With a genuine sweetness and warmth that belies the gear-grinding of its individual parts, this paean to Pittsburgh pal-hood and twenty-something blue-collar romance draws intermittent laughs from its comedically talented cast. She’s Out of My League also makes an argument for that elusive, much-talked-about filmic quality called "chemistry," a subject in which, like its high-school graduate pals working hourly-wage airport jobs, it's earned maybe a D+.

To be fair, that's only for the two leads, Jay Baruchel and Alice Eve, who individually show talent and poise—yes, even Baruchel, a sort of geeky young David Duchovny who plays a more laconic, self-aware version of Don Knotts' famously slight, put-upon loser-nerd who ultimately triumphs—but whose scenes together in this average-guy-dates-hot-girl comedy keep feeling like missed connections. When the ravishing Mariel Hemingway can give the fat but sweet and funny John Candy a look that says she's falling in love with him in Delirious (1991), or the va-voomy Marilu Henner does it equally convincingly with the nebbishy but smart and funny Wallace Shawn in one of the last episodes of TV's "Taxi," then certainly it's doable for an actress to feel her heart and eyes melt for a less-than-prepossessing romantic male lead, and convey that to an audience. That never happens here.

Yet the movie's secondary chemistry works, with airport TSA screener Kirk Kettner's (Baruchel) buddy-bros, who serve more as his emotional heart-trust than they do any intellectual brain-trust: fellow screener Stainer (an engaging T.J. Miller), whose self-involved oafishness eventually strips off to show his lionhearted loyalty; ticket-clerk Devon (the always welcome, tack-sharp Nate Torrence), the pop-culture geek who landed a wife; and mechanic Jack (Mike Vogel), the handsome guy who feels more at home with his high-school misfit friends than with more socially acceptable sorts. Their onscreen interactions have the totally on-target teasing and shorthand subtext of lifelong friends and self-chosen family, and in those moments, the movie has soul to spare.

As Molly MacLeish, Eve—the daughter of actors Trevor Eve and Sharon Maughan, who play her character's parents' here (Maughan having been a pop-culture figure through a 1980s soap-opera series of coffee commercials with Anthony Stewart Head)—comes off as a professional with good comic timing. But there's never a moment where we feel a genuine connection between this beauty—a rich, nice, gorgeous law-school grad turned high-end party planner—and the out-of-shape, unintellectual, average-job beast. Other characters, including Molly's refreshingly non-jerk ex, the model-handsome pilot Cam (Geoff Stults), keep mentioning that Kirk's funny. But he's not—most of his dialogue, when not self-deprecating, morose or trying to dodge embarrassment, isn't interesting or witty in either a down-home or an autodidactic way. We keep hearing that Molly likes Kirk, and she gives some pro-forma rationale in one scene, but not a bit of it is convincing.

That might not turn out to be a problem for this poor-schlub fantasy, which may find an audience of poor schlubs just as the last year's contrived middle-aged woman's fantasy It's Complicated found enough of a sad, sighing audience to become a hit. Pittsburgh fans will certainly love how first-time feature director Jim Field Smith caresses that underrated and very lovely city. And the guy-bonding stuff works—even, remarkably, in a relatively discreet crotch-shaving scene that you wouldn't think would need two guys.

The film also offers entertaining performances from a delightfully bemused Krysten Ritter as Molly's bitch-talking business partner, and Kyle Bornheimer as Kirk's bullying a-hole of a brother, who doesn't overplay the role into caricature and comes off as a more believable monster for it. One grumble: They couldn't give the talented Debra Jo Rupp anything better to do than to play a colorless mom?

By Frank Lovece

The original Death at a Funeral, the 2007 British farce directed by Frank Oz, opened to mixed reviews (critics loved it or hated it) that foretold the film’s fate at the box office. The movie quietly expired in most markets (with the notable exception of Australia and New Zealand), grossing under $2 million in the U.K. and just $8.5 million in the U.S., despite its attractive cast headed by Matthew MacFadyen and Rupert Graves. Was the comedy too English, too staid, for audiences used to edgier fare? The producers are betting it was, remaking the movie from virtually the same script but changing the location to Pasadena, transforming the grieving family from British toffs to upscale African-Americans, and adding jokes tailored to an audience that gets references to R. Kelly, MC Hammer and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.

Original producers Sidney Kimmel, William Horberg, Share Stallings, Laurence Malkin and Bruce Toll (along with screenwriter Dean Craig) reupped for the redo, joining comedian Chris Rock, who recognized the opportunity to resurrect the movie when he saw it three years ago. “There weren’t a lot of people in the theatre,” he recalls, “but we were all laughing our heads off.” Rock brought on seasoned director Neil LaBute, with whom he worked on the action-comedy Nurse Betty, and helped to assemble an impressive cast, including Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan, Danny Glover, Loretta Devine and Zoe Saldana (fresh from Avatar) for what he calls his “cover” version.

New actors, same story…even similar graphics to open the movie as the credits role. Death at a Funeral begins with Aaron (Rock), son of the deceased, discovering that the undertaker has delivered the wrong body to the family home, where the funeral is being held. While Aaron awaits the corpse and practices his eulogy—a running joke in both films—we get the backstory, a smash-up of sibling rivalries, romantic intrigues and misunderstandings among eccentric friends and relatives.

