Archive for September, 2024
A review of the new film “The Outrun”
September 29th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Think you have problems? Well, 30 year old Scottish Rona is coping with a traumatic childhood, a bipolar father, an evangelical mother, the break-up of a relationship, a serious addiction to alcohol and acute depression, plus the wildness, windiness and loneliness of an island in Orkney. This could, so easily, have been a misery movie, […]
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A review of “The Talented Mr Ripley” by Patricia Highsmith
September 27th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Crime fiction is a massively popular genre, but I generally avoid it. I made an exception for this 1955 psychological thriller because it has become such a well-established classic: it won a number of awards, it resulted in four sequels, and it has been the subject of many radio, television and film adaptations. I thoroughly […]
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Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World?
September 25th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
This is the title of a new eight-part series which has just completed broadcasting on the BBC and is now available of the BBC’s iPlayer. An impressive array of senior figures speak with knowledge, candour and regret, making this one of the very best documentaries on global politics that I’ve ever seen. It looks at […]
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What do you know about dementia?
September 20th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Here, in the UK, nearly a million people are currently living with dementia. This figure is predicted to increase to around 1.4 million by 2040. Worldwide, some 55 million are living with dementia. That figure is predicted to rise to around 150 million by 2030. More women than men are affected by dementia. There are […]
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A review of the 1973 ‘classic’ film “Zarzoz”
September 19th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
It may be a bit of stretch to call the science fiction tale “Zardoz” a classic but, over the last 50 years, it has certainly become something of a cult favourite. I’ve seen it on the big screen three timse: first, on its release at the Odeon in Leicester Square; second, in the early 1980s […]
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A review of “The Old Man And The Sea” by Ernest Hemingway
September 17th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Santiago is an experienced but elderly fisherman in a Cuban fishing village who has had a prolonged run of bad luck, having failed in 84 consecutive days to catch anything. His luck is about to change dramatically, but at what cost and with what consequence? This novella of less than 100 pages won Hemingway the […]
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A review of a new bio-pic on the life of American war photographer Lee Miller
September 15th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
For British actress Kate Winslet, it has been a nine-year passion project to bring to the big screen the story of American war photographer Lee Miller (1907-1977). It was a remarkable life: after working as a fashion model in New York and a fashion photographer in Paris, during World War II she served as war […]
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Should assisted dying be legal?
September 13th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
More than two dozen jurisdictions around the world – including New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, 10 states in the US and all six states in Australia – allow some form of assisted dying. Bills to legalise assisted dying are now going through parliaments in the Isle of Man, Jersey and Scotland. What about the rest […]
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Kamala Harris vs Donald Trump: the first (and last?) debate
September 11th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Fascinated though I am by American politics, I was never going to stay up and lose sleep watching live the ABC one and a half hour presidential election debate between current Vice-President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. But I made a point of recording the debate and watching every minute today. I rather […]
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A review of the classic 1949 film “The Third Man”
September 10th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
We tend to think of film noir as primarily a genre emanating from America and typically set in Los Angeles, but this classic of the genre is a British production shot on location in post-war Vienna. Written for the screen by Graham Greene and directed by Carol Reed, the cast is a mixture of American (Joseph Cotton […]
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