Tom Ford’s ‘A Single Man’ is a visually beautiful film whose shots linger over its subject matter with a studious intensity, reminding us that Ford is a designer and aesthete first, and a filmmaker second. It tells the tale of ‘light in his loafers’ lecturer George Falconer (Colin Firth) as he negotiates an L.A. day, typical but for the fact that George has decided this will be his very last day alive.
BY RIONNAGH SHERIDAN
www.queensfilmtheatre.com
Tokyo Story is a film which enjoys perhaps the highest critical acclaim of any film. As I sat down to watch it, I imagined it would be so inherently likable that I would have to agree with all the critics. I was wrong.
BY CATHAL McGUIGAN
“If good men do nothing, evil will prevail”. As the tag line suggests, this is a documentary which follows the struggle of a righteous few against the actions of the oppressive state in which they live.
BY COLIN WILLIAMSON
The recent revelations concerning the two meetings between the DUP and UUP, hosted by the Grand Master of the Orange Order Robert Saulters, attended by a representative of the British Conservative Party, and centred on the possibility of a unionist electoral pact, have raised several significant issues. Despite their apparent failure, and the subsequent downplaying of their importance by both the UUP and the Conservatives, the talks reiterate the fragility of the Stormont Executive and the persistence of tribalism in the “new” northern society. What comes out of the DUP and UUP getting together with the Orange Order and deciding how to thwart Sinn Fein is the familiar sign that politics and religion remain intertwined in unionism’s highest levels, a mutually beneficial relationship that also resulted in the prominence of the parade issue in recent discussions on the devolution of policing and justice.
BY PADRAIC GRANT
The past few weeks have seen intense media interest in the Iraq Inquiry which began in July with private hearings, but has only recently began to publicly feature high-profile members of the Establishment, the most prominent being Tony Blair but also members of the then-British cabinet including Alastair Campbell, Jack Straw and Clare Short, with Gordon Brown to be interviewed sometime in the future. The Inquiry’s remit includes analysing the reasons the war on Iraq was undertaken in the first place, if preparations for the war were satisfactory, if British soldiers were properly equipped, and whether the British government had a workable plan for the aftermath of the invasion.
BY PADRAIC GRANT
A number of students contacted the police after witnessing a crowd of young men jumping up and down on a car bonnet outside their apartment in College Park Avenue, around 3am on Sunday morning. One of the students recalled how the men kicked the windscreen through and ran down the street laughing.
BY KERRI-ANNE CAMPBELL
Arguably more a mini-laptop come television than your typical mobile telephone, the HTC Hero sits in your palm like a new born baby waiting to be cuddled and caressed. It’s sleek hardware, seductively colourful display and generous screen size makes the HTC Hero a 3G phone that can legitimately rival the domination of the i-phone.
BY JASON CONLON