and political life on the line in the process.

I A newcomer to the ensemble of actors that Anderson has assembled over the years, The Pianist star seems to have instantly settled into the director’s quirky style. As middle brother Peter, he delivers an immensely accomplished performance as a soon to be dad scared of his coming responsibility. Involuntarily hoarding his dead father’s possessions (including ever present prescription sunglasses), he exudes an almost oppresive air of melacholy as he seemingly chooses to dwell on the past rather than embrace the new life that is on the way.

By the end of the The Darjeeling Limited our three protagonists are changed profoundly. The true genius of this is that it is impossible to pinpoint the moment that it happens; just as in real life, the process is organic and un-definable.

Boasting great performances from all, a stunning location sumptuously photgraphed and a beautifully written script, The Darjeeling Limited is perhaps Anderson’s most subtle and mature film to date, and as such, is a an absolute joy to watch.

Sim Eckstein

n the build-up to this historical epic, Shekhar Kapur’s sequel to the award-strewn “Elizabeth”, all the talk was over one thing: Cate Blanchett taking an Oscar. If her storming 1998 performance was only enough to deserve a nomination, then surely this action-packed, monologue-driven reprisal would tip the balance. Well, as it turns out, the pundits may be on to something.

Having seemingly stabilised her

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turbulent nation, Elizabeth finds herself surrounded by Jesuit rebels led by the imprisoned Mary Stuart (played fantastically by Samantha Morton) and under constant threat of invasion by the Spanish empire.

At the same time, she struggles to contain an emerging romance with Walter Raleigh (Owen) and come to terms with her enduring title of “Virgin Queen”.

The film, therefore, allows Blanchett to explore every facet of her character, and her portrayal becomes both terrifying and tormented as a result. Kapur has played up an alleged romance between Elizabeth and Raleigh to give his leading actress maximum screen time, and she seems positively magical next to Clive Owen, an actor who constantly leaves me asking “why?”.

In some ways then, “The Golden Age” is set out to give Blanchett every chance, even at the expense of the film as a whole. The looming presence of King Philip’s Armada just isn’t that imposing, and at no point does it ever look as though Elizabeth, nor her band of merry men, are on the brink of failure.

The redeeming feature, however, is a strong one. Charged with personifying one of history’s greatest enigmas, Blanchett is spellbinding, and deserves all the plaudits coming her way. This is the kind of role that will always be associated with the big awards, but it takes a very particular talent to take advantage of this fact. Without question, this is such a talent.

Tom Woods

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LATEST RELEASES LATEST RELEASES LATEST RELEASES L RENDITION Dir: Gavin Hood Cast:Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon Out Now, 120 mins

When suspected terrorist Anwar ElIbrahimi disappears from a flight and is taken away by the US Government to be tortured, his wife (Witherspoon) turns to an old friend to track him down. Meanwhile a rookie CIA agent (Gyllenhaal) must oversee the brutal interrogation and begins to question his assignment.

T

he somewhat dubious practice of ‘rendition’ by the US government is a controversial topic.

Arresting terror suspects and flying them to countries with poor human rights records so they can be tortured into giving details and imprisoned indefinitely seems a rather odd policy, especially coming from a country that holds freedom and democracy at it’s heart.

Rendition is a busy film, with three main story strands and while each is broken up nicely, confusion can begin to grow, especially with the inclusion of a small seemingly romantic sub-plot involving two people living in the locale of the terror attack that begins the chain of events shown in the movie.

Pacing problems aside, the cast do an exemplary job. The increasingly queasy looking Gyllenhaal, who

30 DAYS OF NIGHT Dir: David Slade Cast: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston Out Now, 113 mins

Synopsis: As the small Alaskan town of Barrow is plunged into it’s annual 30 days of darkness, they come under attack from a roaming gang of vampires determined to leave no survivors of their brutal attack.

