Reviews, Opinions and Analysis
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Here, members have the chance to review their favourite films, video games, concerts, books, phones, or whatever. Feel free to contribute.

The Fellowship of the Ring
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By Pablo He

When J.R.R. Tolkien cast his enchanting spell decades ago over his epic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, he certainly never envisioned millions of movie-goers spellbound in darkness. Yet that's the enchantment director Peter Jackson and his superb cast and crew have created in The Fellowship of the Ring, the first movie instalment of Tolkien's immensely popular masterwork.

First of all, when I heard that they were going to make a movie out of this, I must admit that I was slightly sceptical. Since when had a movie adaptation been superior to the book it was based on? Very rarely, to be honest. I kept wondering and wondering if Peter Jackson would be able to pull it off, whether he could bring Tolkien's vision to life or not. However, when I finally saw the film, I was amazed, utterly stunned. My expectations had been surpassed by a mile.

This is one of those movies that gets better and better as it progresses. It's everything you might want it to be - and more. Its nearly flawless. The director and his crew have put all their love and passion into this magnificent piece of work. The Fellowship of the Ring has the magnitude, the excitement and the grandeur of such unforgettable films as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Braveheart - this film has it all.
Here's a brief overview of what the film is about. After a brilliantly done opening sequence which manages to tell the story of The One Ring, the film then continues in Bilbo's bucolic home, the Shire. During his 111th birthday party, attended by his wizard friend, Gandalf the Grey (Sir Ian Mckellen), Bilbo bequeaths the Ring to his young cousin, Frodo (Elijah Wood). Gandalf determines that this is the One Ring, forged by the evil lord, Sauron, thousands of years ago. The only way to destroy the Ring and its malevolent power is to take it to the obscure land of Mordor and cast it into the flames of Mount Doom where it was made. To help him on his perilous quest, a fellowship is formed, consisting of Frodo and Gandalf; Frodo's loyal Hobbit friend and servant, Sam (Sean Astin) and the mischievous Hobbit pair, Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd); the mysterious and brooding ranger known as Strider (Viggo Mortensen); the strong-armed warrior, Boromir (Sean Bean); the elfin archer, Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and the brute dwarf, Gimli (John Rhys-Davies).

Opposing them are fierce Orcs, cave trolls, Ringwraiths (also known as the Nâzgul) the monstrous mutant army named Uruk-Hai and the barely glimpsed Gollum, a slimy creature who was once the possessor of The One Ring. Also in the mix is Saruman the White, a powerful and diabolically insane wizard who wants to unite with The Dark Lord.

To tell you the truth, few people could have made this movie like Peter Jackson. His exuberance is clearly present in every frame and his brilliance is never-ending. From the very beginning, we quickly realise that what he has created is a pure masterpiece. Without a doubt, the film has been wrought with pure passion and love for the material it was based on. Not only does the film manage to do justice to the book (eventhough it skips some parts and adds others) but what it does exceeds all expectations. What has been accomplished is almost like a miracle; the film is ambitious, powerful and incredibly enthralling.

Despite its length, The Fellowship of the Ring never bores; once it's trapped you it's impossible to ever let go, and that alone can be considered as a remarkable achievement, because seldom have long films been able to do that. It's stunning, engaging and thoroughly marvellous; it left me speechless.

The performances are very solid all round. Ian McKellen, in an Academy Award nominated role, fits the role of the benevolent wizard perfectly, as do the rest of the cast. It was a surprising pleasure to find out that the acting was excellent in a fantasy movie, because surely this one was an exception. It isn't often that we get a film like this.

Secondly, the special effects are visually impressive and they somehow manage to create the Middle-Earth we all had pictured in our minds. Be it a gigantic troll chasing our heroes in the Mines of Moria or the haunting landscapes of Lothlorien, the visual magnificence of the film is uncommonly spellbinding. And that's a fact, is it not?

Andrew Lesnie's Oscar-winning cinematography for the film is merely majestic. Managing to capture scenes of beautiful New Zealand landscapes, apart from using subjective camera movements and extreme close-ups of the actors, his work on the film has been a noteworthy one. And as for Howard Shore's score, what can I say? It's rich, bewitching and powerful. Simply amazing.

At the end of the day, The Fellowship of the Ring manages to prove many things, out of which two are very important: 1.Miracles do happen and 2.Peter Jackson is a genius.

There is a permanent sense of wonder in the film that never ceases to overpower us, and that’s what makes it so exciting and endlessly watchable. Be it an action scene or a quiet conversation, we are always left in sheer awe and marvel. The Fellowship of the Ring is a majestic, grandly conceived and extraordinary epic in the truest adventure sense. It's a sweeping masterpiece that despite being a fantasy film is also able to portray the characters’ emotions brilliantly, which again, is saying something. Definitely one of the last 40 years’ most triumphant cinematic achievements.

