Christopher Nolan’s latest sci-fi thriller Inception is a masterpiece of storytelling, with beautiful cinematography and fascinating characters.

In a world where technology exists to enter the human mind through dream invasion, a single idea within one’s mind can be the most dangerous weapon or the most valuable asset.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a skilled thief. The absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable.

Cobb’s rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved.

Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible-inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists (featuring the talented stars of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe and Dileep Rao) have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. Inside the mind of Robert Fischer Jr played by Cillian Murphy.

If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming.

Following the success of rebooting the Batman series with the superb Batman Begins and the excellent The Dark Knight (and not forgetting The Prestige) British director Christopher Nolan’s new film Inception sets a new bar of creativity and originality. If you thought Memento was difficult to follow, Nolan’s latest film Inception is even more complicated! Nolan taps into the world of the subconscious and after experiencing 148 minutes of mind-blowing special effects and top star talents, you are left feeling in a dream like status.

The action sequences are like a work of art but you have to be paying constant attention to all the layers of what is happening. The final hour is quite possibly one of the most complicated. Without giving the game away, this make this film so entertaining to the viewer.

With a A-list cast featuring the talent of Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Lewitt (Tommy Solomon from 3rd Rock of the Sun!), Sir Michael Caine, Ellen Page (Juno) and Marion Cotillard, the film represent the best of Hollywood.

Inception certainly lives up to the hype and indeed Nolan has surpassed himself with this brilliant and breathtaking film. Highly recommended.

Last night on Sky1 was the final episode of Day 8 and after nine years in the life of CTU agent Jack Bauer, the hit real-time drama has come to an end.

It has been an emotional ride with thrills and spills over the course of 192 episodes/hours. From losing his wife Teri in season one plus the constant kidnapping of daughter Kim, not forgetting losing his colleagues one-by-one in the following seasons, it’s been a tough life for Kiefer Sutherland’s character in 24.

Guardian writer Charlie Brooker has posted his view on the show and what the creators can do with a plausible idea of a spin-off!

Jack Bauer is no more

So. Farewell then, Jack Bauer. CTU agent and terrorist-botherer extraordinaire. You thwarted countless unspeakable plots. Apart from the ones perpetrated by your own writers. In those you were sadly complicit. Now your time has finally ended. But even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day. Unless it’s using the 24-hour format. Which yours, ironically, didn’t.

Apologies to EJ Thribb. Anyway, that’s enough poetry for one column. By the time you read this Bauer will be dead. Well, not dead exactly, but gone from our screens. The former hit series 24 has ground to a halt due to public indifference; the final episode, broadcast on Sky One this evening, culminated in surprisingly low-key fashion. Jack said goodbye to Chloe and shuffled off into the sunset, limping a bit because he was moderately wounded (“moderately wounded” by his standards, at any rate: anything less than a full lung dangling out of his chest cavity is a minor inconvenience to Bauer). He now exists only in the minds of fans and the creative team planning his first spinoff movie, which presumably will last precisely 240 minutes if there’s to be any notional continuity at all.

It’s a fairly inauspicious end to a series that, let’s not forget, was groundbreaking when it first appeared, back in 2001 when season-long story arcs were still a rarity rather than the norm, and the “real time” concept was an arresting gimmick. Furthermore, its sheer brutality was shocking. Not many hit series end their inaugural season with the hero cradling the corpse of his pregnant wife. It certainly didn’t work for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. The audience choked on its Ribena. But 24 pulled it off. Which made it all the more disappointing that, having established an exciting new form, the show proceeded to repeat itself ad nauseum, until it all became so predictable that Jack was visibly yawning during some of the later torture scenes, and sometimes had to splash himself in the face with cold blood just to stay awake.

The real-time format was partly to blame, of course: it eventually turned the series into little more than a string of preposterous deadlines. Sometimes it felt like watching an adaptation of a paperback spy thriller as recounted by a six-year-old boy, who’s regurgitated a rough storyline from memory in one breathless sentence: “And then Jack stops the bomb but the man runs away so Jack chases him in a car but the car crashes into the sea and then a shark comes to eat Jack but Jack kills the shark with a sword and then Jack builds a helicopter out of some reeds and a coathanger and then Jack flies the helicopter into the terrorist’s head THE END.”

