Following the success of Bad Jazz and Stoning Mary earlier this year, St. John’s Mummers effortlessly bring their usual vitality and dynamism to Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost.

The deft abridgement of the original script’s obscurity contemporises the play, and is enhanced by the 1920s costume, uncluttered set and simple use of props. This sunny romantic comedy encapsulates the Trinity Term experience: four young scholars attempt to devote themselves to their studies, but are soon tempted by the promise of summery shenanigans with the opposite sex.

Director Philip Bartlett nurtures excellent performances from the seventeen-strong St. John’s cast of varying acting experience, led by Joel Phillimore who delivers a likeably playful and engaging performance as Berowne. The Mummers’ interpretation is refreshingly bright: the ‘ooh er, missus’ humour of the piece is brought to the fore of the sparkling dialogue through confident, though never patronising, delivery. The pudding of Shakespearean wit is by no means over-egged by nudge nudge, wink wink performances, but accentuated by quickfire dialogue and the evident enjoyment of the cast onstage. It is a delight, for English students  in particular to genuinely enjoy an Elizabethan comedy for being funny! Moth’s (Tess Ellison) and Armado’s (Fiona Guest) fast-paced interchanges are a highlight, although every scene, and set change, is as elegantly brisk as Shakespeare intended.

If Pinter’s pauses aren’t your cup of tea, the twinkling script of Love’s Labour’s Lost should have you packing your picnic basket instead. The production, staged in the beautiful gardens of St. John’s, has adopted a BYOB (bring your own blanket) policy, and runs from Monday to Wednesday of Fifth Week at 6.30pm.

Verdict: A Royal Treat

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Saturday – Pembroke W1 Blades – Ollie Ford

Friday – Bumped! Summer VIIIs 2010 – Rachel Chew

Thursday – Hugh’s Cat – Will Granger

Wednesday – Building Bonfires – Sophie Wells

Tuesday – ‘No Exit’, Frewin Undercroft – Ollie Ford

Monday – Time on hands – Ursa Mali

Sunday – Oxford university engineering science robot – Jeremy Wynne

Ever wanted to see a Japanese woman lay an egg? Do you occasionally wonder how a human corpse would look cooked, seasoned, and served with carrots? If so, head to the Magdalen auditorium this weekend. The college’s film society will be showing Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses (1976) on Sunday, and Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover (1989) on Monday. Although they are not being presented as a double bill, the two films have points in common: both centre on the explicit depiction of carnal love, both end with one of the principal characters losing his penis, and both were partly financed by France.

In the Realm of the Senses tells the true story of prostitute Abe Sada, who in the 1930s was caught wandering the streets of Tokyo, her lover’s testicles in hand. The film shows the relationship between the two, which ends in her arrest. We witness the couple making love again and again, in ever more sordid fashion, until the suffocating claustrophobia of the bedrooms is mirrored in their games of erotic asphyxiation. Oshima shoots everything in reds and yellows, and he gradually ups the saturation as the film progresses. In the final scene, Abe chokes her partner to death and robs him of his member; never was Japan’s patriarchal society more vividly emasculated onscreen.

The Cook… is another film about a woman asserting herself in a dominantly male environment. Albert (Michael Gambon) is a gangster and restaurateur, Georgina (Helen Mirren) his reluctant wife. While Albert holds court in his restaurant night after night, drunkenly abusing his staff and spitting at his guests, Georgina pursues a secret affair with a regular client, the gentle, bookish Michael. Albert soon finds out, and has Michael killed. In revenge, Georgina asks the restaurant’s chef to cook the corpse, which she then forces Albert to eat. The plot is bonkers, but played out in the confined space of the restaurant – where people are constantly consuming – it makes sense. As Georgina and Michael make love in the kitchen, the larder, anywhere they won’t be found, the link between food and flesh becomes plain to see.

So Oshima associates sex with death, and Greenaway with gastronomy (although he also plays Michael’s naked corpse for erotic effect). I hesitate to ascribe this to cultural differences, even if The Cook…‘s vision of greed and decadence is a caricature of Thatcherism. Ultimately, both films get carried away with smashing taboos, and as documents of sexual customs in their respective societies they are unreliable. Japan may have a history of truly out-there sex offenders, but Oshima doesn’t care why Abe loses her marbles, or whether she represents a genuine social malaise; by cutting the two protagonists off from the outside world and confining them to their bedrooms, he suggests that they are an isolated case.