Ryan (Lawrence), a successful but perpetually penurious writer of potboilers, has returned to Pasadena from New York, much to the annoyance of his brother, Aaron, and the pleasure of his mother (Devine), who always liked him best. Aaron must also cope with his anxious wife, Michelle (Regina Hall), who is concerned that her husband find time for sex because her mother-in-law constantly berates her for not producing babies.

As guests arrive, complications ensue. Cousin Elaine (Saldana) innocently feeds boyfriend Oscar (James Marsden) a designer drug concocted by her aspiring pharmacist brother, Jeff (Columbus Short). Elaine’s father (Ron Glass) can’t stand Oscar sober, let alone high on hallucinogens, and he perversely adores Derek (Luke Wilson), her obnoxious ex-boyfriend and best buddy of Cousin Norman (Morgan). Norman, meanwhile, has been badgered into escorting bitter, foul-mouthed Uncle Russell (Glover) to the memorial. None of this might matter but for a mysterious mourner, the diminutive Frank (Peter Dinklage, reprising his role from the original), who shows up for the service with a tawdry surprise about the dearly beloved, documented with compromising snapshots. The revelation, needless to say, turns the somber affair into burlesque.

The British Death at a Funeral pulled off such inspired nonsense because the characters caught up in the chaos were eminently recognizable, at least to fans of the great Ealing Studio comedies. The remake relies on the sensibilities of Rock, Lawrence and Morgan—more histrionic comedians than comic actors—for laughs. As a result, the American Death at a Funeral sometimes feels like an overproduced sitcom, the humor predicated on insult and injury. (Craig, who wrote the original screenplay and is credited with the remake, apparently has developed his ear for American dialogue while living in Los Angeles.) The movie’s basic material accommodates this treatment—in many cases, the sight gags are the same. It’s a matter of preference and, perhaps, a sign of the times…the Americanization of Ealing.

By Rex Roberts

Because the first "Sex and the City" movie turned out to be a boxoffice bonanza two years ago, there are a lot of women panting for the sequel, already planning their wardrobe for a girls' night out.

So even if "Sex and the City 2" consisted of nothing but a two-and-a-half hour fashion show, it would draw crowds. But it also has the returning cast members in fine comic form, and it has more cutting-edge humor than the first movie. Critics will carp about the platitudes in the script and about the longueurs in the nearly 2 1/2-hour opus, but for the core audience, there will be no complaints about too much of a good thing. This picture is going to be a smash.

Some of us who enjoyed the outrageous antics showcased in the HBO series created by Darren Star and executed in later years by Michael Patrick King (the writer-director of both films) found the first movie disappointingly bland. Instead of the bracing emphasis on sex, the focus shifted to less scintillating folderol about marriage. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) was jilted at the altar by her true love, Mr. Big (Chris Noth), but snared him in the end. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) also faced a crisis in her marriage but ended up in a clinch with hubby Steve (David Eigenberg). The new movie begins two years later at a wedding -- a gay wedding (in Connecticut). But though the two grooms are pledging their devotion, the gals are learning that marital bliss is more elusive than the first movie implied.

Carrie and Big find themselves at odds over an issue that bedevils many couples: She loves to go out on the town, and he turns out to be a closet TV addict who wants to do nothing more than curl up on the couch watching old movies. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) has achieved her dream life with two children, but the tots turn out to be maddening rather than adorable. Only Samantha (the consistently irresistible Kim Cattrall) remains defiantly single, waging her own personal war against menopause.

These wan domestic squabbles are merely prelude to the movie's major plot development. Samantha is approached by an Arab sheik to devise a PR campaign for his business enterprises, and he offers to fly her and her three gal pals on an all-expenses-paid luxury vacation to Abu Dhabi. (These scenes were filmed in Morocco.) Even in an escapist fantasy, the spectacle of women sinking into this billionaire's paradise at a time of widespread economic hardship initially seems creepy and off-putting. Soon, however, their Arab sojourn takes unexpected turns. First of all, Carrie encounters her old flame, Aidan (John Corbett), at the spice market, but even more importantly, she and her friends run up against the puritanical and misogynistic culture of the Middle East. The rather scathing portrayal of Muslim society no doubt will stir controversy, especially in a frothy summer entertainment, but there's something bracing about the film's saucy political incorrectness. Or is it politically correct? "SATC 2" is at once proudly feminist and blatantly anti-Muslim, which means that it might confound liberal viewers.

Indicative of the film's contradictory stance is a scene in which the ladies perform a karaoke version of Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" in an Abu Dhabi nightclub. An equally outrageous moment comes when the interlopers are rescued by a bunch of Muslim women who strip off their black robes to reveal the stylish Western outfits they are concealing beneath their discreet garb. These endearingly loopy scenes exhibit the tasteless humor that enlivened the TV series on its best nights.

