Archive for the ‘Cultural issues’ Category
A review of the new action movie “The Mother”
June 17th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
This is a Netflix effort to produce a female version of the traditional action movie, so women fill the roles of director (New Zealander Niki Caro), writer (African-American Misha Green), star (dancer, singer and actress Jennifer Lopez as a retired assassin and the unnamed Mother) and support (Mexican-born Lucy Paez as the Mother’s daughter Zoe […]
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A review of the Len Deighton novel “Winter”
June 8th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
Sometimes a book sits on the shelf for such a long time before it is read. This novel was bought for me in 1988 but it took me until 2023 before I actually read it. The Winter of the title is not a season of the year but the name of a German family and […]
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A review of the 2020 film “23 Walks”
June 5th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
The title could be off-putting but, in fact, there is very little counting, although there is a lot of walking (and talking) in this London-based relationship movie. Dave (played by Dave Johns who was so good in the eponymous role in “I, Daniel Blake”) and his large dog Tillie come across Fern (played by Alison […]
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Why men lose their friends – and how they can make more
June 2nd, 2023 by Roger Darlington
“In the UK, research by the Movember Foundation in 2018 found 27% of men said they had no close friends at all. They also found that friendships become less strong as men get older, with 22% of men aged 55 and over saying they never see their friends. It would seem there is, for men […]
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A review of the odd film “Harold And Maude”
May 30th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
I was chatting with an American friend and conversation turned to funerals. He mentioned a film from half a century ago – it was released in 1971 – that, in spite of being something of a film buff, I’d never heard of, let alone seen – so I looked it up. Harold (Bud Cort) is […]
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A review of the classic “Three Colours” film trilogy
May 28th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
“Three Colours: Blue” (1993) This was the first of a trilogy of films directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski and written by him and Krzysztof Piesiewicz. Taking their titles from the colours of the French flag and loosely inspired by the French national motto of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, “Blue” represented liberty and is regarded as a […]
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A review of the 1989 classic movie “Do The Right Thing”
May 25th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
African-American Spike Lee is absolutely an auteur. In this, his most seminal film, he is writer, producer and director and takes the role of the viewpoint character. Set on one, blisteringly hot day in Brooklyn, we follow Lee’s Mookie, a 25 year old delivery man for a local pizzeria run by an Italian-American family headed […]
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A review of “All Quiet on The Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque
May 18th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
Having seen both the American (1930) and German (2022) film versions of this famous novel, I thought that it was time to read the original work (1929) in an excellent English translation (1994) by Brian Murdoch. The novel contains less narrative but more reflection than the films and has lost none of its power and […]
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A review of the Korean-set film “Return To Seoul”
May 14th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
This is a work that underlines the international nature of modern film production. It is set in South Korea and filmed there and in Romania. The story concerns a French-Korean woman but it is written and directed by a French-Cambodian man. The dialogue is in both French and Korean with some English. The funding is […]
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A review of the new Japanese film “Plan 75”
May 11th, 2023 by Roger Darlington
In 1973, there was a film called “Soylent Green” which depicted a future Earth (it was set in 2022!) in which rapid population growth and deficiences in supply of food had combined to necessitate that the working classes be provided with artificial nutrients and voluntary euthanaesia. There is a very moving scene where an aged […]
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