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Day: 12 November 2014

Why so Fanboy?

Written by Imran Bukhari on . Posted in Film.

To many film scholars and casual movie-goers, the proposed question is sacrilegious. In their minds there is no comprehensible way that the best comic book film ever made and arguably one of the greatest films of all time could be improved. From the gritty tone to the breath-taking set pieces, The Dark Knight has become a staple of modern cinema. One area of the film that is surely faultless is the casting of the two central characters. Christian Bale maintains the solid foundation he laid originally and a whole other praiseworthy article could be written on Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning performance. But it could have all been very different.

When Christopher Nolan began casting, he approached Ledger for the role of Bruce Wayne first. Ledger turned the opportunity down on the basis of it being just another comic book film. After being suitably impressed by Batman Begins, Ledger willingly accepted any role in The Dark Knight, and the rest, as they say, is history. Entertain the notion of a parallel universe… what if the two main roles had been reversed? Let’s consider the past performances of the respective actors, for example Christian Bale’s turn as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. Put some white face-paint/green hair-dye on him and the film could easily be an origin story of the Joker. As he kills numerous people without any justified reason, the viewer is both repulsed and enticed by his murderous spree. It’s Bale’s compelling and intriguing persona that keeps the audience hungry to understand him, and this is comparable to the Joker’s unexplained motivation for anarchy. Alternatively, if there is one thing missing from Bale’s Batman, it is a sense of emotional vulnerability.

The anguish and regret of his parents’ death is permanently etched upon his demeanour, but at times this can remain on one note. Ledger would have brought an extra layer of complexity, enticing the viewer to question what is driving him. The lines between right and wrong would have been even more blurred, fully fleshing out the bleakness of The Dark Knight. With Brokeback Mountain, critics truly began to take notice of his versatility. Playing a character filled with inner turmoil, a hard false exterior and a constant longing for a lost love… sound familiar? Ultimately, what lingers in the furthest recesses of my mind is the image of a manic Bale Joker being confronted by an imposing Ledger Batman and it fills me with childish wonder.

Review: Russell Brand – Revolution

Written by Alister Pearson on . Posted in Books.

His appearance is ubiquitous, his language is grandiose and verbose, his vernacular is almost unique, but his intentions are pure. Last year Britain’s leading no-nonsense and crude presenter Jeremy Paxman interviewed the wonderfully elaborate Russell Brand where he elucidated the fact that people had become disenchanted with politics, that the members of parliament have no idea what the word ‘representation’ means, and that true democracy in Great Britain was as real as Harry Potter. Paxman looked perplexed at Brand’s revelation that he had not once voted and proceeded to grill Brand in such a way that most would have crumbled to the floor begging for mercy, but as you would expect from one of our generation’s finest comedians, Brand remained defiant in his message, and through humour left the interview unscathed.

A year later, Brand has released his third book, entitled ‘Revolution’, a more serious and striking title compared to ‘My Booky Wook’, I’m sure you will agree. The key message of the book though is love, which, if you notice, is present in the word rEVOLution. A manifesto, perhaps, that elaborates on what he said in that now famous interview.

The love Brand wants us to realise is the love between our fellow human beings. Deep down we are all the same, we all have basic needs and wants. We all have capacities to feel sympathy, passion, and respect for one another. Even David Cameron and Barack Obama have these qualities despite leading the capitalist machine that is hell-bent on destroying the planet’s resources in order to make a quick buck. This same capitalist machine that makes the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Brand raises some alarming facts about this capitalist machine. Imagine a bus with 85 of the richest people. There is now enough money on that bus than in the pockets of 3.5 billion people. He hilariously quips that upon using a calculator to work out what 3.5 billion minus 85 is, that the answer had a letter in it. “Even the calculator has gone berserk at this injustice,” he exclaims.

This is what I found great about ‘Revolution’. Sure, most of the facts and figures have been taken (with permission and proper referencing, I might add) from people more qualified in the subject than Brand, but he is able to accumulate this data and present it with an entertaining glint to it. Imagine if Noam Chomsky did this, how many more followers he would get. I accept that the man is a genius and is almost criminally under-read, but the books that he writes or the speeches that he gives are so doom and gloom, and, I whisper this quietly, boring.

