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Check out my journalism page and watch out for my name in print. My long-standing desire to become a journalist has continued at university submitting articles to the award-winning student newspaper, The Leeds Student. I wrote a piece on Michael Moore at The Palladium, travelling especially to London; and also an article on Anglophilia in reference to the films of Richard Curtis.
Kev Widdop reviews Torque |
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Dir: Joseph Kahn Starring: Martin Henderson,
Ice Cube, Monet Mazur, Jay Hernandez and Matt Schulze. Tawdry, gaudy, derivative tale about bikers
indulging in superfluous fun in California
The film’s pace reflects its
title, a turning or twisting force, and the music videos and commercials
which have been a staple of director Joseph Kahn’s career. That producer Neal
H. Moritz’s previous credits have included The Fast and the Furious and its sequel, XXX, and Swat is a
precursor to the nonsense that ensues, which, for the record, includes
implausible chase sequences, gratuitous violence and excruciating dialogue. It is a clichéd-packed,
bravado-induced bikefest, which revolves around the return of hero Ford
(Martin Henderson, previously of The
Ring), after a hiatus in Thailand, which engenders sundry slurs from his
foes, which in turn inspires an unfortunately brief discussion about whether
Thailand is a country and whether Sushi originates from China or Japan. There is something about
Ford being framed for murder which constitutes the scant interludes between
the mayhem, providing the subtext for a plot, so-called. But it’s not a film
to appeal to reason, rather to our most primitive pleasures. To that extent,
it fulfils its purpose within its short duration, one of the more attractive
features, but is nevertheless quite crude. It’s one of those films
where people soliloquise, “Ford, what’s he doin’n here?” or yell such threats
as, “You got till sundown to hand over my bikes”. Ford’s foe as head of
another gang is even called Henry James (Matt Schulze) and one of his cohorts
is called Luther, which I’m sure was hinting at allegory. Keeping with the trend of
singers-to-screen converts, Ice Cube, most prominently, Christina Milian and
Fredro Starr (the artist formerly known as rapper Shine) appear. While Cube’s
performance as Wallace is hilarious if only for his myriad grimaces and
preposterous anachronisms, such as “Fuck the pow-leese”, Milian’s is an
insignificant cameo role and is eventually and irreverently disposed of, and
Starr plays the trite, overly-pugnacious black guy within a larger group of
pugnacious black guys. The film moves discursively
and rapidly from one absurdity to another. There is a pursuit on top of a
moving train and also a violent exchange between two of the film’s more
conspicuous women, the unrecognisable Jamie Pressley as China and Shane
(Monet Mazur), which presumably aims at levelling up the imbalance between
the manifest prevalence of machismo with the hitherto-used female existent
purely for sensual pleasure. Kevin Widdop Leeds University 2004 Words - 379 Back to Home Page |
Watch out for my name in print, as I hope to go on to become a journalist for a quality national newspaper. I have already spent several weeks on work experience at local, regional and national media including Total Film Magazine in London. During my time there, I attended a film at a private screening, wrote an article depicting a memorable scene from a recent film and several competitions for inclusion in the magazine. I also worked for a day at the British Institute of Film researching actors and films for pieces in the magazine and helped with the mail out on new issues.
Whilst in the 6th form at King's School, Grantham I transformed Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment into a film script aimed at a modern cinematic Art House audience on limited release.
| This article was featured in the Leeds Student newspaper last semester |
Copyright Kevin Widdop May 2004