.: The Red Brick – Dubai College's Student Newspaper :.

Doctor Who is one of the longest running television shows in the UK. Now in the seventh season of its revival, the Doctor is as popular as ever, but is the programme sending out some controversial messages?

The Doctor that each generation has known and loved has always been male, and possibly always will be, but is this a bad thing? The Doctor may be kept male purely because that is what the viewers are comfortable with, however some viewers and contemporary feminist writers from the website www.thefword.org.uk have suggested that people should be able to accept the Doctor if the BBC cast a female actor. The gender issues that accompany the profession of medicine may be reflected here as, although it is not the case, stereotypically Doctors are male and nurses are female. The nurses who act as their helpers may be related to the Doctor’s numerous companions.

In Russell T. Davies’ time as head writer for “DW”, the companions he has created have often been criticised for their weakness and conformity to female stereotypes. The term companion itself is fairly sexist, as they are obviously assisting the Doctor, and female characters get pushed to the back and become a necessity in Doctor Who, the closest anyone does come to being an “equal” to The Doctor in DW is “The Master.” Rose for instance was an unsuccessful young girl who did not have much of a life before the Doctor and seemed to be lost when she was left without him. The suggestion that Rose is “defined by the Doctor” seems to be a fair analysis here, as without him she has nothing.

Davies combated this archetypal character with the Doctor’s next companion – Martha Jones. This companion is a successful young woman, a medical student who has her own purpose and path in life and ability to make decisions. Throughout the series, particularly towards the end of series 3, Martha is shown to be a strong character capable of fighting for herself, and for the Doctor. However, Martha’s rather obvious love interest in The Doctor weakens her completely and makes her from a critical perspective an uninteresting whiny character that most “whovians” were keen to see gone.

Now in the era of Steven Moffatt (new head writer for DW and writer for the fantastic series “Sherlock”) has introduced the world to Amelia Pond. It appears that Moffatt has tried to subvert the traditional role of The Doctor’s companions by introducing a character in a committed relationship that cannot fall under the Doctor’s charm with a strong personality and many abilities. However, Amy Pond’s introduction was disappointing wearing a Police Officer’s uniform she appeared on our screens legs first, “Fantastic” we thought, another companion in a profession that removes the stereotype of the Doctor’s other companions, however disappointment was blatant when Amy revealed herself to be “A Kissagram” a demeaning job that set up for a complete change in opinion over this new character.

There is so much more to write about this issue, but ultimately does it matter? People around the world enjoy this programme unconditionally so why change now?

I’d like to leave you with a couple of questions to get you thinking about sexism in modern pop culture…

Would “Harry Potter” have been as popular if it was “Harriett Potter”?

Would you still watch Doctor Who if the next Doctor was a woman?

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All you twihards out there, here’s a date for diary: Breaking Dawn Part 1 will be released on November 18th!

For the rest of us who might be groaning at the prospect of yet another generic vampire love story might want to think again, as this movie explores a truly unexpected territory and gets even more bizarrely unreal as Bella Swan, a human (Kristen Stewart) and the lead character finally marries the love of her life, Edward Cullen, a vampire (Robert Pattinson), gets knocked up and manages to become pregnant with a half-human half-vampire baby. Yes, we now know that vampires and humans are literally compatible!

Audiences can expect to be treated to some intense love scenes as the two love birds conceive on Isle Esme, their honeymoon location. The spectacular location chosen for shooting Isle Esme scenes is a place called Casa Em Paraty, in between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. An ideal paradise complete with palm trees, white sands and a beach front house; if audiences get bored of looking at the beautiful characters, they can shift their attention to the beautiful scenery instead.

Such a stunning location comes with a stunning price too. It is estimated Breaking Dawn part 1 cost $127 million, almost $60 million than Eclipse (the most recent sequel in the Twilight Saga). The lead characters (Stewart, Pattinson and Lautner) taking home heightened star salaries of $25 million each, considerably more than they have ever earned before.