All I can say is this: rejoice. Why? Because of the simple fact that The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is the Gone with the Wind of the 21st century.

Allusion in Concert in Kelston
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By Ronan M

Just for a laugh, we played at Kelston. My brother was able to join us and sing the vocals, as we covered She don't use Jelly by the Flaming Lips and The Software Slump by Granddaddy (which got a good laugh).
Then Allusion finished the night off properly with Alex's typical chickenesque neck thrusts and movements like a member of Spinal Tap. Joe looked like Ringo Star denied an acid trip, and with me there bent over my incredibly small mike stand.

Here are the lyrics of one of Allusion’s own songs:

Good Luck Song

I wonder this evening
Will it ever get easy?
That you jump to this beat
And forget all of your problems
So therefore you will know
I made this song for youuu
...I stumble on
For you I can’t go wrong
So maybe it doesn't even matter
And maybe I wonder...
 

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
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By Oliver F

The film is a good one. For anyone viewing as an outsider to the ‘Harry Potter Cult’ it is a film of amazing substance and one to which 5 stars should be immediately awarded. This is not, in fact, the case. For a true fan of the books, though still a good film, compared to the book it is very second best.

The cinematographic adaptation of this hugely recognised book by J K Rowling is rushed and speeds through some of the major scenes. For example, the scene in which Harry has to get past a Dragon and collect the golden egg is far longer than the climax scene in which Lord Voldermort returns!! In addition, things such as Hagrid’s blast-ended Skrewts and the entire Quidditch world cup match are missed out.

Apart from this, however, the film is a must-see masterpiece and is one which I readily award the good amount of 3 stars.

Storyline

Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts is marked by the Triwizard Tournament, in which student representatives from three different wizarding schools compete in a series of increasingly challenging contests. The competitors are selected by the goblet of fire, which this year makes a very surprising anouncement: Hogwarts will have two representatives in the tournament, including Harry Potter! As if things weren't bad enough, marks of the evil wizard Voldemort begin appearing, signaling that he is finally ready to come back to the land of the living.

Cast

Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Robbie Coltrane, Gary Oldman, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Brendan Gleeson, Rupert Grint, Robert Hardy

Discovering Modal Jazz
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By Cliff C

Jon insisted – I would definitely like jazz! I resisted. It was a certainty in my mind, just as much as the opposite was a certainty in Jon’s mind. My father was and is a great fan of traditional swing jazz, but I felt completely unable to appreciate music that I considered uninteresting and predictable.

Remaining serenely confident, Jon gave me Times Squared and Best of the Yellow Jackets. The songs ‘Free Day’ and ‘57 Chevy’ were nice, but all the others confirmed my trenchant stance. ‘Hunter’s Point’ was excruciating! I listened, and re-listened. I tried, re-tried, and tired.

One Sunday Jon was returning from giving a music lesson, clutching a bunch of CDs. Looking at one, he said ‘You won’t like this.’ I asked him to leave it anyway and I eventually put it on. The first track changed my life! Well, my jazz perceptions. The first bar knocked me out, literally! Coming round, I realised I was listening to the biggest selling jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue by the trumpeter Miles Davis, and the song just voted by Jazz FM listeners as the greatest of all, ‘So What’. In 1959 Miles Davis painstakingly put together handpicked musicians to record experimentally, wanting to get away for the intricate chord sequences that had become the norm in jazz. He supplied the melody and no more than a couple of chords. Each musician was to make his own way around those chords by freely going up and down the scale of the chords with skilled improvisation (okay, I know nothing about music theory!). I had discovered the world of modal jazz.

The floodgates opened. Jon supplied me with the names of players to look for as I raided the local library and also Jon’s collection – Giant Steps by the tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, Silence by Keith Jarrett, From the Heart by Gary Husband, Timeless Tales by Joshua Redman, Bill Evan’s Blue in Green, Kind of Blue and Milestones by Miles Davis, John McLaughlin’s Extrapolation, and Wayne Shorter’s Footprints. And these for a starter!

Previously, I would enthuse over progressive rock (Radiohead, King Crimson, Muse, The Mars Volta, Pink Floyd) or progressive trance (Future Sound of London, Juno Reactor, The Orb) or hard trance DJs (Armin Van Buuren, Sasha & Digweed, Paul Van Dyk). With a little investigation, imagine my surprise when I found that modal jazz is also called progressive jazz! I have now concluded that the appeal to me in all three, intellectually, is offbeat harmony. This is the same for my taste in design, architecture, and art.

