BY ORLA MACKLE

Bunny and the Bull is now showing at the QFT

www.queensfilmtheatre.com

Simon is more than a little weird; he’s a whole big bag of crazy! He is no stranger to Belfast shores , having lived here for the past three months working on ‘Your Highness’ and enjoying “the odd pint in McHughs and some Seafood in Tedfords”. This is not the first time Simon has given his all in the name of laughter with Paul King, having worked with him on many occasions and most notably in the Boosh series. Many critics have looked at King’s ability to re-define the road movie genre, something that Farnaby strongly denies.

“I think if you ultimately want to redefine anything you’re going to fall flat, Paul wanted to do something different and I knew given the budget,  Paul spent a measly £750,000 on the production, we weren’t going to be doing anything scenic!”
The sets used in the film are extraordinary, one such setting sees the viewer gorge their eyes on a cinematic delight, a fairground made out of clocks and Farnaby is quick to point out that the inspiration for these marvels is from his theatrical background and love of the imagination.

“I always loved watching shows and how the stage was used, how an ironing board can all of a sudden become a space rocket, it just fascinates me really.”
King has been known to have said that Bunny, Farnaby’s character, is a portrayal of some of his own characteristics. Given that Bunny is a sex-obsessed, boisterous compulsive gambler of a booze head, it is hardly surprisingly that this is something he vehemently denies.

“God I wouldn’t like to think so, maybe the worst parts of my character combined, I mean I like a drink and like to head down to the bookies afterwards but I’d like to think I’m not quite as selfish as Bunny.”

Surely being around comic greats such as Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding, it would be hard not to get a fit of the giggles from time to time in this bizarre world of dog-milking and bull-fighting.

“I’m quite good friends with Julian anyway and those guys are a lot of fun to work with. Yes we messed about a lot and crept away from the script, but it’s amazing what happens when you do that, a lot of the stuff we filmed that wasn’t scripted ended up being thrown in anyway.”

So, go. Throw yourself into the world of weird.

For a review of the film see today’s edition of The Gown.

BY ORLA MACKLE

Coming out at university is an age-old ritual. I can’t recount to you the amount of times since I’ve been at Queen’s that a boy, who had subsequently been playing kiss chase with the girls in primary school, has since started “batting for the other team” as soon as Fresher’s week begins and has a band new spanking “Mister” in tow. Given that statistics prove that a person is likely to know they are homosexual by the average age of 10, this is hardly surprising.

University is a time when you can branch out on your own, and it could be argued that many don’t feel like they really know themselves, or can explore their sexuality fully until they get away from the homophobic tendencies of their small country schools or home towns, where they believe their sexuality would not be accepted. In a recent national survey, 28% of gay and lesbian secondary school students were seen to have dropped out of school because of harassment resulting from their sexual orientation, thus it is no surprise that many choose to wait until University to voice their sexual preferences.

But given the bleak turn-out at this year’s Fresher’s recruiting for LGBT,  is Belfast really as homo-friendly as we expect it to be in the modern cosmopolitan era? One such student of the gay community at Queen’s remarked, “I would be terrified to hold hands around Belfast with a partner, especially at night , you’d probably be beaten up by some macho football head. And kissing during the day in the park for example is out of bounds, it wouldn’t be worth the hassle.”

Hasn’t our society moved on from this sort of behaviour? We would like to think we have, but it appears not to be the case.

This type of mentality that leans towards homophobia is enshrined in the deeply offensive words of Northern Ireland MP Irish Robinson  professed a couple of months ago, when she declined an invite by Belfast’s LGBT group to be a guest at a drama about anti-gay discrimination,

“I have a very lovely psychiatrist who works with me in my offices and his Christian background is that he tries to help homosexuals – trying to turn away from what they are engaged in. I’m happy to put any homosexual in touch with this gentleman and I have met people who have turned around and become heterosexuals.”

When the people running our government are declaring these views and are able to get away with such outrageously distasteful comments, it is not surprising that so many people, particularly older generations, have adopted these as social norms, preventing many people in the gay community in Northern Ireland to be able to live free happy lives.

Statistics show that homophobia in Northern Ireland has doubled three fold in the last two years, stating that 23% of the population would have a problem with a gay, lesbian or bisexual person. Also worryingly, the Equality Commission has reported an increase in the number of homophobic attacks in the greater Belfast area, and sadly 64% of these go unreported.

Perhaps those on our campus with this discriminatory outlook would do best to think of the repercussions if the situation was reversed, if they were forced to hide their true identities and genuine loving relationships from the world and never able to truthfully express themselves.

It’s time for forward-thinking.

This film is a must-see if you are a slave to your Facebook updates  or you spend too much time blogging about the fact that you have just changed your socks and found a cat under your bed. This cautionary tale will make even the die-hard “social networkist” squirm grudgingly in their seats.