Breaking Dawn will be an interesting movie as this time there is no love triangle, Bella and Edward tie the knot and Jacob no longer threatens their relationship. This time the threat is within as the little half-vampire foetus drains all of Bella’s energy and slowly starts killing her. As Edward says in the trailer “her heart can’t keep up” but that doesn’t stop Bella from refusing an abortion. With Edward urging her to get rid of it and Bella adamantly refusing audiences will have to watch the movie to find out who ultimately wins this fight, if she does keep the baby will Bella survive, and if she dies in the attempt would Edward be able to live with himself?

The short form of film has been around for years, as long as film itself. However, I doubt that many of you can name a favourite short film except maybe a pixar short.

The best short films are those that tell a story, it can be an important story or just story that someone needed to tell. They can be made by the rich, with their overpriced cameras or just on your mobile phone! They can be 10 Seconds long even! There are lots of Shorts you may find which aren’t very good, student films with a weak narrative and low production values, but out there are some gems of beauty so…

Here are my Top 5 Short Films.

1.  George Méliès –  Voyage dans la lune (Trip To The Moon): 1902

This film was made right at the beginning of film and you can see with the wide shots and no moving cameras that film was still treated like theatre. However, to decide to make a film about Flying to the Moon in 1902 shows how ambitious George Méliès was!

Also – A hand coloured version of the film, premiered at Cannes 2011 is being shown at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival on the 15th of October.

2. Andreas Pasvantis – December – 2010

A beautifully filmed yet chilling short. With a big twist to watch out for! Many modern techniques are employed in this film and soft focus plays a huge part in the distortion of the senses. After watching it for the first time, I sat back and said… “clever.”

3. Offside – Erez Tadmor & Guy Nattiv – 2005

Offside is the second short film in the trilogy by Erez Tadmor & Guy Nattiv regarding the Middle East conflict. This short is a fallow-up to their last short film Strangers, Offside was shot in Israel, during September 2005, at the security zone that separates between Israel and the Palestine Authority.

4. New Boy – Steph Green

A fantastic story looking at differences is culture, A young African boy with a haunting back story starts school in Ireland, and finds out quickly exactly what it means to be the new kid. Winner of Best Narrative Short at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival and nominated for an Oscar. Some great performances from the children too!

5. Day & Night – Teddy Newton

What I think is Pixar’s best film, stunning in 3D and 2D this animated short captures entirely what Pixar is about. Beautiful images combined with well crafted sound and a thought provoking yet humorous story.

Hope you get the time to take a look at some of these, and enjoy!

Final Destination 5 is a film for those of you who enjoy gore, nail-biting suspense, and also have that little part of you that loves a bit of schadenfreude.

The basis of the story is the same as ever, people escape death, and death comes to find them. The film begins with the introduction of 8 fairly tedious characters as they share some poorly written and dull dialogue before they embark on a bus journey that will change their lives.

As usual Final Destination 5 manages to find new amusing and sick ways to kill off the characters, some were fast, some were drawn out with so many possibilities that the audience didn’t know what to expect. Humour played a large part in releasing the tension as the audience sat and laughed, along with a sigh of relief, when the characters finally did meet their makers.

The director has managed to create some characters so slimy and irritating that you want them to die and watching their demise becomes all the more enjoyable. However the characters that the audience is meant to want to survive, become equally dislikeable, as they are so boring! Whoever told the production team for FD5 that more scenes of crying and love were needed was wrong!

The film is totally what you would expect. Repetitive, gory and tense. In that respect the FD5 team have done their job but not much else. It may be the case that the most basic production values were left for granted as the FD5 team focused on making the 3-D experience as high quality as the many other competitors in their market.

However, I did leave the cinema happy, happy to not be being chased by death and happy that I’d got the full “Scary Movie Experience.”

