★★★☆☆
Three Stars

Okay, I’ll admit it. I read the words Justin Timberlake and made an oestrogen fuelled leap towards reviewing his newly released album The 20/20 Experience.  As we all know, the 32 year old JT is no longer the curly headed boy of Nsync fame, and is now a sophisticated, hilarious (just check out his most recent stint with The Lonely Island and Beyoncé) and married (if you listen very closely you can hear the soft cries of women everywhere) man.

I have to promise it is not just out of pre-conditioned bias, then, that I say that the album has, for the most part, a pretty awesome sound. Justin’s unmistakable suave falsetto is back after seven years, and it melts into every track. Take the third song of the album ‘Don’t Hold the Wall’; with its slow seductive rhythms and the sounds of cicadas, you can picture yourself in a sultry, seedy Spanish bar.

There’s even something for the men out there. Take a listen to ‘Suit and Tie’, if you haven’t already. If that doesn’t make you feel like a true smooth, polished, lady-killer whilst getting ready for formal, I don’t know what will.

HOWEVER, I have to admit that Justin becomes a little self-indulgent here, and will insist on stretching out an otherwise alright track in an attempt to make it some kind of masterpiece. For example, the first track, ‘Pusher Love Girl’ is 8:02 minutes long, and ends in about 3 minutes of Justin singing ‘I’m just a junkie for your love’ over 6 notes, ad nauseum. I went to make myself a cup of tea, which I’m pretty sure I can’t do in a club.

Also it seems there is no real consistent theme to the whole thing, other than the typical Justin style, even after a whole 1 hour 19 minutes of intense listening and waiting. So, other than the highlight tracks of the album, which are pretty much over by the 4th song, you are somewhat left with a big jumper for Christmas instead of the Xbox you were really secretly hoping to get for the last seven years.

Maybe more exciting stuff will come in the second part of the album which will be released later this year, but I’m not sitting on the edge of my seat.

But if you ask me, even if no adventurous leaps have been made by him now even after such a long hiatus from producing solo work, that’s no different to any other mainstream recording artist I’ve heard recently. And compared to the rest of them, who consistently churn out the same fast, meaningless, lyricless beats that are personally reserved only for pre-drink fuelled Wahoo, it’s nice to have something you won’t be embarrassed to come on shuffle on your iTunes.

And let’s be honest. Even if it’s the same old Christmas jumper, the same old JT sounds and feel, that’s what we’ve always loved, and I wouldn’t change it. I just wish it was a bit shorter that’s all. 

Xu Bing is one of China’s most critically acclaimed contemporary artists. His current exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, ‘Landscape Landscript’, is the first exhibition devoted to his fascinating landscapes collection.

Previous works by Bing include ‘Book from the Sky’ and ‘Where Does The Dust Collect Itself?’. For the former, 4000 Chinese characters were created, hand carved into wood blocks and subsequently printed onto hanging ceiling scrolls, whilst the latter installation was compiled using dust that Bing collected from the World Trade Centre following 9/11. What is undoubtedly interesting about Bing’s artworks is that not only do they help bridge the gap between ancient Chinese and modern Chinese art, they also transcend the barriers that exist between Eastern and Western cultures.

The exhibition is divided into three rooms, showing various pieces dating from 1974 to 1989. Upon entry, one is met with a quaint selection of Bing’s earlier pencil and crayon drawings that warmly depict the rural Chinese countryside. Primitive villages and pastures are drawn with an intimate touch, the small scale used in the drawings encouraging one to peer more closely at each minute detail.  Several of these drawings use highly simplistic lines, enhanced with minimalistic spots of colour,  lending them a cartoon-like, playful quality. One is reminded of Paul Klee’s abstract drawings composed of simple forms outlined using sparse linework.

It is evident that Bing’s landscapes show heavy influences from Jean-François Millet. Like Millet, Bing wanted to convey the peace that is palpable in rural China, and through careful observations of nature, he was able to capture the rawness of countryside life.

One of the highlights of the exhibition are the displays of large etchings and woodprints; several of these woodland pieces show likeness to David Hockney’s paintings in their organised uniformity. However, many of Bing’s woodprints aptly use asymmetry to create jarring, patterned landscapes, resulting in an unrestrained meshwork of lines, dots, varying in size and shape. This dynamism often injects a sense of liveliness to the scenes depicted which contrasts to the stillness infused in the pencil drawings. Even though Bing does not use oil paints, some of the etchings are evocative of Van Gogh’s bold and brash linework.