Come to think of it, rather than cancelling the series, Fox should be incredibly bold and recommission it using that system for next year: get a six-year-old boy to recount the plot of season one from memory, and then force everyone involved to shoot a word-for-word re-enactment of whatever he says, no matter how absurd. Don’t know about you, but I’d definitely tune in to watch Jack on the trail of a man with funny arms who stole his Lego. In episode four he rides a horse up the side of a building. In episode nine he climbs inside a robot and blows up everyone in the war. In episode 12 he eats some spaghetti and hides from a giant with a purple beard. It is, without question, the finest television series ever made.

Failing that, the “ticking clock” format is too good to leave alone. If CSI and NCIS can spin themselves off into independent mutations, why shouldn’t 24? How about a Sex and the City/24 hybrid in which Samantha has 24 hours to conceive? With anyone – man or beast? Potentially pornographic. OK, more sensibly: what about a version of 24 set during the second world war? Or in the middle of a Towering Inferno-style disaster? Or by a wall somewhere in or near Plymouth? Admittedly, that last concept needs work.

Best of all, they could create the ultimate mind-mangling edition by setting the whole thing 20 years in the future. Halfway through the series, a group of futuristic terrorists (white hair, silver bodysuits) set off a time-reversing pulse-bomb that makes events unfold in reverse. Fiendishly, they detonate it on the last Sunday in October, at the precise moment when the clocks go forward an hour. In the immediate aftermath, 10 members of Jack Bauer Jr’s team die of confusion trying to synchronise watches. It’s down to Jack Jr himself to save the day, but since the detonation of the timebomb moves further away with each passing second, his task gets harder and harder, and the series carries on way beyond its allotted 24 episodes, all the way back through the passage of time until it reaches the big bang, at which point it is revealed that the universe itself was created by a similar explosion – an explosion Jack’s great great great great great great great great forefather somehow manages to thwart, thereby cancelling the formation of time and space itself.

“The following takes place between now and never o’ clock.” Come on. It’s got a ring to it.

Source: The Guardian

The once-popular television drama Heroes has been officially cancelled. After four seasons the NBC drama has been axed and as reported by The Hollywood Reporter, the American television network made the decision following disappointing ratings and high production costs.

It’s official. NBC has cancelled “Heroes.”

The network seriously mulled bringing back “Heroes” for a shortened final season to wrap up the serialized show.

In the end, given the fairly high cost of the drama, the show’s consistently declining ratings and the number of new hour-longs coming to NBC next season, the network decided the UMS-produced series wasn’t worth an additional season. Sources say the network is still leaving the door open to conclude the show with a special or movie.

The show has long had a rocky relationship with its fans. Out of the gate, “Heroes” was a big hit for the network – an ethnically diverse big-concept ensemble that performed well overseas. It was NBC’s “Lost.”

But the show’s writers struggled to keep the show’s twisting narrative on track. Characters were killed off and resurrected with regularity. Narrative threads were started, then abandoned. Unlike “Lost,” there didn’t seem to be series-long central questions driving the show that needed to be resolved with a final season.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

So sad to hear it’s all over but I must admit the writers were to blame. The lack of consistency in the character development and story-telling made the show frustrating to watch. A real shame, as I was a fan when it was first premiered back in 2006 to a staggering number of television audience.

But after the first season, the hype surrounding the next season made it difficult to retain that high standards and the writers strike of 2007-08 didn’t help in making season two a major disappointment. Not surprisingly, the audience lost patience and switched off in there millions.

Heroes dragged on for two further seasons but by then, the show’s twisting narrative had too many loose ends and it was difficult to care much with the characters.

Sorry Claire, you special ability to heal hasn’t work to save the show! And so ends Heroes.

Now my attention focuses on the excellent Mad Men, Breaking Bad and True Blood. Proper classy television dramas!

American television network Fox has confirmed that after eight seasons, 24 will air its series finale this year.

Emmy-award winning actor Kiefer Sutherland has commented that even though the news that 24 will not continue into Day 9, a movie version of the popular real-time drama is the next step to continue the franchise.

Still, it is very sad to hear that one of my favourite television drama is coming to an end. The acting and story-telling in the last eight years have been hit and miss to be honest, but the concept of real-time and split-screen action was a masterstroke in setting the overall feel of this show. We shall see the fate of CTU and Jack Bauer at the end of the current season and I look forward to the movie with great enthusiasm.

