Archive for June, 2026
A review of the classic 1996 movie”Fargo”
June 30th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Here we have a black comedy that is often macabre and frequently funny. Car dealer Jerry Lundesgaard (William H. Macy) hires two very odd characters, played by Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare, to kidnap his wife so that he can share the ransom with them to escape some financial difficulties. Everything goes wrong and, when […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of “The Short Story Of Film” by Ian Haydn Smith (2020)
June 23rd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
I love cinema and I loved this book. It is so informative and comprehensive but in a concise and accessible format – a triumph for I.H.S. who is the editor of “Curzon’ magazine and “BFI Filmmakers” magazine. The guide has four sections. The first explains genres and manages to identify 36 from the western to […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Where to now for Labour?
June 22nd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
This morning, I watched live the resignation statement made by Keir Starmer outside 10 Downing Street. The threat to Labour and to the country is existential. For a year now, every political poll has had Reform UK in the lead. The local elections in May were an overwhelming demonstration of this. Sad though it is, […]
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Where is the head of St Thomas More?
June 20th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535) was an English lawyer, judge, philospher, author, statesman, theologian and Renaissance humanist. He also served King Henry VIII as Lord Chancellor from October 1529 to May 1532. He wrote the book Utopia, published in 1516, which describes the political system of an imaginary island state. More was a devout Roman […]
Posted in History | Comments (0)
A review of the new Spielberg blockbuster “Disclosure Day”
June 15th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
I’m a big fan of Steven Spielberg and I love science fiction movies, so I was excited to see what could be regarded as the third of the director’s trilogy, following those wonderful offerings “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind” (1977) and “E.T The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982). The theme of all three works is that humans […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the 1985 film “Kiss Of The Spider Woman”
June 11th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Based on the novel by the Argentinian Manuel Puig – a gay man with a passion for cinema – and directed by the Argentinian-born Brazilian Héctor Babenco, this film was set in and largely shot in Brazil, but it was made in the English language and screenwriter Leonard Schrader and the leading actor William Hurt […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the 1992 classic western “Unforgiven”
June 9th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
There have been a growing number of revisionist westerns that challenge the mythology of the Old West, but this is the best and the delicious irony is that it was produced and directed by Clint Eastwood and stars him in the leading role. This is not the young, confident cowboy that Eastwood portrayed as ‘The […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the 1956 classic western “The Searchers”
June 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
This is a stromg candidate for the best western ever made and it pairs two of the giants of the genre, director John Ford and actor John Wayne, who worked together on eight of Ford’s sound westerns. The story opens in Texas in 1868, but the lengthy narrative proceeds over five years and the location […]
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
My next book: a collection of reviews of classic films
June 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
It’s three months now since my last book was published: “Everyone Has A Story” – profiles of 33 of my friends with really interesting stories. If you don’t yet have a copy, you can purchase it from Amazon. Now I’m working on my next book, “Classic Cinema”, which will be a collection of reviews of […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Ever heard of the Provisions of Oxford?
June 6th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
According to Simon Schama, the author of the three-volume “A History Of Britain” and presenter of the BBC series of the same name, the Provisions of Oxford in 1258 are so important that “1258 ought to be one of the dates engraved on the national memorial having far more immediate significance than 1215” when Magna […]
Posted in History | Comments (0)