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Young women in today’s society are often said to have it all – the power to have what we want when we want. Unlike our parent’s generation we have fewer issues with women’s rights (though not completely eradicated) and are largely free to live in a society where men and women have equal privileges. For the large part, as women our autonomy remains largely uncompromised – we can go to university, study a subject we like, get a job we want – without our sex compromising it – or so it would seem. There is however one part of our lives that remain uncontrolled and an unfathomable force of Mother Nature, not understood by men and women alike – our breasts.
It is a well-worn path to criticise the hypocrisy of many Liberal Democrat voters. While in the run up to the general election many were brazenly calling for “new politics” (a phrase that dated as fast as it was coined) and making a plea for an end to the tribalism of the two party system, these people (many of whom are students) are now reeling and seething at the Lib-Con marriage that is the coalition Government.
Twitter was busy this week with Manchester students moaning about the cold whilst protesting against cuts outside the Tory conference in Birmingham. Black and red posters appeared hastily pasted up in their usual fashion around the campus, “Stuff your cuts, we won’t pay!” read the slogans. But it’s not just the Commies who are upset; there is an atmosphere on campus from many students and staff that they are on a collision course with the Conservative-Liberal government.
There are a section of people present at most universities in Britain who probably accumulate more dislike from the rest of the student body than any other. They are the only group cliquey enough to organise their own ski trip, whilst being the only sports team more unbearably annoying than the organisers of the normal ski trip. I’m referring to the single most ‘banterific’ group of students that has ever walked the Earth, the Medic Rugby Boys.
“I am who I am because of everyone” was the tag phrase of the old advertising campaign of a certain mobile phone company, and a tag phrase that also I took personal disagreement with, despite it being a very arguable, if pretentious, slogan.
“There simply isn’t room in the ivory towers for fifty per cent of school leavers to attend university, and there never was”
What’s remarkable, is that this has all occurred just two years after America’s Liberals were heralding a new age of progressive government.
Using only ‘science’ to argue for the transformation in the way we use energy , even by the good guys, takes climate change out of its proper political and economic context and allows our imaginations to be influenced because of its unquestionable authority.
George Robinson, Boarding master and head of house reviews David Cameron’s half term progress
‘Anatomically correct blow up sex doll’ and ‘heart rending tearjerker’ aren’t usually phrases that appear in the same sentence. This film, however, somehow manages to seamlessly entwine the two and sit them together as naturally as emos and Twilight.
Zuckerberg came up with the notion at Harvard and launched the primitive website from his dorm room. Weird to think; that something that has become a scarily large part of everyday life for 500 million people, was started in what a lot of first years are experiencing now: a room where old beer cans used as ashtrays are literally heavy with cigarette butts, where old orange skins cling to the bottom of waste paper baskets and where blackish grime and bits of indefinable matter stick to an unwashed bowl on your desk. Maybe it’s different at Harvard, but it’s still a fairly novel (if disgusting) notion.
Taking its inspiration from Marks’ 1996 autobiography of the same name, Mr Nice is unsurprisingly reverential and seems reluctant to ask any real questions of its protagonist. Most crucially, by presenting Marks as ‘Mr Nice’, the film fails to explore the moral dilemma inherent to his profession. Instead, Rose’s script opts for a rather shallow pro-legalisation, pro-Marks stance which ultimately suggests, to quote one glib piece of dialogue, that ‘it’s the law that’s wrong’.
Picture the scene: It’s 10.30pm on a Saturday night and I am surrounded by glitter, false eyelashes and the distinct smell of hairspray; as a marvelously glamorous sequin-clad drag queen takes to the stage, welcomed by the rejoicing roar of an eclectic crowd of bourgeoisie zombies and blood-splattered doctors. One might be excused for assuming that what I am describing is a nightmarish Halloween night on Canal Street, that, however, is not the case.
Withnail has such an incredible life; ‘Look at him’, you think, ‘He’s having such a good time’. There really is no better advert out there for chain-smoking alcoholism than Withnail. An inadvisable drinking game states that the players must match Withnail drink for drink. It’s impossible. In the course of the film he drinks nine glasses of red wine, six glasses of sherry, one pint of cider, one pint of beer, two shots of gin, thirteen whiskeys and a shot of lighter fluid.
You would be hard pressed to find a worse reason to remake a film than Gus Van Sant did in his revival of the classic horror flick Psycho. Remakes generally find their way into cinemas on the back of huge film studios believing that there is potential in bringing the originals to a new generation. Inept scriptwriters and shoddy directors generate millions at the box office with the slightest effort, as seen with recent shambolic revivals such as Clash of the Titans.
Michael Bay spent so long working on the optical madness that is Transformers 2 that he forgot to develop his storyline or characters. The end result is CGI on steroids and very little else. It’s always a bad sign when you feel genuinely embarrassed for the actors in the film for having their names permanently besmirched by such an atrocity. The cast and crew behind this film would probably be happy if there was a nuclear holocaust, something to wipe out civilization, as this would finally erase their shame.
5. Lord of the Rings – ‘I’m no man’ So says Elf-girl Eowyn as she thrusts her blade in the Witch King’s face. I tend to think that the Witch King, when he said that ‘no man could kill him’, meant Man: the race and not Man: a male. Either he didn’t recognise female prowess or he didn’t foresee being stabbed in the head when he made this claim.
Many of you out there will believe, as I do, that awarding a piece of work three stars is highly frustrating. This magic number is inoffensive, uninspiring and tells the reader nothing of the subject matter. However, The Town may just be the exception; it conjures up enough brilliant moments and frustrating plot devices to be truly worthy of an average review.
The original 1930s King Kong is an hour and a half, and even that feels like it’s dragging in some places. It’s a very thin concept; a giant monkey on an island. You certainly wouldn’t have thought that it needs to be three hours. Apparently Peter ‘I’m not going to edit any of my films’ Jackson thought otherwise.