A review of the 2015 documentary “He Named Me Malala”

May 26th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

‘Me’ is of course Malala Yousafai, the inspirational Pakistani girl who aged 15 was the subject of an assassination attempt by the Taliban. ‘He’ is her father Ziauddin who, in his own way, is a remarkable individual and who – contrary to what she states in this moving film – gave her much more than the name of a Pashtun heroine from history.

This cinematic work was inspired by the biography “I Am Malala” which I have read [for my review click here], but acclaimed American documentary maker Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”) tells the story of Malala’s life before and after the shooting through a mixture of hand-drawn animation, archive footage, and filming over a year and a half at her English home in Birmingham and on visits to Nigeria and Jordan.

The film demonstrates the passion, bravery, humility, intelligence and fluency of this young woman who at just 17 became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate as production was concluding. Her story has just begun …

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A review of the latest super-hero movie “Deadpool 2”

May 25th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

The original “Deadpool” was made for just $58M but its takings were almost $800M so a sequel, indeed a franchise, was an inevitablity.

“Deadpool 2” was released just weeks after “Avengers: Infinity War” and both super-hero movies star Josh Brolin as big and bad, but the two offerings could hardly be more different. “AIW” brings together a whole plethora of well-established super-heroes in a titantic struggle for the future of the universe, but “D2” introduces totally new characters in a small X-Force that is a million miles away from the X-Men and the contest is simply over control of a kid from New Zealand.

What made “Deadpool” such a blast was its originality: a foul-mouthed, self-centred, camp super-hero of endless witticisms and special regenerative powers. The sequel – which reprises the style and some – can’t have the same originality and it pushes the envelope so far that sometimes – as with an allusion to the most infamous scene in “Basic Instinct” – made me feel more uncomfortable that amused.

But this is a triumph for Ryan Reynolds, who not only owns the eponymous role but this time is co-writer and co-producer, while new director David Leitch (“Atomic Blonde”) makes sure that there is never a dull moment – even during the credits.

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Two of the biggest crises in post-war French history: May 1958 and May 1968

May 24th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

Over the last two weekends, I’ve spent a day at the City Literary Institute in central London on a course looking at a period of crisis in post-war French history which occurred 60 years ago and 50 years ago this month respectively. In each case, the lecturer was the French Sebastien Ardouin. He was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic, providing handouts of 31 pages and 43 pages respectively.

The crisis of May 1958 was the result of turbulent events in Algeria which was then a French colony where a a war of independence had been running for four years. Following the bombing of a village across the Algerian border in Tunisia, the French government collapsed and the Fourth Republic was abandoned. Charles de Gaulle emerged from 12 years outside of politics to take on a much strengthened presidency at the head of a new Fifth Republic with diminished power for the National Assembly and the Senate. Four years later, de Gaulle felt compelled to agree to Algerian independence.

The Fifth Republic remains the political framework for France and you can read my guide to the French political system here.

The crisis of May 1968 began with student protests at Nanterre outside Paris over the ban on male students visiting female students but rapidly expanded to embrace a whole range of demands for educational and poltical reform. When the workers joined the protests some 10 million went on strike for higher wages and improved working conditions. For a time, de Gaulle – still president after 10 years – went missing and the government seemed on the point of collapse. But de Gaulle called a general election which the Gaullists won with an overall majority and de Gaulle hung on to power for another year.

I am old enough to remember the May 1968 demonstrations which were part of a worldwide revolt against authority, racism and the Vietnam War. In many areas – such as racial and sexual emancipation – we still have a great deal to do. The struggle continues …

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In the UK , it’s Dementia Action Week – and I’m a volunteer for a relevant study

May 23rd, 2018 by Roger Darlington

The Alzheimer’s Society has designated this as Dementia Action Week.

There are currently around 850,000 people in the UK with dementia. It mainly affects people over the age of 65 (one in 14 people in this age group have dementia), and the likelihood of developing dementia increases significantly with age. However, dementia can affect younger people too. There are more than 42,000 people in the UK under 65 with dementia.

As I explained in this blog posting, I have been invited to volunteer for a study examining the risk factors for dementia. At the time that I did that posting, I had just spent almost four hours at the Imperial Research Hub at Charing Cross Hospital in London where I was subjected to a whole battery of physical and mental tests.

Since that last blog posting, I have had a brain MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan and a PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scan. The MRI checked if there are any existing mental problems. The PET measured the concentration of beta-amyloid in my brain since the study is all about whether the level of amyloid is an indicator of the likelihood of developing dementia.

