Because Everybody Else Has One

Transcendent? Not so much. But hey, at least it tries... Wally Pfister has spent years becoming one of the most renowned and sought after cinematographers in Hollywood - he started off making straight-to-video erotic thrillers and ended up as Christopher Nolan's right hand man on Inception and the Dark Knight trilogy - so it's rather disheartening to see just how quickly he crashed and burned in his first time in the director's chair. This isn't to say that he won't go on to great things (the raw talent is clearly there) but Transcendence was savaged by most critics and greeted with deafening apathy by audiences in both the US and the UK. Things are hardly much better here. Despite opening up against no real competition, the film has stalled at number 7 in its opening weekend. As for whether the film deserves the reception it has received, well, it's complicated. It is not, for a start, anywhere near the worst film as the year. Hell, it's not even rem...

The Hangover for geriatrics? Not so fast... This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Four old, lifelong friends head off to Vegas to throw a bachelor party for their perennially single member who has finally decided to settle down with a woman half his age - with blowout parties, late-mid-life crises and friendship-straining conflicts following along in their wake. What we thought Last Vegas may seem on the surface to be another retread of The Hangover, only this time with an older cast and more Viagra jokes but, pleasingly, it's something quite different. Las Vegas is featured, of course, and so are a quartet of old friends and, yup, Viagra jokes but rather than trying to copy the success of a series that was well past its sell-by date the minute its first film ended, Last Vegas is an intimate and character-driven slice of gentle comedy about love, friendship and growing older. It's also, however, not something that is going to go down as any so...