It falls to local Sheriff Eben Oleson (Hartnett) and his estranged wife Stella (George) to keep the few remaining survivors alive until the sun rises again.

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is criminally under-used, is excellent and understated as the troubled CIA agent. Metwally is genuinely affecting, displaying raw, desperate emotion.

Overall though, this is still a fairly shallow exploration of a very serious subject; some ill-placed humour and the curiously brutal portrayal of some of the foreign characters (which creates a ‘them’ and ‘us’ feeling) jar.

Also, as liberal as the film would like to think it is, the ‘American coming to save the day’ just goes to show how little Hollywood is likely to change ideologically.

Maybe worth a look then, but you’ll probably all go see Saw IV instead anyway.

Andrew Swidenbank

I

t could easily be argued that there hasn’t been a genuinely terrifying vampire film since Fritz Lang’s Nosferatu way back in 1922.

Gary Oldman’s suave and charming Dracula, the impossibly sexy vampiric Brad Pitt, a testosterone driven ass-kicking Wesley Snipes; none of these inspire even half the fear needed to make me soil myself.

With 30 Days of Night however, everything has changed.

I must confess that I am not a massive fan of horror movies which makes it all the more remarkable that I enjoyed this one so much.

David Slade’s treatment of the vampire myth (along with the established aesthetic from Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith’s graphic novel) verges on revolutionary at times, his creatures of the night exuding the kind of animalistic brutality that, in a loud dark cinema, is spine-chillingly frightening.

Hartnett puts in a sterling performance as the movies central protagonist (further enhancing my inexplicable liking of a man who was, after all, in Pearl Harbour), and Melissa George also impresses as his fiercely independent wife. This film is not perfect (it’s Blade-like ending jars somewhat with the rest of the film), but ultimately 30 Days of Night is a visceral, adrenalin fuelled experience that will leave even the most steely nerved reaching for their comfort blanket.

Sim Eckstein

LATEST RELEASES LATEST RELEASES LATEST RELEASES

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”

there were moments when I felt overwhelmed by the nature around me (emile hirsh)

INTO THE WILD Dir: Sean Penn Cast: Emile Hirsh, William Hurt, Vince Vaughn Out Now, 140 mins

Synopsis: Based on the book ‘Into the Wild’ by Jon Krakauer. It’s a true story of Virginian university graduate Christopher McCandless, who gave away his savings of $24,000 to Oxfam, abandoned his family and began travelling with the aim of living entirely alone in the Alaskan wilderness.

W

ith renowned actor and director Sean Penn at the helm of the movie, Into the Wild couldn’t really fail to be brilliant could it? With stunning imagery that will blow your socks off and a powerful story which penetrates deep into your psyche, Penn’s visually stunning movie is a compelling, heart-rendering account of a young man’s loathing of the superficial, one-dimensional and trivial values held by his status obsessed parents.

On his journey, Christopher forges close bonds with several characters including hippy couple Jan and Rainey (Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker), farmer Wayne Westerberg (Vince Vaughn) and aging mourner Hal (Ron Franz). Through

his interactions with them, is made clear that Christopher, who has by this time renamed himself ‘Alexander Supertramp’ is not a neurotic recluse who gave away his money, cut up his cards and ran away from his life, but a young man so jaded by the pressures of keeping up appearances and being involved in a web of falsities and lies, that leaving was the only option.

Sounds poignant? It is. But don’t worry, you won’t be crying the whole way through. There are many giggle provoking scenes and quite a bit of nudity which adds a much needed light-hearted touch to an otherwise deeply captivating film.

Amelia Sgroin

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ARJEELING LIMITED three actors look far from similar, a justified criticism perhaps, but as the director himself says “I think great actors work out to be a family and they very quickly started acting like brothers. In the end I think Jason and Adrien seem like they could be brothers after all”.