Anyway, read the full extract of the story in full below, as taken from Hollywood Insider:

Kiefer Sutherland told EW.com that producing a ninth season for another network like NBC was not an option because he and executive producer Howard Gordon were ready to call it quits.

“The writers are producing the equivalent of 12 films a year, which is unheard of, and Howard felt to do a ninth would be potentially damaging,” said Sutherland. “We both felt strongly that there has been a demand and an interest in a 24 film, which would be a two-hour representation of a 24-hour day, so we felt it was time to move in that direction.”

Sutherland promised the series finale would tee up the 24 movie that’s in the works at 20th Century Fox. Billy Ray (State of Play) is writing the screenplay. “We wanted to create a definitive end for Jack Bauer,” explains Sutherland. “Since we do have the intention to make the feature film, it would lead into that and certainly set that up.

“Something we’ve dealt with in the series is how the crisis always has to come to us because we don’t have time to move anywhere in a real time world,” he continued. “In a two-hour (movie) representation of the 24 world, planes, trains, and automobiles all of a sudden become a factor because you are not required to go scene by scene in real time. That’s something I can say I am very excited about.”

As for the actual series finale, Gordon told EW.com that he and Sutherland considered everything from a happy to a tragic ending for Jack Bauer and ended up with episodes that take some risks: “We go to a very definitive, very complex place.”

Source: The Hollywood Insider

The highly anticipated third album from cartoon band Gorillaz is nearly upon us and thanks to the Guardian website and YouTube, we have the unique opportunity to listen to Plastic Beach and watch the official music video to Stylo.

With Plastic Beach, the album features guest performances by Snoop Dogg, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Kano, Bashy, Bobby Womack, Mos Def, Gruff Rhys, De La Soul, Little Dragon, Mark E. Smith, Lou Reed, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, sinfonia ViVA and The Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music. A large collaboration of artists working alongside the pioneers of the band – Blur’s frontman Damon Albarn and co-creator of the comic book Tank Girl, Jamie Hewlett.

After listening to the complete track listing on Guardian Music, I have to say it’s certainly different. Very cool and funky in fact. Best track so far is Empire Ants.

As for the music video Stylo, we follow our hero Murdoc Niccals on a dangerous trip to the mainland from his new home on Plastic Beach. Something goes badly wrong and Murdoc, Cyborg Noodle and 2D end up in a high-speed car chase with a local cop and an unknown assailant (clue: Yippie-kai-yay motherf*****!).

Looking forward to the new album which is out on March 8th.

Photo: Shirlaine Forrest

One of my favourite rock band Muse has just released a fantastic new app for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. The Muse App features all the best parts of the official Muse website plus bonus content including a special edition of the band’s latest album The Resistance.

The Muse App, which is available via the iTunes Music Store, lists upcoming tour dates, music videos and photographs. In addition fans can directly upload and tag their own images taken at gigs with this application.

Here are some screenshots of the app, taken from the iPhone:

Other features include:

• Muse Map - All the global muse.mu information on a zoom-able map. See how many Muse members, images and tour dates apply to your city!
• Gig Pics – Take a picture from your iPhone at a Muse show, tag it to the show you’re at and upload it straight to muse.mu for everyone to see.
• The Resistance – A special section on the new album including an AppBook, the video for Resistance, audio of United States of Eurasia and 30 second clips of all the album tracks.
• Tour – details of all the forthcoming tour dates including links to buy tickets etc.
• Feeds - RSS feeds of Muse News, Tour Dates, Muse Twitter, the band’s Delicious Feed and MuseLive and Microcuts news.
• Video Player – An integrated muse.mu video player featuring all the video content from muse.mu.
• Forum - an iPhone/iPod Touch friendly forum skin for all you muse.mu forum users.
• Background Switcher – pick your favourite background for the app from a selection of Muse designs.

Sounds cool right? The best part is the price. Only £1.79. Rock on!

After constant rumours of a film adaptation based on the award-winning television drama that is 24, Variety reports that a big-screen transfer is the next logical step for Twentieth Century Fox following eight years of the show.

According to US reports, the television network has picked up a pitch from established screenwriter Billy Ray, who penned the recent Russell Crowe thriller State of Play.

This new project has received a positive backing from the star of the real-time drama Kiefer Sutherland, who plays agent Jack Bauer.

Ray’s storyline would reportedly see Bauer travelling to Europe, although more precise details on what is going to happen have yet to made public. If the film is made, executives will seek to hold on to the creative team that worked on the series in order to maintain the same qualities, which made the show such a hit with fans and critics alike.

