Archive for the ‘Cultural issues’ Category
A review of the movie “Ant-Man And The Wasp”
August 8th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
After the mega movie that was “Avengers: Infinity War” – a canvas the size of the universe, a team of super-heroes the size of a small army, and a villain the size of Thanos – the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes miniature with this movie – most of the action in San Franscisco, only two super-heroes, […]
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A review of the summer blockbuster “Mission: Impossible – Fallout”
August 3rd, 2018 by Roger Darlington
For Tom Cruise (now 56) as Ethan Hunt, this is his sixth impossible mission in 22 years while, for writer and director Christopher McQuarrie, this is his second successive contribution to the franchise which previously has always had a new director for each episode. But Cruise and McQuarrie have worked on nine movies together over […]
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A review of “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again”
July 31st, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the original “Mamma Mia!” movie, so I was delighted at the notion of another outing for Abba’s wonderful music. Like “The Godfather 2”, this is both a prequel (back to Donna’s graduation) and a sequel (forward to a grand re-opening of Donna’s island hotel) and director […]
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A review of the novel “Exit West” by Mohsin Hamid
July 29th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I was impressed by “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, Hamid’s early novel which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2007, and so I was attracted to “Exit West”, another of his novels which was shortlisted for the Man Booker in 2017. It tells the story of two refugees, the Islamic adherent Saeed and the […]
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A review of the new animated movie “Incredibles 2”
July 29th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I didn’t see “The Incredibles” in 2004 (I had no grandchildren then) but, 14 years later, I was delighted to have the opportunity to take along granddaughter no 1 (seven year old Catrin) for what proved to be a most entertaining two hours. Writer and director of the original Brad Bird reprises these roles for […]
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How many story types are there in the movies and which make the most money?
July 26th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Researchers at the University of Birmingham have categorised the movies according to six emotional profiles or clusters, which were previously applied to novels. These are: rags to riches – an ongoing emotional rise as seen in films such as “The Shawshank Redemption”; riches to rags – an ongoing emotional fall (“Psycho”); man in a hole […]
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A review of the recent film “Fences”
July 13th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
This is the film adaptation of the Pulitzer-winning 1983 stage play written by August Wilson who refused to have the work made for the big screen unless there was an African-American director helming it. It tells the poignant tale of Troy Maxson, a black waste collector in 1950s Pittsburgh who received no love from his […]
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A review of the independent film “The Butterfly Tree”
July 9th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I saw this very low budget film last weekend at the Oz Film Festival in London when it was followed by a Q & A with first-time Australian writer and director Priscilla Cameron. It tells the tangled story of how widower Al (Ewen Leslie) and his emotionally damaged son Fin (Ed Oxenbould) are both attracted […]
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A review of “Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid”
June 24th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I’ve recently viewed again (fourth time) this classic from 1969. This immensely popular film is a chase movie, a buddy movie, an action-comedy movie, all in the guise of a western. It declares at the beginning: “Most of what follows is true”. Sure there was a Butch and a Kid, played respectively by Paul Newman […]
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A review of the new movie “Ocean’s Eight”
June 23rd, 2018 by Roger Darlington
One effective way of providing more high-profile roles for more talented actresses is to take an existing successful franchise and gender-swap the characters. It was tried with “Ghostbusters” and now we have a female version of the ensemble heist movie that we saw with “Ocean’s Eleven” (2001) [my review here], “Ocean’s Twelve” (2004) [my review here] […]
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