A review of the new sci-fi movie “Alita: Battle Angel”
February 13th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
A movie co-written and co-produced by the legendary James Cameron (“Avatar”) and co-written and directed by the innovative Robert Rodriguez (“Sin City”) was always going to mean that something special was on offer and attract the attention of this sc-fi fan and I made sure to see it on an IMAX screen in 3D.
Set in Iron City on Earth in 2563, the story encompasses four of the novels in the cyberpunk manga series by Japanese writer Yukito Kishiro. The titular large-eyed Alita (newcomer Rosa Salazar) is a very badly damaged teenage cyborg with a human brain who is discovered, restored and named (after his deceased daughter) by Dr. Dyson Ido (the now ubiquitous Christopher Waltz).
In the course of the film, her cyber body is massively upgraded and she discovers latent fighting skills in a form of martial arts called “panzer kunst”. We are here in the familiar territory of the different language versions of “Ghost In The Shell” (1995 & 2017).
Visually the movie is simply stunning with terrific use of motion capture and special effects. There are some exciting fight sequences with a variety of technology-enhanced villains and spectacular races in a game called “Motorball” which is very reminiscent of the films “Rollerball” (1975 & 2002).
The two weaknesses of the work are related: the narrative is thin and rather confused and the ending is sudden and unsatisfactory. These inadequacies might well be addressed by what seems like an inevitable sequel or two when presumably we will see more of Zalem, that city in the sky which has echoes of the earlier (2013) “Elysium”.
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On the 40th anniversary of the revolution in Iran, how much do you know about the country and its people?
February 11th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
According to the Wikipedia page on the Iran revolution, it took place between 7 January 1978 – 11 February 1979, so today marks the 40th anniversary of this enormously important event, but few people know much about this large and important nation.
Iran is home to one of the world’s oldest continuous major civilisations, with historical and urban settlements dating back to 4000 BC. Michael Axworthy – a lecturer at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter – has done a marvellous job in providing an erudite but readable history “from Zoroaster to the present day” in just 300 pages and you can read my review of his book here.
Coin Coughlin is the executive foreign editor of the “Daily Telegraph” and has previously written a biography of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. In a work of 360 pages, he examines the last century of the history of neighbouring Iran through the prism of the life of the Ayatollah Khomeini, arch enemy to Hussein. This a readable and informative examination of one of the greatest revolutions in world history whose consequences still shape global politics and threaten world peace. You can read my review here.
I actually visited Iran 10 years ago , shortly after the last major protest movement against the regime, and you can read the account of my trip here.
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A review of the new movie” Green Book”
February 10th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
We are back in the territory of “Driving Miss Daisy” but with a role reversal. Here the driver is white – a traditional, working-class, family-orientated Italian-American – while the passenger is black – an educated and cultured African-American pianist who is a lonely figure unable to identify with either black or white communities.
Another major difference is that this film is based on a true story of how in 1962 Tony Lip drove Dr Don Shirley around the American deep south for a series of concerts. The Green Book of the title was a guide to which establishments were prepared to accommodate blacks.
This is not the kind of work we have come to expect of director and co-writer Peter Farrelly who, with his brother, gave us such less thoughtful movies as “Dumb And Dumber”.
The examination of race relations is somewhat simplistic and sometimes the characters come across as rather stereotypical, while the Shirley family has challenged the friendship apparently forged on this road trip (the film is based on a book by a relative of Tony Lip).
Having said all this, the film manages to be worthy while entertaining and presents an uplifting message of how different individuals can change how each sees the world in a manner which brings people together – and, boy, do we need such a message right now.
Also the two central performances are outstanding: a paunchy Viggo Mortensen (“The Lord Of The Rings”) as Tony and Mahershala Ali (“Moonlight”) as Dr Shirley. These are characters for whom we genuinely feel as each traverses the arc of transformation.
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A review of the new film “Mary, Queen Of Scots”
February 9th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
In 1972, I went to the cinema to a see a film with exactly the same title, telling the same late 16th century story, with Vanessa Redgrave as the Scottish Catholic queen and Glenda Jackson as her English Protestant cousin and rival Elizabeth.
Almost half a century later, I returned to the theatre to see a fresh version of this fascinating period of British history with the Irish Saoirse Ronan as the Scottish royal and the Australian Margot Robbie as the English monarch.
Ronan has come a long way in a short time since her childhood appearance in “Atonement” and she is superb in this leading role as a woman battling a whole succession of men who wish to control her as well as a “sister”/cousin who ultimately condemns her to death. Robbie does well in a more challenging role with less screen time in which she dons a prosthetic nose and suffers a pox-marked face.