Greenaway too is more interested in style than characterization. He hints at domestic violence in Albert’s and Georgina’s relationship, which he suggests may stem from Georgina’s inability to bear children, but instead of expanding this plotline he trots off into cannibalism territory. The best things about The Cook… are Michael Nyman’s stately score, Jean-Paul Gaultier’s costumes and the deliberately artificial set, which wobbles when struck. There is nothing realistic about the film’s environment or its characters. As with In The Realm of the Senses, it is a theatrical chamber piece, too bizarre for the outside world.

Werner Herzog is insane. Completely, utterly, bat-shit insane. From being shot in the stomach during an interview and calmly remarking, “We are being shot at. We should leave,” (worth tracking down on YouTube), to eating his own shoe for a bet (which he filmed and released under the fairly ambiguous title, Werner Herzog Eats His Own Shoe), Herzog has got several screws loose. It’s fortunate, then, that he also happens to be an inspired genius, whose intense love of filmmaking sees him churning out bizarre and stunning films on an annual basis. With Bad Lieutenant, Herzog has outdone himself, producing his best non-documentary directorial effort in over a decade.

Superficially, a simple plot synopsis gives no indication that this is anything other than a bog-standard thriller, as it follows a corrupt cop whose addiction to various drugs sees him pushed to the edge of insanity and way past the law. The tagline – “The only criminal he can’t catch… is himself” – is equally disheartening, as is the notion that this might be a remake of Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant. Thankfully, Herzog’s film is entirely original (borrowing only the title and a cop with a drug problem) and there’s no evidence here that he is in any danger of selling out. Under the guise of conventionality, he has directed a bewilderingly brilliant film.

Much of the credit should go to Nicholas Cage as Terrence McDonagh, the titular lieutenant, whose unhinged performance is eerily reminiscent of Herzog’s egomaniacal muse, the late Klaus Kinski. It’s the best thing Cage has done in years, as he discards his recent banal performances (National Treasure, Knowing and Bankok Dangerous, to name just a few) and emerges as the bug-eyed lunatic he once was. In 1989, Cage happily ate a live cockroach on camera for Vampire’s Kiss, and just over 20 years later, he’s finally unleashing that kind of crazy once more. Yet his drug-addled performance isn’t just mentally unstable – it’s also heartfelt. When he starves an elderly lady of her oxygen tube in order to pursue a lead, he inexplicably remains sympathetic. His insanity may be deliriously entertaining, but it’s also quietly tragic, as we can see his mental faculties gradually dribbling out of his ears.

The setting is also perfectly suited to Herzog’s sensibilities, as McDonagh travels around New Orleans in its post-Katrina squalor and decay. Weeds and moss seem to infect every street, while when an alligator lies on the road with its stomach burst open, none of the characters care to mention this fact. Indeed, reptiles are a recurring obsession in the film – McDonagh sees non-existent iguanas on his coffee table, and finds it mildly terrifying. This is nature as hostile and barely controlled, and William Finkelstein’s script completely aligns itself with Herzog’s view that the world contains only chaos, disharmony and murder.

Strange and unpredictable, Bad Lieutenant is the unfiltered hallucination of a 67-year-old Bavarian madman, and you won’t see a more thrillingly deranged film all year.

Drunken debauchery. Sexual abandon. Chain smoking. Men in drag. Lady Gaga… what may be confused for any typical night at Park End is being transported, until Saturday night, to Keble’s O’Reilly theatre. Gnarled Oak’s production of Measure for Measure was strikingly contemporary and illuminating, breathing fresh life into one of Shakespeare’s less renowned plays.

The puritanical absolutism of Angelo was superbly juxtaposed against the unadulterated hedonism of Venice’s inhabitants, the resonant opera and pop ascribed to either side further highlighting the dichotomy. Matt Monaghan’s competent subversion of typical gender roles was particularly notable; what could initially have been considered an effort to counter notions of the submissive female, by presenting strong, vivacious women in all roles bar one, was subsequently undone, intensely so, by the end of the play, allowing patriarchy to triumph.