The Darjeeling Limited had been a long time coming. Anderson, one of three brothers, had wanted to make a movie about three brothers on a train, and also a movie in India but the two ideas didn’t come together until after the filming of the Life Aquatic. Quickly Wes got Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola onboard to co write the script (which they did in Paris whilst the other two were finishing up Marie Antoinette) and The Darjeeling Limited was born.

Mid-way through writing they bought three open tickets to India and vowed not to return until the piece was written. Their experiences and the stories they heard add hugely to, or even make up entirely, the essential fabric of the movie. Whilst walking around the crowded streets of Delhi they would rarely pass a temple without their scripts to act out a relevant scene right there in the road among

the throngs of people and cattle. “We went to India and we tried to imitate the journey, to act it out, which is a bit of a crazy way to go about it”. The image of Schwartzman, Coppola and Anderson kneeling down in a dusty Delhi street reading from dirty A4 scripts is a hugely endearing one and this hands-on attitude to writing is certainly part of what makes the film feel so real and personal.

“

What can I say?

I was born to be lanky.

(Adrien Brody)

”

Huge sections of the movie were actually filmed on a moving train which was rented from the India Railway Company, completely redesigned and then journeyed through the Rajasthan desert. “We had to yield to more official trains, to commuter trains, to cows or any other sort of animal that might decide to cross the tracks, so at any moment the train could suddenly grind to a halt and the scene would be ruined.

It created this odd tension” recalls Schwartzman.

As beautiful and colourful as the movie is, being undoubtedly his most alive, vibrant and aesthetically minded work, it is, like all Anderson’s films, a perfectly crafted character piece underneath it all. The three brothers are believable and unique characters, all wonderfully flawed.

“I think each character is a fragment and a blend of the three of us” Schwartzmen writes. Perhaps the most affecting of the three is his portrayal of Jack who is tragically hung up on his ex girlfriend and regularly rings her answering machine to check the messages, an act both hilarious and utterly tragic.

The Darjeeling Limited is a film that deserves not only to be held high in the canon of Wes Anderson films, but also in that of recent American cinema. As newboy Adrian Brody tells us “the beauty of doing independent films is they can be original. I think The Darjeeling Ltd is one of the most original films I have ever seen”. I for one, whole-heartedly agree.

Will Hitchins

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Director...

David Cronenberg

D

uring the 1980s audiences were awoken by a new and exciting sub genre; spawning an influx of the ‘body horror’ into homes across the country through the ingenuity that was VHS. Many cult film makers of the time have since moved on to humbler pastures (Jackson, Raimi), but one man is still going strong. Known by many adoring fans as the Baron of Blood; David Cronenberg’s work has spanned a generation of gore and carnage.

There is something enjoyably disturbing about Cronenberg’s work, his films tend to focus uncompromisingly around bodily mutation and mutilation, always pushing back the boundaries of shocking cinema. His early work began somewhat slowly, after a stint of television shorts in the early 70’s, it wasn’t until the release of 1975’s Shivers that his work started to raise a few heads.

A series of equally gore-filled outings soon followed, later gaining cult popularity with the head-exploding telepathic terror Scanners (1981).

Films like Sci-Fi/horror remake The Fly (1986) soon established Cronenberg amongst a more mainstream audience and exemplified his masterful use of authorship and technology to brutally contort and disfigure his characters in the most gory fashion imaginable.

In more recent years he has begun to steer away from the psychologically obscene and the physically grotesque, returning to form with the widely acclaimed follow up to 2005’s A History of Violence, Eastern Promises.

Whatever you think about his films, few would doubt Cronenbergs

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significance within the horror genre over the past 30 years. His success and progression throughout the years has adorned him many fans and his cult appeal ensures that he will never be too far away from the directors chair. At 64, David Cronenberg is just getting started.

