Archive for the ‘Cultural issues’ Category
A review of the new film “After The Hunt”
October 23rd, 2025 by Roger Darlington
I so wanted to enjoy this film, since the lead role is taken by Julia Roberts, an actress I admire, and the subject matter – an allegation of sexual abuse made by a black student against a white lecturer – promised drama and topicality. But I was really disappointed. The acting is fine, with Roberts […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the 1977 classic “Annie Hall”
October 23rd, 2025 by Roger Darlington
This is a Woody Allen film: he co-wrote and directed it and takes the lead role. But it is also a Diane Keaton movie: she absolutely lights up the screen with her beauty, personality and dress style. This was the fourth of seven works which Allen and Keaton made together and, for some of the […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the unusual novel “Brian” by Jeremy Cooper
October 19th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
This is a strange novel in format, tone and subject. The 180 pages are written as a single piece of narrative with no chapters or breaks, no plot and no direct dialogue. It is a melancholic work dealing with loneliness, isolation and obsession. It is the story of the eponymous London character who has a […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the new film “One Battle After Another”
September 27th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
A film by Paul Thomas Anderson is never boring and once again he has written, produced and directed a work that is fresh and original, weird but wonderful. It’s four years since we tasted his “Licorice Pizza” but the wait was worth it. None of the characters are credible, instead they are essentially caricatures, and […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the new film “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey”
September 21st, 2025 by Roger Darlington
This romantic fantasy is worth seeing for the cast. Good-looking, talented and eminently watchable Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie play David and Sarah, strangers who meet at a mutual friend’s wedding and there are cameos from Kevin Kline and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Unfortunately, aside from the cast, there is too little to commend this work from […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the novel “You Are Here” by David Nicholls
September 18th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
The author of the outstandingly successful “One Day” has done it again, crafting an immensely readable and thoroughly enjoyable romantic novel. In the case of “One Day”, the stylistic device was a series of chapters set exactly one year after another. This time, the device is alternating chapters – each very short – from the […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the new rom-com with an edge “Materialists”
August 17th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
“Past Lives” (2023) was written and directed by Korean-Canadian Celine Song as a wonderfully-assured debut feature film. I loved it and have now seen it three times. In her second work, Song is again writer and director and, for me, it is another delight. The structure of the two movies is essentially the same: a […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the latest “Superman” blockbuster movie
August 11th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
If since the 1980s, three actors can portray Spider-Man and no less than six can play Batman, then I guess we can have four representations of Superman: Christopher Reeve (1978-1987), Brandon Routh (2006), Henry Cavill (2013-2021) and now David Corenswet. More significantly, we have a new writer and director James Gunn, who did such a […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
“Late Shift”: a foreign film with a universal message
August 5th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
This is an unusual film, wonderfully made and with a powerful narrative. It is Swiss and located in German-speaking Zurich. In fact, virtually the entire film is set in one building, a local hospital, and over just one night, the titular shift. We follow the work of one dedicated nurse Floria (played magnificently by Leonie […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the novel “Intermezzo” by Sally Rooney
July 24th, 2025 by Roger Darlington
I’m a fan of Rooney’s work and have read all of her novels. This is her fourth, longest, and most ambitious. As always, the setting is contemporary Ireland. Unusually, however,the leading characters are both men: brothers Peter (32, a successful lawyer) and Ivan (22, an aspiring chess champion). The novel explores the relationship between the […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)