Title:

Director: Dennis Dugan

Starring: Adam Sandler, Al Pacino, Katie Holmes

Release Date: Out Now

There are brilliant movies, funny movies and brilliantly funny movies being produced by Hollywood today; Jack and Jill, however, does not fit into any of these categories. You won’t even be able to feel that smug sense of superiority enjoyed when watching a truly bad movie. Jack and Jill is actually, in a way, an extraordinary film, because you will leave with a sense of nothingness. It is difficult to recall a film that has ever had such a profoundly negative effect on the viewer.

Starring Adam Sandler as Jack, and Adam Sandler as his identical twin sister Jill, this ‘comedy’ features a string of disjointed, supposedly hilarious, but more often disgusting and offensive, scenarios. Jack is a successful and exasperated executive, tormented by his whiny, ignorant, revolting sister Jill, who comes to visit for Thanksgiving and later also stays, to Jack’s chagrin, for Hannukah.

This might seem like a scenario ripe for comedic set-ups, but be assured; it is not. It is just an empty abyss which will suck any faith you have in comedy to a place so far away that you may never see it again.

Perhaps the most bizarre element of this movie is the presence of Al Pacino, playing a larger than life version of himself. Surprisingly, Pacino actually puts in a real effort, throwing in more Scarface and The Godfather references then perhaps are necessary. You might think that these would be islands of joy in a sea of terrible jokes and ethnic slurs, but you’d be wrong. Indeed, his presence doesn’t do anything to counter Sandler’s disastrous performance, only making the overall production seem worse.

Throughout this debacle, it is hard to escape the fact that really, you should enjoy this, but you can’t. Not even a small grin, or a little chuckle will escape. All you have is a stony-faced silence, shared by all other audience members around you (at least those who haven’t yet left). You can only conclude that you were a fool to ever even like comedy in the first place, or at least that of Adam Sandler.

In a nutshell: Jack and Jill is a film so terrible that it will make you profoundly question any faith you had in comedies. Watch at your own risk.

Title: Martha Marcy May Marlene

Director: Sean Durkin

Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes, Brady Corbet, Sarah Paulson

Release Date: Out Now

Martha Marcy May Marlene is a brilliantly executed film by first-time feature director Sean Durkin.  Following the efforts of a young woman to adjust to ordinary life after escaping a cult, it is told through flashbacks that continually increase in intensity, and expertly visualises her mind slowly unravelling as a result of trauma and manipulation.

Starring as the titular character, Martha, is played by Elizabeth Olsen, better known to most as a result of her famous siblings rather than her considerable acting prowess. Often when an actor attempts to break out of a shadow created by former child stardom (or in this case, the shadow of being a sibling to former child stars), there is a temptation to choose deliberately controversial roles portraying gratuitous sex and drug abuse, which leads to heavy handed, cringe-worthy indie efforts such as those of Mysterious Skin or Havoc. Luckily, this has not been the case for Olsen, and with her quiet and tragic performance, she manages to hold up this delicately handled film. Other notable performances come from Sarah Paulson and John Hawkes, who play her sister Lucy and cult leader Patrick respectively. Hawkes, in particular, creates a deeply sinister character, whose presence on screen is instantly unsettling.

however if there is one major criticism to be made of this film, it is that it is never made very clear why Martha joined the cult in the first place. Although it is hinted that there is an absence of any real family in her life, she never really comes off as vulnerable enough to discover such a cult or to even come to embrace it. The ending is also a little anticlimactic and unworthy of the suspense the film has masterfully created.

That being said, the film remains beautifully shot and is brilliantly paced, with remarkable performances from the entire cast.  Martha Marcy May Marlene runs the opposing worlds of ordinary and cult life side by side in a way that sometimes makes them hard to tell apart, creating the mental portrait of a tormented young woman who is trapped between two opposing systems.

In a Nutshell: A quiet, eerie film which teases itself out slowly with a strong cast and a title you won’t be able to say ten times quickly.

We are in the golden age of the geek. After decades of being the butt of high school movie jokes – laughing at their interest in games and lack of interest in matching attire – suddenly the geek is king. Games and technology have gone mainstream, and giant glasses and Pokémon references are not the preserve of the socially awkward, but rather the socially pretentious. Our TV heroes have also gone the way of the geek; the tough, gruff “solve the problem with punching” protagonists have made way for the TV genius: someone who unravels the riddle and saves the world with intellectual might. Two of the highest rated shows in the UK feature such geek idols, and the geek behind the geeks is writer Steven Moffat, head writer of Doctor Who and co-creator of Sherlock, the recent TV adaptation of the Arthur Conan Doyle series.

