Archive for January, 2026


A review of the 2021 film “Operation Mincemeat”

January 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington

This is the unlikely – and, for a long time, totally secret – story of a World War Two subterfuge that persuaded Hitler to believe that, in 1943, the Allies were going to make the first invasion of Europe in Greece instead of Sicily. The film stays close to the true details of the operation, […]

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A review of the popular movie “Crocodile Dundee”

January 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington

There is a genre of film known as ‘fish out of water’ where the protagonist finds himself or herself in totally unfamiliar surrounding, usually causing much humour and sometimes some fear. This trope is featured twice in this delightful romantic comedy of 1986: first when New York journalist Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) ventures into the […]

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Timeline of major US interventions in Latin America: 1846–2026

January 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington

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A review of the 1988 film “Die Hard” 

January 7th, 2026 by Roger Darlington

This action movie may not be a classic work in the sense of great cinema or of winner of awards, but it has become a commercial and cultural phenomenon. It was immediately a huge box office success, it led to no less than four sequels, and the franchise earned a worldwide total of $1.4 billion. […]

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A review of the award-winning film “Marty Supreme”

January 7th, 2026 by Roger Darlington

This is a rather odd story, but it is told with considerable panache at a frenetic pace with an eclectic score. Set in the early 1950s, it centres on the efforts of young, working-class New Yorker Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) to become the world table tennis champion which will require him to beat Koto Endo, […]

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A review of the classic film “The Piano” (1993)

January 7th, 2026 by Roger Darlington

An original story told in captivating fashion, this film is a triumph for New Zealander Jane Campion who both wrote and directed it. The setting is a poor community in a coastal region of 1850s New Zealand. Ada (Holly Hunter), a Scottish widow who hasn’t spoken since childhood, arrives as a kind of mail order […]

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