Russell realises he hasn’t done the hard work in his book. He knows he’s not going to be spearheading this revolution and looks embarrassed now when an uninformed interviewer asks the inevitable question of “what will the Russell Brand revolution look like?” He also knows that people’s intuitive disenfranchisement with politics has deeper merit under the surface, and that’s why he has written ‘Revolution’. Of the people who didn’t vote in the last election, “54 per cent believed big businesses ran Britain, and 96 per cent thought the voting public had no influence at all on the way the country was run.” Brand is a famous public voice that can convey an important message to the masses in a humorous and informative way.

At times the book does seem self-indulgent, as anything Russell Brand does tends to be. He frequently points to God as a huge inspiration for his new focus in life. At one point he extensively looks at the Lord’s Prayer dissecting each line to highlight its importance. It’s dull and unnecessary in my opinion. There may well be a universally shared consciousness that can only be accessed in a spiritual realm but I do not see why a God is necessary for this. At other times he almost begs to be felt sorry for, which I cannot see any normal person doing. He frequently recounts his time as a famous Hollywood actor with such melancholy, when his stories are so far-fetched and desired for by many that it borders on it seeming like he is bragging under a masquerade of guilt.

Regardless of my qualms about Brand’s religious views and his reflections on his life, the book is a success for anyone who is angry at the way the world is governed today. The truths Brand reveals are sometimes obvious and sometimes shocking to their core. Yes, his revolution probably won’t happen but it should happen if we want the world to become a better place.

To e or not to e, that is the question

Written by Marina Iskander on . Posted in Opinion.

With technology evolving at an incredible speed, we often find ourselves looking back and criticising where it has brought us today. One of the famous debates between the traditional and the new is between physical books and e-books. At first sight, our argumentative and criticising nature may say that digitising books diminishes the need, or even the love, for the traditional, printed book. However, taking this defensive view is not always necessary—and definitely isn’t in this case. One should instead consider the fact that new applications and tablets facilitate the spread and accessibility of literature.

As students, two of the things most of us lack are money and time—both of which can be saved by purchasing a digital copy of a book online rather than going out and buying it. Having books at such discounted prices will not only encourage people to buy them, but also to step outside of their comfort zones and read things they usually aren’t interested in.

As for the original bookworms, having digitised copies of books makes it easier to read more than one book at the same time, as you can carry them around with you.

One of the growing trends today is also audiobooks, where a recording of a book or novel is provided. At first glance, this sounds like a new level of laziness. However, listening to an audiobook offers a feat that reading cannot, it allows for one to listen to the book while doing other things.

Now, one can ‘read’ while driving, walking down the street, or cooking, for example. Of course, this compromises one of the most essential aspects of a book; analysing its characters, pondering different ways of wording, or mulling over the sentence structure. However, compared to the alternative of not reading at all, audiobooks seem to be an acceptable hybrid between reading a book and skipping straight to the movie.

In fact, one of the reasons e-books are vital at this time and age is the technological advancement of everything else around them—why would one read a book if they can just wait for the movie to come out?

To compete with such modern advances in technology, books must also quickly adapt, even if that means that we must divert from the comfortable norm. With various new types of entertainment of instantaneous media such as online streaming, the book is becoming more and more of a strain. Over the years, humans and animals have had to adapt to different changes. Likewise, the only way for books to survive is by adapting to modern-day changes.

Lastly, it seems ironic that with so many campaigns and movements towards recycling and reusing paper, we still print endless copies of books that could easily be provided online.

It is a sure fact that books usually leave a mark on their reader. However, rarely does the reader leave a mark on a book; unless they are studying it, the reader will buy a book, read it, and then leave it as if had never been touched.

It may then lie there until the reader decides to read it again or perhaps lend it to a friend. Either way, it is a huge waste of paper and effort to print endless copies of books. Therefore, to cease this hypocritical waste, we should instead resort to the more ecological option of downloading books on phones and tablets that we already own.

Of course, physically flipping through pages and reading a book from cover to cover is an unmatched feeling. Many could easily argue that reading a book off of a screen or listening to it leaves more space for distractions, throwing away the true enjoyment of reading a book. However, this argument may only exist as we slowly transition from physical to digital books.