King's script isn't always well-balanced. Carrie's minor marital problems are given way too much attention, whereas the intriguing dilemmas of Miranda and Charlotte are downplayed. Nixon and Davis do, however, share one marvelous scene in which they vent their dissatisfactions with motherhood. It also is a pleasure to see Cattrall flaunt her sexual imperatives in front of her Arab hosts. Noth and Corbett are so appealing that we can sympathize with Carrie's romantic confusion. Liza Minnelli, Miley Cyrus and Penelope Cruz show up for amusing cameos.

Technical credits are first-rate. Cinematographer John Thomas and production designer Jeremy Conway make the most of the exotic locations. Costume designer Patricia Field's outlandish creations will send many viewers to hog heaven. But it's hard to know what King and editor Michael Berenbaum were smoking when they let the film drag on at least 40 minutes too long. Even with its excesses, Carrie and company's excellent Arabian adventure will leave viewers thinking and arguing as well as swooning over the digs and the rags.

By Stephen Farber

Oxford University is the best in the country, according to a new league table published today.

Oxford took the top spot overall, followed by Cambridge, the same as last year, according to the table compiled by the Complete University Guide, published in The Independent.

Oxford Brookes University came in at 50.

Bottom of today's league table were London South Bank and London Metropolitan University.

The table rates 115 universities on student satisfaction, research, entry standards, student to staff ratio, spend on academic services, spend on facilities, honours, graduate prospects and completion rates.

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TWO cinemas in Oxford city centre are being refurbished this month and next at a cost of £500,000.

Odeon, which runs the cinemas in Magdalen Street and George Street, is spending the cash on new seats and revamping the cinemas’ facilities and interiors.

The two-screen cinema in Magdalen Street closed on Monday, and will not reopen for screenings until Friday, May 28.

Work at six-screen George Street cinema will begin on Bank Holiday Monday, May 31, although it will remain open to visitors throughout its own refurbishment.

Phil Henstridge, general manager at both cinemas, said: “We're always looking for ways to provide the ultimate cinema experience for our guests.

“The refurbishments demonstrate Odeon’s commitment to investment within the local community and we can’t wait to see the response from our guests to the revamp in both Oxford cinemas.”

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Ever since Arnold Schwarzenegger terrorized a classroom of five-year-olds in 1990's Kindergarten Cop, it's become de rigueur for other cinematic strongmen to try to muscle in on the family-film market. But of all the heavyweight action heroes who have traded violent fight scenes for heart-tugging moments of family bonding, only Dwayne Johnson (the artist formerly known as The Rock) seems entirely at ease in PG-rated surroundings. In movies like The Game Plan, Race to Witch Mountain and now Tooth Fairy, Johnson establishes a comfortable rapport with his younger co-stars that's difficult to fake. It doesn't hurt that he feels little to no shame about sending up his macho screen image; in Tooth Fairy, for example, he prances about in a pink tutu with the same enthusiasm that he displayed punching out bad guys in The Rundown.

Johnson's compulsively likeable presence is the saving grace of Tooth Fairy, almost diverting attention away from the film's muddled script (which is credited to five writers) and made-for-TV mise-en-scène. He'll certainly be the main draw for families who should turn up in decent numbers opening weekend driven by fond memories of The Game Plan as well as a general dearth of fresh options for kid-friendly romps.

Fusing elements of The Santa Clause and The Mighty Ducks, Tooth Fairy casts Johnson as hockey player Derek Thompson, a once-promising phenom who has been mired in minor-league obscurity for years. Nicknamed "The Tooth Fairy" for his signature move—a brutal body-check that always costs his opponent a tooth—Derek spends more time in the penalty box than on the ice. Having given up on his dream of stardom long ago, he feels little guilt about shattering the hopes of others, even his girlfriend's young daughter who still believes in tiny fairies that steal into children's rooms in the middle of the night exchanging lost teeth for dollar bills. For daring to suggest that these enamel-obsessed sprites don't exist, Derek is charged with "disseminating disbelief" and promptly summoned to tooth fairy headquarters, where he's outfitted with wings and a uniform and ordered to spend two weeks collecting kiddie teeth.

Although Derek's misadventures as a tooth fairy are supposed to be the main draw here, those sequences largely fall flat due to the film's reliance on predictable pratfalls and the lack of strong comic chemistry between Johnson and supporting players like Stephen Merchant (co-creator of "The Office") and Billy Crystal. Surprisingly, Tooth Fairy is most successful when it keeps its reluctant hero grounded in the real world, wrestling with his own disappointments or attempting to bond with his girlfriend's other child, a surly teenager with genuine musical talent but no self-confidence. This storyline isn't any less predictable than the rest of the movie, but Johnson's way with child actors makes it palatable. Thanks to Johnson, watching Tooth Fairy isn't as painful as dental surgery, but it's also not an experience you'll want to repeat.

By Ethan Alter

Wonder of wonders: The Bad Lieutenant remake is not actually bad at all. German film-maker Werner Herzog has taken Abel Ferrara's 1992 saga by the scruff of the neck, shifted the action from New York to New Orleans and cast Nicolas Cage in the old Harvey Keitel role, as a morally bankrupt law enforcer. The purists are raging and Ferrara is incensed. If ever a movie arrives hexed with dark voodoo, this movie is it.