Modal Jazz

Take a listen to ‘So What’ and ‘All Blues’ from Kind of Blue and ‘Cousin Mary’ and Naima’ from Giant Steps. Typically in jazz, a soloist would play a solo that would fit into a set of chords. With modal jazz, he would create a melody in one scale and then make the melody itself the source of interest. Basically, you are improvising around one note (staying in one mode, and thus on the one chord). Modes, I read, are solitary scales in one key at a time. They are scales containing a predetermined selection of notes. In modal music these take the place of the major and minor scales.

Since fewer chords are used, the soloist can be more adventurous since he is not being pushed on by rapid chord changes and can thus concentrate on the melody. If you like, good modal solos pile on layers of chords over the base chord. Next one needs to have a different way of thinking about harmony. Certain harmonies are implied within these modes with any chord patterns simplified right down. The offbeat harmony comes when moving from notes within a mode that are dissonant with the prime chord of that mode.

It is the fact that you can do so much musically within such modal music that is truly astounding for me. Freeze all obvious harmonies, crank up the melody, and look for your harmony elsewhere. It is intellectually stimulating because I don’t know where the musician is going to wandering off to and there is no rush for him to go off anywhere else. He is free to explore and innovate. He can be progressive.

Twelve Angry Men
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By Pablo He

WARNING: This review contains major spoilers which reveal pivotal information about the film. Read no further if you have not seen it.

12 Angry Men is one of the finest suspense films I have ever seen. Tightly wound, unpredictable and densely atmospheric, Sidney Lumet's debut is a milestone in minimalist filmmaking. A flop in its initial release (despite its almost non-existent budget - $343,000), it was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

A 12-man jury is sent to begin deliberations in the first-degree murder trial of an 18-year-old slum kid who is accused of stabbing his father to death. What at first sight appears to be an open and shut case, because of the defendant's weak alibi - a knife he claimed to have lost is found at the murder scene; a nearby woman says she saw him do it and an old man heard screaming and saw him flee the building - instead turns into something much more intricate. Eleven of the jurors instantly vote guilty; however, Juror #8 says that there is still a lot of room for deliberation - the accused might indeed be innocent. He then must convince the jurors that beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant is guilty.

With the exception of some of the earlier scenes and the ending, the whole film is set in a claustrophobic New York jury room during the hottest day of the year.The location, partly due to the fact that it was based on a play (and indeed, there are many stagey elements to be found in the film) solely serves to excellently augment the intensity and suspense that is crafted by the director. One would have thought that the scenographic limitations could, one way or another, harm the film, or make it tedious. Needless to say, those assumptions would be totally wrong, because 12 Angry Men is a film that turns its restraints into its most superlative assets. During its entire running time, there was not a moment where I was not compelled by what was going on, where the constant debates between the men did not interest me; rather, the film gets you hooked from the very beginning - but it is as the opinions on the culpability of the kid are altered that the grip gets tighter and tighter. It strikes me as amazing (and odd) that the film remains thoroughly captivating, even though all but three minutes of it was filmed in the same room. 12 Angry Men is what cinema is all about - acting. It is the all-male, twelve men cast who, with their fleshed-out characters, different psychologies and varying ideas, keep the film afloat. The film, no doubt, is an ensemble piece at its core - and an astonishing one, at that - whose actors, surprisingly, were mostly not incredibly experienced prior to the making of the film, though the painstaking rehearsals did last a fatiguing two weeks. At the end of the film, one really feels as though we got to fully know each and every one of the men who occupied the room; their feelings, opinions, sensations, philosophies on life and what not. All are magnificently illustrated here, and the script by Reginald Rose uses them all to point out and analyse human weaknesses. We get to know where they work, their background stories, where they're from and their personal prejudices. They are all nameless (except for the two who introduce themselves in the film's final scene), yet that does not keep them from being exceedingly well drawn.