KEY FILM: THE FLY Arguably Cronenberg’s most recognisable and most influential work, The Fly tells the story of an intellectual young scientist, charismatically played by a young Jeff Goldblum, whose teleportation experiments result in him literally turning into a fly. This painfully intense and breathtakingly horrific film combines Cronenbergs infamous use of bodily mutation with a moving undertone of romance to create a truly unique piece of cinema. Cronenberg offers the audience a trip of unprecedented anguish which climaxes with quite frankly the grossest and coolest case of human/fly combustion ever!

MY FAVOURITE: SCANNERS Put simply Scanners are sub-race of people who hold extraordinary powers of telepathy and frightening mind control. Mixing unquestionably disturbing performances with over the

top and (at the time) revolutionary special effects. Topping the North American Box office when it was released in 1981, it has since been slowly gathering dust on the back shelves of local video shops. Appreciating in maturity and cult class ever since, Scanners deserves a mention amongst the better known of the classic ’80’s films and shows beyond doubt just how good a director Cronenberg is.

ONE TO MISS: CRASH Not to be mistaken with it’s Oscar sweeping namesake; Cronenbergs 1996 film explores the more gratuitously sadistic and quite frankly bizarre side of his filmic and imaginative repertoire. Delving into the deeply sadomasochistic sub-culture of scarred car crash victims who pursue sexual fetishes of mutilation and depravity, you might be forgiven for thinking that this film takes things a little bit too far. One scene see’s a character ‘enter’ a wound on a fellow ‘victim’s’ thigh shortly after a horrific accident. “The most controversial film you will ever see” certainly doesn’t disappoint. Highly controversial, you’d be pushed to find a film which has seen such a hostile response from audiences and critics alike. You have been warned.

Adam Woodward

film

Di r e c t o r . . .

David Cronenberg

D

uring the 1980s audiences were awoken by a new and exciting sub genre; spawning an influx of the ‘body horror’ into homes across the country through the ingenuity that was VHS. Many cult film makers of the time have since moved on to humbler pastures (Jackson, Raimi), but one man is still going strong. Known by many adoring fans as the Baron of Blood; David Cronenberg’s work has spanned a generation of gore and carnage.

There is something enjoyably disturbing about Cronenberg’s work, his films tend to focus uncompromisingly around bodily mutation and mutilation, always pushing back the boundaries of shocking cinema. His early work began somewhat slowly, after a stint of television shorts in the early 70’s, it wasn’t until the release of 1975’s Shivers that his work started to raise a few heads.

A series of equally gore-filled outings soon followed, later gaining cult popularity with the head-exploding telepathic terror Scanners (1981).

Films like Sci-Fi/horror remake The Fly (1986) soon established Cronenberg amongst a more mainstream audience and exemplified his masterful use of authorship and technology to brutally contort and disfigure his characters in the most gory fashion imaginable.

In more recent years he has begun to steer away from the psychologically obscene and the physically grotesque, returning to form with the widely acclaimed follow up to 2005’s A History of Violence, Eastern Promises.

Whatever you think about his films, few would doubt Cronenbergs

62 / film@gairrhydd.com

significance within the horror genre over the past 30 years. His success and progression throughout the years has adorned him many fans and his cult appeal ensures that he will never be too far away from the directors chair. At 64, David Cronenberg is just getting started.

KEY FILM: THE FLY Arguably Cronenberg’s most recognisable and most influential work, The Fly tells the story of an intellectual young scientist, charismatically played by a young Jeff Goldblum, whose teleportation experiments result in him literally turning into a fly. This painfully intense and breathtakingly horrific film combines Cronenbergs infamous use of bodily mutation with a moving undertone of romance to create a truly unique piece of cinema. Cronenberg offers the audience a trip of unprecedented anguish which climaxes with quite frankly the grossest and coolest case of human/fly combustion ever!

MY FAVOURITE: SCANNERS Put simply Scanners are sub-race of people who hold extraordinary powers of telepathy and frightening mind control. Mixing unquestionably disturbing performances with over the

top and (at the time) revolutionary special effects. Topping the North American Box office when it was released in 1981, it has since been slowly gathering dust on the back shelves of local video shops. Appreciating in maturity and cult class ever since, Scanners deserves a mention amongst the better known of the classic ’80’s films and shows beyond doubt just how good a director Cronenberg is.

