Archive for the ‘Cultural issues’ Category
A review of the new rom-com “Long Shot”
May 10th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
In this politically-themed romantic comedy, Charlize Theron – a talented actress who is also gorgeous and here gets to wear to some great outfits – plays American politician and environmental campaigner Charlotte Field, a female Secretary of State who plans to run for President. This is not such a long shot. After all, in real […]
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A review of the new movie blockbuster “Avengers: Endgame”
May 5th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
I can remember a time (1990) when “Die Hard 2” could shock audiences by featuring the death of 230 passengers and crew on an aircraft which crashes thanks to terrorists taking over the air traffic control system. But the Marvel movies have taken death tolls to a whole new level. In “Guardians Of The Galaxy”, […]
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A review of the novel “Ordinary People” by Diana Evans
April 21st, 2019 by Roger Darlington
In the United States in 1976, there was the publication of a novel called “Ordinary People” by Judith Guest which four years later was made into a film of the same title that won four Academy Awards. I saw the film before then reading the book. In Britain in 2018, there was the publication of […]
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A review of the new film “Red Joan”
April 21st, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Melita Norwood was a British civil servant who was recruited as a Soviet agent in 1937 and passed on valuable information about creation of the atomic bomb, yet managed to escape exposure until 1999 when she was 87. Her story is the inspiration for this film in which the character is named Joan Stanley and […]
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A review of the new bio-pic “At Eternity’s Gate”
April 7th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
There is a whole sub-genre of films about artists and Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) has been the subject of more than most with this work, focusing on the last two years of his life, being the ninth (the previous one – only two years earlier – was “Loving Vincent”). For me, seeing “At […]
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A review of the film “You Were Never Really Here”
April 5th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Scottish writer and director Lynne Ramsay has created a really dark look at American society in this grim tale of the search for a missing teenage girl who is being held as a sex slave. Out to retrieve her is Joe, a Gulf War veteran suffering post-traumatic stress, whose weapon of choice is a hammer […]
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A review of the new film “Everybody Knows”
March 22nd, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This Spanish-language film is a French-Spanish-Italian co-production written and directed by the Iranian Asghar Farhadi (who has twice won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film). It has a wondeful cast, headed by Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, a couple in real life who here play former lovers. Although the setting and casting are new […]
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A review of the new film “The Aftermath”
March 15th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
The cinema is replete with stories of wartime romances – including the sub-theme of fraternisation with the enemy – but this film is different with a setting just after the Second World War in a Hamburg devastated by British bombing. Rachael Morgan (Keira Knightley) is a young woman joining her husband Lewis (Jason Clarke), an […]
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A review of the new superhero movie”Captain Marvel”
March 12th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Following the great success of the first female titular role for a super-hero movie (“Wonder Woman”), thanks to the owners of of DC Comics franchise, it was inevitable that we would have a female super-hero fronting a work from the Marvel Cinematic Universe – another first – and it’s a pity that the two will […]
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A review of the remarkable Lebanese film “Capernaum”
March 3rd, 2019 by Roger Darlington
As well as being a town where Jesus performed miracles, Capernaum is the Arabic word for chaos and it is a kind of miracle that comes out of the chaos of a young boy’s life on the streets of Beirut in this remarkable work by Lebanese director Nadine Labaki. Twelve year old Zain (played by […]
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