A review of the new film “Gifted”
June 21st, 2017 by Roger Darlington
The title is a reference to seven year old Mary who has outstanding mathematical skills inherited from her British grandmother and American-British mother. When her mother commits suicide, her uncle Frank spirits her off to Florida in an effort to give her a normal life. The narrative may be a bit trite and the conclusion too neat, but this small movie hits some emotional spots and is made by some fine performances.
Young McKenna Grace is amazing as Mary; Chris Evans is a much more low-key and nuanced than in his Captain America role as he plays Mary’s uncle; and Lindsay Duncan is very accomplished in the unsympathetic role as Mary’s grandmother. African-American Octavia Spencer and comedian Jenny Slate are strong in support turns.
Director Marc Webb, fresh from a couple of “Spider-Man” movies, is interested in real human relationships, as he showed with “300 Days Of Summer”, and he can be proud of this addition to his canon.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
What is this thing called the Internet of Things?
June 20th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
You might have heard of something called the Internet of Things or IoT. You might have wondered what it’s all about.
My 94th column on IT issues looks at the current state of IoT in the UK and beyond. You can read this short piece here.
Posted in Internet | Comments (0)
A review of the Tom Cruise movie “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back”
June 19th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
The original Jack Reacher movie in 2012, starring Tom Cruise in the eponymous role, was not a huge box office success but it did reasonably and clocked up a lot more revenue in the home entertainment market. I certainly found it enjoyable enough to welcome a return of the Lee Child creation of an American former military policeman who now lives off the grid and four years later Jack is back with a new director (Edward Zwick) and a new scriptwriter (Richard Wenk).
It is a well-paced thriller with lots of action interleaved with appropriate pauses to catch breath. What gives this Reacher movie a different feel is that the ex military cop is supported by a very capable (and attractive) army major (played by the former model Cobie Smulders) with the involvement of a young girl who may be related to Reacher (the promising Danika Yarosh).
This Cruise franchise will never rival the “Mission: Impossible” series but will quietly satisfy the actor’s many fans.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Never heard of Kamala Harris? You will …
June 18th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Kamala Harris is the daughter of an Indian American mother and Jamaican American father, She was raised in Berkeley, where she was introduced to civil rights activism from a young age. She served two terms as the district attorney of San Francisco, the first woman to hold the position, before being elected the first female attorney general of California.
In January 2017, Harris became the first Indian American woman and only the second black woman to serve in the US Senate. She is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee where she has made herself unpopular with Republicans by tough questioning concerning links between the Trump administration and the Russians.
You are going to hear more about this assertive and ambitious woman who is determined to be heard in Congress.
You can read more about Kamala Harris here.
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (2)
25 photographs of my recent holiday in Sri Lanka
June 17th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Last month, I spent two weeks on holiday in Sri Lanka. I blogged on this site about the trip; then I pulled all the blog postings together into a continuous narrative for my web site; now I’ve added 25 photographs to break up and illustrate the narrative. Check it out here.
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Remembering the Labour MP, wife and mother Jo Cox
June 16th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
One year ago today, the 41-year-old Labour member of Parliament Jo Cox was shot and stabbed in Birstall, in her Yorkshire constituency of Batley and Spen. To mark the first anniversary of her death, her family and friends have urged people to hold events that celebrate her life.
The Great Get Together, involving picnics, street parties and concerts, runs across this weekend. Organised by the Jo Cox Foundation, it aims to reinforce the message in her maiden speech in the House of Commons that “we have more in common than that which divides us”.
May she never be forgotten, may her family and friends be supported, and may the causes for which she campaigned go from strength to strength.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Do you understand the British political system?
June 15th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I’ve just been checking the traffic data for my web site which I do from time to time. I noticed a big spike in visitors the day after the General Election. Whereas I normally have around 4,000 visits a day, on 9 June visits peaked at around 5,200.
The data suggests that the peak was the result of visitors accessing my “Short Guide To The British Political System” as they tried to make sense of what was going on after the shock result of the General Election.
You might want to check out my guide here.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of the new film “My Cousin Rachel”
June 13th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
At an age (late 40s) when sadly many actresses start to find it tougher to obtain decent roles, Rachel Weisz is really coming into her own with central roles in films like “Denial” and now “My Cousin Rachel”. Based on the 1951 novel by English writer Daphne du Maurier (previously filmed in 1952) and both scripted and directed by South African-born Roger Mitchell, this is a Hitchockian-type work, full of intrigue and mystery in a bucolic 19th century context.
Throughout the narrative, we are presented with information which forces the viewer to revise constantly one’s view as to whether the eponymous relative is a callous and scheming malevolent or totally misjudged and misunderstood. In a wonderful performance, Weisz enables us to be equally convinced by both interpretations. The work is embellished by well-acted support roles (notably by young Sam Claflin) plus excellent cinematography and some graphic countryside.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
MailOnline gives publicity to my book “Night Hawk”
June 12th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I recently did a blog posting about the reprint of my book “Night Hawk” – a biography of Karel Kuttelwascher, the RAF’s greatest night intruder pilot of the Second World War.
The book is now starting to receive reviews and the MailOnline web site -the most visited English-language newspaper website in the world – has given it excellent coverage. You can read the MailOnline review of the book – which includes a selection of photographs – here.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
How old is humankind and where did it start?
June 10th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Until recently, the answers to these questions were that humans evolved around 200,000 years ago and originated in East Africa. As this article explains:
“Scientists have long looked to East Africa as the birthplace of modern humans. Until the latest findings from Jebel Irhoud, the oldest known remnants of our species were found at Omo Kibish in Ethiopia and dated to 195,000 years old. Other fossils and genetic evidence all point to an African origin for modern humans.”
But now we have to rethink things following an astonishing discovery:
“Fossils recovered from an old mine on a desolate mountain in Morocco have rocked one of the most enduring foundations of the human story: that Homo sapiens arose in a cradle of humankind in East Africa 200,000 years ago.
Archaeologists unearthed the bones of at least five people at Jebel Irhoud, a former barite mine 100km west of Marrakesh, in excavations that lasted years. They knew the remains were old, but were stunned when dating tests revealed that a tooth and stone tools found with the bones were about 300,000 years old.”
So humankind might be a lot older than we thought and may have originated in multiple locations rather than in one specific place.
Jean-Jacques Hublin is a senior scientist on the investigating team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig:
“Hublin concedes that scientists have too few fossils to know whether modern humans had spread to the four corners of Africa 300,000 years ago. The speculation is based on what the scientists see as similar features in a 260,000-year-old skull found in Florisbad in South Africa.
But he finds the theory compelling. “The idea is that early Homo sapiens dispersed around the continent and elements of human modernity appeared in different places, and so different parts of Africa contributed to the emergence of what we call modern humans today,” he said.”
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