If you fancy a fright and a laugh go ahead and try out Final Destination 5 for yourself! Oh and I dare you to watch it in 3-D!

People go to cinemas for a lot of reasons: entertainment and socializing, but primarily the magic of cinema serves as an escape from one world into another. When I go to the cinema I want to have the luxury of sitting back, relaxing and enjoying the movie – being able to comprehend the storyline and engage with the characters. Living in the UAE and abiding by the supposedly necessary laws, we are often stripped of our entertainment.

Have you ever wondered why Bridesmaids was Rated R in the US but PG15 over here? No it’s not because Dubai cinemas are extremely liberal or that they’re unaware of the content. It’s because they censor all inappropriate scenes to the point where we miss critical elements of the plot. Movie censorship only makes you want to see the ‘uncut’ version so much more. The need to block illicit content from younger ages is understandable, but isn’t that what the age limits are for?

Bridesmaids had several important scenes censored when it was shown here in Dubai

If the UAE adhered to international standards of movie ratings and enforced similar age limits, viewers (that are age appropriate) can enjoy a movie and witness the entire plot and character development, which often gets left out. For example, eighteen year olds should be able to watch an entire film and decipher between right and wrong moral conduct. This idea of deleting critical scenes actually leaves the viewer dissatisfied, as they are not getting their money or time’s worth. The inane concept of authorities making the decision of whether we can see certain scenes affirms our restrictions.

- Shanzeh Hameed

 “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a superhero!”

There was little chance of a dreary summer this year as each time you looked around a new villain was trying to take over the world! Fortunately, for every bad guy there was a good one to defeat him, with no less than five superhero movies released, Summer 2011 can be remembered as an epic battle between good and evil.  For those who didn’t manage to catch all the films, you sure will wish you did after reading this…

The first superhero flick to debut this year was The Green Hornet an unusual film in the fact that Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) who plays the title role isn’t particularly smart or attractive, has no fighting skills and instead relies on his late father’s mechanic, Kato (Jay Chou) to build him cool weapons and protect him from gangsters and his secretary Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz) to fuel the brain power behind his schemes to save the world. Another bizarre aspect of the movie is how Britt and Kato decide to have the city view them as criminals rather than heroes in order to get close to the real criminals. Trying to protect the law while breaking it, The Green Hornet promises to have equal amounts of comedy and action constantly keeping audiences on the edge of their seats.

With his iconic hammer, Thor was next. As an alien from the mystical realm of Asgard, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has a surprisingly arrogant attitude and his reckless actions cause a war in Asgard and result in him being banished to Earth. Unfortunately the conflict in his home planet follows him here and Thor must destroy the seemingly indestructible robot, “The Destroyer” in order to protect the relationships he’s developed on Earth.

Closely on Thor’s heels, the highly successful X-Men franchise released their fifth movie in the series X-Men: First Class. This film seeks to explain the evil villain Magnito’s origins and why he grew to hate humans so much. A must-watch for every X-men fan, and surprisingly, one might actually feel sympathetic towards the villain at the end.

Marvel’s next film after Thor was The Green Lantern. The “Green Corps” are a group of intergalactic warriors, each member posses a ring which gives them superpowers. When the fate of Earth is threatened Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is the first ever human to be granted a ring and must prove to the Green Corps that humans can handle the immense power and are worthy of wearing a ring.

Captain America: the First Avenger is the last of the superhero films this summer but ironically tells the story of the first ever superhero. Set in World War II Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a stunted underdog craves military glory and agrees to undergo a dangerous experiment and transforms into a buff and handsome Captain America. It’s then up to him to stop the most evil villain of WWII, no not Hitler, but Johann Schmidt, The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving). With his iconic shield, his looks may capture the audience’s eyes, but his personality and drive to defend his country is what captures their hearts.

Now that each one of these heroes has their own movie, we can look forward to May 2012 when they all get together in The Avengers. As for this summer, I’m sure you’ll agree that it was a super one!