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...

Late, late, late, late, late.... Also at Channel 24 What it's about After a terrorist attack in central London, two ex-lovers are reunited as part of the defense team for those suspected of perpetrating the attacks, but only one is privilege to evidence that is deemed a threat to national security. What we thought Closed Circuit is the sort of film that really has no excuse to be as rote and uninspired as it turned out to be. Putting aside the solid creative team both behind and if front of the cameras that includes one of the more interesting British directors of recent years; an erratic, but often brilliant British screenwriter and a dependably good to great cast, the story it's telling overflows with potential. Think about it, we have the always, if you pardon the expression, explosive topic of terrorism vs. national security at the centre, but that's only the beginning. We also have a peak into a very unusual and morally and ethically complex legal cas...