Earlier this month Sky, ITN and the BBC lobbied the government to allow cameras in court. The hope is that criminal trials could be televised as early as early as 2015. The ban on taking photographs goes back to 1925 but even before then cameras had to be smuggled into courtrooms in hats or bags. …
Category archives: Film
The Jury: Perverting the Course of Justice
Forget the legal inaccuracies, the irrelevant sub-plots and the intrusive commercial breaks. What really killed off ITV’s The Jury was a lack of confidence in courtroom drama. It looked promising enough. Written by the Oscar-nominated author of Frost/Nixon and The Queen, Peter Morgan, The Jury was screened over five consecutive days and starred Julie Walters …
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Violence in Films and Computer Games: Guest Blog
Does the portrayal of violence in the media affect human behaviour? Should we be concerned about violence in computer games, books and film? These questions are being asked more often as games in particular grow ever more realistic. The US Supreme Court recently debated whether video games are worse than films and books because they …
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Beyond Reasonable Doubt
The cult film noir Detour has an unusual take on murder. The ‘hero’ is neither a hardened criminal or an innocent man fighting for justice. Instead the main character, hitchhiker Al Roberts, asks us to believe that he has accidentally become a double killer. Watching it was a bit like listening in court to a …