As time continues, e-books may become the norm, and given how we humans evolve, we will slowly begin to enjoy books this way as much as we did the old way. Perhaps this will in fact lengthen our attention spans as they become accustomed to concentrating on a e-book and ignoring distractions. One way or another, with the easy accessibility of e-books, we will soon get used to them and perhaps even prefer them to physical books.

Top 5 Whodunnit Novels

Written by Leonie Dunn on . Posted in Books.

            1. Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’ 

At number one it’s the lady herself, Agatha Christie, with what may well be the most definitive whodunnit novel. While the premise itself is simple, it does rack up an impressive body count with ten deaths, one being a suicide. This is a must-read for mystery fans and I dare you to find the killer. This one I can assure is case you will not be able to peg until the very last page, so good luck!

            2. Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’

Brown’s masterful thriller intertwines the pure relished factors of a whodunnit with the cryptic but engrossing knowledge culled from 2000 years of Western history. The novel follows the protagonists Robert Langdon, a symbolist, and daughter of the victim, Sophie Neveu, who is a famed cryptologist. The due follow the murder of Neveu’s father into a flight through western history and its cultural secrets. This page turning thriller will have you wishing there was more.

             3. Gillian Flynn’s ‘Gone Girl’

There is no doubt you will have heard of Gone Girl, whether it be the mystery novel or its cinematic adaptation. The hype that surrounds this whodunnit does not come without its dues. While this novel follows the tale of the missing woman and it is her husband who becomes the obvious suspect. But is everything really as it seems? I’ll leave you to decide who the suspect is in this brilliantly psychotic and deranged novel.

            4. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘A Study in Scarlet’

Doyle’s inaugural novel on the notorious duo on the whodunnit scene, being Sherlock Holmes and his trusty sidekick Dr Watson. While this novel ‘obviously’ sees the know-it-all Holmes find the murderer, it does take a turn into what may appear on reading this novel, a totally unrelated tangent. But all in all, Sherlock Holmes needed a place in this list and I only saw it fit to hand you the first novel in what is a classic series of mysteries. While it isn’t often perceived as the greatest, it is the introduction to the epitome of the murder mystery detective that is Holmes himself.

            5. Umberto Eco’s ‘The Name of the Rose’

This one really is some brain food. This book is far from a light read and Eco purposefully made the first part of the book particularly difficult to get through. But if you stick at it you will follow Brother William, the protagonist, on his journey through the gruesome murders of multiple monks that imitate the punishments from the Book of Revelations. But the one thing that all mystery loves will relish in this books is that no matter how many times you re-read it there will always be another layer of meaning that unfolds in front of yours. It’s the book that keeps on giving.

The Battle of Olympus: Emphasis on ‘Battle’

Written by Josh Goldie on . Posted in Games.

Released in 1988, The Battle of Olympus is a fairly unknown Japanese side-scroller made in a very similar style to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, but without the over world segments. Also, like Zelda II, the game is very hard. It is much harder, in fact, and is a real test of the player’s skills and memory. You might be asking what I mean by a test of ‘memory’ and rightly so. The game does use passwords over saves but that’s not what I mean—The Battle of Olympus is a game full of trial and error.

The plot of this game is a retelling of the Orpheus myth whereupon he enters the underworld to ask Hades for his wife back. However there is a lot of creative licensing given in this game and so it is more a retelling of various myths, with Orpheus taking the place of the usual Greek hero. In this game Hades has kidnapped Orpheus’ girlfriend, Helene, and Orpheus must travel over Greece and find the three fragments of love that will help him get into the underworld to save her. However, like most games of this era, the plot is not laid out for you and instead you are thrown into the deep end and must figure your own way through the maze that is Greece.

Like I said earlier, this game will test your memory skills and I hope you have a pen and paper ready because back-tracking and item collecting are key in this game. Orpheus starts off fairly weak with barely any jump ability, but as the game goes on you will get various items like the sandals of Hermes that help you jump higher and walk on the ceiling. He also gains the shield of Athena which allows you to block (essential!) and the bracelet of Power that doubles your attack. Some of these abilities are essential but they require you to back-track to a specific god only after you have solved a particular challenge, but very rarely does the game tell you when you can go back, it’s up to you to remember.