Doctor Who, for the uninitiated, is a show featuring an “eleven-hundred-and-three-year-old” alien who travels through space and time in a police box (called the TARDIS – Time and Relative Dimension in Space), fighting monsters and finding friends to take along with him, only ninety per cent of which have been very attractive women. Having run from 1963 to 1989, the show had been on a seemingly permanent hiatus until a reboot headed by Russell T. Davis aired in 2005. A fan since childhood, Moffat jumped at the chance to write his childhood hero. “Back in 2004, when we were approaching that first series … it felt sort of magical and strange that Doctor Who was coming back. It felt impossible that we were actually doing it and could go to the set and see the police box. It hadn’t been on for fifteen years; it was so incredibly exciting, and I remember sitting down for the first time and thinking ‘Bloody hell, I’m actually writing Doctor Who’. That never completely wears off, to be honest, I’m always very excited about writing Doctor Who, but it’s now harder for me to recapture the feeling of it being entirely a novelty.

“It’s hard to remember Doctor Who as a show I wasn’t involved with, as opposed to a couple of words I’m having stapled into the middle of my name. It’s really hard to remember I just used to be watching, and will be again someday. That’s become odd. But very exciting, very, very exciting.”

One cliché of Doctor Who, and both a point of ridicule by non-fans and fond nostalgia by those who watched as children, is the cheesy special effects and alien antagonists. The new series has a more impressive budget and use of CGI than the original, but the writers are keen to stick to their memory of the show. Unlike most British series, which have few episodes and a single writer, each episode of the Doctor Who has a different writer, with Moffat writing key episodes and overseeing the story lines. This can lead to very different tones, from humorous to chilling. “Gareth Roberts, one of my fellow writers on Doctor Who, had a theory that you write the Doctor Who you remember.” Moffat explains. “He tended to remember the funny ones, so he writes funny Doctor Who, and I remember just being terrified over it, so I tend to write the scary Doctor Who. Neither memory is more accurate, it’s all kind of nonsense, but I do like the sort of weird sense of transgression of it being slightly wrong to have a television show whose mission statement is to petrify kids. Try pitching that and getting it made today!

“With Doctor Who, I’m thinking of how I can get people to be scared, I suppose; what’s the monster this week, what’s the adventure, what’s the fastest way we can start the story, how soon can I get Matt Smith [the actor behind the current Doctor] running is probably the focus there.”

“Sherlock is different, because Mark [Gatiss, co-creator of Sherlock] and I sit around wondering which one are we going to do this year, which bits of the original haven’t been touched, and there’s quite a lot of Sherlock Holmes that hasn’t been touched. We’ve had considerable success just by mining the bits people don’t usually do … I mean, we got such credit for having the first time we see Sherlock Holmes he’s flogging a corpse, and people said how amazing and clever we were but the truth is the first time Sherlock Holmes is mentioned in the first Sherlock Holmes story that’s exactly what he’s doing. We just nicked it from the original.”

Though he started his writing career making children’s television shows with Press Gang, a series based around a school newspaper, Steven Moffat has plenty of experience writing things aimed more at the adult market. He followed up the success of Press Gang with Joking Apart and Coupling, sitcoms about divorce, relationships and sex. However, he doesn’t feel there to be much difference in writing for different age groups. “I’ve never even thought about it. I really, really don’t, I don’t have to think about it, which possibly says something about my immaturity!”

“I think Sherlock is really loved by kids as well actually. I’m not absolutely certain that the Doctor Who audience and the Sherlock audience are as different as people might like to imagine. I was alarmed when they moved back the last episode to nine o’clock, because that’s slightly too late for kids to watch it, and, while we don’t make it for them, it’s obviously more adult than Doctor Who, at the same time I’m always careful not to include anything, you know, you can push the envelope a bit, but you don’t make it unwatchable by kids. There’s nothing my kids wouldn’t watch in it.”

Coupling is an exception to this rule. Featuring the classic sitcom lineup of three guys, three girls and a heap of misunderstandings, it is very much of the bawdy side of the genre. “The kids in Press Gang, my show years ago, were far more grown up than the ones in Coupling. It is very much in the adult camp, but compared to my children’s shows, so much more immature.

