Archive for the ‘Cultural issues’ Category
A review of “Kokuho”, the most successful Japanese film ever
May 19th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Since the early 17th century, Japanese culture has featured a form of theatre known as kabuki which mixes dramatic performance with traditional dance. Although the original version was performed by a female troupe, the art form soon developed into its present all-male form after women were banned from performing in kabuki theatre and the men who perform the […]
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A review of the 1971 classic film “Get Carter”
May 19th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
This gangster thriller did reasonably well on its release but, over the years, it developed a cult following and it is now regarded as one of the best British films ever made. Michael Caine is Jack Carter, the hard man in a London organised crime gang who returns to his Northern hometown of Newcastle to […]
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A review of the novel “The Rose Field” by Philip Pullman
May 14th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Published in 2025, this is the third part of the trilogy “The Book Of Dust”, following the original trilogy of “His Dark Materials”. The interval between publication of the first and second novels in the “Dust” trilogy was only two years, but the wait between the second and third novels was an uncomfortable six years. […]
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A review of the 1967 French classic film “Belle de Jour”
May 14th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
It took a long time for the 1928 French novel of the same name by Joseph Kessel to be made into a film and, when the French language adaptation was produced, it came from Luis Bruñuel, a Spanish filmmaker known for his surrealist work. But then this unusual story is told in a dream-like fashion […]
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A review of the new film “The Devil Wears Prada 2”
May 13th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
ou can wait wait a long time for a movie sequel these days and it’s 20 years since we first visited the fashion magazine “Runway”. This enables the new film to feature some of the consequences of the dramatic shift from print publications to the online world and to hint at recent efforts to make […]
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A review of the classic 1927 film “Metropolis”
April 19th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
This black and while silent movie was directed by the great Fritz Lang in Weimar Germany and is regarded as the first science fiction epic with huge sets, thousands of extras, and groundbreaking effects. Set in a dystopian future, it depicts a city with the rich above ground in great skyscrapers and the masses labouring […]
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A review of the 1985 classic movie “Back To The Future”
April 18th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Television heartthrob Michael J Fox was perfectly cast as teenager Marty McFly who accidentally finds himself transported from 1985 to 1955 when his patents have not yet married and his future existence is not certain. This spectacular act of time travel is achieved through a modified DeLorean sports car, with its gull-winged doors and a […]
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A review of the novel “Crooked Cross” by Sally Carson
April 15th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
The provenance of this novel is particularly interesting. Sally Carson was a young English woman (she was 32 in 1933) who spent holidays in Munich during the early 1930s and her book was first published in 1934. The work was acclaimed at the time and indeed staged as a play in 1935 and 1937 as […]
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A review of the new thought-provoking film “The Drama”
April 5th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
The weekend before my wedding, I went to see the most intriguing new release which ironically features a couple in the final stages of planning their wedding who are shocked by a ‘great reveal’. Written and directed by the Norwegian Kristoffer Borgli, this is not the traditional Hollywood fare, although it is set in Boston. […]
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A review of the 2001 French film “Amélie” which is back in cinemas now
April 2nd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
This utterly delightful Gallic rom-com has an eventual romance and considerable humour, but something more: a sense of magic, as it explores how providing happiness to others secretly and unselfishly can transform one’s own sense of well-being. The location is the Parisian quarter of Montmartre, but it a digitally-enhanced and lusciously-coloured version of this tourist […]
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