The graphics and music for this game are very reminiscent of Zelda II. The styles of the characters are very Zelda II-like and Orpheus’ basic idle pose is near identical to Link’s. The landscapes are also quite varied with Tartarus and Phthia really standing out. The game does sometimes have a colour problem though. Backgrounds can be bright pink and are really off-putting or platforms can blend into the background and sometimes make it hard to tell what you can walk on and what you cannot. And sometimes the layout and town are presented weirdly (looking at you, Athens). The music in this game, however, is top-notch with each area having its own unique track and some of them being really catchy.

The game also has the horrible gaming sin of grinding. This is common in an old RPG but rarely in a platformer. The problem is you need olives (little orbs that you get from killing enemies) to buy certain items and you need a lot. This would be fine if you had been collecting throughout the game because a lot of the purchasing happens later. However, if you die you have three choices: quit the game, start again from that screen but lose half of your olives or go all the way back to the last temple you visited. This makes remembering and revisiting temples essential (it is also where you get the passwords) but this can also take you half-way across Greece and you have a very slow walk back. An infamous grinding section in this game involves getting salamander skins early in the game however it is a rare drop, you need 20 of them and 80 olives, yet they can kill you in two hits and at this stage in the game it takes an excruciating four hits to kill them. They also come at you in swarms—not fun, but it is a challenge.

With all of the stressful parts of The Battle of Olympus you would assume that I did not enjoy this game, but that is far from the truth. I accepted this challenge and I conquered it whilst enjoying every part of the game (except for the centaur fight and the utter nonsense that was). The game is hard and certainly has some problems that a lot of games from that era had, but I rarely felt like the game was being cheap with me. It is musically and graphically great and is a truly hard platform title that I had never heard of until I played it. I really liked The Battle of Olympus and it could be one of my favourite games on the NES. Of course, I am a crazy person who loves and mastered Zelda II and that might be why I enjoyed this game so much. Anyone who is looking for a challenge or is a fan of platforming titles should check this game out, you will not regret it.

A Comedy of Canon

Written by David Brierley on . Posted in Opinion.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that some authors are nearly immune to criticism.

Take a cursory glance at the literary reception to Austen and you wouldn’t be far off in mistaking her for a deity. Dickens is a messianic figure in the grim world of Victorian England. And Shakespeare? I don’t think I even need to come up with a comparison for him, as his name alone holds such gravitas in literary tradition that invoking it shakes the very core of our language.

But there must be a reason that these authors and poets have left such an impression on our language.

Personally, I’m not sure there is a justifiable reason; at least not one that doesn’t leave out glaring exceptions. In Shakespeare’s case, the reputation is due; so much of our modern vernacular comes from his pen it is impossible not to be enamoured by him. Even if it seems all Greek to start with, the long and the short of it is that most of this sentence comes straight from the Bard. But that is just one example.

Maria Edgeworth is a name that few are familiar with. Not only did this contemporary of Jane Austen lay the foundations of the realism movement, she also had opinions on politics, education, and economics that influenced the entire 19th century.

Edgeworth published articles aimed at women, encouraging their involvement in literature and education. Her novels were characterized by sharp wit and a satire of the landed gentry just like Austen’s. She wrote one of the first sympathetic portrayals of Jewish people and culture in the English language. She had a huge impact on the literary and cultural landscape of her native England and Ireland and fought against the social conventions of the time.

Now, I have no issue with those who praise Jane Austen—my personal dislike of her novels is not important (I have no particular love for Edgeworth’s either)—but it seems insane that while Austen is considered a pillar of literature, her equally talented contemporaries are forgotten by the canon.

Similarly, Milton and Shakespeare are both famous for a great collection of sonnets (though both, it must be added, far more famous for other works). Edmund Spenser’s tale, however, is similar to that of Edgeworth’s. His poetry holds a great deal of importance in literary tradition—his works include one of the most significant epics in the English language, and he popularized an entire form of sonnet.

Not, perhaps, something that influences us four hundred years later but, then, little of what Milton did survives into the collective mind of the modern world. Sure, the word “pandemonium” is Milton’s, but it’s not exactly a commonly used phrase: more commonly seen is the idiom “rhyme and reason.” That particular phrase is one of Spenser’s.

Seamus Heaney won a Nobel Prize for his contributions to the literary landscape. Eavan Bowland, another Irish Poet of great importance, is virtually unheard of outside of a literature degree.

