Ipswich Community TV

Amy reports on what could just be the most exciting (and geeky) moment of her life…

When booking my trip to Cardiff this summer a friend gave me the most exciting piece of information I could have wished for, the brand new Doctor Who Experience was due to open just days before my trip to the city that is the new home of the legendary series, I couldn’t believe how lucky I was considering only weeks before I was saving the world from the Weeping Angels during ‘The Crash of the Elysium’ show, I was automatically beyond excited and booked my ticket right away!

I have seen pretty much every episode of Doctor Who, from the very first releases in 1963 to the modern day continuation which started in 2005, my Dad being such an avid Doctor Who fan I saw my first episode at just 4 years old, so for me the stories of the Doctor travelling through time and space are practically written into my DNA, so knowing I was going to get the chance to see original costumes and props filled me with such anticipation and expectation, and thankfully it did not disappoint.

Cyberman

Walking to the experience you are welcomed with the Tardis parked, rather wonkily parked overlooking the bay, as you enter the building you are greeted by Bessie, the yellow roadster acquired by the Brigadier for the 3rd Doctor during his exile to earth, which proved to be instrumental in several major episodes and was used by the 4th, 5th and 7th reincarnations of the Doctor. You are then shown into a room with a screen that has a rather familiar shaped crack through it, as the video starts Matt Smith as the Doctor fills the screen, he has been trapped in the Pandorica 2  (which is exactly the same colour, the Daleks are not known for their creativity) and needs your help to escape.  The crack opens and as you step through you find yourself aboard the Starship UK museum with an information Node, originally seen in ‘Silence in the Library’ showing you around the treasures held from historical episodes of the show, including Rosanna Calvierri’s throne and Picasso’s painting of the exploding Tardis. The Doctor soon interrupts as the Tardis materializes in front of your eyes, and as you step through the legendary blue doors you are faced with the Tardis console used by Christopher Ecclestone and David Tennant, everyone in the room is set up in front of a separate console which allows you to fly the Tardis, the floor starts to move as the renowned Tardis hum starts to sound, you are transported through time and space, but end up having to use the back door to get out, onto what unfortunately turns out to be a Dalek warship.

As you end up on the bridge of the Dalek ship you are met with 3 members of the new Dalek paradigm created in the ‘Victory of the Daleks’ episode in Series 4, as they threaten to exterminate you due to the time energy you have been doused in during your trip in the Tardis, the Doctor once again swoops in to save you by antagonising the Daleks in his usual way, but soon enough the Daleks have more to worry about as another Dalek ship approaches with the aim of wiping them out to eradicate their impurity as there can only be one true Dalek race, this distraction allows you to escape into the next room where, armed with 3D glasses you reach the final stage of your adventure with a spectacular 3D show that sees the Doctors enemies fly at you from the screen, everything from the Cybermen to the Weeping Angels, but as they get pulled through the crack in time the Doctor sonics himself safely into the Tardis and escapes, you have saved him and the world.

Dalek

Time for your reward…

As the exhilaration of the show starts to sink in you walk through into the museum and the butterflies start again, the first thing you see is all 10 Doctors, although its only pictures accompanied by their original costumes (the 5th Doctor’s costume has the celery!) there is also a life size wax figure of Matt Smith as the current Doctor, the affect of all this is instantaneous, as a self confessed Whovian I know the the only thing you can do is smile in astonishment as you walk further in to see the Tardis standing proud next to the original 10th Doctors Tardis console, complete with the mallet used by Donna Noble in ‘The Poison Sky’ episode to take out a Sontaran, there is also the console created in ‘The Doctor’s Wife’ episode,  along  with the costume worn by Idris as she inhabits the Tardis’ matrix and amazingly there’s also 2 of the consoles used in the 70’s for Doctors 4-7. In glass cases you get to see all the Sonic Screwdrivers used throughout all series, from the very first in the 60’s including the sonic cane used by the 11th Doctor in ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’ as well as the Tardis keys given to assistants throughout the show.  This is all just on the first floor, and when you head up the stairs to the second things get even more thrilling.