And yet Herzog's devil-may-care insouciance has paid off brilliantly. He does not retread Bad Lieutenant so much as reinvent it. Out goes Ferrara's dark marinade of blood, semen and Catholic guilt. In comes an espresso of caffeine and amphetamines that, in its way, is just as effective.

Cage gives what is surely his best performance in years as Terence McDonough, a New Orleans cop with a bad back and a faulty moral compass. His shoulders are hitched up around his ears as he picks his way gingerly around New Orleans. In his heightened state he is liable to laugh at just about anything (one street hoodlum goes by the name of "G" and this he finds endlessly amusing). The fact that McDonough is accompanied on some of his errands by sidekick played by puffy, paunchy Val Kilmer only adds to the film's air of gleeful corruption. One has the sense that, in his sly fashion, Herzog is somehow getting off on the sight of these two Hollywood golden boys run hopelessly to seed.

McDonough is nominally spearheading the investigation of a local crime boss ("Big Fate"), though before long he's veering dangerously off the map. He busts small-time dealers and pockets their stash and pulls a gun on a respectable old lady at the local care-home, while his gallant attempt to ride to the rescue of his prostitute girlfriend (Eva Mendes) ends in disaster. Finally, he is yanked off the case and demoted to the property room, where the drug seizures are stored. That's like giving a fox the keys to the chicken coop.

Herzog's Bad Lieutenant, like the lieutenant himself, is wild, ill-disciplined and never less than mesmerising. Even when it seems to be sticking doggedly to the script, there's something wonky and dangerous about this film. Herzog takes one of the oldest genre cliches in the book (the Maverick Cop Who Gets Results) and then sees how far he can twist it before it snaps.

This, I suppose, is simply par for the course. Werner Herzog has made good movies and bad movies. But he is not a man to feel pinched by his material, or daunted by an illustrious predecessor. Here he takes Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant and makes it gloriously, shamelessly his own.

by Xan Brooks

Calling ‘Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time' the best video game adaption on the big screen yet may sound like faint praise, but this is the most enjoyable Disney live action blockbuster since the first ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movie.

Based on the hugely successful video game series, ‘Prince of Persia’ sees Jake Gyllenhaal play the titular character of Dastan, a man who was not born into royalty – instead, he was plucked from the streets as an orphan by King Sharaman, who saw nobility in the young urchin.

With his two brothers by his side, Prince Dastan attempts to lead an attack on a peaceful holy city based on second-hand information that it's housing weapons to supply enemies of Persia.

Dastan quickly realises, however, that he is being duped into uncovering a dagger that has the power to send those who hold it back in time (call it a mystical MacGuffin). When he finds out that a member of his family could be attempting to change history for the worse, he flees the palace with the princess of the city (a feisty Gemma Arterton).

Together, the warring pair must uncover who is behind the royal conspiracy and also protect the precious Sands of Time.

Pure hokum indeed, but it’s also immensely enjoyable all the same. Arterton and Gyllenhaal inject plenty of energy into their bickering relationship, while Alfred Molina pops up every now and then to add some humour.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has steered clear of the problems that arose on the two ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ sequels – overly-padded running time for one – and has made sure ‘Prince of Persia’ is a gloriously old-fashioned romp that never outstays its welcome.

The special effects are impressive, the stunt scenes suitably bone-crunching and the majestic, sweeping atmosphere ensures that this is the blockbuster to beat this year so far.

Four out of five

by Movies Editor

If you think of public sculpture, what comes to mind? Most people think of the big outdoor sculpture parks, or names like Epstein or Moore, or these days Antony Gormley, whose monumental Angel of the North could be the country’s most famous piece of public modern art.

We don’t do badly in Oxford when it comes to sculpture, especially if you count the thousands of medieval sculptures on college walls and gateways, and there are a few contemporary sculptures like Mark Wallinger’s Y in Magdalen College grounds since 2008 and Gormley’s standing figure of a man that showed up on top of Exeter College in 2009. All there, part of the environment, for us to enjoy.

On a smaller, more modest scale, but also for us to enjoy — emphatically so — is the Turrill Sculpture Garden in Summertown. It has been there for ten years now, officially opened on April 8, 2000, tucked away in a small garden behind the public library in South Parade, open to all comers during library opening hours. It offers regular free exhibitions of contemporary sculpture — and, importantly, a tranquil verdant environment in which to sit and relax. I spoke to Katherine Shock who came up with the idea.

Katherine lives in North Oxford and has been designing gardens in and around the city for nearly 20 years. She told me she was in the library one day arranging a Summertown Artweeks display when she casually looked out at the back.

“I’d not really noticed the garden before,” she said. “It looked forlorn. It was neat and tidy, an open space with two benches in it, but they had their backs to the library, so no one was on them.

“There must be something in the human psyche that makes that uninviting,” she mused.

Katherine started thinking about how it could be made more attractive. She spoke to the librarian and Oxfordshire County Council, offering to redesign the garden, and to local firms and the community seeking support and funding.

“Everyone was very supportive,” Katherine recalls.

The Summertown 2000 group was formed, and soon a local family, trading in the area for years as Shepherd and Woodward, came forward with the sponsorship. The name Turrill is in memory of their aunt Miss Marjorie Turrill who had lived in the Banbury Road all her life, and her sister Betty Venables who had built two gardens on Cumnor Hill, and another at Cunliffe Close where she lived once widowed. Both were passionate gardeners.

