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Day: 7 August 2017

Manchester sixth most affordable UK city for students

Written by Cameron Broome on . Posted in News.

Manchester is the sixth most affordable city in the UK for students, the 2017 Student Living Index has indicated.

Monthly rent payments, in particular, have been suggested to be comparatively lower than other UK cities. Students in Manchester are estimated to spend an average of £425.92 per month on rent, below the UK monthly student average of £448.00.

The city is also argued to offer some of the best nightlife in the UK. 85 per cent of students believe that Manchester has diverse nightlife, according to Which? University’s Student Survey. Manchester nightclub Hidden was named the Best Small Club in DJ Mag’s 2016 Best of British awards, with Manchester’s Warehouse Project picking up Best Club Series.

Despite this, the Student Living Index suggests that Manchester students spend less per month than the average UK student on going out; £20.30 per month compared to the UK student average of £25.10.

Students also spend less per month on clothes, shoes and accessories; £26.30 per month compared to the UK student average of £27.40.

However, the Student Living Index did suggest that Manchester students spend £41.61 per month on alcohol, slightly above the UK student average of £38.61.

The research involved 3,407 students across 35 UK Universities, and the index calculated affordability by dividing students’ average monthly living and accommodation costs by average monthly income.

Broad factors about student life were analysed in the Student Living Index including student income, spending, budgeting, employment and studying vs. socialising.

According to the Student Living Index, Cardiff is the most affordable student city in the UK, followed by Aberdeen and Durham.

The least affordable student city in the UK for students was indicated to be Glasgow, followed by London and St Andrews.

Despite sometimes having a reputation for spending lots of time partying and going out, students in general spend over three times as many hours on academic studies than they do on socialising, the Student Living Index suggests.

Manchester students are estimated to spend 96 hours per month on their academic studies, above the UK monthly student average of 91.7 hours.

Review: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Written by James Gill on . Posted in Film.

First published in the French magazine Pilote in 1967, Valérian and Laureline has become a landmark of European culture. Growing up director Luc Besson was an avid reader, citing it as an inspiration for The Fifth Element.

During the production of that film he had the chance to work with Valérian illustrator Jean-Claude Mézières, who asked him “Why are you doing this shitty film? Why you don’t do Valerian?”. 20 years later and armed with the biggest independent film budget in history at an estimated $180 million, Besson’s passion project has finally reached the silver screen.

In the late 1980’s through his films Subway (1985), The Big Blue (1988) and Nikita (1990), Besson has been noted as a founder of ‘Cinéma du look’. A film movement coined by critic Raphaël Bassan, it is a predominantly stylistic film making approach, opting to neglect the narrative in its favour.

Valerian, although produced three decades too late, can be seen as an extension of this. The visuals throughout are resplendent and bright, yet the plot leaves a lot to be desired. This doesn’t make Besson’s work a bad film though; I think it is one of the most imaginative I have ever seen, but it is the first major blockbuster film that feels like it was made by actual, flawed people.

Extensive crowd testing normally takes place behind the scenes to make sure a movie is clean. Any coarse or offensive edges will be sanded out and it causes a lot of releases, especially in recent times, to be stale.

Valerian is different. It is highly original, and fantastically entertaining. Granted there are lots of mistakes, for example the chemistry between the on-screen partners Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne was frankly non-existent, but what it lacks is dwarfed by what it brings.

Set in the 28th century, the film opens with a delightful sequence showing the expansion of the International Space Station. First, other nationalities add modules such as Russia and China, then countless Alien species join too, which are all fantastically bizarre in design. The ISS grows rapidly and gets renamed Alpha, a universal home for all to live peacefully.

Naturally not all Aliens will be bipedal or even breath oxygen, so the station incorporates different environments within it. Every shot of these environments and the creatures within them are breathtaking. The artistry and craftsmanship in designing and making each of the hundreds of species is in my opinion worthy of the Best Visual Effects Oscar.

We are then introduced to our leads, Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne). They are two intergalactic cops on their way to stop a black market handover of a last-of-its-species animal called a Mül converter, which can infinitely reproduce any object that you can squeeze in its mouth.

When they arrive at the planet though there is no sight of ‘Big Market’, the universes biggest shopping centre, just a walled area on a dusty planet. That’s because in order to see it you have to wear special VR-esque goggles that let you see into another dimension.

This sounds silly but the moment you see the full scale and diversity of ‘Big Market’, you can’t help but be enamoured with Besson’s work. The way both dimensions interact is both extraordinary and hilarious. It is hardly surprising to learn that the Valerian crew didn’t understand his vision for this 18 minute sequence, and he enlisted the help of 120 of his film students to shoot the entire thing as an example.

An extra dimensional market city isn’t the only outlandish idea Besson threw in. Singer Rihanna plays a polymorphic prostitute called Bubbles (Ethan Hawke plays her pimp) who delivers a 10 minute dance performance for Valerian. While this was quite mesmerising, he wasn’t there for pleasure, and after a lot of persuading he wears Bubbles like a suit and she changes form into a brutish ogre of an Alien to help Valerian on his quest.

This is one of many sizeable detours from the main plot-line that alter the pacing and tonality of the film. While ordinarily this would be a major quibble, I was always left amazed at the imagination needed to create these ideas.

As with his previous film The Fifth Element, they will undoubtedly be a large cult following but it remains to be seen whether it will be enough of a success to warrant a sequel. For such an expansive and intriguing world, it would be desperately sad if our door to it was closed so soon.