I hope you’re beginning to see my point: the idea of a Classical novel is entirely arbitrary. It’s a forced conjecture, and it’s robbing the world of a huge portion of its literary history. I’m not saying the texts I’ve studied so far in my educational career are not significant or worthy of appraisal—Steinbeck, Conrad, Joyce, and Beowulf are all important for those interested in the development of language and culture in the English tradition. But for the layman, the over-saturation of certain texts is killing literature.

So many lists of top 10 books to read before you’re an arbitrary age repeat the same novels. Over and over again. Society has created a cocoon around some of the greats. I am not here to belittle the masterpieces of English with my subjective opinions but I believe that we should take a serious look at what we rate our literature for. In this world of instant streaming and cheap entertainment, a fresh approach is long overdue.

I love the smell of paper in the morning

Written by Joe C. Evans on . Posted in Opinion.

With book sales at an all-time low, authors struggling to make ends meet and digital media dominating the entertainment sphere, the lifespan of print media seems limited. The immediacy of the Internet, television, movies and game consoles meets the demands of a modern audience, providing instantaneous information and instant gratification.

One might say this is simply evolution. We invented the television and with it waned radio audiences. Such is life. However, the falling prominence of books simply isn’t a progression. The negation of print serves to illustrate devolution in human thought. We have outsourced our abilities of reason and logic. We have decided to ask for everything to be simpler; not to improve our abilities but only to have the world simplified.

It is simply impossible to argue that modern spheres of entertainment contribute the same level of intellectual stimulation as the slow-burning process of interpreting a book. While once it was considered a normal pastime, the act of reading and understanding for recreation has become frivolous, almost elitist in society’s preconceptions. It’s a crime that we have allowed the issue to go so far.

When 100 years ago approximately 16 per cent of sixteen-year-old school leavers couldn’t adequately read or write, it is completely unjust that we have allowed a society with such abundant access to education to slip backwards towards the Dark Ages.

These dark ages are, to me, instigated by a generalised dumbing down of all forms of media; we now unfriend someone, or declare that we just liked something. We have declared forms of bastardised English valid, all in the name of keeping up with the frenetic pace of new media. Imagine hearing somebody say to their friend, “I watched a movie last night,” and getting the response, “I like that.” You’d think their grasp of English was appalling, yet it slipped under the radar into standard vernacular (albeit subtly).

This is where the death of the book stems from. Why should you have to trawl through pages of difficult language, which has to be understood and interpreted? It’s much easier to have your brain scythed open by new media like Facebook and YouTube. That way you can have anodyne use of language pouring straight into your consciousness—it’s so much easier to comprehend!

The dangers, however, of this shift away from the fulfilling and intellectually challenging nature of print are obvious. This truncation begets the opportunity for misunderstood views to flourish, given the phasing out of print is abundantly clear.

When we start getting our news off BuzzFeed for example, the need for snappy news means that presenting a rounded story on current events is secondary. Gaining a rounded view isn’t an option when even the source of your knowledge champions immediacy over education.

With print, the appreciation that the reader is in it ‘for the long haul’, so to speak, allows for the development of ideas and the presentation of differing opinion. This is totally lost in the need for speed that comes with the phasing out of such media.

Moreover, when the most common form of entertainment comes in the form of opiating television programmes or mind-numbing game consoles, rather than something that encourages interaction, our development is clearly stunted. The complexity of a book isn’t its biggest drawback; it is, in fact, its most powerful strength.

Rather than taking the form of mere entertainment, it serves not only to entertain or inform but also to develop—to develop the reader’s articulacy, interpretative skills and logic. On top of that it empowers a reader to question. Books, far from opiating a reader’s experience of the world, enliven it. They ask questions, that in turn make us ask questions, and by asking questions, and never accepting the status quo, we can serve to develop our world.

The slow death of print is a dark reflection on us as an audience. The poverty endured by writers and the falling sales of books illuminate a worldwide ignorance for improvement, which has seeped into social consciousness. The market provides what the masses want, and we as the masses have chosen to ignore the vital importance of reading and of print in forming us as rounded individuals.

It is often argued that we read out of tradition, that the form is outdated and that it is becoming extinct due to its inability to evolve. We do not, however, read out of tradition—we read out of necessity. Like numerous thriving species of animal we have forced into extinction, we run the serious risk of destroying books and reading as art forms.