It will be fascinating to see how the show can be translated on to the big screen. The ‘real-time’ element must remain but obviously not over a 24-hour period, as that would be a very long film…

In addition, adapting television shows to films could lead to become a hit or a flop. In the case of The X-Files, a popular sci-fi show, two films were made during and after the series.

The first film entitled Fight The Future was a success back in 1998, taking in a box office around $84 million plus $105 million overseas giving a grand total of $189 million. A follow-up with The X Files: I Want To Believe in 2008 was less successful, no thanks for the show being off the air for six years. That film only grossed $68 million worldwide.

Hopefully the same group of writers and producers will maintain that 24 feel. Not to mention the period of filming the television show and making a film will have to be seamless (for continuity reason), although this will be difficult considering the production time in making the show.

Best of luck to Twentieth Century Fox and to writer Billy Ray. I would personally love to see Jack Bauer at my local cinema!

This is a surprise! Thanks to Alison Goldfrapp’s blog and the popular we7 music website, you have the unique opportunity to listen to her new track Rocket from the forthcoming fifth Goldfrapp album Head First.

According to a press release issued ahead of the new album, it describes Head First as their “most powerful trip to date, a speedy rush of synth optimism, euphoria, fantasy and romance. With life affirming lyrics and stellar production it lifts off at full tilt and takes us on a journey to the heart of 2010.”

Judging by the initial response after listening to Rocket – full of 1980s synth – I believe the press release has hit the spot on the band’s new musical direction.

In fact, high expectations are set on the new album with a possibility that it might sound a mix between Seventh Tree and the earlier synth-based album such as Supernature.

As to the track listing, here is the full list:

Rocket
Believer
Alive
Dreaming
Head First
Hunt
Shiny And Warm
I Wanna Life
Voicething

Head First will be release on March 22. In the meantime, check out the album cover art (the post’s main image). Simply beautiful.

UPDATE: See the official music video to Rocket via YouTube by clicking on this link.

Jack Bauer’s new nightmare day returns to Sky1 on January 24th with a two-hour episode set in the Big Apple.

Season eight sees a new threat to Bauer and after watching this brief teaser trailer via YouTube, it promises to be more tense and dramatic.

As to what we should expect in the next 24 episodes, the official Sky1 website has provided some details on Day 8. See the full extract below:

When we last saw Jack Bauer (Golden Globe® and Emmy® winner Kiefer Sutherland), his life was hanging in the balance. But, true to form, the hardest man in television is back for another heart stopping, action-packed series of the award-winning US drama series 24. With a relocation to New York, the return of CTU and new exciting cast additions, this season looks set to follow Day 7 in being one of the best yet when it returns to Sky1 HD and Sky1 on Sunday 24 January.

At the start of 24’s new, eighth season, Bauer is hoping for a quiet life with his daughter Kim (Elisha Cuthbert, Captivity) and his granddaughter. However, a group of terrorists have other plans and an assassination plot against a visiting Middle Eastern leader Omar Hassan (Anil Kapoor, Slumdog Millionaire) is uncovered. It’s not long before Bauer is called upon to help prevent Hassan’s murder.

Kiefer Sutherland said: “Season 7 and 8…are really connected together. The storylines from Season 7 really do play all the way through into Season 8. The setup for [this season] is the most realistic political thing that I think we’ve ever done since we started the show. This season is more grounded in what possibly could happen. There’s a sense of reality that almost brings it back to Season 1.”

CTU is back in action and based in New York, headed up by Special Agent Brian Hastings (Mykelti Williamson, Forrest Gump). He is joined by brainy bombshell Dana Walsh (Katee Sackhoff, Battlestar Galactica) and her fiancé, head of field operation Cole Ortiz (Freddie Prinze Jr, I Know What You Did Last Summer).

Returning for Day 8 are CTU devotee Chloe O’Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub, Little Miss Sunshine), Renee Walker (Annie Wersching, General Hospital) and President Allison Taylor played by Cherry Jones (Ocean’s Twelve) fresh from her Emmy® win for her work on Day 7. Plus, villainous ex-president Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin, The Mentalist) is set to return when Taylor enlists him to assist with an escalating crisis. “The opportunity for these two remarkable actors to share the stage was simply too compelling to pass up,” said executive producer Howard Gordon of the unison of the current and previous presidents.