The garden itself was constructed by Ian Lattimore of Nor-Lye Landscapes, Witney.

Today, the Friends of the Turrill Sculpture Garden help support and maintain the garden. Routine work is done by the lawn ranger, Richard Brown.

“One of the nice things about the garden’s success is seeing it buzzing in the summer with people having picnics and things. Even in the winter on nice days you see people out there,” Katherine says.

She chose to use circles in the garden design since they are peaceful and you can sit privately in them.

She also made sure the plants were labelled, with details about them inside, so the garden itself acts as a sort of ‘reference library’.

Katherine remembers thinking ‘why not sculptures, too?’. They look so good in gardens and bring up features.

First, however, she took herself to a sculptors’ symposium in Jersey to check out the idea — that she “wasn’t totally dotty” creating a local sculpture garden. Even now there are very few.

The Turrill has had about 50 exhibitions since 2000, five or six each year, attracting national and locally known sculptors from far and wide.

A quick look at the website shows the scope of their achievements. Here are a few — but only a few — of the many who have exhibited: James Butler RA, Anthony Stones (ex president of the Society of British Portrait Sculptors) plus other members of the society who work nationally including local sculptor Martin Jennings, the late Geraldine Knight, and Johannes Von Stumm (president of the Royal Society of British Sculptors). Oxford Sculpture Group exhibitions are held there each autumn. Schoolchildren get involved too — six local schools are competing there this summer.

A special Artweeks exhibition, celebrating the anniversary, is being staged until May 29, featuring new work from 18 past exhibitors.

They always wanted it to be for everyone, right from schoolchildren up, Katherine said. They seem to have achieved this.

Dipping into the Turrill’s visitors’ book, I’ll let people who have already discovered “this haven” have the last word: “Wonderful to see art outside interacting with the environment”, “Exceptional in its beauty and peacefulness” and, from an Italian visitor, “E bellissimo!”

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Oxford United's footballers will be saluted by fans tonight.

Supporters have been invited to gather in Broad Street where they will be able to show their appreciation at 7.15pm.

The players and management will start their parade at the Kassam Stadium before moving through Cowley Road, The Plain, Longwall Street, South Parks Road and Parks Road.

They will spend 30 minutes in Broad Street, which will be closed to traffic between 5.30pm and 8pm so fans can congregate in safety.

Keith Mitchell, leader of Oxfordshire County Council, said: "Oxford deserves and requires a football league side - not just because of the size of the place but because of the obvious depth and breadth of support and enthusiasm in the city and beyond for the local football team.

"In excess of 30,000 Oxford United supporters were in attendance at Wembley yesterday for the 3-1 win over York City.

"Regaining league status is an achievement worthy of some serious celebration and I am sure everyone will enjoy themselves on Tuesday evening."

Original article source

Oxford is absurdly well-served by bike shops. Old and new, made-to-break jalopies, and top-end to-die-fors – you can get any bike under the sun.

Yet Cyclox has always been stumped by requests from Americans and Germans who want to hire bikes for work or leisure.

I give them the numbers of a few local shops that seem to hire bikes more by accident than design. You’ll see them, the cheaper ranges, chained in lines outside ready to be sold or (less commonly) hired to passersby. But to hire them online? You must be joking.

The Americans and Germans then want to discuss their plans for a bike tour of the Cotswolds on a tandem. Or a week’s jaunt along the Thames towpath to Windsor and back. And my heart sinks as I picture these poor souls labouring up steep Cotswold inclines with half a ton of Chinese steel between their legs.

Few of Oxford’s bike shops even have a web presence never mind offer bikes for hire online. And if you do hire a bike it costs so much in the medium term that you might as well have bought it in the first place.

The lack of bike hire is an absurd gap in a wide-open market. Or was, until Bainton Bikes appeared. Kevin Moreland and Honour Tomkinson have cycled all their lives in Oxford. Like me, they have a bike for every occasion and would end up lending them out to friends and family all the time. So much in fact that they realised Oxford was crying out for a proper bike hire service.

Today, you can hire any of 70 Bainton Bikes at great rates that plummet over time, making them as reasonable a proposition for 10 hen-party girls who want bikes for one day next weekend in the Chilterns, to visiting academics who want a hassle-free six-month hire. The service is web-savvy; they drop off and pick up, provide lights, locks and maps. They even repair and service your bike as required – and that includes puncture repair.

Hired a bike and got a flat in Wheatley? No problem. Kevin will be there as fast as his legs will carry him. And that’s quite fast – he rides a lovely Kona. Or if you get lucky it’ll be Honour.

The business is already doing so well that she has jacked in her day job as a teacher and is now Bainton Bike’s first full-time employee. And their top mechanic. Kevin admitted ruefully that Honour (who he trained) is now better at indexing gears than his is.

Bainton’s bikes are all recycled from the municipal pound. They look great in their black livery with one of Honour’s bespoke red saddle covers, and there are many flavours: city bikes, hybrids, mountain bikes, BMXs, even a tandem.