Only by embracing the irreplaceable importance and relevance of books can we begin to reverse the generational rot which has set in, and caused damage, but which is by no means irreversible. Books carry information and education beyond any new media outlet. They have charted human history since their inception, and we cannot be the society to let that wither and die.

Top 5: Timeless Fashion Icons

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Fashion & Beauty.

Photo: Paramount Pictures

Cher from Clueless

 “Where’s my white collarless shirt from Fred Segal? It’s my most capable-looking outfit!” says the teen queen fashion guru Cher in the ’90s classic ‘Clueless’. The film opens with Cher going through her computer-generated closet. At that moment, we all wanted to be her. Renowned for her yellow tartan Chanel skirt & jacket suit with knee high socks, no one does up upscale prep chic better than Cher.

 

Photo: moodboard

Kate Moss

Kate Moss is undoubtedly the world’s biggest supermodel and international style icon. Few things in fashion have longevity  but Kate is the anomaly. From photographer Corinne Day’s images of Moss running wild and carefree on sandy beaches to her red carpet style debuts,  it is her chameleon appeal off the runway that has been as pivotal to her success as her unique looks. Designer and friend of Moss’ Marc Jacobs said “You can never make Kate look as good on the runway as she does in real life.”

 

Photo: fred_baby @Flickr

Audrey Hepburn

 Audrey Hepburn. The classic beauty. Whether prancing around Rome in ‘Roman Holiday’ in Givenchy gowns or looking elegantly shabby in ‘My Fair Lady’, Hepburn is an infinite style icon. For many women, capturing Audrey’s appeal continues to be the pinnacle of timeless grace. Hepburn’s elegance and elfin beauty are synonymous with 20th century Hollywood glamour.  During the making of ‘Sabrina’, Hepburn was introduced to Givenchy and went on to become his muse. Audrey said in regards to Givenchy: “His are the only clothes in which I am myself.”

 

Photo: United Artists

Annie Hall

 In 1977, Diane Keaten famously played the role of androgynous style icon, Annie Hall. This sparked a revolution of masculine silhouettes. Layering is the key to Hall’s look; versatile white shirts matched with chunky ties and men’s trousers. Hall’s cloaked-on layers of tweed and button up shirts marked the introduction of menswear inspired fashion into the mainstream. Annie Hall is the epitome of playful androgyny and is a look that is still going strong today.

 

Photo: Topshop

Cara Delevingne

Cara Delevingne is famous for her laid-back attitude and tongue-in-cheek sense of humour. With a quintessentially tomboyish style consisting mainly of beanie hats with comical slogans on, it is Delevingne’s off-duty look which draws the most attention. Delevingne’s androgynous aesthetic has cemented her as a modern day icon; as she easily makes the transition from street style to red carpet. What sets Cara apart from other models is that her style is more about her attitude than anything else.

Turner Prize 2014 Artists: Duncan Campbell

Written by Holly Smith on . Posted in Arts.

Established in 1984, the Turner Prize is awarded each year to a contemporary artist under 50 living, working or born in Britain, who is judged to have put on the best exhibition of the last 12 months. Previous winners include Gilbert & George, Antony Gormley, Grayson Perry, Jeremy Deller and Damien Hirst. This year’s shortlist showcases artists whose work spans film (Duncan Campbell), prints (Clara Philips), video (James Richards) and live performance (Tris Vonna-Michell)

Born in 1972, Duncan Campbell is an Irish-born video artist, based in Glasgow. After studying at the University of Ulster and University of Glasgow, Campbell was awarded Bâloise Art Prize in 2008 and was one of only three artists chosen to represent Scotland at the Venice Biennale.

His conceptual art creates rituals that explore how our tribal past has determined our future. Campbell makes films about controversial figures such the Irish political activist Bernadette Devlin or the quixotic car manufacturer John DeLorean. By mixing archive footage and new material, he questions and challenges the documentary form.

Campbell has been nominated for the Turner Prize for his presentation “It For Others”, a social and historical examination of cultural imperialism and commodity which was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2013.

Review: Why Evolution is True by Jerry A. Coyne

Written by Jay Fagerberg on . Posted in Books.

