Malta — a tiny Island, a minute social reality, a precursory canovaccio of European unification — has a unique asset it ought to be prouder of: Culture. For millennia our bonsai place has attracted a continuum of passing civilisations leaving behind them a most colourful and diverse compendium of customs, behaviours, artistic expressions, and intellectual attitudes. Malta’s investment in this unique legacy should not be limited to conservation. It needs to be kept alive through constant support of the contemporary expression of its youth. This attitude will certainly transform our Culture into a most effective and efficient currency of change and growth.
Push start. Grab a weapon. Get shot. Repeat… ad infinitum. ‘Punishing’ hardly describes a session of Hotline Miami. Typically, within 10 seconds you could die three or four times. It is just as frustrating as it is challenging. Addictively, you will not give up until you pass that sneaky little passage.
Hotline Miami is an ultra-violent, psychotic game, where your only aim is to kill all the ‘bad guys’.
Yet, every little move counts, and deciding which weapons to use or which door to open first will reveal the deep strategic possibilities of the game’s intense experience. As you make your way through a pile of corpses, the suspense builds up to unbearable levels as you risk losing all in-game progress for just a little mistake. The massacre is only interrupted by brief moments that reveal details of our mysterious ‘hero’s’ back-story. Keeping true to expectation, even these interludes are awkward if not disturbing, and hardly shed light on our displaced, faceless avatar.
The excellent game tops it all with an irresistible ‘80s aesthetics and a neurotic electronic soundtrack. You’ll quickly find out why this game has stolen the show winning so many awards, and has hooked fans of Grand Theft Auto and of good old shoot’em up games. Hotline Miami is a joy in repetition, providing that being stuck in a Clockwork Orange–like scenario is your idea of joy.
Rush hours, feasts, festivals, beaches in summer, Paceville on Saturday night, all have one thing in common: traffic. Malta has one of the largest traffic problems in the world. Researchers at the University of Malta are trying to figure out what can be done to ease road rage and reduce drivers’ lost time.
The author Dr Ben Goldacre is on a mission. The $600 billion pharmaceutical industry, some doctors, regulators, medical journals, and whole governments should be trembling. Goldacre wants to show the truth behind how our medicines are made. He wants transparent companies, properly informed patients, solid research, and cheap, effective drugs, preferably for all.
In typical Goldacre style, he rants. Ignore the apparent chip on his shoulder. His statements are thoroughly based on facts. The facts are shockingly scary.
Take the drug Tamiflu, the supposed miracle cure for flu. The pharmaceutical company Roche made over €500 million in 2009 on the back of the swine flu scare. The drug is known to reduce flu symptoms by a few hours, a hefty price tag for a spot of relief. Initially, Roche said that it reduces complications by 68%, amazing! Though when the gold standard reviewer Cochrane started scratching the surface they hit a brick wall. Roche refuses to publish data requested years ago and we still do not know how effective it is.
Even regulators get it wrong by being too business friendly or opaque. Diabetes drug Rosiglitazone was recently taken off the market after over 10 years of intimidating researchers who published data against the drug in 1999. Rosiglitazone increases heart problems by 43%. Regulators failed to share data transparently, which slowed action, an endemic problem.
Pharma has even failed cancer patients by stopping trials early to make drugs look better. Trials can also be run longer than needed to fuzz data. Goldacre lists endless examples to buttress his arguments.
Companies spend double on marketing drugs compared to research. In the US they can reach and influence consumers directly irrespective of efficacy, price, or need. Where direct marketing is banned, companies shift budgets and reach doctors through drug reps, people whose job it is to convince medics that their company’s drug is the best. Pharma even disguises marketing as research fooling doctors and wasting their time. Well-respected doctors are also paid handsomely to talk about products.
Apart from scandalous facts, Goldacre is a master of explaining science simply and clearly. Chapter 2 has a great introduction on how drugs are made. He clearly explains the difference between relative risk or absolute risk, or how bias and probability are manipulated by pharmaceuticals. His lucid style makes this book a great read and well recommended for anyone wanting to know the dirty secrets behind pill manufacturing.
Thankfully, Goldacre also suggests how it could be solved. My only advice is not to debunk the whole system when reading this book, remember the good stuff: life-saving antibiotics, disease eradicating vaccines and much more. The current system just needs some serious tweaking to remove the bad loop holes Big Pharma exploit to meet profit margins. But drug research has to go on.
Electricity has killed the ghost story,’ said author Ruth Rendell while commenting on a tale by M. R. James. She has a point. The ectoplasmic posse thrives on darkness, occupying those spaces that elude the intrusive sanctuary of light. Thomas Edison and his light bulb must be the greatest ghostbusters of all time and Andy Muschietti’s film Mama, one of their latest casualties.
Candlelight encourages unnerving narratives: a flickering flame, after all, choreographs crazy cavorting shadows. And gaslight creates pools of light amid pitch blackness, which is why the Golden Age of the ghost story was between the 1830s and World War I, when candles and gas were mostly used.
A trip to the cinema combines all three: the film is essentially a beacon of moving shadows (candlelight) on a screen surrounded by obscurity (gaslight) and a source of electricity (the projector). In a way the cinema offers horror lovers what the ghost writers of old offered to readers: access to the land of the Bogeyman.
The Bogeyman, or Babau, or El Cuco, or whatever you want to call it, is scary as hell because we never get to see him. He is not really underneath the bed, or inside the closet, or waiting by the wayside to snatch those pesky children and put them in a sack. Then again, he might be there, waiting for the right moment to strike. Ghost stories need this kind of tension to instil a sense of dread.
“The latest movie trend is to dispense with tension in favour of a sedated compromise to appease a mainstream audience”
Unfortunately, the latest movie trend is to dispense with tension in favour of a sedated compromise to appease a mainstream audience. Mama falls into this trap. The film revolves around the battle between two mums, one alive and one dead. They are both surrogate mothers as the two girls’ real parent was killed by their very anxious dad. The arising conflict drives the narrative forward but then everything goes belly-up when the ghost, in all its CGI glory, takes centre stage. And, of course, CGI is all electricity.
Once the ghost of Edith Brennan becomes a central figure in the story (visually), the excellent sense of amassed dread all but disappears. Instead, CGI wizardry takes over: magnificent wraithlike tendrils of ghostly garb, creepy head tilted at a slightly awkward angle, a face that might stretch and scream at any moment, giving us the intended scare. We are shown too much. Movies such as Paranormal Activity (2007) and The Innkeepers (2011) take a better approach by creating and sustaining suspense by only showing the bare essentials. They leave you gripping your seat.
So: is Mama any good? Well, yes, in an average-film kind of way. But there is definitely no need to watch it with your lights on.