Oxford is full of tours on foot and by bus. But my American and German chums weren’t interested.

Could I tell them where to find a bike tour? By the time I’d explained how to get from Folly Bridge to the Isis pub they had, quite understandably, put the phone down. No longer. Bainton Bikes have offered bespoke bike tours for a while now and are about to launch a full range of regular tours.

The hire and tour business is booming so much there is little time for bike repairs, which is a pity.

They seem, however, to be transforming cycling in Oxfordshire.

Long live Bainton and all who ride her bikes.

Bainton Bikes - http://www.baintonbikes.com/ or 01865 365658

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Marco Bellocchio is no stranger to dividing critics and audiences with his films, and the highly anticipated "Vincere" is unlikely to be an exception. Bellocchio's name and Celluloid Dreams' selling power ensure that it will play in numerous countries, but this true story begs the question, "Why should we care about a woman in love with and driven mad by one of recent history's most brutal dictators?"

The film begins in 1907, with young Benito Mussolini (Filippo Timi, an established theater actor in Italy and a rising film star), a Socialist and union activist, provocatively "proving" that God does not exist to a spellbound group that includes the smitten Ida Dalser (Giovanna Mezzogiorno, "Love in the Time of Cholera").

In 1914, they become lovers and her passion for the charismatic journalist is total - she will sell everything she owns to help him start his own newspaper. Initially a pacifist, we see that Mussolini already has changed his political tune and is now supporting WWI as the only means to cleanse society.

The sex scenes between Mezzogiorno and Timi are steamy without being gratuitous and Bellocchio eloquently establishes a powerful carnal connection between the two that persists even after Mussolini marries. Ida continues to be his lover and in 1915 bears his son (also named Benito), whom Mussolini did acknowledge. However, when she starts demanding that he acknowledge their marriage, which to this day has never been proven, he exiles Ida and the boy to her sister's house, under the watchful eye of bodyguards.

Years later, she is still waiting for him, all the while writing to everyone from the police to the royal family for her rightful recognition and due from the man she loves blindly. Eventually, in 1926, her thwarted assassination attempt of one of his political ministers lands her in a mental institution, and young Benito in the care of nuns. The rest of the film follows her descent into even greater madness, for Ida never changed her story, insisting that her life and her truth be heard and remembered.

Throughout the film, Bellocchio intersperses black-and-white archival footage, fascist-era graphics and close-ups of women whose identities are explained much later in the film, to good artistic effect. He creates an intimate mood while alluding to the general feel of the highly chronicled era without going too far over the top or reconstructing elaborate sets.

The director also pulls career-high performances from Mezzogiorno and Timi that are, respectively, tragic and mesmerizing. They deserve kudos for making such controversial personalities engaging and real, and they lift the film notches above standard biopic fare. "Vincere" belongs to Mezzogiorno, as Timi disappears once Mussolini renounces Ida, only to reappear later as the dictator's grown son, who goes by a different name and can do uncanny impersonations of the country's leader.

But of all the women who have been abandoned and all the people unjustly institutionalized, how sorry should we feel for Mussolini's lover? It's not as if Ida Dalser was in love with a man whose worst deed was driving her to insanity, or that her personal tragedy offset her love of a hoodlum-turned-dictator.

The damage done by Mussolini as he ruthlessly rose to power and became a bloodthirsty ruler in his quest for domination is so much greater than the two destroyed lives of "Vincere" that the film simultaneously cancels the very empathy it evokes.

By Natasha Senjanovic

Tony Stark, the creation of Marvel Comics in 1963 and the subject of 600 issues of Iron Man magazine, is a curious superhero. In his private life, if that is what it can be called, Tony (being impersonated for the second time on screen by Robert Downey Jr), is no retiring, bespectacled Clark Kent or shy schoolboy Peter Parker. Rather, he's a handsome, eccentric, technological genius, clearly based on Howard Hughes, who has inherited from his father (appropriately named Howard Stark) a vast business specialising in, among other things, state-of-the-art military weapons and turned it into a concern worth billions.

The secret identity that he attained, in the manner of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Superman, Batman, Spiderman et al, by devising the impregnable flying suit that made him Iron Man, was blown before the end of the first cinematic blockbuster, which appeared two years ago. So how does Tony progress and develop? Well, it could be said that he's been shaped to please the right-wing critics of Avatar.

The big political juggling act of Iron Man 2 is how to get the extensive support that the producers need from the Department of Defence and the top brass at the Pentagon and yet retain Tony's position as a maverick genius. This is initially done in two ways. Tony more or less adopts the motto of the Strategic Air Command that in the 1960s Bertrand Russell thought so ironically amusing: "Peace is our profession". The cleverest spokesman for the arms business since Bernard Shaw's Undershaft in Major Barbara, he presents his company in a showbiz-style exposition in New York with a chorus of dancing girls joining lethal weapons on stage, all in the interest of world peace.

Then, when he's called to Washington to appear before a Senate committee presided over by the deviously smarmy Senator Stern (Garry Shandling), he refuses to hand over the Iron Man equipment to the government on the grounds that it's better developed by private enterprise. In this, he has the covert support of a close friend, the handsome black soldier Lt Col Rhodes (Don Cheadle). The Washington hearing is modelled on an actual event just after the second world war when Howard Hughes faced down his political critics, an incident also celebrated in Scorsese's equally Hughes-aggrandising The Aviator.

