Archive for the ‘Cultural issues’ Category
Word of the day: pareidolia
May 22nd, 2021 by Roger Darlington
Pareidolia is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous visual stimulus (so that one sees an object, pattern or meaning where in fact there is none). Common examples are perceived images of animals, faces, or objects in cloud formations, or lunar pareidolia like the Man in the Moon or the Moon Rabbit. The concept of pareidolia […]
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A review of the new film “Nomadland”
May 19th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
By the time restrictions had eased on the third lockdown in pandemic Britain and I was able to see this film on the big screen, it had already received three Academy Awards, winning Best Director (Chloé Zhao), Best Actress (Frances McDormand) and Best Film. It is a remarkably original work, mixing a fictional story of […]
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A review of the new film “Ammonite”
May 19th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
I had expected a celebration of the talent of an under-appreciated female scientist (like “Radioactive”) but instead found a tender tale of a lesbian relationship between a talented woman and her mentee ( a bit like “Portrait Of A Lady On Fire”). The reality is that there is absolutely no evidence of a relationship between […]
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A review of the 2019 film “Animals”
May 17th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
British writer Emma Jane Unsworth wrote the screenplay for this film adaptation of her novel “Animals” which is relocated from Manchester to Dublin and examines the close but complex relationship between two best friends of a decade who live together are now in their late 20s: Irish Laura (Holliday Grainger), who aspires to be a […]
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Word of the day: peng
May 15th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
I’ve only just discovered this word which shows how uncool I am. It’s a London slang word meaning: very beautiful or attractive: I saw a girl – she was peng. extremely good: That burger looks peng. More examples That jacket is peng! I’d go out with that boy, he’s well peng. There was an online page called “Britain’s pengest teens“. So where does the word come from? I understand that ‘peng’ was originally a term used […]
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A review of “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig
May 14th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
As we know from Matt Haig’s non-fiction work “Reasons To Stay Alive”, at the age of just 24 he had a major depressive breakdown in which he contemplated suicide. It took him many years to recover and writing was one of the things that helped him cope. He has now become a best-selling author of […]
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A review of the 2018 film “The Girl In The Spider’s Web”
May 9th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
Each of the three “Millennium” novels produced by the Swedish crime writer Stieg Larsson before his death was made into a successful Swedish-language film with the mesmerising Noomi Rapace as the vengeful computer hacker Lisbeth Salander. The first book was then made into an English-language film with Rooney Mara as Salander and here we have […]
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A chronology of the world of “His Dark Materials” and “The Book Of Dust”
May 7th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
If – like me – you’re a fan of Philip Pullman’s world of Lyra Belacqua aka Silvertongue, you might be interested in a chronology of the eight books published so far as part of the extended narrative which covers almost half a century. So I offer you: “Once Upon A Time In The North” – […]
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A review of the 2013 film “Lone Survivor”
May 3rd, 2021 by Roger Darlington
In the summer of 2005, Operation Red Wings was an attempt to take out a Taliban leader in Afghanistan mounted by a team of four Navy SEALs. It is not a spoiler – check out the title of the film – to explain that only one of the SEALs made it alive. He was Marcus […]
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A review of the 2014 French film “Gemma Bovery”
April 30th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
In the beginning (1856), there was the classic French novel “Madame Bovary” by Gustave Flaubert of which there have been many film versions in French, English and even Hindi. Then, in 1999, there was an English-language graphic novel “Gemma Bovery” by Posy Simmons which reworked the story into a satirical tale of English expatriates in […]
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