The first thing you see as you reach the top of the stairs is the control console used by the Silence in ‘Day of the Moon’ including 2 members of the Silence, who are as creepy in real life as they are on the show, luckily I was able to remember them, next to you is ‘The Face of Boe’ which is incredible in size but the excitement is just beginning! There are the original costumes of the Master, Time Lord President (before the Time War) Billie Piper, Sarah Jane Smith, Captain Jack Harkness, Donna Noble, Astrid, Amy Pond, Rory and River Song. There is a huge array of the Doctors enemies gathered in this room, and if they weren’t all made of plastic, plaster and silicone there would be a war of epic proportions, they range from the Ice Warriors from 1974 (which will be returning to Doctor Who in the 7th series) to all the versions of the Sontarans, the Slitheen and the very sinister dolls from ‘Night Terrors’ complete with the doll’s house.  There is a mask of each version of the Cybermen throughout the shows history, from the first appearance in 1966 to the modern day conversion unit used in ‘Closing Time’ in which the Cybermen tried to convert Craig Owens to be their new leader. On top of those used in the live show there are also all versions of the Daleks, from their creation on Skaro in 1963 to all the different versions used throughout their 41 appearances in the show.  On top of these you also have the Robot from 1974 who attacks as the 3rd Doctor makes the transition to the 4th, the terrifying Smilers used on Starship UK, the Hath from the planet Messaline, the Abzorbaloff which was designed by 9 year old William Grantham as part of a Blue Peter competition in 2005, the Judoon, who are the rhino faced out of space police who make it rain on the moon, the shape shifting Zygons for the original 4th series, the deadly anti bodies that roam in the Tesalecta, the Silurians who live below us, the scarecrows who came to life in ‘The Family of Blood’  the King & Queen of the Trees from the 2011 Christmas special, the brave Ood who were vital to the 2nd and 3rd series, including a half mask showing how they’re made, also the most current remake of one of the most famous faces of the show, Davros himself, and finally my personal favourite, K9, the little robot dog who is constantly loyal and totally adorable.

There are also walls of photos of never before seen behind the scenes pictures, original drawings of proposed monsters, sets and tardis consoles. There is a special area where you can learn all about the soundtrack behind the show, you can learn to walk like a monster with a televised instructor and step inside a Dalek to control one of the most powerful weapons in the show.

Props from all series, including the carpet from the Richard Nixons oval office, the drawing of the Empire State building used in ‘Daleks in Manhattan’ the Mona Lisa portrait used in the Doctor Who spin off ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures’ the partially naked painting of Matt Smith we see being painted in ‘The Impossible Astronaut’ the stunning portrait of Katherine Jenkins as Abby in ‘The Christmas Carol’ as well as the painting of Kazran Sardick’s father used above the fireplace the Doctor jumps down in the same episode, there’s a part of the marble circuit board used in the ‘Fires of Pompeii’ and my personal favourite the Doctors cot used in ‘A Good Man goes to War’ complete with the Doctors first stars.

Overall, this was one of the most exhilarating, absorbing and awe-inspiring things I have even been to in my life, I felt like I was a child again, the museum filled me with memories of watching Doctor Who with my dad, and for anyone who loves the show this is one of the most amazing things you will ever experience. I literally could not stop smiling all the way around and honestly never wanted to leave, it is a day that will forever be one of the greatest things I’ve done. And don’t forget just as the Doctor would want, there’s a little shop for you to buy souvenirs, including a life size cut out of Amy Pond, now who wouldn’t want that. If at any time you find yourself in Cardiff, then definitely go and experience this because you will never regret it, it is an adventure and honestly amazing!

Review by Amy Webb aka Pond

The Dark Knight Rises

Becca dons her cape to cover the latest release in what has become the summer of the superhero…

Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy comes to an end (of sorts!) in this epic conclusion.

Eight years have passed since the pivotal escapades of The Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has gone into hiding, nursing a limp and a broken heart, after the untimely death of his beloved, Rachel in the previous film. Gotham isn’t missing Batman, however. The police still believe him to be the bad guy, after taking the blame for kidnapping Commissioner Gordon’s son, and not Two-Face. This in turn made Dent look like the real hero, as he went on to help the police hunt down and imprison all of Gotham’s worst criminals, before he too was killed.

Except he didn’t quite catch all of the criminals. Bane, an intelligent, mutilated terrorist with incredible strength, is threatening to overwhelm Gotham city, and it looks like only the Batman and his ridiculous voice can save it. However, he is not alone. Selena Kyle (Anne Hathaway), an acclaimed cat burglar with all the killer one-liners is on hand to help…but only if there is something in it for her if she does.

Bruce Wayne is a broken man, something which Bale portrays quietly and delicately. There is a particular moment (that I will go into more detail in a minute) between him and his long-suffering butler, Alfred where he truly shows his pain over Rachel. He does not shout, and he does not cry, but in no more than a mumble do you see the full extent of his heart ache.

Meanwhile, Hathaway’s performance blows Michelle Pfeiffer’s (from Tim Burton’s Batman Returns) completely out of the water. That leather outfit has been exchanged for something a little more demure, but nonetheless, still sexy enough to catch male attention. I say she has all the great one-liners, but in conversation with Bruce, it looks like she’s has met her match.

“My mother warned me about getting into cars with strange men,” she murmurs, unknowingly buckling up for a ride in Batman’s new helicopter.