A difference between this version of the story and other cinematic endeavours is that for the first time we have a female director, Josie Rourke, best-known as the Artistic Director of London’s Donmar Warehouse, here making her film debut.
The film has been criticised both for the fact that the two queens meet (they never did) and for the theatrical style of this encounter (the billowing sheets betray Rourke’s background in the theatre). I think that it is a legitimate artistic device to present the two queens as coming together (where would “Heat” have been without the two leads meeting over coffee?), but the scene is too anti-climatic for such a dramatic face-off.
This is a season of British royal costume dramas since “The Favourite” was released in the UK only a few weeks before “Mary, Queen Of Scots” and both look wonderful with splendid clothing and striking locations.
But, arguably “Mary” has a particular message at a time when the nation is tearing itself in pieces over Brexit. It tells us how England and Scotland were brought together under Mary’s son James and invites us (if silently) to consider whether we really want to risk that union.
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Why has it taken us so long to address the issue of harmful content on the Internet?
February 8th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
It’s good to hear that the news that Instagram is now going to remove self-harm images and encouragement to suicide from its service. But why has it taken so long and why is the industry not adopting a more comprehensive approach to harmful content of different kinds?
Almost two decades ago, I became the first independent Chair of the Internet Watch Foundation. This did – and still does – a great job in tackling illegal content on the Net. But I could never persuade the industry to address the issue of harmful content which has since – predictably – become such a huge issue.
Once I ceased to be IWF Chair 13 years ago, I made a series of speeches and a submission to government calling for action on harmful content. Since then, the Net has become a different creature with the advent of social media, so my practical suggestions would not cut it now, but the principles I advocated are as relevant as ever and the need for action is more urgent than ever.
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A review of the new film “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
February 8th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
On the face of it, this is not a story that would have seemed to have had sufficient appeal to succeed as a movie, since it is centred on two profoundly lonely souls, one of whom is a forger, the other of whom is a serial trickster, both of whom drink far too much and care for others far too little.
Set in New York in 1991, it is the true-life account of how author Lee Israel felt compelled to pay her bills by creating some 400 forgeries of letters from famous writers who, when her nefarious activities become too well-known to buyers of such artefacts, makes an unlikley alliance with the dissolute Jack Hock.
That the film works so well is in large measure due to director Marielle Heller (would a male direcctor have handled the material so sensitively?) and outstanding performances from Melissa McCarthy as Israel and Richard E Grant as Hock (in real lfe an American but portrayed here as quintessentially British), both of whom have been nominated for Academy Awards.
McCarthy made her name in comedic roles in work such as “Bridemaids” but we knew from “St Vincent” that she could do serious roles and here she manages to make a woman who is both louche and lush as someone to be pitied more than despised. For Grant, this is something of a return to his eponymous role in “Withnail And I”, but in this story we cannot help caring for his future while fearing that it is limited.
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At last, a short and simple explanation of the Brexit negotiations
February 7th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
David Cameron made a promise he didn’t think he’d have to keep to have a referendum he didn’t think he would lose. Boris Johnson decided to back the side he didn’t believe in because he didn’t think it would win. Then Gove, who said he wouldn’t run, did, and Boris who said he would run, said he wouldn’t, and Theresa May who didn’t vote for Brexit got the job of making it happen.
She called the election she said she wouldn’t and lost the majority David Cameron hadn’t expected to win in the first place. She triggered Article 50 when we didn’t need to and said we would talk about trade at the same time as the divorce deal and the EU said they wouldn’t so we didn’t. People thought she wouldn’t get the divorce settled but she did, but only by agreeing to separate arrangements for Northern Ireland when she had promised the DUP she wouldn’t.
Then the Cabinet agreed a deal but they hadn’t, and David Davis who was Brexit Secretary but wasn’t said it wasn’t what people had voted for and he couldn’t support what he had just supported and left. Boris Johnson who hadn’t left then wished that he had and did, but it was a bit late for that. Dominic Raab become the new Brexit secretary.
People thought Theresa May wouldn’t get a withdrawal agreement negotiated, but once she had they wished that she hadn’t, because hardly anybody liked it whether they wanted to leave or not. Jacob Rees-Mogg kept threatening a vote of no confidence in her but not enough people were confident enough people would not have confidence in her to confidently call a no confidence vote.
Dominic Raab said he hadn’t really been Brexit Secretary either and resigned, and somebody else took the job but it probably isn’t worth remembering who they are as they’re not really doing the job either as Olly Robbins is.
Then she said she would call a vote and didn’t, that she wouldn’t release some legal advice but had to, that she would get some concessions but didn’t, and got cross that Juncker was calling her nebulous when he wasn’t but probably should have been.
