Angelina Jolie provides an enjoyable performance as the
ice-cool FBI agent sent to Montreal to track down a psychopathic
killer who cuts off people’s hands and bashes their face in
with a rock. Angelina is unquestionably the best thing in this film
skilfully negotiating her character, Illeana Scott, through a
rather trite plot line, as she thaws out to show her more
passionate and vulnerable side. Unfortunately the performance of co-star Ethan Hawke is rather
underwhelming, unsurprisingly, providing little for Angelina to
engage with, and is thoroughly upstaged by a cameo from Keifer
Sutherland, of 24 and Lost Boys fame. Beyond the leads there is a limited cast drawn from the stock
catalogue of thriller caricatures. But they are quickly sketched
and don’t detract from the film. More detrimental are the occasions when the plot line becomes
unnecessarily diffuse in heavyhanded attempts to make the main
twist a little less obvious. Sadly the only effect is to make the film drag in parts and
feel a good half an hour longer than its 1 hour 42 minutes.
Despite this there are some excellent moments that make you jump
out of your skin, and plenty of slick dialogue. To top it all off, the conclusion provides a wonderful ending,
departing from the fairly standard thriller material that most of
the film consists of, and which makes one come to the firm
conclusion that Ms Jolie kicks ass. Fortunately not a trace of
her Lara Croft remains. So how come she still has to be in one of those irritating sex
scenes where the woman gets naked and the man remains resolutely
zipped up?ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

You couldn’t get much more hyped than this. Saturday was
Oxford’s chance to sample the sound of the much acclaimed
four-piece from Glasgow at a sold-out Oxford Brookes gig. As
Fiery Furnaces ended a lively support set, it remained to be seen
if Franz Ferdinand could give anything more than the
retro-reproductive music that has assaulted the indie scene
recently. Sashaying onto the stage, with unbelievably tight,
high-waisted trousers, shirts that bordered on garish, haircuts
that your mum would be proud of, pointy boots and glittery
guitars, the band cut a fine figure. As they warmed up the crowd
with the acerbic ‘Cheating on You’, any scepticism
melted away with each toetap. Their energetic and technically flawless set held some real
gems. The floor bounced to the insistent beats of ‘Take Me
Out’ and ‘Jacqueline’ and the audience drooled as
FF played, and posed along to, the homoerotic, Blondieesque,
‘Michael’ about four “beautiful boys on a
beautiful dancefloor”. When the lights dimmed for ‘Matinee’ (an anthem
worthy of comparison with Pulp’s Common People and Electric
Six’s Gay Bar), all eyes were on lead singer Alex Kapranos.
Combining the cool indifference of Jarvis Cocker, a dry, almost
soporific, voice reminiscent of Neil Hannon, with just a dash of
energy and sincerity he complimented Nick McCarthy on guitar, who
managed to make school disco shuffle-dancing look chic. It is refreshing when a group lives up to their reputation and
delivers on all the promise and potential that their scene
assigns to them. In short, Franz Ferdinand did just that in an
electrifying live act. They proved why they are hot property and
deserve to be around for a while. With catchy pop tunes and an effortlessly cool,
pretension-free image, these guys met every expectation going,
and how!ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

Have I been listening to too much indie-rock lately? This
album seems to have a vaguely familiar feel, which borders
dangerously on the verge of unoriginality. Think of a
‘daring’ fusion of fellow New York City band The
Strokes, and English radiohead imitators Coldplay: now stretch
the resulting incongruity outover a whole LP, and you’ve got
Bows and Arrows. An overall rock feel with strained vocals but a few rich,
delicate tracks, gives the album an air of experimentation
lacking from some modern studio albums. The album opens with ‘What is it to Me?’, an
off-kilter, track reminiscent of Tom Waits when he employs his
more carnival-esque sound. This sound is fast becoming familiar
in indie rock, with groups such as Animal Collective and Mystic
Chords of Memory using it, to varying effect. Second track, ‘The Rat’, will be familiar because of
recent radio airplay, but if you’re a fan of this tune,
don’t get too excited since it is by far one of the best
tracks on the album. The songs shift from quiet, waiflike tunes to full-blown rock
extravaganzas, with little inbetween, leaving neither type making
for easy listening. This leaves an impression of an album with a grainy,
less-thantuneful sound, and a droning style that requires the
insensitive ear of a hardened indie-rocker. Whilst such a juxtaposition is definitely not my cup of tea,
if you like yours strong and slightly stewed then give it a go.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

