Archive for the ‘Cultural issues’ Category
A review of the classic 1946 movie “Notorious”
May 10th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
The first film to be produced as well as directed by Alfred Hitchcock, this is striking for being both a taut espionage thriller and a moving romance. It has a wonderful cast, led by Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Raine in a triangular relationship in which each is both a spy and a lover. […]
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A review of the new film “The Fall Guy”
May 7th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
This action comedy is a kind of homage to stunt performers, the unseen and unsung heroes of so many movies. It is very loosely based on the 1980s television series of the same name (the lead actor from that series, Lee majors, makes a cameo appearance in a mid-credits sequence) and the director David Leitch […]
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A review of the recent film “In The Land Of Saints And Sinners”
April 30th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
The ‘land’ in question is the “forgotten county” of Donegal in the Republic of Ireland and the cinematography is so gorgeous that at times the film looks like an advertisement from the local tourist board. Although the director is American, the scriptwriter and all of the cast and crew are Irish. Set in 1974 at […]
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A review of the stunning new film “Civil War”
April 27th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Written and directed by the British Alex Garland, this action-thriller was not what I was expecting. Sure, it’s a war movie – very much an anti-war movie – but there is no explanation for the war and the apparent cause (a secessionist alliance between the states of California and Texas) makes no sense, while there […]
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A review of the 1942 classic movie “The Magnificent Ambersons”
April 23rd, 2024 by Roger Darlington
When Orson Welles signed a two-picture deal with RKO Pictures in 1940, the result was the acclaimed masterpiece “Citizen Kane” followed by the butchered masterpiece “The Magnificent Ambersons”. Again Welles wrote, produced and directed, but this time he did not star – in fact, it was the only film that he ever directed in which […]
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A review of “How To Stop Time” by Matt Haig
March 30th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
It is an intriguing, if fanciful, proposition: a small number of special people age so slowly after puberty – about one year for every 15 of a normal person – that they can live 900 years or so. Since such a person will eventually and inevitably attract suspicion from ordinary mortals, these subjects of exceptional […]
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A review of the new film “Wicked Little Letters”
March 10th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
The English are noted for their eccentricity and there’s a good deal of it on display in this rather odd offering. It’s as if two films were shot and then, in the cutting rooms, the pair were interwoven. One is a ribald comedy with lots of obscene language, while the other is a social drama […]
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A review of the new Netflix bio-pic “Rustin”
March 10th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
I confess that, prior to the release of this Netflix movie, I had never heard of American political activist Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) who – as set out in the film – played a key role in the organisation of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was a formidable organisational feat: in […]
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A review of the 2006 film “Inside Man”
March 6th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
This starts as a bank robbery, becomes a hostage situation, and then finishes up as neither. Writer Russell Gewirtz attempts to come up with a clever plot but, in the end, it is just too beyond credulity. Nevertheless, any film directed by Spike Lee is worth seeing – although I found the flash forwards confusing. […]
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A review of the new blockbuster movie “Dune: Part Two”
March 3rd, 2024 by Roger Darlington
We’ve had to wait two years for the second part of French-Canadian co-writer and director Denis Villeneuve’s hugely ambitious screen version of Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novel of 1965. I took the opportunity to rewatch the first segment a few days before I viewed the second. As with “Part One”, I caught “Part Two” […]
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