The proposal scene at the end of the play was simultaneously original, yet unnerving. Charlotte Salkind’s candid portrayal of Isabella was exceptional, it is a rare feat for a modern audience to simultaneously admire her feisty nature, and ultimately sympathise with her, instead of condemning her as cold and dogmatic. Lucio too was wickedly mischievous, unwavering in his grotesque charm as he was in his cigarette habit and despite being the only biological male amongst the cast, Jonnie McAloon’s performance was unashamedly bold and brazen.

1940’s Venice provides the perfect backdrop to the play. The use of the masque was particularly effective; from its signifying the adoption of a different persona in the carnival atmosphere of Mistress Overdone’s brothel; to it serving as the only thing separating Mariana from being discovered by Angelo as she performs the bed trick, allowing us to share with her the insecurity and anxiety she experiences.

Ironically, albeit somewhat obviously so, it is Angelo who never wears a physical masque, but the one who masquerades behind a facade of moral absolutism. It hides the unsettling use of violence towards Pompey, Claudio and Barnadine; as well as the prevailing despotic power, and nod to fascism, expounded in Angelo’s salutes. The violence, when coupled with Isabella’s being stripped to her underwear allows for a darker, and uncomfortably voyeuristic and sadistic experience – rendering the audience dangerously close to the depravity it so markedly condemns in Angelo.

For a darker take on a problematic and troublesome play, Gnarled Oak’s production is both contemporary and ambitious.

These modern cinematic times are ruled by Hollywood blockbusters and often, it seems that the majority of movie theatres show the same type of movie over and over again. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that except that in such a climate, phrases like ‘social and political cinema’ begin to sound like contradictions. And even if such seemingly mythological creatures do exist, they’re certainly not within easy reach. But a new website aims to change all that. Brightwide is a venture co-founded by Livia & Colin Firth and Paolo De Leo which offers an alternative platform for the best documentaries and socially minded films.

For less than three pounds, anyone with an internet connection can watch Oscar winning documentaries like the Cove and new international festival favourites like No One Knows About Persian Cats. This fee is split between the filmmakers and the website’s expenses. And in today’s cinematic industry where slews of high quality films are lost in or don’t even make it to the distribution stage, De Leo explains that Brightwide has been welcomed by filmmakers as a way of getting their films seen. “I think the film makers that produce these kinds of documentaries have a determination to be listened to so (the website) has been resonating very well.”

That’s all very well and good but there’s still the issue of convincing viewers to sign up and pay for the type of conscientious films that Brightwide offers; films which many presume to be intimidating and sententious. De Leo explains that films are carefully selected to tackle these attitudes towards social and political drama, saying that “we consider engaging and entertaining to be two faces of the same coin” and that it’s not just a matter of “how well the documentary is researched but also how all that is conveyed into a message for the public.”

Brightwide aims to be more than a website for viewing films. It instead aims to create an “online community of film lovers and activists.” To sustain this community, the Brightwide team goes out of their way to select films that “open a discussion.” The website is an arena for debate and it is also a place for action. Each film is accompanied by information about the issues explored and links to relevant organisations and campaigns ranging from small groups to large established NGOs like Amnesty International. But De Leo makes it clear that the website “never suggests one single solution and always has a selection of different options,” so as to encourage the viewer to make their own decisions about the topics presented to them.

Having only recently gone online, Brightwide is still a developing website. De Leo describes it as “a small company made of people” but this small company has big aspirations. De Leo talks about eventually opening a Brightwide competition for film makers and using any eventual profits to launch the website in countries where viewers would not be able to pay the full cost for the films.

Brightwide’s tagline is “watch think link act” and that’s a tide-changing attitude to cinema. As long as websites like Brightwide exist, audiences will be reminded that film can be more than frivolous escapism; it can be the source of outrage, fascination and most importantly, the start of change.