Already from the first page the reader is thrown into the subject. The thread in the book is Darwinism, the modern theory of evolution, and the evidence for it. This is painstakingly illustrated by an endless stream of examples taken from around the world, enthusiastically urging the reader to fully and whole-heartedly embrace this theory. Parallel to this he compares evolution with the alternative theory: the thought of a creator. Despite all the evidence that evolution exists, it still fails to explain some essential features of the subject in question. This is where Coyne’s Achilles’ heel lurks, leaving the reader somewhat puzzled.

He does however hit it off rather well by trailing down Darwin’s road. I assure you that by the end of the book, the reader will be a pro when it comes to significant concepts such as natural selection, gradualism and the molecular clock. Logically, argument follows upon argument and the reasoning is easy to follow throughout the chapters.

Nevertheless, at one point in the book he brings up two classic examples that argue against natural selection; blood clotting and the complexity of the camera eye of vertebrates. Coyne makes an effort, using a good two-and-a-half pages, trying to explain the incredibly complex biochemical process which results in blood clotting. He mentions gene duplication as a plausible explanation and uses sea cucumbers as an example, just to finish off with: “After all, biochemical evolution is a field still in its infancy.”

In contrast, a more detailed and more digestible explanation is given to the complexity of the camera eye of vertebrates, which can now be explained by the process of natural selection after numerous experiments have been carried out. This is a splendid example of the scrutiny and tidiness that underlines every single word in this book. It is extremely well written and can be advantageous when read parallel to text books about evolution. No wonder I was recommended this book by my professor.

To summarise, despite the quality, authenticity and logical structure in this book, the non-stop flood of fossil records, experiments and extinct species was too much for my plate. It felt more like a text book than a novel. The book barely touches on how our genes are affected by environmental factors (epigenetics), and fails to explain some essential features of evolution, such as previously mentioned example of blood clotting. Nonetheless, if you wish to learn about all sorts of creatures, evolutionary concepts and Darwin’s ideas, this book could well become your best friend.

You Can’t Handle the Truth! – Political Movies

Written by Dylan Kerlann on . Posted in Film.

Western society is currently going through tough times. It has to completely rethink its culture, economic and political system. Yet such turbulences may cause our society to evolve into something less pleasant; indeed it is often easier to turn towards an easy choice, which will ultimately cause more problems than solving them. It is therefore not useful but necessary to see the risks of such evolution in order to catch up with our reality and our common sense.

This is achievable through movies. Movies were traditionally the gateway to hidden political messages, which may act as warnings against unwanted changes or may cast our sight towards hidden-away flaws in our society. This has been achieved since the dawn of cinema by great film directors, who did not fear to speak out about their political beliefs even if it might have come with the price of budget cuts, loss of fame, exile and other threats.

Lang for instance, warned the Germans about the rise of Nazism in M as well as addressing the issue of the workers conditions in Metropolis. On the other side of the Rhine, Renoir dared talk against the affirmation of WWI being the last war in La Grande Illusion.

However, contrary to these pioneering times, critical movies nowadays tend to be relocated to the artistic segment of the cinema scenery. These movies should be more allocated to the mainstream segment where they will have a greater impact. And if so, they should target specifically and realistically a trait of our society instead of displaying an aspect which does not exist or a society which is unlikely to happen, such as in Gilliam’s Brazil, which despite criticising a few ‘common’ aspects, just humoured an over-bureaucratic society; which is the least possible scenario of our world’s evolution.

Directors should have the courage to say, “this is where we are heading,” to the masses, to be responsible towards them and not just see their public as mere wallets ready to transfer their content (and time) into their pockets. Cinema is an art and as such should not disdain addressing political and societal problems openly and not simply touch on them lightly like in Blomkamp’s deceiving Elysium.

Cinema feeds on the ever-changing technological evolution and breakthroughs, and should properly exploit them to offer to the viewers enhanced experiences of possible futures. Some have done it before with tight budgets and capacities; thus making less understandable the compromising of one’s talent and soul for profits, by displaying endless special effects and undermining the plot of the movie.

We may then draw the conclusion that cinema should not only be responsible towards the audience but it should also regain the once full critical capabilities it had and become more than mere entertainment; it should show us the perils of the future, allowing people to work at them in order to keep these scenarios as they are. We need more reflective movies.