“I love Coupling, but you’ve got more licence, I suppose, when you’re talking to adults, but if I had my time again, I think I would have made Coupling more mainstream, because there’s a lot of episodes that kids can’t watch. ‘The Man with Two Legs’ was a very funny episode, my son would love it, I’m sure, but it’s just a bit too naughty. With just a little bit more inventiveness and a little bit of cover phrasing you could make that show for a mainstream audience as opposed to a niche audience”

The lines are also often blurred between comedy and drama, a feature of Moffat’s writing being the move between tense, emotional drama and tension-breaking jokes several times within an episode. “I honestly don’t change the approach very much at all; the difference is, when you’re doing a sitcom, you’re actually thinking ‘they’ve got to be laughing on this page and this page and this page’. I don’t think there’s any excuse really, unless you’re making people cry then you should be making them laugh. I wrote comedy before I officially wrote comedy, because Press Gang was always funny.”

The dramatic elements can also increase the humour. Comedy often comes from the subversion of expectation and the breaking of tension, allowing the two sides to play off against each other. “Comedy sits better in a drama, the way its sits in life really, but then successful comedies can come from dramatic elements. The line can be blurred, because comedy is an artificial distinction unless you’re actually talking about a comedian. If you’re talking about narrative comedy then it is just story telling.”

Steven Moffat’s latest hit has been Sherlock, an adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels, whose second series recently aired to great acclaim. Sherlock sets itself apart from most adaptations with its setting in modern-day London. The show fully incorporates modern attitudes and technology, which Moffat feels is a natural progression for the original character of Holmes. “We just decided we were going to update him properly; he’d be a modern man because he’s a modern man in the Victorian version, he’s always using newfangled things, like telegrams. He’s someone who appreciates and enjoys technology; he’s a bit of a science boffin, he’s a geek, he would do all those things. I just think it’s fun, I don’t think all the fantastic tech we’ve got limits the storytelling, I think you can use it in all sorts of ways.”

Many people have commented on the similarities between the characters of the Doctor and Sherlock, down to their respective series finales, in which both characters faked their deaths. “We always knew we were going to have to do Reichenbach, and yes, indeed, I did have the Doctor faking his own death – though by slightly more elaborate means! The problem is, I’m in charge of both shows, and what I can’t ever do is not do something in one show because I did it in the other. Ninety-nine per cent of the audience haven’t a clue who I am or know that I work on both of them, so you just ignore things like that. They are two swashbuckling geniuses; they’re always going to be doing similar things.”

So what next for the man with the golden pen? Following the climatic end of ‘The Reichenbach Fall’, the final episode of the latest series of Sherlock, it was revealed to much delight that a third series has been commissioned. There is also a seventh series of Doctor Who currently in production, so it seems there will be no rest for Moffat in the near future. “We just had our official day commencing pre-production on Doctor Who, so as for knowing when it’s actually going to be shown is a little bit optimistic. But we’ll definitely show it, and I’m pretty sure it will be the autumn.”

Details of the upcoming series are vague, but it seems that the Doctor’s companions of the last two series, Amy Pond and Rory Williams, played by Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, will be leaving the show. “I’m writing that right now, the big Rory and Amy heartbreaking finale. It will be quite heartbreaking” Moffat teases, “I think you’ll be in trouble watching it.”

Roddy Doyle is not happy. Waiting in front of a lecturer’s entry way to Theatre P, we stand in the ‘secret tunnels’ and wait for his name to be called. I have been asked to interview the Booker Prize winning author, an opportunity I lept at as a lifetime fan of his work, but the proposition was proffered with an unusual caveat – I would be interviewing him in front of a packed lecture theatre in the lead up to his receipt of the James Joyce Award. I try desperately to break the ice, commenting on how the L&H had truly rolled out the red carpet for him, gesturing towards the large chalk outlines of phalluses scrawled onto the dark tunnel walls. Doyle seems nonplussed.

We cannot make out any name being called, but the sound of rapturous applause fills the tunnel, and we assume we best begin. We enter and take our seats, and as Doyle gives his opening statements, the cause of his previous dissatisfaction becomes somewhat clearer; “I feel no emotional rush walking in here, for example, where I would have been twice a week for three or four years. I never look at UCD football scores, I couldn’t care less. I don’t feel that kind of attachment that Americans seem to feel towards their own colleges. Never worn a UCD scarf or jumper… ” Doyle continues, before changing tack, recalling the friendships he gained in UCD, “But at the same time, it’s been an extraordinary experience, watching, from a distance, the continuing lives of people whom I met here … What a privilege it had been to be here. I suppose I’d feel the same way if it was Trinity or DCU, to be here though, for those four years, and to gather up these friendships, and to watch them take flight.”

