Archive for the ‘Cultural issues’ Category
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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A review of the 1992 classic western “Unforgiven”
June 9th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
There have been a growing number of revisionist westerns that challenge the mythology of the Old West, but this is the best and the delicious irony is that it was produced and directed by Clint Eastwood and stars him in the leading role. This is not the young, confident cowboy that Eastwood portrayed as ‘The […]
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A review of the 1956 classic western “The Searchers”
June 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
This is a stromg candidate for the best western ever made and it pairs two of the giants of the genre, director John Ford and actor John Wayne, who worked together on eight of Ford’s sound westerns. The story opens in Texas in 1868, but the lengthy narrative proceeds over five years and the location […]
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A review of the classic 1959 film “Hiroshima, Mon Amour”
June 6th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
It took me many decades to catch this French-language film set largely in the Japanese city that was the first to suffer the atomic bomb and, by then, I’d visited Hiroshima and its Peace Museum twice, so the work had a special resonance for me. This was the first feature film by Alain Resnais, previously […]
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A review of the classic 1959 film”Some Like It Hot”
June 6th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Although at the time of its release, it was controversial in some quarters and not universally supported by critics, audiences immediately adored it and still do, making “Some Like It Hot” one of the best-loved comedies of all time. In many ways, this is a Billy Wilder movie because he co-wrote the witty screenplay and […]
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A review of the best-selling novel “There Are Rivers In The Sky” by Elif Shafak
June 4th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
I had not heard of this book, or even of the Turkish-British author, before the novel was gifted to me by a good female friend, but I found it a thoroughly enjoyable read and a really impressive piece of work. Following a introduction set in Ancient Mesopotamia, the hugely ambitious narrative features three characters from […]
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A review of the 1972 classic film “The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie”
June 2nd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
An odd title for a very odd film, but then this French-language work was co-written and directed by the Mexican surrealist Luis Buñuel. Three upper middle-class couples try repeatedly to sit down for a meal together, only to be frustrated by an absurd number and nature of interruptions. Out of such seemingly quotidian material, Buñuel […]
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A review of the 1991 classic film “The Silence Of The Lambs”
May 25th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
When this film was first released, it shocked audiences and, to this day, it is still chilling to watch. An adaptation of the bestselling novel by Thomas Harris, it portrays the efforts of new FBI recruit Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) to track down an elusive serial killer with the unlikely aid of imprisoned serial killer […]
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