ONE TO MISS: CRASH Not to be mistaken with it’s Oscar sweeping namesake; Cronenbergs 1996 film explores the more gratuitously sadistic and quite frankly bizarre side of his filmic and imaginative repertoire. Delving into the deeply sadomasochistic sub-culture of scarred car crash victims who pursue sexual fetishes of mutilation and depravity, you might be forgiven for thinking that this film takes things a little bit too far. One scene see’s a character ‘enter’ a wound on a fellow ‘victim’s’ thigh shortly after a horrific accident. “The most controversial film you will ever see” certainly doesn’t disappoint. Highly controversial, you’d be pushed to find a film which has seen such a hostile response from audiences and critics alike. You have been warned.

Adam Woodward

00 / sectionname@gairrhydd.com

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With the forthcoming release of Wes Anderson’s fifth feature THE DARJEELING LIMITED, film head to London to meet the man in question along with the stars of the movie.

I

magine the crowded bustling streets of Dehli, a mass of people unlike any we see in Western cities, selling groceries, shouting, begging. Cars next to bikes next to donkeys next to elephants. Now imagine a worn out old taxi frantically racing through the road, swerving past buses and livestock, ploughing ahead to its destination. In the back sits an agitated Bill Murray, checking his watch, sweating, fidgeting, aware that whether or not he makes his train on time is a situation no longer in his hands; it is in the lap of Vishnu. Finally he arrives at the station and without paying the driver rushes down the platform, sprinting to catch the now moving Darjeeling limited. It’s looking unlikely.

Then next to him appears a slightly quicker, slightly trimmer Adrian Brody, they are nose to nose, running side by side, but the younger man has the edge and manages to jump on the back carriage, bags and all, and watch as the businessman is left behind. The train has moved on, Wes Anderson has moved on.

The director has established a fine reputation in recent years with relatively few numbers of films. All

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are perfectly judged character pieces with a hugely distinctive and quirky feel to them, from the cult hit Bottle Rocket which launched his career to The Royal Tenenbaums which had the most wonderful ensemble cast and truly established Wes Anderson as a one of America’s most popular film makers. People don’t just like his films, they love them.

His films have an unmistakable tone and utterly distinctive aesthetic, but to the man himself this is not a conscious decision. “All my energy goes into what we can do to make a film new and different, and how can we tell the story well. Yet somehow I manage to take a movie set in New York or Italy or on a boat or a train in India and people say, it’s a lot like your other work. I guess it’s just my funny way of seeing things” The Darjeeling Limited is far and away the most mature movie that Wes Anderson has produced and is a world away from the whimsy and all too fantastical Life Aquatic. The film tells the story of three estranged brothers who travel through Rajasthan on the Darjeeling Limited, and subtly, with not a hint of heavy handedness, shows how their relation-

THE DA ships change and develop. It is the most profound and delicate of his movies and is far more about exploring the brother’s relationships than it is about getting an easy laugh.

The feel of his work is undoubtedly partly due to the regular ensemble of actors he uses; Bill Murray, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman are all regular collaborators. Added to this line up in the Darjeeling Limited however is the wonderful Adrien Brody who plays the middle of the three brothers. When questioned about the newcomer’s contribution to the Anderson express, the director has nothing but praise for the King Kong star. “Adrien is somebody who I’d wanted to work with for many years.

Owen and I had gone to see King of the Hill a long time ago and Adrien was in that – he was maybe 19 or something. We were both struck by him and always talked about him over the years”. On hearing this in the press conference Brody, in so many ways the consummate movie star, noticeably gushes. “I was honored.

I am a big fan of his work and I was always saying to people that I wished I could be in one of his films”.

One may perhaps argue that the