Whatever malaise left in Doyle from our introduction was immediately cast off when asked why he has chosen to vocalise the ‘New Irish’ so prolifically in recent years, most notably in the adaptation of Playboy of the Western World, in which the protagonist, Christy Mahon, is replaced with a Nigerian immigrant, and a long standing collaboration with the multicultural newspaper Metro Éireann, in which Doyle publishes a chapter of a story focusing on New Irish protagonists every issue. Doyle rises in his seat, and explains; “I never anticipated that Ireland would become a magnet for immigrants, and yet it was. We had to accept we were living a different life, we couldn’t blame the Brits for our poverty any more … I thought it was great.” Doyle hints at the skill that, perhaps more than any other, has cemented his reputation as the ‘authentic’ Irish voice in contemporary literature; his ear for dialects, and his remarkable capacity for witty dialogue. “When people start learning English, they learn the informalities as well as the formalities. You have this lovely thing where Polish people use the word ‘like’ a lot, as if they were thirteen-year-old girls … It becomes a habit, they think that’s what you do. They use old, hackneyed phrases that we use, in ways that were probably never intended, it’s brilliant, it’s like the invention of a new phrase. The word grand … Tiny little things like that, send me running home to work when I hear [them].” This shift in focus places Doyle’s work in the somewhat unique position of bookending either side of the boom years, and as such, proving massively influential in defining an ever-shifting national cultural identity.

Having made his name with the generation-defining Barrytown trilogy, and after winning the Booker Prize for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha in 1993, Doyle’s work had become synonymous with a pre-Celtic Tiger, under-privileged voice. Perhaps his resurgence in recent, more turbulent years owes a great deal to this arguably more authentic Irish literary mode, and his latest work, an adaptation of The Government Inspector, presents the classic Russian satire of Nikolai Gogol through the brown-enveloped optics of our not-so-distant history. Co-opted somewhat as a recessionary author, Doyle is not shy about expressing his impassioned opinions on the topic, particularly in relation to Ireland’s youth; “Your future is supposed to be grim, you’re not supposed to have a future. Four years ago, five years ago, going to the airport would have been a cause for celebration; you’re going off to see the world, you were going off to conquer the world, you were Irish and that’s what we do. Now, it’s supposed to be a tragedy.” Doyle reflects on what he perceives to be an expectation of hopelessness directed towards today’s students; “I heard a kid from Dundalk, a seventeen-year-old, on the radio very recently, saying that he ‘was worried about his job prospects when he left college.’ I did a bit of calculation; that’s four or five years away, and I actually didn’t believe him. In his soul, in his heart, in the back of his head where his real person was lurking, he didn’t believe that at all. He was saying what was expected of him, that’s what I think.” Doyle expresses his annoyance with the media, whom, to him, look exclusively for “tears … something deeper and darker that might be there,” and eloquently proffers advise to the students assembled; “So, in a cheerful way, if they start telling you life has no future, just tell them to fuck off.”

Dear Dixon,

First off, I kind of feel uncomfortable calling another man “dear” but that’s convention for you. I’m having a lot of work done at home, but for me, DIY involves pouring my own four fingers of fine, smoky whiskey into a thick bottomed glass. As a result I’ve had a lot of guys round here laying carpet and whatnot.
I’ve been making them tea and keeping the biscuit plate topped up while nodding in bewildered agreement at their sports references, but I can’t help feel somewhat emasculated.
How can I get them to treat me like one of the guys without looking like I’m “one of those guys”?
You know the guys I mean.

Yours spotlessly,
Rob (clean hands) Stears

Listen here Robby,

You know what a steer is, Roberta? It’s a bull that’s been castrated so it can’t dance the flank-steak mumba with the heifers in the same field. I know that because of my time spent as a cowboy (or cowman, as the local villagers referred to me), where I would castrate anything that moved with the speed of a souped-up Coup de Ville that also castrated things. Now, I’m not saying your second name is just a description of your current sweetbread situation, but damned if you didn’t lose your balls some time ago. But don’t fret, pal o’ mine: Dixon knows how to glue balls back on too.

You want to be treated like a man by the working class? Well, there are two ways to do it, chum: firstly, you could get some callouses on those soft hands, start eating under-cooked meat straight off the pig, and learn what it’s really like to be a working man. However, this will leave you for little ‘lighting a cigar with legal tender’ time, and if you’re a lazy man, it might not be the right fit. So, the second option is to take Dixon Coltrane’s Patented Three-Step Schoolin’ for Acting Poor. When I’m done with you, you’ll be able to throw away that Masters degree, and start pursuing that sweet, sweet FETAC level five.