Meanwhile, having established Tony as an impeccable combination of patriotism and capitalism, the movie sets the scene for a replay of the cold war by introducing a wild Russian mirror-image of the American superhero. Not unlike the bizarre commie villains Sylvester Stallone confronted as Rocky and Rambo, Mickey Rourke's Ivan Vanko is a disfigured, tattooed giant from the same cracked mould that produced the shambling loser Rourke played in The Wrestler. He acts like Rasputin, has the technical skills of a professor at the USSR Academy of Sciences and has cold war issues to settle.

Hanging over Tony Stark, as with most American heroes, is the shadow of a father who, he thinks, didn't love or appreciate him. Ivan's dad was a brilliant Soviet scientist who defected to the west only to be unjustly accused of espionage by Stark Sr. Returned home, he was incarcerated in the gulag and died of drink in Putin's squalid Moscow. Ivan, who has the means to create his own Iron Man, embarks on a revenge trip that begins spectacularly when he confronts Tony on the track of the Monaco grand prix.

This first titanic battle ends in apparent victory for Tony, who rightly observes, in the best line from Justin Theroux's variable script: "You look like you've got friends in low places." This is proved only half true when Ivan is abducted by Stark's deadly enemy, Justin Hammer, the unacceptable face of capitalism, played with considerable verve by Sam Rockwell as Batman in a three-piece designer suit. Hammer is using the military-industrial complex to undermine Stark and is naturally unaware of the Russian's secret agenda.

As a political fable, it's oddly revealing about current American thinking and it is interwoven with a variety of other topical themes. Among these is female empowerment, as the enlightened Tony appoints his long-time secretary Virginia "Pepper" Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow looking uncannily like a less passive-aggressive version of Mia Farrow) as the CEO of his corporation.

The special effects and the big action sequences are well enough handled. But when Downey compliments Cheadle at the end by saying: "You kicked ass back there by the way", he's acknowledging the conventionality of the whole affair. If the movie has a certain distinction and a suggestion of depth, then this derives almost entirely from the presence and performance of Downey as Stark. One of the most gifted, versatile and daring actors of his generation, he was quite brilliant as Charlie Chaplin in Richard Attenborough's biopic nearly 20 years ago. He's been unforgettable in little scenes here and there, as when dangerously provoking Mike Tyson in James Toback's semi-improvised Black and White (1999), and he was superb recently as the Australian method actor who loses himself within the character of a black GI he's playing in Tropic Thunder.

I was impressed though dissatisfied by his Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie's picture last Christmas. His strange, sometimes fractured diction makes him not always easy to understand. But he exudes intelligence, internal conflict and a witty doubt about the world and its absurdities. To the role of Stark he brings a sense of his own troubled life and upbringing and his much publicised struggles with drink and drugs. He is a man who, having decided that conversing with his inner child is no proper occupation for an adult, has invited demons in to engage with his soul. Downey holds our attention as few other American stars do today.

by Philip French

The Oxford Fashion Week Lingerie Show took place on Wednesday, 05 May 2010 at the Malmaison Hotel in Oxford. Guests were escorted upon arrival to the restaurant in the lower level of the hotel to enjoy copious amounts of free Champagne and canapes. The room was strewn with flowers and there were sex-themed books scattered on some of the tables. An interesting touch, but perhaps a bit over the top. Just before the show was to begin the crowd was escorted up to the Visitor's Room - the second floor bar at the hotel. The room felt intimate, with low lighting and chairs placed fairly close to the 'runway' - which was not a typical runway, just a stretch of the room's carpeting. The light's dimmed even further, the music began, and two models - a male and a female - walked to the end of the runway towards the eager photographers, and started a strange game of seeing how close they could get their hands without touching, while staring deeply, but almost vacantly, in each other's eyes. Thankfully, the rest of the show was more straight-forward, with models walking up and down the runway, stopping to pose for photos. I think the theatrics of the first pair were unnecessary. Sadly, these theatrics were repeated once or twice more throughout the show.

Overall I think the lingerie fashions were lovely. There were some in particular I really liked, especially the retro, high waisted pants which looked incredible on the 6-foot tall glamazon model. I thought the whole show was enjoyable and very well done by the producers. My only issue with the show was that there were several visible tags on the clothes, and also very visible undergarments under the undergarments - like the ones being modelled were to be re-used or sold after. I thought that was a little distracting from the lovely clothes. Next time, they should cut the tags and let the models wear the lingerie - and nothing else. Otherwise it's a fantastic event.

I also want to congratulate the models, who I think were incredibly brave and beautiful.

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For more information about Oxford Fashion Week, visit our special Oxford Fashion Week 2010 page

The Oxford Fashion Week Concept Show took place on Tuesday, 04 May 2010 at the Randolph Hotel in Oxford. The idea of the Concept Show was to present the most innovative designs of up and coming designers and established names. As expected, the majority of the fashions were 'out there' - unwearable by real people in real situations, but definitely interesting and fun to watch. The show was presented in three sets, with the last being the best, in my humble opinion. The show was very well attended, and the Randolph location was pretty spectacular, with the models sashaying down the runway below the giant, ornate chandeliers.