Juror #8, superbly played by Henry Fonda, is the only person who stands firm and does not change his opinion. He's a liberal, an individual who thinks that, despite all the given evidence, the death of the kid can still be avoided. As he persuades the weary jurors to re-think it, the psyche of each one slowly flourishes until it fully emerges and becomes visible for the viewer. Juror #1 (Martin Balsam, who played detective Arbogast in Psycho) is a high school sports coach who'd rather keep things in order than stir up a conflict; not even once in the film does he make a useful point, however. Juror #2 (John Fiedler) is the bank clerk with the bizarrely squeaky, almost Porky Pig voice; at the beginning, he's a little doubtful about the entire thing, but eventually decides to speak out after remembering some pivotal evidence that was nagging him, thus making some very good points. Juror #3 (a towering Lee J. Cobb), a hounding big man, thinks that the kid should be put to the chair. According to him, every single thing that came out in that courtroom says he's guilty. He's also the one who, like Juror #8, stands true to his opinion until the very end, if only for more than personal reasons. He's the angry man, and refuses to believe that there is any chance of the kid being innocent. Juror #4 is played by E.G. Marshall, a just man and a good observer, who clearly follows the evidence but in the end realises that it's completely the opposite; Juror #5 (Jack Klugman) a mumbling and sensitive man who was also born in a slum background, thinks the kid should not be getting the prejudices he's obtaining, because he knows what it is to live in such poverty. Juror #6 (Edward Bins) is a man willing to listen to everyone's opinions, with an ability to recognise his own strengths and weaknesses and to defend the insulted, such as Juror #9 (Joseph Sweeney), the older man out of the bunch, who possesses a strange skill to reflect upon the facial aspects and temperament of some of the witnesses; he makes his comments with clarity and unrivalled attention to detail and often gets shouted at by Juror #7 (Jack Warden), probably the most reluctant of the men; he wants to get out because he has tickets to a baseball game and every once in a while throws wisecracks at the people he thinks inferior to himself. Juror #10 (Ed Begley) always makes his remarks in a more than menacing manner - he's a bigoted man who doesn't care about the viewpoints of others. Juror #11 (George Voskovec) is a polite European watchmaker who migrated to the United States, with a fine way of speaking and a fair treatment of the people there; he thinks the Western system is a sham. Finally, there is Juror #12 (Robert Webber), an advertising executive. Familiar with meetings of this sort, he cannot contain his pride and tells the people next to him just how wonderful his job is.

One of the main messages of 12 Angry Men is that the judicial system (at least the one that in use then) is flawed. It criticises it with subtlety, while at the same time cleverly exploring the dialogue and motives. In such a small room, so many things can occur, so many things can be said - and the life of someone depends on them. Pride, jealousy, fury, frustration and prejudice all emerge in this film, and it seems as though it's inevitable. However, the film underlines all this by saying that sometimes over-simplification of methods is a bad thing; just because there is some apparent evidence doesn't mean he or she is really guilty. Through a careful investigation of the facts, the impression of the guilt of a person can easily be reversed, thus making us think that, in fact, he is not culpable. The very tagline of the poster sums up how judicial workings can often be catastrophic: Life is in their hands - Death is on their minds!

If there ever was such a technically flawless film, then this is it. Boris Kaufman's dazzling cinematography, with its prolonged takes and constant close-ups, makes a particularly astute way of using black and white to strengthen the growth of the plot. You will notice that, at the beginning of the film, eleven out of the twelve men are wearing dark costumes (mainly suits), save for Juror #8, who wears a light summer suit, which is most likely much more appropriate for the time the film is set in. As the film progresses and Juror #8 convinces the rest of the jury, it is clearly visible that each of them takes off their dark jackets to reveal light shirts underneath. The concept of using tone to hint at light (as in good, open-minded/narrow-minded) and darkness (as in evil) is further on backed up when the majority vote leaps from guilty to not guilty. At this precise moment, a thunderstorm begins outside and it becomes much darker, forcing them to turn on the lights inside. So at this point the jury room and those inside it have become lighter than the ones outside. The idea continues at the end of the film, as it culminates with all of them wearing light colours, and as they leave the courtroom they can be seen carrying their jackets instead of wearing them, as though they've left their prejudices behind. This is an extraordinary piece of symbolism that is put to great effect in the film and helps to fortify it even more.

The tension that is weaved in the film is incredible. Because we don't know whether or not the kid is truly guilty; because we, like the 12 men, are not aware of whether what's being said is the truth or not, the more unexpected it gets. The film does not spend time in showing us the trial beforehand - rather, it opts for showing us what we have to see: the 12 men battling it out, and at the end it is us who have to decide if they have been just, regardless of whether the kid is guilty or innocent. As the course of the film went on, it is said that Sidney Lumet gradually changed to lenses of longer focal lengths, so that the backgrounds seemed to close in on the characters, creating a greater feeling of claustrophobia and, besides, the close-ups became even more continuous. This was said by Lumet in Making Movies where he discussed the visual strategy of 12 Angry Men. ‘In addition,’ he writes, ‘I shot the first third of the movie above eye level, shot the second third at eye level and the last third from below eye level. In that way, toward the end the ceiling began to appear. Not only were the walls closing in, the ceiling was as well. The sense of increasing claustrophobia did a lot to raise the tension of the last part of the movie.’ For the last shot of the picture, he says he used a wide-angle lens ‘to let us finally breathe.’

The men's sweat can almost be smelled, their confusion can even be touched; all the situations in the film remain plausible yet ever fascinating, and at the end everything is masterfully tied up. 12 Angry Men is a film so unique and special; it provokes, it criticises and it explores. Almost forty years later, its power to enthrall is intact and the questions it raises are still as timeless. Visually unmatched, it is an engrossing and profoundly engaging film that rightly deserves its place amongst the best of all time.