“This isn’t a car,” he smiles.

Hathaway’s character enjoys toying with men, playing with their apparently built-in instinct to be chivalrous, which often leaves them wishing they hadn’t, or completely unaware that she was the one behind the trouble, while she plays the pitiful damsel in distress. To the police, she is a criminal, but to the audience, we see her as one of the good guys (despite stealing Wayne’s mother’s pearl necklace), and you actually find yourself missing her presence when she is not on screen.

The same also applies to Bane, in a strange way. When he speaks, there is an intelligence there which goes against his brute strength and impossible size, compared to the Bane seen in – dare I say it – Batman and Robin (shudder). Unlike the Joker, there is more of a method to his madness than simply provoking the Batman into unmasking himself. Heck, if Bane wanted to do that, he’d just beat him to pulp. And he does, whilst fighting against the greed of the rich people in Gotham, the police…and the American obsession with their football.

Tom Hardy has come along way from playing the supporting actor from Nolan’s enigma of a film, Inception, and despite a huge chunk of metal obscuring most of his face, he proves to be an incredibly competent actor (though it is a little difficult to understand what he is saying sometimes).

Yet it is Michael Cane (The Italian Job), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 Days of Summer, 50/50) that stood out for me overall. Cane has, of course, appeared in all of Nolan’s Batman films so far, and though I have enjoyed seeing him on the screen each time, with Alfred’s rather dead-pan sense of humour, he was overshadowed by Bale. This time, however, the tables have turned. As aforementioned, the moment where Alfred and Bruce talk about Rachel is a terribly sad. In his speech, you really do see the pain Alfred goes through every time the Batman makes an appearance, enough so that he holds back tears; I must admit I got a little teary myself. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Blake, the ‘rookie’ police officer who strikes up an immediate rapport with Bruce Wayne: they are both orphans, and they were both angry about it as kids, but the difference with Blake, is that he is more of an ordinary hero; he doesn’t need to wear a mask or put on a stupid voice to save the day and evacuate the city…

But as much as I enjoyed The Dark Knight Rises, I do have my criticisms. New character Miranda (played with quiet grace by Inception’s Marion Cotillard), pops up out of nowhere, and suddenly – oh, she and Bruce Wayne are in love. It doesn’t seem at all realistic, even if she is pretty.

My only other criticism is that I won’t be able to watch it for the first time again…

4/5

Pulling no punches, Becca Jackaman covers the most recent Seuss outing…

Yet another one of Dr Seuss’ famous stories gets a dash of movie magic, in this vibrantly coloured tale about the town of Thneedville where everything is made of plastic, and people have to by fresh air from a bottle. Straightaway the moral message is smacking you round the chops, with an opening musical number which is instantly forgettable – everything natural no longer exists in Thneedville, and the only trees you find are artificial ones that can change the colour of their leaves at the touch of a remote control.

It is only when a young boy named Ted (Zac Efron, believe it or not) goes to visit his crush, Audrey (Taylor Swift) do things change. Audrey reveals to him that she wishes to see a real tree, after showing him a magnificent painting she has created against the wall of her house, and determined to impress her, Ted goes in search of a mysterious man named the ‘Once-ler’. The Once-ler is the one who cut down the trees in the first place, and as a result of that, he had managed to summon a strange (and very annoying) creature, known as the Lorax, who ‘speaks for the trees’. He had tried to stop the Once-ler from destroying the forests that had strived before Thneedville, but because of his greed and ambition to become a success with his “Thneeds” (an item of clothing made from the leaves of trees), the Once-ler ignored him…until there were no more trees left.

There is a constant battle going on throughout The Lorax. The cute woodland creatures make for a dash of comic relief that is familiar from Despicable Me, but it feels lazy and forced, as it desperately tries to shove the anti-deforestation message down our throats. There is a villain here, in the form of Mr. O’Hare, the billionaire who made his fortune by selling the town their bottles of fresh air. He tries to stop Ted from finding the Once-ler, but again, the film feels split – is he really the bad guy, or is it just the people in the real world, destroying our forests?

So to conclude, Danny DeVito was the perfect choice for playing the Lorax, and though this may look like your average children’s film, it does have a dark side, which doesn’t gel so well, when you’re just trying to watch a bit of harmless fun, but the kids will certainly enjoy it.

Rating: 2/5

Amy Bell looks at the birth of a medium…

Film and cinema was one of the greatest inventions of all time because it provided people with a brand new way of finding enjoyment. One of the first motion pictures to ever be released was The Horse In Motion, which was released in 1878. Eadweard Muybridge, who was a photographer, made this film. He took several photographs of the different movements of horses. He put all the photographs together to make it look as if the horse was actually moving. He set up a row of twelve cameras, each making an exposure in one-thousandth of a second. He later made a lantern to project moving images of horses.

