MOVIE REVIEW
THE BANG BANG CLUB
By Shaer Reaz
What with “amateur photographers” springing up all over the place like rabbits, “The Bang Bang Club” - inspired by true events - should be nice little wakeup call to anyone who thinks photography is nothing more than a peaceful, fun-loving hobby.
Set in the final days of apartheid in South Africa, the film follows a group of four combat photographers and tries to give us an insight into what it's like being a photographer who is published on the front page of Time for taking the photograph of a burning man.
Greg Marinovich, played by Ryan Phillippe in the film, is turned into an international Pulitzer Prize winning icon overnight for his role in covering the internal conflicts between native black Africans for the local as well as international newspapers. Joining the rag tag team of photographers are Kevin Carter (played by Taylor Kitsch), Ken Oosterbroek (Frank Rautenbach) and Joao Silva (Neels Van Jaarsveld), with commendable performances by each actor despite their relative inexperience.
As the film progresses, questions are asked about morals, complacency and controversy, as posed by the pictures the photographers take. People ask Ryan why he didn't try to put the blazing man out, or how he could stand by and take pictures with his camera as an innocent man was getting hacked to death in front of him. The main intrigue in this movie is provided through the ways the main characters deal with moral “dilemmas” they are faced with, leading to quite a few intense scenes that attempt to get as deep under the characters' skins as possible.
Things are also made more interesting through the portrayal of the background stories of some of the most well-known photographs in recent history. In fact, the famous photo of the girl being stalked by a vulture as she slowly dies of famine (now universally the most recognized picture of famine) was taken in Sudan in 1994, by one of the characters in the film, Pulitzer award winning photographer Kevin Carter.
Filled with emotional moments, The Bang Bang Club is a good way to spend one and a half hours. It's not the best movie of recent times in terms of directional creativity or the method of storytelling, but will definitely be a good way to get you thinking about when and where morals come in, what's right and wrong, etc. Good movie overall.
A Time to break the silence
By Ashreen Mridha & Clyde Brenton Quiah
Instrumental music has been forever known to be the kind of music that lets the emotions radiate and shine in their own character without presuming to display them as real or imaginary representations. Through the beautiful harmonisation of melodies, the music is able to tell stories about the world, taking us all on a journey through spirituality and madness. It has the power to touch hearts all over the world, because instrumental music knows no language.
Iqbal Asif Jewel's X-Factor was the first instrumental rock album in Bangladesh. The band Air & Air are now bringing out their debut album, which will also be instrument. In an interview, the band members revealed much about their five year journey towards finally compiling their own album.
It was 2006 when the founding members Zubair and Omair began their search to accomplish their dreams of creating instrumental music. Obviously, finding the right bandmates had been extremely difficult. As the band says, “Omair found Adnan through his nephew, and after a week, he had become a part of this journey. Faiaz, an old friend, used to jam with Zubair and Omair occasionally, and later became a permanent member. Aldnane, despite being extremely busy with other commitments, joined the band enthusiastically.” Air & Air finalised its line-up and started full-fledged work on the album from 2010.
It seems strange that during the five year period, Air & Air had never appeared on stage in the local concerts. The band mentions, “We just wanted to start with an album. If we did stage shows, it would have taken us longer to release our album because we would be too busy with concert preparations.” Adnan says, “Concerts were not important for us at first, because what you create matters more than what you can play.”
The toughest part of the journey was holding on to the dream. The band told us, “It took us a very long time to put this album together. Sometimes we would keep our other commitments on hold for our recordings. It has always been our topmost priority.”
Through sheer hard work, Air & Air was able to complete their album recording. The band says, “Jewel bhai and some others have been giving us tremendous support in the production of this album, and we are extremely grateful to them. It's the first time that an instrumental rock album by a Bangladeshi band will be released internationally.”
Air & Air's debut album title “A Time To Break The Silence” has a specific theme. “The album is about speaking against injustice, intolerance and all the wrong we see in the world today. The theme is to unite the world with music and that is all we hope to achieve.”
'Air and Air' is hoping to see a revolutionary growth in the instrumental scene in Bangladesh. For the fans, they had this message, “We want to give so much more to the world but it will not be possible without your love and support. We request you all to buy original CDs and please stop piracy. We have put a lot of effort and sweat into building this dream and we hope that you will enjoy it.”
The album was launched on 30th September, 2011 at 5:00 pm at Cuppa Coffee Club (House # 11, Road # 46, Gulshan-2) followed by performances by some renowned bands of Dhaka. The album “A Time To Break The Silence” is available at your nearest store.
By Samama Rahman
After a lot of anticipation, EA Sports has recently launched FIFA '12. The game is a follow-up to the critically (and 'fan'ically) acclaimed FIFA '11, which set the standards for modern day football games. Now with FIFA '12, EA has somehow managed to re-revolutionise the concept of virtual soccer once again.
FIFA 12 boasts the much hyped 'Trinity of Changes', which brings a lot to the table, but there are also innumerable tweaks that greatly enhance the overall feel of the game. The stadiums, crowd, lighting and special effects are immaculate.The 'Trinity of Changes' brings Precision Dribbling, Player Impact Engine and Tactical Defending to the fray.
The player impact engine offers a radical change in the way that players react to tackles or any pressure from opponents. There is no more a simple animation that depends on which position the player was tackled from, but rather, where the impact was. This also causes more realistic injuries in the course of a game. Although this leads to many awkward sequences of 'break-dancing players' (you know it), it's still a great addition.
Remember those times when all you had to do to defend was hold down the trusty 'X' button and let the AI do all the work, while you made the occasional sliding tackle? How about when Ronaldo was stopped by Messi, just because he was in a tight spot? Unrealistic, right? The next change completely changes those aspects of the game. Holding down the 'X' button now makes players 'jockey' a few steps away, that is, stay in a good defensive position. Tackles have to be made manually by the player and a mistimed tackle could easily lead to a card, or worse, a goal.
The third massive change is the dribbling system. In FIFA '12 when you are being closed down by a defender, the game automatically switches to precision dribbling, which gives you more control over the ball to beat the defender exactly how you'd like to. This adds much more realism than any of FIFA predecessors had. Overall FIFA '12 may feel like a completely new game at the beginning but once you get used to it, you will ease into the familiarity within the game and once you perfect tackling, the game will feel a lot more fluid and realistic than previous FIFA versions.
