Archive for the ‘Cultural issues’ Category
A review of the classic film “Gone With The Wind” (1939)
February 2nd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Everything about this film is epic. It is set at the most transformational period of American history: the civil war and the reconstruction era. It is based on the very long and hugely popular 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell. It was the second most expensive film made up to that point, with only “Ben Hur” […]
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A review of the new sports movie “Saipan”
January 29th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Never heard of Saipan? It is the largest island of the Northern Mariana Islands, an unincorporated territory of the United States in the western Pacific Ocean. Never hear of the Saipan incident? This was a public quarrel in May 2002 between the Republic of Ireland national football team’s captain Roy Keane and manager Mick McCarthy […]
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Ever heard of Louis Spohr?
January 23rd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
I hadn’t until I was told about him by a patient to whom I was talking while doing my weekly volunteering at the Older Persons’ Unit of St Thomas Hospital in central London. According to the entry in Wikipedia: “Louis Spohr, 5 April 1784 – 22 October 1859), baptized Ludewig Spohr, later often in the modern German form […]
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A review of the new award-winning film “Hamnet”
January 18th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
We know so little about the life of the greatest English writer William Shakespeare, but that does not stop us wanting invented stories about him including earlier films “Shakespeare In Love” (1998) and “All Is True” (2018). What we do know is that Shakespeare had a son called Hamnet who died aged 11 in 1596, […]
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A review pf the new blockbuster movie “Avatar: Fire And Ash”
January 9th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Any film directed by James Cameron is a must-see and any film in his “Avatar” franchise is a veritable spectacular. We had to wait 13 years for the first sequel but only another three years for this third adventure. As with all the “Avatar” movies, I choose to see this in IMAX and 3D on […]
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A review of the 2021 film “Operation Mincemeat”
January 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
This is the unlikely – and, for a long time, totally secret – story of a World War Two subterfuge that persuaded Hitler to believe that, in 1943, the Allies were going to make the first invasion of Europe in Greece instead of Sicily. The film stays close to the true details of the operation, […]
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A review of the popular movie “Crocodile Dundee”
January 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
There is a genre of film known as ‘fish out of water’ where the protagonist finds himself or herself in totally unfamiliar surrounding, usually causing much humour and sometimes some fear. This trope is featured twice in this delightful romantic comedy of 1986: first when New York journalist Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) ventures into the […]
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A review of the 1988 film “Die Hard”
January 7th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
This action movie may not be a classic work in the sense of great cinema or of winner of awards, but it has become a commercial and cultural phenomenon. It was immediately a huge box office success, it led to no less than four sequels, and the franchise earned a worldwide total of $1.4 billion. […]
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A review of the award-winning film “Marty Supreme”
January 7th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
This is a rather odd story, but it is told with considerable panache at a frenetic pace with an eclectic score. Set in the early 1950s, it centres on the efforts of young, working-class New Yorker Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) to become the world table tennis champion which will require him to beat Koto Endo, […]
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A review of the classic film “The Piano” (1993)
January 7th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
An original story told in captivating fashion, this film is a triumph for New Zealander Jane Campion who both wrote and directed it. The setting is a poor community in a coastal region of 1850s New Zealand. Ada (Holly Hunter), a Scottish widow who hasn’t spoken since childhood, arrives as a kind of mail order […]
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