The Beta Band might well rank as one of the most frustrating
acts on the music radar. They burst onto the scene in 1997 with a
series of beguiling oddball EPs of rambling rock that John Cusack
found so utterly wonderful he rewrote the High Fidelity
screenplay in order to reference them. Since then, they’ve released two albums, the first of
which they memorably disowned in the NME as “fucking
awful”. Whilst this may have been overstating the matter, neither The
Beta Band, nor its sequel Hot Shots IIhave been able to recreate
the elusive playfulness and experimentation of their debut. Heroes to Zeros, however, is at least a partial return to
form. First single and album opener ‘Assessment’ is an
instant winner, establishing a more robust sound that
characterises the album as a whole. The elastic bass-line of
‘Easy’ is a joy, as is the haunting refrain of “I
love you to pieces” on ‘Space Beatle’. However, John Cusack’s next adaptation will have to go
unaltered: Heroes to Zeros is still not quite the classic album
that The Beta Band’s potential tantalisingly promises. Even
so, the richness of their arrangements hints that they are not
done growing yet (if that is the right word for returning to the
attributes which made them special in the first place). There is no need to live in anticipation; Heros to Zeros is a
thoroughly enjoyable listen, and will certainly do for now, even
if fans of the original EPs wil be left a little unsated.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

It’s been coming together for nearly two years, but the
finished product is now upon us. The Oxford Greek Festival,
brainchild of Avery Willis (DPhil in Classics at Balliol), starts
on the 5 May, and there won’t be a moment’s respite
from all things Greek, whether Classical or Modern. Consisting of plays, lectures, an exhibition, poetry, a debate
and children’s events, the Festival promises to have
something for everyone. Most prominent amongst its productions is
Euripides’ Trojan Women, staged at the Playhouse from the
5-8 May (Wednesday-Saturday, 2nd week). Considered one of the
most effective anti-war plays ever written, it features some of
Euripides’ most heart-rending and harrowing scenes. The
production gives the play a new interpretation with its
Indo-African costumes, music and choreography; by this it is
immediately set apart from what one expects. If the play’s review in last week’s edition of the
Cherwell is to be believed, you should book tickets for this one
straight away. If you want to hear a talk about the play, there
are several, each one examining a different angle; check the
website for times. Other plays include The Three Little Wolves
and the Big Bad Pigat the Old Fire Station, and The Shield at the
Burton-Taylor in third week. As its name proclaims, Three Little
Wolves turn a well-known fairytale on its head, with hilarious
consequences. Kids and adults alike can enjoy watching abused
turn abuser. The Shield is another comedy, translated from
Menander’s play, which is not known to have been performed
in English before. On Sunday 9 (3rd week) at 2.30 at the Oxford Union there are
events concerning the long-running but newly-revived saga of the
Elgin Marbles. First is Parthenon Lost, written by Constantine
Sandis. It takes the form of a Socratic dialogue, and will
explore the questions surrounding the contentious issue, central
to which is “Should we return them?” After that is a
debate on the Marbles, in which Boris Johnson MP and Brian Sewell
will take part. Don’t miss the virtual reassembly of the
Parthenon Marbles, which will be there too. Further one-off
events include a mask workshop at the Playhouse (4pm, 7 May),
exploring the use of the mask in Greek performance. Despite the
promising name, there probably won’t be any making and
decorating of masks, just in case the primary school student in
you was hoping. The Iliadis being performed at New College (8pm,
10 May) but without a cast of thousands – try two men in
US-based Curio Productions’ adaptation. This is but a taster
however, there’s lots more – visit
www.oxfordgreekfestival.com for details on everything that’s
going on.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

Once upon a time there were three little girls. They grew up
to be three very different women but they had three things in
common. Times have changed, however, and the latter-day
Charlie’s Angels depicted in Thea Wolff’s The Honey
Trap are barely recognisable as our hotpants-sporting,
hairspraytoting, ass-kicking heroines of old. The locale has
shifted to Noughties London, Boswell is now a fifty-yearold
Spanish babysitter, and Charlie a pre-op transvestite who prefers
to be known as Fiona. Owing, perhaps, to a recent deficit of kidnapped millionaires,
the girls are now ridding the world of evil and corruption by
giving paranoid wives proof of their husbands’ philandering:
which they achieve by seducing the poor suckers themselves.
Despite describing itself as ‘comic crime fiction’,
this book sits squarely in the chick-lit category, so those who
demand heart-stoppingly beautiful prose and daring social comment
from their bedtime reading would be well-advised to steer clear.
Thus warned, however, Wolff’s frank, chatty writing and
well-developed sense of the ludicrous will not disappoint those
looking for a light-hearted antithesis to contract law or Greek
tragedy. Indeed, the hapless heroine’s admittedly crap attempts at
dealing with incidents ranging from finding a severed finger in
her garden to ‘accidentally’ sleeping with a
client’s masochistic husband imbued me with a heartwarming
appreciation of my own sanity. I could criticize the lack of a
cohesive plot, I could complain about the overly colloquial
style, I could admit that the time spent reading this agreeable
froth would have been better spent writing my essay; but, after
all, isn’t that just the point?ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

