Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Crwthod A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Gre Mai This has got to be the most aggravating television series I've ever seen/watched. I don't know which is more appropriate as I seem to have watched it despite myself. You can't not watch it, you're bound to be curious as to what happens next, but it's a painful viewing. Yes, as in not very well made. Which is heartbreaking as there's clearly something there. The topic is fascinating, the plot potentially thrilling, the characters and the acting somehow more human and believable than it would be were it an American production. Benedict Cumberbatch inhabits this enigmatic geeky OCD character with a Jimmy Stewart-like everyman hero-ness about him while never oversimplifying him. Anamaria Marinca paints a sincere and passionate character in Yasim. Now, these two actors and these two characters and their story makes sense to me. The rest of the characters weren't as clear or good, which no amount of good acting could (or indeed did) save. The plot itself wasn't that hard to follow, but comprehending the motivation of the characters or being convinced by it was a bit of a stretch. Something somewhere in the making of this series went wrong. Strange thing is it's pretty hard to put one's finger on it. Was it the writing? But then what made me want to keep on watching? Was it the directing, the photography, the editing? I think the director should take some blame - all the bits didn't seem to tie in. The camera movement did at one point actually bother me - when the camera tilted diagonally to fit the heads of actors squarely into the shot (very bizarre). And the story could indeed have been helped along in editing. Watching it in 2012 I was never going to be harsh on how realistic it is or isn't. It's more of an exercise of thought, what could happen and perhaps make you question the things you willingly do in this day and age already, what this could mean. The ending was both frustrating and not frustrating. What happens to Michael and what Russell ends up being (by the way, what WAS he?) would be the frustrating bit. And the situation Stephen ends up in is mentally and emotionally deliciously excruciating.

robert-temple-1 This is a superb conspiracy thriller series (5 hours) set in the immediate future, about the threat we all now face from the surveillance society, where there is no privacy left at all. In this series, a chilling new British surveillance system called T. I. A. (for Total Information Awareness) is being launched by the British Government, so that everything about everybody can be known by the Government at the click of a mouse. Since Britain is already the most monitored society on earth (one CCTV camera for every eleven people, for instance), it was correct to make the British Government the villains of this series, as their present mania for total surveillance is well known to everyone, and already surpasses anything the Stasi could ever have dreamed of, and in any case the current British Government is only supported now by about 15% of the population, and everybody is waiting for them to be thrown out in 2010. Whether the new Government will then dismantle any CCTV cameras is another matter, but at least ID cards will be cancelled and the DNA database of innocent people and children will be ordered progressively destroyed, though that process will take many years. In this series the lead character is played by a bumbling, goofy, indecisive and wimpish Benedict Cumberbach, who portrays a young mathematician who has won the Field Medal in mathematics (the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize) for a brilliant theorem. His former girlfriend is now the minister introducing T.I.A., and she wants to recruit him to speak out on its behalf. This involves his having access to its workings. He has an older brother whom he barely knows, and with whom he has never had friendly relations. This brother is in Afghanistan, where he is apparently killed by a bomb. However, this brother, played by Max Beesley, has not been killed after all and returns to Britain under an alias to investigate who tried to kill him. It is all connected with those scheming pharmaceutical companies and a devilish Government plan to inject nano-technological identifiers into the bloodstreams of everyone on earth for universal ID card readouts by detectors on every street corner. Lots of people get killed, because control freaks enjoy that. Meanwhile, the brother's beautiful and mysterious wife, played by the fascinating Anamaria Marinca (one of those rare girls who commands attention even when shorn of her hair to an alarming degree, so that if she were less alluring she would look like one of those girls who had their heads shaved at the Liberation of Paris for sleeping with the Nazis), falls for Cumberbatch. This is the one thing that is really hard to believe in the series, because Cumberbatch could not be less appealing to any gal, I should have thought. But there is no accounting for taste or for casting directors. There is a mysterious man played with intense menace by Robert Carlyle, who when he finally speaks turns out to have an impenetrably think Scottish accent. The minister ex-girl friend also has a strong Northern Ireland accent. Certainly every attempt was made to ensure that this series could not possibly sell in America, as no one there could conceivably understand a word several of the regionally accented actors say. I suppose this is what is called 'the multi-accentual society', guaranteeing that no one can understand anyone else. Maybe it is the only way to defeat mass surveillance, if you speak in an incomprehensible accent. Eva Birthistle is superb as the chirpy but chilling minister, and old pro Geraldine James (who has never failed to deliver) is utterly terrifying as a behind the scenes power-wielder who guards the gates to the Prime Minister's office and is capable of anything. It is all thoroughly convincing and gripping stuff. It is very much an edge-of-the-potato-couch experience. And it is really important, as the message is loud and clear and everybody needs to hear it, so tell all your friends.

RichardLBown You have to be focused/undisturbed/observant to watch this ( so far, I have viewed episode 1 only at 9pm). Up to par with all the other UK, BBC, PBS British mystery series .. etc. It re-broadcasts here in 2 hrs at 1am. So you can be sure that I will be tuned-in. Like a good book, a second reading reveals twists, comments and turns of a phrase missed in the first reading. Looking forward to the other episodes (weekly here).This is masterful, captivating, suspenseful and ladened with detail. Little text is needed, the actors' expressions convey well the mood and foreboding of the events to come.This series eclipses the violent/sadistic/illiterate/inane scripts we here are so often subjected to by the US media - British mystery remains unsurpassed; how can it fail ? It dominates.Enjoy !Best Regards

moshun Yet again we trot out a tired ,derivative, alarmist bore-fest of a drama.Chock full of cardboard characters, bad dialogue and cheaper than cheap production values. It picks up slightly toward the end of the initial episode, enough to give it a second chance, but not exactly edge of the seat stuff.Theme wise, it's not particularly relevant in any accurate sense. As i said before "alarmist" is the best description. At least if it's core had some genuine gravitas it would be worth watching but it comes off as the same old mumblings of leftie dissent. Balking at the notion of a surveillance state. (which for all intents and purposes we already live in) And for the most part... it's coma inducingly dull. Some of the acting is cringe worthy, but i cant blame the actors, with some of the lines they have to deliver, it's telling when even the cast cant get into character.Like i said, i will wait to see how the next episode pans out, but i am not waiting with baited breath. when oh when will British TV actually get some money spent on productions!