I’m now waiting to hear if I am judged eligible for the study and, if so, I will then have visits and tests every three months for three and a half years.

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A review of the new film “On Chesil Beach”

May 22nd, 2018 by Roger Darlington

Ten years ago, I read the novella by Ian McEwan [for my review click here] and now he himself has adapated the story for the screen with director Dominic Cooke making his first feature film.

The work was shot on location on the Dorset coast and deploys much use of classical music, but this is a starring vehicle for two young and impressive actors: Saoirse Ronan who made her cinematic debut in another McEwan story (“Atonement”) and newcomer Billy Howle of whom we will soon see a lot more. In fine performances, they play Florence, a music graduate and talented violinist, and Edward, a history graduate whose music tastes are more popular and contemporary.

The time is 1962 before the sexual revolution and the painful heart of the narrative is the wedding night of these two virgins with limiting backgrounds revealed in a series of flashbacks. For the flash forwards over decades, McEwan has provided a neater, but even sadder, sequence than occurred in the novella. It is all achingly painful but so well done.

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Can we really control the tech giants?

May 21st, 2018 by Roger Darlington

The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media & Sports Matt Hancock has said that the Government will enact legislation to control social media firms and online abuse but, in a television interview this weekend, he admitted:

When he called in representatives of 14 leading Internet companies to discuss his concerns, only four turned up.
It is likely to be two years before the Government has worked out detailed proposals and finds the time to legislate.

More information here.

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Word of the day: antidisestablishmentarianism

May 19th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

In the many debates on political reform in the UK, one idea is disestablishment of the Church of England.

Rightly in my view, it is argued that the UK population is no longer largely devoted to the Anglican faith and that, in multicultural Britain, it is wrong for one religious denomination to be privileged over others with automatic seats in the House of Lords for instance. Therefore church and state should be totally separated.

The opposite position is called “antidisestablishmentarianism’ which is one of the longest non-scientific words in the English language.

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British political institutions (6): devolution & Brexit

May 19th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

This week, I attended the sixth and final session of the course at the City Literary Institute on “British Political Institutions“. This session was on devolution and Brexit and delivered by two lecturers: American Dale Mineshima-Lowe and British Mark Malcolmson.

The UK has a devolved system of government with a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Assembly and a Northern Ireland Assembly (currently not in operation), but this is categorically not a system of federal government such as in the United States or Australia, partly because less than a fifth of the citizens of the UK are covered by the three bodies in question and partly because the three bodies themselves have different or asymmetrical powers from one another.

The planned exit of the UK from the European Union has further complicated the devolution debate, since there is fierce argument about whether the powers to be repatriated from the EU to the UK should be held by the government at Westminster or devolved to the administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

You can read the devolution section of my guide to the British political system here.

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Reviews of my last two films: “Sherlock Gnomes” & “Let The Sunshine In”

May 16th, 2018 by Roger Darlington

The last two films that I’ve seen – on consecutive days last weekend – could not have been more different.

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“Sherlock Gnomes”

Like the Smurfs, garden gnomes make cute characters for a children’s animated movie. I missed the first outing, the Shakespeare-themed “Gnomeo & Juliet”, because it was issued in the year of my first grandchild’s birth.

Seven years later though, my granddaughter was delighted to be taken to see this return of the little people, this time playing with Arthur Conan Doyle’s character and, like the original “Paddington” film, featuring evil-doing at London’s Natural History Museum and other London locations.

The cast of voices is wide, including James McAvoy and Emily Blun, back as Gnomeo and Juliet, and Johnny Depp and Chiwetel Ejiofor, as Sherlock and Dr Watson. There are jokey lines for children and adults and music from Elton John but, as is so often the case with children’s films, minimal plot.

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“Let The Sunshine In”

Despite the title of this French-language film and the British marketing of it, this is not a cheerful rom-com, but a rather sad and dispiriting tale of an emotionally vulnerable woman in her 50s looking for love and finding only callousness and abuse.

The work has a female director (Claire Denis) and female writers (Christine Angot & Claire Denis – although the screenplay is based on a book by a male author), and it is a starring vehicle for the wonderfully-talented Juliette Binoche (who still looks enchanting 30 years after I first saw her in “The Unbearbale Lightness Of Being”) as the divorced mother and artist Isabelle.

The whole thing is classically French: lots of talking, some love-making, plenty of jazz, and frustratingly opaque (we understand nothing of Isabelle’s background and very little of her motivation). But, heh, I could watch Binoche reading a telephone directory.

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