Archive for the ‘Cultural issues’ Category
My review of “Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race” by Reni Eddo-Lodge (2017)
August 14th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
The award-winning black novelist Bernardine Evaristo has described the title of this non-fiction work – the first by Eddo-Lodge – as “gloriously provocative” and “marketing gold”. The truth is, of course, that the whole book is a conversation with white and non-white readers, by a young black woman born in north London and raised by a Nigerian mother, […]
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While you’re waiting for the “Top Gun’ sequel, here’s 63 other aviation films to watch
August 6th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Two of my many interests are aviation and cinema. I really loved the movie “Top Gun” which was released as long ago as 1986 and I can’t wait to see the sequel “Top Gun: Maverick” which is now not due to be released until summer 2021. Fortunately there are many other aviation films around if […]
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A review of the 2017 film “The Shape Of Water”
August 4th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Somehow I didn’t manage to see this fantasy horror movie at the cinema and, by the time I viewed it on the television, it had collected a whole host of nominations and awards, including 13 nominations at the 90th Academy Awards where it won for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Production Design, and Best Original […]
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A review of the new French film “The Truth”
August 2nd, 2020 by Roger Darlington
In the 1960s, I was a tiny bit in love with French actress Catherine Deneuve (“Repulsion”, “Belle De Jour”, “Mayerling”). For decades, I’ve been more than a little bit in love with French actress Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”, “Chocolat”, “Clouds Of Sils Maria”). So the opportunity to see both in this (largely) French-language film, […]
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A review of the NEW film “Clemency”
July 25th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
After four months of the coronavirus lockdown, I was desperate to visit a theatre and see a new movie on the big screen. So I went to view whatever was showing on the first evening of the first cinema to open in central London. “Clemency” is hardly the most uplifting choice for such an occasion, […]
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A review of the 1944 movie classic “Gaslight”
July 23rd, 2020 by Roger Darlington
This is the film which gave rise to the term ‘to gaslight’, meaning to cause someone to doubt his or her sanity through psychological manipulation. In the film itself, a husband played by Charles Boyer seeks to undermine the sanity of his wife portrayed by Ingrid Bergman through – among other things – repeatedly dimming […]
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A review of the new film “Radioactive”
July 16th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
When was the last time that you saw a film devoted to the life of a distinguished female scientist? Exactly. And how many movies do you see directed by a woman? Far too few. We need more stories about women told by women, so this bio-pic of Polish-French physicist/chemist Marie Curie, directed by the Iranian […]
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A review of “Girl, Woman, Other” by Bernardine Evaristo
July 12th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
As a white, straight male, I might not be considered as an obvious reader for a polyphonic novel in which almost all the 12 voices are women of colour, several are lesbian, and one is trans gender. But this work by a Nigerian-British female author was (joint) winner of the Booker Prize in 2019 and […]
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Should Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia be a church, a mosque or a museum?
July 11th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
There are some locations which are so special that, although they are in a particular country, the world is concerned about them. Examples which I might suggest would include Stonehenge in Britain, St Mark’s Square in Italy, Auschwitz in Poland, Machu Picchu in Peru, the Giza pyramids in Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India, Uluru […]
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A review of the 2017 movie “American Assassin”
July 9th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
For decades, the James Bond films defined the spy genre with a hard-edged hero chasing his foe from one exotic location to another. Then the Jason Bourne trology refined the genre with kinetic fight scenes and bad guys inside the hero’s camp as well as outside it. “American Assassin” is an attempt to create a […]
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