Step One: It’s no longer dessert, it’s sweet. It’s not tobacco, it’s burn. It’s no longer salary, it’s Jobseeker’s. Keeping on top of your parlance will keep you ahead of the game, which, by the way, is football, not soccer.

Step Two: Start slurring your words, like you just drank a half of whiskey – this will convince the working man that you’re on their side, and that you didn’t get any fancy schoolin’ either. That, or they’ll think you’re drunk. In fact, might as well get drunk, to make sure you got your bases covered.

Step Three: Learn what sport is. I know a soft-handed man like yourself wouldn’t know one side of a ball from the other side of a different ball, but when dealing with the calloused hands of the ‘real men’, it’s important to remember that they express affection through insults, and emotions through nothing. The only way to infiltrate that dark, lino-floored world is to learn sports, and talk about them instead of normal conversation. Chin wag about Chelsea’s chinese angle, or gab about the Gunners’ gummed up grifts and gashouse geese. There’s nothing real men love more than artful alliteration.

It’s time to be a real man, Steers. Throw away the Proust and get some Pumas. Leave behind the Bavarian cream and get some Bavaria Imported. Drop the Flann O’Brien and pick up the Trousers O’Neills. Go cheat on your wife, then cheat on your mistress with your wife. Get a purchase on those balls.

That’s the rub,

Dixon Coltrane

We all loathe the recession. With side-effects such as home foreclosures, rampant poverty and people thinking it’s acceptable to use the word ‘recessionista’, it’s by no measure a challenge to hate. Worst of all, the not so valiant efforts to save it have so far achieved less than the average student does when going online to “study”. Each day that the recession wears on, leaving bus prices slightly higher and our job prospects even lower, is a day of failure for the IMF and the ECB. Well to hell with those blathering bureaucrats, there’s only one three-letter word I trust to fix this crisis, and that’s moi.

But what was to be done? The first and most obvious option to spring to mind was also the least feasible. The perfect panacea was travelling back to 2005 to tell everyone that just because the economist on the telly has a voice like a wounded meerkat and a face like an ill garden gnome, that doesn’t mean what he’s saying is redundant. Although, if the past was at all accessible, I probably could have just stopped bankers from making terrible investments as Financial Regulation Man – the world’s lamest superhero. [Um, do you not remember Observer Man from issue one? – Ed]

Largely, the problems seem to have obvious solutions. House prices are too low to deal with negative equity? Simple, just increase their value as you do with everything else: have celebrities sign them. Alas, much like communism or all-you-can-eat Chinese food, this was much better in theory than in practice. Aiming high, I spent hours lurking outside the Student Bar dressed in the fashionable style of Mr. Gordon Gekko, trying to get S Club 2 on board for the project. However, their confused reaction upon being invited for a drive to a neglected housing estate in Leitrim, in a car filled with magic markers, was hardly the warm reception I had anticipated, and plans were soon scrapped.

It was time for the Hail Mary pass, something everyone else had been too scared to attempt; printing off enough money to pay back all of our debt. But what about rampant inflation, I hear you say? In fact, I don’t hear you say it, as like any good economist, I’ve already stuck my fingers in my ear and begun saying “la la la la la la”. I may not have had authority to make Euros, but I could always improvise.

To break a very harsh truth, money doesn’t really exist. It’s a figment of our imagination. Once we accept that gaudily coloured paper with shit architecture on it has some monetary value, it does. When we print and use currency, we’re basically taking part in a massive Derren Brown hypnotism-style scam, with more maths and less pizazz. It’s why certain Micronesian tribes use absurdly large rocks, prisoners use cigarettes and Copper Face Jack’s patrons use their own dignity. If I could make my own currency and convince people to accept it at an equal value to the Euro, I was set.

Several hours of half-assed brainstorming birthed the well-intentioned, but clumsily named, Otworo. I needed €120,000,000,000 to meet Irish debt payments in full, and lacking any facilities for large scale printing, design, or minting, there was but one option: hand-drawn currency in very large increments. Our editor, in crudely sketched form, graced the one billion Otworo note, the only denomination. Where most notes have a watermarked embedding along the side, we were content to settle for a bit of the tin foil from a Dairy Milk bar.