At some point Jacob Rees Mogg and others called a vote of no confidence in her, which she won by promising to leave, so she can stay. But they said she had really lost it and should go, at the same time as saying that people who voted Leave knew what they were voting for which they couldn’t possibly have because we still don’t know now, and that we should leave the vote to Leave vote alone but have no confidence in the no confidence vote which won by more.
The government also argued in court against us being able to say we didn’t want to leave after all but it turned out we could. She named a date for the vote on her agreement which nobody expected to pass, while pretending that no deal which nobody wants is still possible (even though we know we can just say we are not leaving), and that we can’t have a second referendum because having a democratic vote is undemocratic. And of course as expected she loses. Some people are talking about a managed no-deal which is not a deal but is not no-deal either.
Addendum to the Brexshit storm in a tea cup.
Time for some Tusk Love closer to home:
There’s a special place in hell for those who promote the poisonous promises of nationalism with little thought for its consequences.
Author unknown – like the outcome of this mess …
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (1)
A review of the historical novel “Munich” by Robert Harris
February 3rd, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This is the latest and twelfth historical novel from this acclaimed master storyteller and the sixth that I have enjoyed. Whereas the first, “Fatherland”, presented a counterfactual view of the end of the Second World War – Germany and Britain sign a peace treaty and Hitler lives to be 75 – “Munich” is an essentially factual account of the negotiation of the Munich Agreement which ‘postponed’ the outbreak of that war by a year.
The story occupies a mere four days in September 1938 and it is told from the points of view of two fictional characters: Hugh Legatt, a member of the British Diplomatic Service, and Paul von Hartmann, an official in the German Foreign Ministry, who studied together at Oxford University in 1930-1933 but have not been in contact between then and the negotiations at Munich. For just over half the novel, the chapters oscillate between Legatt and Hartmann, between London and Berlin. As the pace of events accelerates and the tension rises, each chapter flips regularly between the two officials as they interact with the negotiators of Munich.
At the heart of the narrative is the notion that maybe something could have persuaded British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain not to sign an agreement which savagely dismembered democratic Czechoslovakia that was not even represented at the negotiations. Even though we know how things will work out, Harris creates a wonderful sense of time and place and tells a compelling story.
In fact, the seeds of the Munich Agreement were set over many years before the conference and Chamberlain had given up on the major issues long before flying to the German city. While Harris’s work is very well-researched, I feel that it is overly sympathetic to Chamberlain and rather harsh on French Prime Minister Daladier. While Chamberlain was no doubt well-intentioned and certainly energetic in seeking peace, in the years running up to the conference he and his government were guilty of much duplicty and deceit, not least to our French allies who had far more at stake.
Posted in Cultural issues, History | Comments (0)
Dutch historian Rutger Bregman berates billionaires at World Economic Forum
February 2nd, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of the Dick Cheney bio-pic “Vice”
February 2nd, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Adam McKay stunned us with the “The Big Short” in which, as co-writer and director, he endeavoured to tell the complicated story of the sub-prime crisis in the USA economy in a virtuoso style. Now, as sole writer and director, he attempts the tell the incredible account of how Dick Cheney somehow became the most powerful Vice-President in American history with devastating consequences for the US and the world.
Again McKay deploys an idiosyncratic style in which he uses a whole panoply of cinematic tricks, including breaking the fourth wall, a false ending, and a narrator whose identity is only slowly revealed and really shouldn’t be any part of the movie. Such a scatter-gun approach does not always work, but it hits the target often enough to be both entertaining and informative in a manner which is both comedic and scary. By the time I saw it, the film had attracted 8 Academy Awards nominations.
There is a large cast with some terrific performances. None is better than an almost unrecognisable Christian Bale as the eponymous dark lord. It is not just that he looks utterly convincing, thanks to piling on 40 lb and having loads of prosthetics, but he even sounds like the guy with his gravelly voice and trademark pauses.
Other excellent portrayals include Amy Adams (Cheney’s wife Lynne), Sam Rockwell (George W Bush), and Steve Carrell (Donald Rumsfeld), while Alfred Molina has a delicious cameo role as a waiter offering Cheney and his chums a whole menu of devices to usurp power.
We even have a discussion of something called unitary executive theory which basically means that a US president can do just about anything he wants. A legal opinion asserting the validity of this principle is still in the records – but please don’t tell Donald Trump.
So “Vice” is uneven and not quite up there with “The Big Short” but, more seriously as a criticism, is it simply too polemical in the style of Michael Moore? At the end, McKay anticipates this charge and, in a brief scene visiting a focus group, he has a liberal arguing that it is all true. Don’t expect Cheney or anyone else to take McKay to the courts.
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