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For more information about Oxford Fashion Week, visit our special Oxford Fashion Week 2010 page

"The Back-Up Plan" hopes to generate romantic comedy by reversing the normal order of things so that pregnancy comes before a couple meets. Otherwise, it's still boy-meets-girl, and the only issue between them -- because it's more or less a love match right away -- is how the boy feels about the girl already being pregnant. Because "The Back-Up Plan" is closer to an old Doris Day comedy than "Sex and the City," that pregnancy is the result of artificial insemination rather than a complicated relationship with anyone else.

Jennifer Lopez carries this thin concept about as far and as well as she can, with Alex O'Loughlin in his first leading-man outing managing not to get lost in the shuffle of birth preparations and doctor appointments. "Back-Up Plan" will have to generate its boxoffice primarily from women, though: The male characters definitely play second fiddle.

On the exact day Lopez's Zoe has her first doctor's appointment for her procedure with previously frozen sperm, she meets O'Loughlin's Stan. Meets cute, in fact, because they both grab the same Manhattan taxi and fight over its rights.

Kate Angelo's screenplay makes him all-too-perfect. Good-looking and unhitched with a cheese-making farm upstate, he dreams of opening his own grocery store with local, sustainable farm goods. Not only would her grandmother (Linda Lavin) approve, Alice Waters would approve!

Oh, he's given a bad first marriage to a Swedish nymphomaniac that makes him distrustful of women. Meanwhile, she was deserted by her father, which makes her distrustful of men. But these are screenwriting tricks to extend the courtship through nine months of pregnancy. Taking up the slack created by a lack of real dramatic conflict are Zoe's support cast -- employees of her pet shop (Eric Christian Olsen, Noureen DeWulf) and an advice-prone best friend (Michaela Watkins) -- a pregnancy pillow and a cute though handicapped Boston terrier who uses wheels to support dysfunctional back legs.

The cute factor goes overboard when it comes to a single-mother support group that Zoe impulsively joins. The strain for laughs with this group goes against the more natural comic flow of the story's other incidents and characters, perhaps betraying the writer's TV sitcom origins.

At least debuting director Alan Poul, who also hails primarily from TV land, manages to create an ensemble feeling among the cast despite the fact that the film clearly is a vehicle for Lopez.

Poul's crew makes the blend of Warner Bros.' Burbank sets and a few New York exteriors work much better than it usually does. Credit cinematographer Xavier Perez Grobet's pleasing lighting and Alec Hammond's naturalistic sets with an assist here.

By Kirk Honeycutt

Chris Morris is still the most incendiary figure working in the British entertainment industry. Even if you have not read reports of Four Lions' premiere at Sundance, it should come as no surprise that Morris – the man behind surreal short film My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117, and the TV series Nathan Barley, has taken on arguably the most bad-taste subject imaginable: a cell of homegrown jihadi bombers, feverishly plotting martyrdom from terrace houses in Doncaster.

The title is offered up with sledgehammer irony: our crew of wannabe killers are as fervent as football fans, and at one point — in a parody of the 7/7 tube bombers' group hug caught on a station surveillance camera — cuddle up and chant motivational phrases.

But of course it's as contrary an idea as everything else Morris sets up: these are anti-patriots of the most unmistakable kind. Added to which, there are actually five of them. Omar (Riz Ahmed) is the intense, coiled-spring leader, Fessel (Adeel Akhtar) his clueless, dozy lieutenant; Waj (Kayvan Novak), an easily confused bruiser; harmless-looking Hassan (Arsher Ali), a late sub when one of the others enters heaven a little earlier than planned; and Barry (Nigel Lindsay), — the most bizarre of all the "lions" — a Caucasian convert to Islam with a streak of ferocious invective and penchant for little hats.

Morris's basic strategy is to undermine and undercut. The jihadis are hopelessly confused and contradictory, caught between their assimilated lifestyle and righteous ideological fire. Omar, for example, can't stop mocking his far more religious, far more peaceable, brother. Fessel, a main vehicle for the doofus comedy, buys bomb-making material with a voice disguised as his own. (Plus he forgets about his beard when he presents himself as a "woman".) Omar and Waj bond by asserting they would happily kill the other if necessary. Barry is constantly trying to insert himself into a group trip to the Middle East, even though it is clear he is not wanted. And when the authorities finally track the group down, Morris doesn't spare them his withering eye: the cops are as incompetent as everyone else, despite their veneer of technological sophistication.

Strangely enough, Four Lions reminded me of Dad's Army, with its blend of buffoonery and cantankerousness, petty power struggles and blurring of the lines between home and combat life. Perhaps it is also indicative of how essentially unadventurous Four Lions is, cinematically speaking; only in the final section, when the bombers run around in hysterically inappropriate fancy dress, does the film approach the demented inspiration with which we associate Morris. Still, in its very existence, Morris has hit on the rawest of nerves, and for that he deserves admiration.

by Andrew Pulver

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