A few cheeky photocopies and I had enough Otworos to pay off our fair nation’s debt. Putting the cash (too strong a word?) in an envelope addressed to “Irish Government, Ireland, Europe”, I also included a detailed – definitely not rambling – letter explaining how, with my smarts and their endearingly vacuous personae, we could easily convince the international debt markets that this was legitimate repayment. Alas, the only contact I received was one threatening to place a restraining order on me against the entire Department of Finance. Sometimes genius just isn’t appreciated in its time. I was beginning to worry that the cash was not worth the paper it was drawn on.

With the government not co-operating, we took our Otworo to the free markets. As anyone who has ever studied the dismal science of economics will attest, an expansion of the money supply can resolve an economic crisis by causing several lines on a graph in your lecture slides to move. Extensive attempts to persuade the shops in UCD to accept it came to nothing. Brava offered a single chicken tender for a billion Otworos, most likely out of pity. We would have been content to accept the offer had we not been so concerned with people abusing arbitrage opportunities, and like the old saying goes, “Efficient exchange markets before fast food.” We chose to honour the currency ourselves, of course, but given that we sold nothing but papers, which are free anyway, that didn’t exactly add to the Otworo’s legitimacy. So I decided to leave it in the hands of the people. With the last billion left (several billion had been mistaken for rubbish and disposed), I let it fly from the roof of the Arts block for some lucky soul to find. Then they can deal with all the convincing.

As you can tell by the fact that you’ve read this piece sitting in the same filthy, pathetic squalor you were last week, as opposed to reclining in a recently purchased solid gold Ferrari while a coke-addled Chauffer drives you to badminton, the financial crisis has proved a much more difficult foe than one could ever imagine. Sure, our attempt to fix it was foolish and bizarre; some would even say it reflects on us having a serious lack of connection to reality, but, to be fair, we probably did slightly more than Fine Gael, and certainly looked better doing so.

The recent Men’s Fashion Week in New York got off to a promising start with designs from Giorgio Armani and Christophe Lemaire of Lacoste taking to the runway. Yet, perhaps rather fittingly considering all the fixed smiles and erroneous wearing of sunglasses indoors, something false began to emerge through the smoke and mirrors. Take a look behind the scenes, and one notices a startling lack of equality – or at least a certain lopsidedness of gender both on the catwalk and behind the scenes.

With the knowledge that Mr. Charles F. Worth was the first person in history to have his name sewn into a purchasable garment, one begins to question the perceived female dominance within the fashion industry. By solely inspecting the modeling aspect of fashion, one can see that male and female models contribute equally, and yet women are more highly revered and thus better paid. According to Forbes Magazine, “A top male model may take home anywhere from $200,000 to $500,000 annually, but most make a less glamorous living from catalog [sic] work.” This sounds like an impressive figure until you consider the fact that the top-earning female models are making millions. Gisele Bündchen earned an estimated $45 million last year alone – a startling statistic for a generation that has been raised to accept and push for equality.

The argument for female dominance within the fashion industry hints at the perceived downfall of masculinity, and some believe that women should be more highly revered, and as such, gain a higher status amongst men in the same career – a reversal of gender roles in most other professions. The possible explanation for this ‘dominance’ may be due to the widely held opinion that fashion is a predominantly feminine industry, and thus causes men to react strongly against any ‘accusations’ of interest in fashion, which begins to visually question their sexuality, and thus straight males back down in the industry for fear of being stereotyped.

An article by Nour Haba, ‘Gender Inequality in the Fashion Industry’, raises the idea that in spite of a culture of female oppression engrained in western society, fashion has become an outlet; a place where women can rise to the top, i.e. above men. Ever since Vogue was established in 1892, one can imagine how this ‘dominance’ should have been satisfied over the years, not forgetting the introduction of suits for women, shoulder pads and the occasional bow tie brought about by Beau Brummell.

However, there is an obvious gender imbalance off the runway, with a severe male dominance in the design stakes. Many designers openly and frankly maintain that homosexual males have a more acute eye for design than women within the industry, and are chosen ahead of women for design positions. Taking statistics from the New York Times, the Council of Fashion Designers of America claims that 121 women and 156 men make up its council, and the encyclopedia of ‘Clothing and Fashion’ held entries of thirty-six female and sixty-nine male designers, the majority of the males being openly gay. Evidently, this perception of the homosexual male with an eye for design and style – more so than his female or straight male counterparts – is one that colours hiring choices within fashion design circles and has created a pronounced double standard. Most of fashion’s biggest design houses, such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Lanvin and Yves Saint Laurent, are led by men – Marc Jacobs, Karl Lagerfeld, Lucas Ossendrijver and Stefan Pilati, respectively – and the success of newer, British and Irish names such as Christopher Kane, Christopher Bailey for Burberry and J. W. Anderson also prove that this disparity is here to stay, and aid in tipping the scale of gender balance the other way.

