Archive for the ‘Cultural issues’ Category
A review of the award-winning film “Anora”
March 4th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
By the time that I belatedly caught up with this thoroughly enjoyable film, it was only hours away from winning no less than five Academy Awards, a remarkable achievement for a very low budget (only $6M), independent movie competing against the likes of “Dune: Part Two”, “A Complete Unknown” and “Conclave”. Most of those awards […]
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A review of the new rom-com “Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy”
February 19th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
Eight years after the last movie, we have the fourth – and possibly the best – film in this appealing rom-com franchise. Renée Zellweger, now in her mid 50s when often roles dry up for actresses, is a delight in the eponymous role. She makes it look easy, but we know from “Judy” that she […]
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The song used by David Tennant on last night’s BAFTA Awards
February 17th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
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A review of the new film “The Brutalist”
February 4th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
This is not the film that I was expecting. I thought it was about an actual architect and would narrate his career designing a series of dramatic buildings across post-war America. Instead it features a fictional architect and his travails in constructing one specific project. Or maybe the architect and the project are not fictional […]
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A review of the new film “A Complete Unknown”
February 2nd, 2025 by Roger Darlington
This bio-pic of the emergence of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan between 1961-1965 has been a critical and commercial success with no less than eight Academy Award nominations and six BAFTA nominations. The acting and singing by Timothée Chalamet in the eponymous role and Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez are simply magnificent and Edward Norton and Elle […]
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A review of the new movie “Babygirl”
January 19th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
This is such a watchable film: glitzy (smart clothes, cutting-edge technology, pounding soundtrack) and erotic (solo sex, marital sex, transgressive sex). It is also such an interesting film, raising so many issues around relationships: age-inappropriateness, power and powerlessness, domination and submission. I was struck by the number of young women at the screening I attended […]
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A review of the 1955 classic “Rebel Without A Cause”
January 19th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
I confess that – other than clips on film courses – it took me 70 years finally to view this classic, but the delay meant that I caught it at the British Film Institute where I could view it in the original CinemaScope and Warnercolor. The work is famous as the third and last of […]
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A review of the new Indian film “All We Imagine As Light”
December 14th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
When we think of contemporary Indian cinema, we usually have in mind Bollywood movies with singing, dancing, action, romance. “All We Imagine As Light”, both written and directed by Payal Kapadia, could not be more different: it is an art house film that won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2024. Much of the film […]
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A review of the bestselling novel “Conclave” by Robert Harris
December 13th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Harris is one of the best-selling authors of British fiction and has made his reputation with a series of works usually set in a particular time and/or place and drawing on much historical research. He is not a great writer and often the journey is more interesting than the destination (his endings can be weak), […]
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A review of the entertaining new film “Conclave”
December 2nd, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Which is best? The book or the film? It’s an endless – and perhaps fruitless – debate. I’ve read and enjoyed so many books by Robert Harris, but not the 2016 novel on which this film is based. The book has been an international bestseller, but this excellent cinematic version has so many visual and […]
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