Archive for the ‘Cultural issues’ Category
A review of the superb 1994 film “Leon”
July 22nd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Following the success of “Nikita”, the French Luc Besson made this superb and stylish action-thriller in the English language as both writer and director. Set in New York City, it brings together the eponymous Italian-American ‘cleaner’ aka hitman (Jean Reno who played a similar character in “Nikita”), a grizzled, brilliantly efficient operator who loves milk […]
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A review of the summer blockbuster movie “The Odyssey”
July 22nd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
A budget of $250 million, 50 boats, 5,000 extras, filming at 20 locations in Greece, Italy, Morocco, Scotland, Iceland and Malta. This was always going to be a massive movie. After the huge success of “Oppenheimer”, so excited was I in anticipation of the next film – his 13th – from Christopher Nolan, co-writer and […]
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A review of “Odyssey” by Stephen Fry
July 13th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
As I anticipated the 2026 blockbuster movie “The Odyssey” by Christopher Nolan, I thought that it was about time that I familiarised myself with Homer’s epic work of some 2,700 years ago. The original poem was recited from memory and eventually was set down as a work of 12,109 lines composed in ancient Greek in […]
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A review of the 1976 classic movie “Taxi Driver”
July 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Following “Mean Streets” (1973), this is another collaboration between director Martin Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro, both still at the beginning of their careers and both of whom went on to have stellar achievements for half a century. In this case, they had a strong script, courtesy of Paul Schrader who presents the descent […]
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A review of the classic 1961 movie “West Side Story”
July 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
“West Side Story” was a spectacular theatre musical (when I was in Vienna, I saw a version in German!) and it was an enormous success as a film (when I first saw it at the cinema as a teenager, my girlfriend was repeatedly in tears) that won all but one of its 11 Academy Award […]
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A review of the 1939 classic movie “The Wizard Of Oz”
July 4th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Rarely can a movie have been so troubled in production but so successful in outcome. The work had 14 writers and four directors; casting was a problem and there were on-set accidents and drunkenness; it was over schedule and over budget. And yet “Oz” was a huge success and, according to the US Library of […]
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A review of the classic 1996 movie”Fargo”
June 30th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Here we have a black comedy that is often macabre and frequently funny. Car dealer Jerry Lundesgaard (William H. Macy) hires two very odd characters, played by Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare, to kidnap his wife so that he can share the ransom with them to escape some financial difficulties. Everything goes wrong and, when […]
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A review of “The Short Story Of Film” by Ian Haydn Smith (2020)
June 23rd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
I love cinema and I loved this book. It is so informative and comprehensive but in a concise and accessible format – a triumph for I.H.S. who is the editor of “Curzon’ magazine and “BFI Filmmakers” magazine. The guide has four sections. The first explains genres and manages to identify 36 from the western to […]
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A review of the new Spielberg blockbuster “Disclosure Day”
June 15th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
I’m a big fan of Steven Spielberg and I love science fiction movies, so I was excited to see what could be regarded as the third of the director’s trilogy, following those wonderful offerings “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind” (1977) and “E.T The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982). The theme of all three works is that humans […]
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A review of the 1985 film “Kiss Of The Spider Woman”
June 11th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Based on the novel by the Argentinian Manuel Puig – a gay man with a passion for cinema – and directed by the Argentinian-born Brazilian Héctor Babenco, this film was set in and largely shot in Brazil, but it was made in the English language and screenwriter Leonard Schrader and the leading actor William Hurt […]
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