Despite a large majority of designers being male, most consumers of fashion today are still female, but we must ask why that is. In spite of the fact that the young men of today have shown an increased interest in fashion, through affordable high street shops such as Topman and H&M, the average fashion consumer is of the fairer sex. One may begin to blame society, the media, the industry, but who in reality is conforming? We, the public, are ultimately culpable. Complying with trends, pushing peers, and thus creating this illusion of a decline. There is an irony in the fact that male models are underpaid compared to their female counterparts, and yet there is male dominance in the design side of the industry. Is this an inequality the industry will just have to grow used to, or is there something that can be done to combat it? As in any workplace, there is inequality on every level – it just appears that the fashion industry has taken this to an extreme. The creative dominance of men contrasted with the underrepresentation and financial discrepancy that male models suffer is a point in question, the balancing out of which remains to be seen.

Let’s presume we’ve answered the “Does music need to be written about?” question with a yes. If you disagree yet you’re reading this column, it’s clear that you have very niche masochistic tendencies. More power to you, I suppose. Now here’s the next question; how much should be written about it? Do albums deserve full books expounding on their virtues and critiquing their flaws (As the 33 1/3 series has done brilliantly) or can it be done in something a short as a tweet?

Spin magazine has removed the reviews section from its print edition to focus on a limited amount of online reviews, with most of its reviews now being done in the form of tweets from @SpinReviews. This marks the point where Twitter threatens to do to music journalism what it’s done to other forms of writing; forcing a norm of short, to-the-point sentences straight from a Hemingway fan’s wet dream.

The scheme is the brainchild of Spin’s new editor Chris R. Weingarten, who is a firm believer that if it can’t be said in 140 characters, it isn’t worth saying. He even put his proverbial money where his literal mouth was, and in 2009, tweeted 1000 album reviews, a feat worthy of Atlas, were Atlas a laptop radiated uber-nerd.

While it could be a marketing gimmick for a publication that’s the equivalent of that odd uncle you have that still thinks he’s “down with the kids”, maybe there is sense to it. As far as I’m concerned, the average music website seems to cover more content than the average person could in fact listen to without being some sort of socially isolated hipster Unabomber.

A casual listen to a few samples from the unending glut of mixtapes, landfill indie and retro-maniacal flashes in the buzz pan reveals a fairly dirty secret; most of it is not worth writing that much about. If you’re going to cover bands that can be easily summed up in a short list of references, why allocate them any more than they need?

Maybe it’s the job of music to warrant some ink being spilled about it, as it does more often than not. As nice as tweet reviews seem, I’ve yet to see someone argue the case that they could capture the sheer significance of something like Revolver or Discreet Music in such a condensed manner. Maybe I just hate to think my fortnightly ramblings would be better reduced to 140 character snippets like, “My thoughts on Spin’s tweet reviews? Coping mechanism for oversupply, unable to tackle greatness. Possibly a gimmick. 7/10.” I’ll hand it to them; it certainly is a lot less work.

Aries

As Venus descends so will your rate of attendance. Stats show that that is a bad thing. Who knew?

Taurus (May 14^th – June 21^st)

Your results were great, yes. I advise that you don’t piss it all away with the celebratory crack binge.

Gemini (June 22^nd – July 20^th)

The future has not yet been decided and is up for debate in my mind. I like Whiskas, so none of that Tesco Value shit.

Cancer (July 21^st – August 10^th)

Not even I speak like one of those deranged lolcats; they give classy cats like me a bad name. Sit up straight and speak like a human being, you imbecile.

Leo (August 11^th – September 16^th)

I would like a “cheezburger” as well though, so get me one, or I’ll prove your degree worthless. You’re in Arts, you say? Never mind.

Virgo (September 17^th – October 30^th)

Before you go see The Artist, please note that the film is silent, in black and white and that cinemas do not offer refunds solely on the basis of your idiocy.

Libra (October 31^st – November 23^rd)

Going to a Super Bowl party this weekend, yeah? Just shout while doing your best Christian Bale as Batman impersonation and you will fit in perfectly.

Scorpio (November 24^th – November 29^th)

You’re grand and all, but I feel a leather jacket would make you seem even cooler.

Ophiuchus (November 30^th – December 17^th)

No, no, you’re not real. You can’t be. I’m just make-believing you, I know it. Pfft, Ophiuchus, like, why would that exist?