Someone once wrote a novel without any words containing the letter E in it. There is also a novel written in 26 chapters, with every chapter being written only in words that begin with the corresponding letter (‘Adam advanced angrily and…’). Experimental novels or just gimmicks? Well, there are doubtless many arguments either way; Sarah Salway’s Something Beginning With stands somewhere between the two.
She has written her novel in 26 chapters, each being a collection of musings upon topics (Ambition; Ants; Attitude). Each entry is also cross-referenced with others, and after the last page of the novel is a subject index. Somewhere in all this alphabetical play there is a story or several of them.
Verity Bell is the narrator of the book; the entries are not entirely chronological, so as we follow her tale of love and loss, we also learn about her history; the death of her parents; her lifelong friend Sally; Sally’s married lover Colin.
At first the organisation of the novel irritated me; these entries seem rather trivial and inconsequential – once you become involved in the narrative, though, they bring an immediacy and liveliness to the story; instead of convention, Salway opts to write tangentially, her narrative bouncing from one topic to another.
Quite apart from narratorial gadgetry, there are some nice moments in the book too: Verity and her friend being scorned as ‘Normals’ by a couple of Station (not Train) Spotters and Verity blithely declaiming that the Queen thinks the world smells of paint because everything is freshly painted for her.
Now I know this may get me into a whole heap of trouble, but I couldn’t help feeling this novel might prove more popular with ladies than gentlemen. It’s just that there’s a little too much of Bridget Jones’s Diaryin this novel.
Salway’s exploiting of the alphabet is effective in giving a sense of the division between our personal stories and the world going on around us – what happens to an office romance at the weekends and on the train home – but ultimately it all seems rather gossipy.
The figure of the kooky-but-reallylovely heroine feels a little limited; then again, Salway’s depiction of an unequal friendship, and its effects on the weaker party, are painfully well observed. The idea behind this book is engaging; I just found that I wasn’t that enthusiastic about the story itself.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

Forfeiting my integrity and honesty while affecting a smile of
interest, I agreed to review this exhibition. I mean come on,
anyone without grey hair would be pushed to take a lie detector
test and read out a sentence like “I’ve always had an
interest in Chinese silk painting” without the needle
shooting up and down. It isn’t that I wanted to be a
cultural philistine; indeed I gave it my all not to be and donned
the appropriate clothing, hoping that it might put me in the
right frame of mind. In a blazer, shirt and chinos, I set out. It
wasn’t going well, I thought, as I peered at a Tang dynasty
Buddhist altar valence. A long piece of fabric onto which are attached various pieces
of embroidered and plain silk, the only thing I could liken it to
was a bank manager’s tie collection: a stripy one, a plain
one, and a risqué embroidered number perfect for the office
party Amongst the scraps of ancient fabric I couldn’t find
much that charmed. Their size and incompleteness makes
scrutinizing them a chore. Seeing a gold embroidered
dragon’s bulbous eyes staring out from a tapestry convinced
me. On the whole the figures portrayed in this exhibition have a
paradoxical ability to make the impossible believable. The dragon
is bodiless yet has scaly hands creeping upwards. I wouldn’t
have expected life and vivacity; yet they are strangely
articulated on silk with paint and thread that blends the real
and fantastic.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