The Prince of Persia started life as a critically acclaimed video game in 1989 and has since become a huge franchise that has spread across two decades and several different mediums from graphic novels to next generation consoles. Now, it hits the big screen. The new film, The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, is set to be the summer blockbuster to rival Marvel’s Iron Man 2 and it certainly has all the usual trappings of an action-adventure flick. We have an attractive male protagonist, Dastan (Gyllenhaal), who with the help of an equally attractive love interest, Princess Tamina (Arterton), must defeat the less attractive antagonist, Nizam (Kingsley). Between the opening and ending credits Dastan will travel around Persia, create a mismatched group of followers and be a part of some impressive fight scenes; if this all sounds familiar to you then you are likely to have seen the producer’s other big hit The Pirates of the Caribbean. However, though Prince of Persia sounds as if it is cut from the same cloth, it sadly falls short of what Pirates of the Caribbean achieved. The characters are not as developed, the settings not as compelling and the plot not as engaging.

Although Gyllenhaal portrays a far more competent and interesting character than Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner (who ironically was rumoured to have been originally playing this part) he isn’t as entertaining or as dynamic as Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow. Arterton’s Princess Tamina also falls short of being an impressive heroine; the flirtatious bickering between Dastan and Tamina is not only typical of Hollywood blockbusters, but it’s rather poorly executed. Instead of coming across as strong, independent and free thinking Tamina simply seems annoying and whiney. Location also causes gripes. Set in Persia, but filmed in Morocco, the movie jumps quickly from one location to another without properly showing the beauty of the landscape. Sadly it seems that Morocco will look more impressive in Sarah-Jessica Parker’s up-and-coming chick-flick Sex and the City 2 than it did here. Along with jumpy scenes, the plot bounded from location to location and fight to fight with very little congruency or tension. The premise of the film is explained within the first 40 minutes and the audience is given no new surprises.

Despite these deficiencies, the film is not without merit. It provides a lot for lovers of action; the fight scenes are well choreographed with many acrobatic tricks accompanying each sword fight. There is also an element of free running introduced to the film which is a subtle homage to the game the movie is based on. And the sequence of rewinding time is a particularly impressive feature of the film; this beautifully crafted CGI sequence is the one bit of originality in the movie. All together the sequences took a year and a half to finish, but visually it was worth every second. However, these tiny moments are not enough to redeem the rest of the 116 minute running time; anyone who is being dragged to see it should go on Orange Wednesday when at least their ticket will be free.

Stanley Kubrick has always been an egotistical and ambitious director, but with 2001: A Space Odyssey, his ego and ambition couldn’t have been much greater. Believing all previous sci-fi films to have been pure bunkum, Kubrick set himself the unenviable task of creating not only the first great science fiction film in history, but also one of the greatest films in history. With its title (a direct nod to The Odyssey), a grandiose classical score borrowing from Strauss and Ligeti, and a meandering plot that stretches over millennia, this was a film very much intended to be a classic.

Kubrick’s arrogance paid off, and 2001 has since been almost universally recognised as the classic it was intended to be, defying its ruthless dismissal by Pauline Kael as “a monumentally unimaginative movie.” History has proved her wrong, and its popularity seems in no danger of waning, despite existing within an unstable genre: as a sci-fi film, it lacks the contemporary or historical settings of Kubrick’s previous films, and as such remains far more vulnerable to appearing rapidly out-dated in its effects and visions of the future.

Nevertheless, 42 years after its release and 9 years after its setting, 2001 remains stunningly futuristic and frightening. In the current ADHD era of rapid editing and effects-driven plots – Transformers 2 being the current low – the film has a hypnotic authority, patiently commanding the audience’s attention with minimal dialogue and lengthy takes. The hyperactive, energetic and terminally dull direction of Michael Bay could draw a lesson or five from Kubrick’s example.

While it has something resembling a plot in the shape of HAL, the film is better described as a mediation on life, the universe and everything. Kubrick refused to provide any fixed meaning behind the monkeys, the monolith or the star child, yet its ambiguity is the key strength of the film. Its ending raises far more questions than it answers, yet its surreal and utterly brilliant climax violently rejects conventional narrative logic in a way that is still staggeringly original.

Frustratingly, any attempt to describe or explain 2001 fully would be to do it an injustice – it can only be appreciated when experienced first hand. Its original tagline of “The Ultimate Trip” is, if anything, underselling the film. This is cinema drugged up to its eyeballs: a psychedelic, hallucinatory and profound experience, powerfully administered via Kubrick’s pure, uncut genius.