The most dominant pieces in the exhibition are the shan shui (山水): traditional Chinese landscape scroll paintings, in which Bing incorporates Chinese characters that have been morphed into shapes of mountains, stones and rivers. It is almost as if Bing is creating a language puzzle for the viewer, making us connect with the image as well as the Chinese text scattered amongst his artworks. Such pictorial works question the idea of communication through hidden words, forcing us to question how words can be manipulated to create new forms and ideologies.

Some say a picture is worth a thousand words. Bing’s art exceeds that number for certain. If you want to catch a glimpse of the beautiful Chinese countryside, this intimate exhibition is not to be missed.

‘Landscape Landscript’ is on at the Ashmolean Museum from 29 February – 19 May 2013.

If you watch one thing on TV this week, make it the last in the series of Gogglebox. The premise of Channel 4’s latest reality show may sound dull – filming families’ reactions as they watch television programmes – but the result is anything but. Gogglebox offers an intriguing insight into human behaviour, and also happens to be very, very funny.

In the UK, on average we watch a staggering four hours per day of television. Often, the most enjoyable part of a show is not what’s on screen, but the comments of your fellow viewers. By pushing the sofa into the spotlight, the creators of Gogglebox give us an insight into the viewing habits of a diverse cross-section of British society.

We meet Stephen and Christopher, a couple from Brighton who make astute, acerbic observations on all aspects of TV culture. And Leon in Liverpool: a retired teacher who constantly pesters his wife for a snack and finds himself bemused with modern life. Then there’s Stephanie and Dominic: middle-aged spouses from Kent with an enormous house and a frightfully well-stocked liquor cabinet. They would awfully like Jeremy Clarkson to be Prime Minister, and they reckon the Queen is ‘top totty’.

In the Michael family, mother Caroline is beside herself at Chummy’s labour on Call the Midwife. Her son, Louis, fetches her a roll of loo paper and loudly despairs of her melodramatic side. His long-suffering father just wishes they’d both be quiet so he can eat his monkey nuts in peace. Meanwhile, Antiques Roadshow inspires best friends Sandy and Sandra to take a break from their incessant munching of junk food in order to painstakingly inspect a Tutankhamun paperweight to ascertain its value.

It is incredibly easy to relate to the personalities in Gogglebox. Who hasn’t become infuriated by their family members talking over the top of a programme? Or watched a show just for the fun of criticising it? The show’s hilarity lies in its humanity: we see the participants wince at One Born, cry at Comic Relief and get mildly aroused by Paul Hollywood’s Bread. The universality of these reactions is comforting.

Gogglebox shows that television is powerful. It can captivate our attention and have us on the edge of our seats. It can make us laugh and cry within the space of half an hour. Although it can be hard to remember when you’re fighting over the remote with a sibling, watching television is a pleasure best shared, as our mutual experience sparks discussion. Far from stifling real human interaction, television encourages it. Gogglebox bears witness to that interaction, as banal or insightful as it may be. I have enjoyed it immensely, and sincerely hope it returns for more than four episodes next time.

Broken explores the relationships both within and between three families living in adjacent houses in an unnamed north London suburb: depicting a picture of dead-end Britain seen through the eyes of twelve year old Skunk (Eloise Lawrence). Each of these families are struggling to respond to their own issues– whether divorce, death of a loved one, or mental illness. However, it is the conflict between these families, provoked by the troublesome Oswalds, which is the focus of the film.  

It is difficult to dispute the fact that Broken is a well-made film. The cinematography is very well done and manages to subtly highlight the juxtaposition of the innocent Skunk with the violence and lies that surround her – adding comic details which are appropriate for seeing the world through the eyes of a twelve year old and help break up the often bleak tension of the narrative.

The cast are pretty faultless; each actor develops their role well, and the stereotypical nature of characters such as Mr. Oswald is a fault of the screenwriting rather than anything else. Above all, this film should be watched for newcomer Eloise Lawrence’s excellent performance as Skunk, who she portrays convincingly as kind, trusting and without agenda. Indeed, the scenes between Skunk and her ‘boyfriend’ Dillon in the countryside by a nearby scrap-yard were some of my favourites of the film, offering a kind of escapism from the tension of the central plot.   

However, it is the overwhelming and, by the end, overdone drama and tension that ultimately dominate the storyline of Broken, making it very difficult to come away feeling anything but drained. The initial point of high tension, with Mr Oswald violently attacking Rick Buckley for seemingly no reason, is an effective and attention-grabbing opening to the film. However, as the narrative continues, the amount of drama and tension escalates and eventually reaches unrealistic levels. In a film that is at least on some level meant to be a realist-style examination of troubled modern British suburban life, it arguably ends in melodrama, trying to cram far too much into ninety one minutes.