Worcester’s Jan Hobbs scored a hat-trick in the final of
the Lacrosse Cuppers to sew up victory against a Hertford side
which had shown massive promise in the preceding matches. Worcester had begun well and headed in to a 4-0 lead before
two goals in the final seconds gave the scoreline some
respectability from the point of view of the runnersup. The early stages of the event, taking place on Saturday in the
University Parks, had adopted a fairly baffling structure, but it
became clear that Worcester, with victories over Trinity and
Osler Green, were one of the major contenders. They then came up
against an LMH side which had beaten the same opposition by
scorelines of 4-0 and 2-1 respectively, and, having taken a 2-0
halftime lead, eased off to win 3-1 to book their place in the
semi-finals. Meeting them there were St Catz, who had been
fortunate to play just one group game, against Queen’s, and
win it 3-1. Catz fought back from a firstminute goal, but by half-time the
play was surrounding their goal and a disallowed strike, as well
as two well-worked moves which created openings and went close to
extending the lead, showed that Worcester were underwhelmed by
the 1-0 half-time scoreline. An early goal in the second half was, therefore, justly
deserved and by the end it was 3-0. However, Catz will have rued
the fact that they missed two open goals in the second half, and
ended the game with a minute of intense pressure. Hertford’s route to the semifinals culminated with a 6-0
thrashing of Magdalen, who had also lost 1-0 to New College. They
looked awesome, though perhaps partly due to the poverty of the
opposition. Their third goal, scored just before half-time, was a
particular highlight as the ball was switched across the field
and in to the middle at devastating pace. Queen’s had also found a way through to the semi-finals
despite the loss to Catz and the tie proved to be a hugely
physical affair, with one incident seeing a player from either
side sent off. Queen’s began strongly but Hertford grabbed a
goal before the break to lead 1-0. However, from the kick-off Queen’s surged impressively
down the left and a cross was turned in to the net for an
equaliser which momentarily stunned the Hertford side. Yet after
a Queen’s foul led to the sendings off, Hertford scored from
the restart. The game remained heated, with the sent-off players voicing
their unhappiness on the sidelines and adding to a stream of
expletives. Two good chances for a Hertford third went wide
before the final whistle confirmed their place in the final. The pitches were switched for the final, which Worcester began
with a purpose. Hertford, though dogged in defence early on, were
reduced to long passes which were not particualrly effective and,
as the pressure built, the ball was played in to the inside right
channel where Becky Waller, presented with a chance at goal, made
no mistake. Hertford came back, but a chance similar to that seen at the
other end was spurned before Hobbs was found close to the goal.
Having wrong-footed a defender challenging him, he found the net
from a static position. Of the seven minutes in the second half, the first six were
completely dominated by Worcester, and an early goal from Hobbs
which seemed to kill Hertford’s spirit was followed by a
clinical finish with two minutes to go – though the distance
of the shot was disputed. However, Worcester’s all-round play had peaked for the
final. Hobbs was cheered with every touch and a couple of
consolation goals did nothing to dampen his side’s joy at
the final whistle.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004 

The Ladies Blues Squash team finished off their season in
style on Thursday night in the Finals of the Oxfordshire County
Championships. After impressive displays from Hannah Tye and Rhian Hopkins,
who both secured convincing straight games victories at no. 2 and
no. 3, and unlucky losses from Lucinda Orr and Camilla Day –
who both showed that they were more than the equal of their
opponents in terms of talent by winning game 9-0 – the match
was poised on a knife edge. It was perhaps fitting in this siuation that Kerri Shields, in
her last outing for the University, before she tries her hand as
a professional squash player this summer, was due to play the
final, and deciding rubber of the match for the championship. Shields’s impressive stroke play and volleys made it look
easy, and the result was never in doubt from very early on. The
Dark Blue star shut out her opponent in such an effective manner
that she allowed her only two points in the entire match. To end the season being crowned as County Champions will be
some consolation to the Dark Blues after some heartbreaking
losses. The failure in the semi-final of the BUSA Championships
at Easter – to the eventual champions, the University of
Wales, Cardiff – compounded the narrow defeat at the hands
of the Tabs in this year’s Varsity Match in February. Oxford
will believe that having lost to their Light Blue rivals by the
agonising margin of three games to two for each of the last five
years, they are more than due a victory. However, despite the two defeats, albeit in notably
prestigious games, should not take the shine off an impressive
season in which 25 wins were obtained from a daunting fixture
list of no fewer than 34 matches. The loss of fourth year stalwarts and Captains Shields and Orr
should be counteracted by the strong players remaining and the
anticipated strengthening of the squad via the arrival of Brown
University’s Squash Captain, Avery Broadbent, next year. If
Shields makes it in the professional game she will be following
in the footsteps of Ben Garner, who left Oxford two years ago and
is still climbing up the world rankings. He currently stands at
number 45 in the world. The last piece of business for the Women’s Squash Club
this year is the Cuppers Finals on 10 May in which Teddy Hall
will try to stop Keble making it a hat-trick of victories in the
last three years.ARCHIVE: 1st week TT 2004