It all sounds great and I look forward to seeing Bauer Action Hour every Sunday night from January 24^th!

Season eight of the award-winning real-time drama 24 will be premiering early next year and after watching this short teaser trailer (YouTube video below), it certainly lives up to its reputation with more action and thrills in the company of Jack Bauer.

The new eighth day will start at 4.00 pm in a new location, New York City. After six seasons in Los Angeles and the previous season in Washington DC, the latest terrorist threat has shifted to the Big Apple.

The story arc will involve Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) contending with assassination threats made during a peace conference between President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones) of the United States and President Omar Hassan (Anil Kapoor) of the fictional Islamic Republic of Kamistan.

In a recent interview with the star Kiefer Sutherland confirmed that season eight will take place within very close proximity to the closing events of season seven, and is likely to be the show’s final season. He stated “there’s only so much you can do to Jack (Bauer) before you lose realism. I think a movie would be a good way to end this story.”

SPOILER ALERT! DETAIL-BY-DETAIL ACCOUNT ON SEASON EIGHT FROM FOX. DO NOT CLICK MORE TO AVOID THE UPCOMING SEASON OF 24.

Kiefer Sutherland, who talked to Entertainment Tonight and spilled some bits about what we should expect in the new season, which premieres in January. “One of the things that’s exciting about season eight for us, which is different from all the other seasons is it’s directly connected to the end of season seven,” he said. “Normally there’s a year or two break between seasons, between story lines–and this year that is not the case.”

And the fact that they’re shooting in New York has given the series a boost of sorts, too. “There’s a real tangible energy you can’t deny that about New York City,” he said.  ”The situations have always made Jack Bauer speak really quickly, and now he runs really quickly because in New York you’ve got to do that.”

The latest season, he says, has the most realistic storyline they’ve done in the show. “It centres around peace conferences taking place at the UN between the president of Iran and the President of the United States, which I believe is possible within the next few years,” he told TV Guide Magazine. “Obviously there will be a lot of people who will want to fight that. This is about fighting off that threat to peace.”

Switching back to ET, there’s Freddie Prinze Jr., who takes a serious turn as new CTU agent Cole Ortiz. (Note, the name was changed from when it was first announced.)  ”It’s trial by fire, but it’s good so far,” he told the show. “It’s been a lot of fun.  I’m scared to say it’s the best job I’ve ever had, but right now, it feels like the best job I’ve ever had.”

In a separate interview with TV Guide Magazine, he spills a bit about what his character is about to face–and while most of it’s stuff we already know, well, here it is anyway. “There’s a moment between my character, who runs field ops, and [Katee Sackhoff's] character, Dana Walsh, who runs the tech side of things,” he said.  ”They’re engaged and it’s difficult having a relationship at work when the stakes are so high. They’re having some problems that I really can’t get into. You see that somebody’s holding things back–maybe she has a secret which he has to concern himself with. He’s a Marine and he bases everything on having a plan with a coordinated attack. There’s an interesting dynamic on how he’s going to deal with her.”

Also talking to the magazine is Anil Kapoor, the first high-profile new member of this season’s cast: the Slumdog Millionaire star will play Middle Eastern politician Omar Hassan.  ”I have one scene in a car with my bodyguard,” he said. “Suddenly I’m sending messages to my country to say people [behind an assassination attempt on his character's life] have to be taken to task and arrested. I can sense that the bodyguard is uncomfortable and the way that the scene progresses is very dramatic. I speak about the peace process, my younger brother Akbar and my family. It’s a catharsis for my character.”

Speaking of a family, he’s got his family and another girlfriend.

Finally, Mary Lynn Rajskub hints at some problems ego-wise at the resurrected CTU. “Chloe is not up to speed in the new CTU, which is very different for her,” she said. “[Katee] plays my new boss, and she kind of pats me on the shoulder and says, ‘Don’t worry – you’ll catch up,’ which is the worst moment for Chloe ever. Everything’s changed at CTU and my bosses are looking at me like I’m not doing it right. But then something happens in the story where I think I know some information which pits me at odds with my bosses.”

Must be something with the new CTU offices, which is “like a spaceship,” Rajskub said. “It’s sleek with a lot of glass, and underground with a tunnel you drive through to get into it.  I feel kind of like Batgirl.”

Source: Fox.com

It all sounds great and I am definitely looking forward to see Jack Bauer saving the day once again!