BY ORLA MACKLE

‘We live in Public’ is the first of many documentaries scoping the explosion of the 20th Century Dot Com Industry; the birth of the internet .Arguably the most influential and important invention of our time. The director Timoner opens this piece with a fact-bursting introduction to the 90s boom and the creation of the “Dot-Com Kids” club, this century’s millionaire entrepreneurs. Among these computer boffins is the creative cyber genius, Josh Harris, who we are told at the beginning of the documentary is, “The greatest internet pioneer you’ve never heard of”. This piece centres on this profound individual and how he came to be the first to predict the invasion of the internet into our private lives that has now been realised through an array of social networking sites erupting onto the scene in the last few years.

The documentary takes us through life with Harris and an array of social experiments he conducts on the intertwining of humans and the virtual world. The first of which is his big brother style rat cage trial, “Quiet”, in which he places more than one hundred artists in a series of “bed pods” and places them under 24 hour surveillance. We watch them defecate, screw each other, and shower together in their won little world. Timoner, being one of the “in mates” in the social experiment swelling with Orwellian overtones, is privy to this “virtual world” and what she uncovers is nothing we wouldn’t expect to happen. Chaos, madness, even ending in attacks and rages of jealousy, this exploration of what Harris deems to be the future of man-kind in an information age, is then shut down on New Year’s Day after conspiracies that he was raising a cult of followers.

Harris loses millions on the experiment but he is not about to quiet his revolutionary ideas, which some would use to describe him as “The Warhol of the Web”. Next we watch him create his own internet utopia in his flat with his then “pseudo” girlfriend and I believe this to be the most compelling and yet disturbing part of the film. As time passes, we watch the demise of the couple.They go from enjoying feeding their exhibitionist natures, to becoming more alone and more secluded and highly critical of themselves and each other. This comes to a head in a scene which had me shifting apprehensively in my seat and watching nervously as the sex-starved Harris attacks his girlfriend accumulating in her walking out of the flat, the experiment, and his life.What follows is too sad for even words to explain. We watch fearfully and yet with hungry voyeurism as Harris descends in madness in an uncomfortable scene in which he stands in front of a mirror repeating his words over and over, in manner of Jack Torrance. He leaves the flat stating he is becoming mentally unwell.

My only criticism of this piece would be its lack of narrative structure, and it is unclear what exactly the message is that Timoner is trying to tell us. She skips from one venture to another, one clip to another, losing me as an audience member several times. But then again, perhaps this chaotic narrative is testament to the subject at the heart of this film, the brilliant yet narcotic mind of Harris.

Overall I thought this film was a delight to watch, informative and funny, yet at some points demoralisingly chilling. It is a fascinating snap-shot of the times we live in and indeed makes us fearful for what future lies ahead for our race with the internet growing and expanding day by day. Not only is it a disquieting portrait of what the digital age has done to our individual perceptions of ourselves, but also the fascinating study of a man who tried in vain to “live in public”.

We live in Public is showing at the QFT.

www.queensfilmtheatre.com

Indeed, the university rowing is built on the premise of dreams. No other sport at Queen’s allows you to show up at try-outs with no previous experience and become a potential part of an Olympic racing team! The Queen’s team training is intensive. During the cold winter months a Queen’s rower is expected to rise six out of seven mornings to perform cardio-vascular activities; alternatively, if they are not to be found pumping away in the PEC, they are pushing their bodies to unknown boundaries on the water. Other students sometimes find it a personal achievement to rise before eleven and make it to class on time.

BY ORLA MACKLE

“Rowing isn’t just a sport it’s a lifestyle,” Queen’s PhD Psychology student and senior coax for the girls team claims. Aisling has been training with the Queen’s team for two years now and relays how the sport requires a high degree of determination and commitment.

But why does Aisling endure the early morning slogs and let’s be honest, ban on the lazy hung-over student way of life? “Well for a start it looks good on your CV, it shows off your time management skills and team building and it’s a great way for Freshers to build up a strong network of friends…It teaches you the essence of the word “team” because there are no individual medals in Rowing.”

Aisling also points out the opportunities that are available to travel with team as the Queen’s team is constantly competing in Ireland, England and Greater Europe. The notoriously spirited Queens v Trinity Race of which Queen’s currently holds the title is infamous. Just this past summer, the men’s senior crew, due to their excellent performance in the British University Championships were asked by the coach of Great Britain to represent the nation at the European University Championships in Poland.

This success of course spills over into the impressive women’s crew who were crowned second in the women’s Irish intermediate championships and also came second in the British championships.  Ex-Cambridge coach Mark Fangan-Hall’s moto “Train hard to race easy” has obviously infiltrated its way through the rowing ranks. At the time of publishing the men’s crew are also in the middle of trials for the upcoming squad to represent Ireland in the London Olympics.

It would appear that all the early morning starts are not in vain and the Queen’s team continue to sort out the weak form the chafe and sift out the most dedicated and inspiring student athletes QUB has to offer.