Two of the first forms of capturing images were dioramas and stereoscopes. Dioramas were painted backdrops with three-dimensional figures depicting famous historical events. Stereoscopes were hand-held viewers that created three-dimensional effects by using oblong cards with two photographs printed side by side. The short films that were made with using these devises were shown at newly built theatre houses, known as cinemas. Cinemas were invented during the early 1890s and offered a cheaper, simpler way of providing entertainment to the masses.

During the 1830s two devises for recording moving images were invented, the phenakistoscope and zoetrope. The phenakistoscope is an optical device and the zoetrope is a series of drawings on a narrow strip of paper inside a revolving drum. The magic lantern was also invented, which projected pictures and paintings at 16 frames per second, this way the brain could perceive it as motion.

There is much debate as to who actually invented cinema, but the truth is that there is no one person or company who invented cinema, it just naturally developed. The Lumiere Brothers are the most famous filmmakers of the early cinema era.

In 1888 the inventor of the light bulb, Thomas Edison invented the kinetoscope with the help of W.K.L. Dickson. The kinetoscope creates the illusion of movement by conveying a strip of perforated film bearing sequential images over a light source with a high-speed shutter.

The Lumiere Brothers invented a projection system that helped make the cinema a commercially viable enterprise internationally. They designed an elegant little camera, the cinematographe, which used 35mm film and an intermittent mechanism modeled on that of a sewing machine. The first film made using this system was Workers Leaving the Factory, which was made in March 1895.

Facts and Figures of the Early Film Era

• Georges Melies was the inventor of the horror genre and in 1896 he made his first horror film called Le Manoir Du Diable (The Haunted Castle), which means ‘The Manor of the Devil’. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was considered as one of the greatest horror films of the silent era.

• The Great Train Robbery, which was released in 1903 was the first western ever made. It was one of the most popular and successful early films of all time.

• The first theatre houses to appear were Nickelodeons. These were tiny theatres that could only hold around one hundred people. These movie theatres proved to be popular because they provided a different kind of entertainment.

• Most films in the early cinema era consisted of one shot. The camera was set up in one position and the action unfolded during a continuous take.

• The first ever female filmmaker was Alice Guy. She made her first film La Fee Aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy) in 1896.

• In 1912 the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) was set up. Its purpose was to protect filmmakers from prosecution, protect the public from harm and help people decide if the film is suitable for them to watch.

Bridemaids

It is said, that the woman who is appointed maid of honour at her best friend’s wedding must organise everything, to make the bride really feel special before her special day. Sadly, Annie (Kristen Wiig) has enough life troubles, without the pressure of such a title on her shoulders. She’s recently single, and her cake shop is out-of-business; that’s just a few of her problems. Then, her best friend Lillian announces her engagement, and she is a little perturbed when Lillian’s new friend, Helen (Rose Byrne) seems intent on stealing the role of honour from her.

This sounds like your typical run-of-the-mill romantic-comedy film but, believe me, it isn’t. In a strange way, it is almost a coming-of-age film, because Annie has to finally grow up and face her demons, and along the way, she does make an awful lot of bad decisions (with hilarious consequences). This film will make you smile, and in some cases absolutely roar with laughter. There are also a few English people in this very American film, with Matt Lucas as one of Annie’s (very odd) roommates, and Chris O’Dowd (The Boat That Rocked, The IT Crowd) who plays a policeman who has a thing for Annie’s cakes. And, no, that is definitely not a euphemism…although he kinda likes her too.

However, there are times when the film becomes more like a series of short sketches, which means it loses some of the seriousness that is needed to make the plot plausible, which is a shame. But then, you have to remember that the producer behind it is the same person who produced a comedy about an accidental pregnancy. Thankfully, there is only one gross-out moment in Bridesmaids and yes, it is quite cringe-worthy, but it’s funny at the same time.

I applaud the actors and actresses for keeping a straight face, even with the most ridiculous dialogue. I don’t mean ridiculous in a bad way, but there is a particular scene between Lillian and Annie when, in a jealous fit of rage, Annie trashes the bridal party, and they somehow end up screaming at each other about a rather intimate beauty treatment that Lillian has had. There is no hint of a smile there, unless you’re watching the blooper reel,

Saying that, the other special features on the DVD include two different versions of the film (the Theatrical and an Unrated version), which explained why there were a lot of scenes I remembered from watching it at the cinema, but weren’t in the version I watched on DVD. Also, there are some deleted scenes, and some alternative scenes, and a rather interesting feature, called ‘Line-O-Rama’ where you can watch some one-liners from some of the best characters that didn’t necessarily get put in the final film.

Rating: 4/5

Review by Rebecca Jackaman