Sagittarius (December 18^th – January 20^th)

January was depressing; however, February is looking like it will be twice as bleak for you, Sagittarius. Lonely on Valentine’s Day much?

Capricorn

(January 21^st – February 16^th)

Your career prospects will be looking up as a significant number of experts in your chosen field are killed/maimed in that rather convenient public transport crash.

Aquarius (February 17^th – March 11^th)

I try to keep away from personal hygiene advice, but for you I’ll make an exception. Deodorant. Buy some.

Pisces (March 12^th – April 18^th)

That new tutor is going to treat you as if there was never a Geneva Convention. Alright, that’s an exaggeration, but you’ll have to read a lot.

Biopics have, in recent years, become a staple on the Best Picture and Best Actor/Actress nomination lists, and the film genre for which Oscar recognition is almost guaranteed. Last year, four of the ten nominees for Best Picture – The King’s Speech, The Fighter, The Social Network and 127 Hours – were biographical films, while Colin Firth was awarded Best Actor for his portrayal of King George VI. In the previous year, Sandra Bullock picked up her Best Actress Oscar for playing the evangelic surrogate mother of American football player Michael Oher in The Blind Side, the film based on Oher’s teenage years.

This is not to say that these films were necessarily unworthy of their Oscar nomination or their awards (although Sandra Bullock’s selection is, at least, highly debatable), but this trend indicates that Hollywood producers are becoming increasingly one-dimensional in their attempts to grab the attention of Oscar voters.

With biographical films becoming increasingly prevalent on Oscar night and with no sign of their production rate slowing this year, it is a good moment to reflect on the biopic genre. With films such as J. Edgar and The Iron Lady being considered by the Academy this year, Hollywood is being continually validated for producing mediocre biopics that prop up attention-grabbing lead performances. It seems that all Hollywood biopics have found the formula for awards and have become rather homogenous; a person with a unique talent or vision who must overcome opposition to their ideals is impersonated by a well-known actor, who, with a good make-up department and the appropriate weight adjustment, bears a striking resemblance to said person. Hollywood is overly focused on the presentation of the biographical subject and such films rely on close-ups of the actor to convey the deep emotions of the character, rather than give any kind of comprehensive study of the biographical subject, often leaving the productions without any real substance.

The main trouble with biopics is that they freely flit between the boundaries of fiction and non-fiction. Despite using first-hand accounts, real events and, sometimes, archival television footage, biopics insist on fitting enigmatic and unique people from recent history into character archetypes and their lives into narrative conventions, so they can easily be consumed by a mainstream audience. For instance, the recent biopic J. Edgar, concerning J. Edgar Hoover, the controversial founder of the FBI, deals with the question of Hoover’s supposed homosexuality. The inclusion of such questioning, despite its foundation being based purely on rumour, is supposed to paradoxically create a more relatable and “real” character for the audience, thus allowing for close-ups of Leonardo DiCaprio to be encumbered with a false sense of meaning and feeling. This use of pure conjecture as fact in the film also prompts the question: to what extent are filmmakers allowed to stretch the details of their subject’s life for the sake of standard narrative structure and Oscar glory?

Condensing a person’s life into two hours of entertainment means that the biopic constructs characters with only a basis of selective set events. As a result, the biopic often serves more as a highlight reel of the subject’s life, rather than any kind of exploration of their influence or societal impact. This is no more apparent than in the recent Margaret Thatcher biopic, The Iron Lady. Margaret Thatcher was, undoubtedly, a divisive figure in British life during her time as Prime Minister, and the film never really takes a definitive standpoint on her politics, sailing through many of her most important decisions and their consequences in montage.

Furthermore, with movies such as The Iron Lady, the pre-existing perceptions of the biographical subject must be considered before committing their life story to film. Audiences, especially those who experienced the consequences of Thatcher’s political rule, have a strong opinion of Margaret Thatcher long before the lights go down, and it is impossible for them not impose their own perception onto Meryl Streep’s depiction of her on screen.

In a similar way to the summer schedule being full of blockbuster adaptations of comic books, the award season schedule is becoming increasingly saturated with biopics. In recent times, biographical films tend only to use pre-existing material of subjects’ lives, in lieu of any original content, and then shoehorn it into a satisfyingly conventional narrative structure for the pleasure of the Academy. Ultimately, Hollywood studios, with their apparent motivation to reconstruct every semi-notable person’s life on screen for the acquisition of golden statuettes, are forgetting the most important element of any biopic: the person themselves.