A ninth five-star review for “Everyone Has A Story”
July 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
My latest book – available on Amazon – has just received a short but positive review: “Mr. Darlington has created a set of intriguing biographies about people he has met, by interviewing them. They are all different, but all are interesting. Superbly written.”
If you haven’t already bought a copy of the book, please consider doing so. If you have a copy, maybe you would like to gift another copy to family or friend. Thanks for your support. I promise that you won’t be disappointed.
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A review of the 1976 classic movie “Taxi Driver”
July 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Following “Mean Streets” (1973), this is another collaboration between director Martin Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro, both still at the beginning of their careers and both of whom went on to have stellar achievements for half a century. In this case, they had a strong script, courtesy of Paul Schrader who presents the descent into psychological hell of former marine and Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle (De Niro in intense and brilliant form), an insomniac who works nights as a New York City cab driver, despises most of what he sees, and eventually takes it upon himself to become a lone avenger, rescuing an underage prostitute (12 year old Jodie Foster).
This violent film noir has director Scorsese in a cameo slot and the support roles include Cybill Shepherd and Harvey Keitel (also in “Mean Streets”). A particularly memorable scene has a beefed-up and well-armed Travis conversing with himself in the mirror: “You talking to me?” he asks four times. He warns us: “Here is a man who would not take it anymore.” From the very beginning, the atmospheric saxophone score by Bernard Hermann creates a dark and edgy ambiance. The music was finished mere hours before his death and the film is dedicated to him.
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A review of the classic 1961 movie “West Side Story”
July 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
“West Side Story” was a spectacular theatre musical (when I was in Vienna, I saw a version in German!) and it was an enormous success as a film (when I first saw it at the cinema as a teenager, my girlfriend was repeatedly in tears) that won all but one of its 11 Academy Award nominations. Inspired by Shakespeare’s “Romeo And Juliet”, it centres on conflict between two rival gangs in New York City, the Puerto Rican Sharks and the Polish Jets, and the romance between members of the opposing communities: Maria (Natalie Wood) and Tony (Richard Beymer) respectively.
The casting of the film could have been more ethnically sensitive – something addressed by the 2021 remake – but the music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and choreography by Jerome Robbins are all outstanding. In so many musicals, there are a couple of songs that stand out, but almost every song in “West Side Story”is memorable. My particular favourite is “America” for its thrilling music and sharp lyrics addressing the challenges of being an immigrant in the United States.
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A review of the 1939 classic movie “The Wizard Of Oz”
July 4th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Rarely can a movie have been so troubled in production but so successful in outcome. The work had 14 writers and four directors; casting was a problem and there were on-set accidents and drunkenness; it was over schedule and over budget. And yet “Oz” was a huge success and, according to the US Library of Congress, this beloved musical is the most viewed film in cinematic history.
The source material was the 1900 book by L. Frank Baum. In the novel, the main character of Dorothy was a 10 year old girl with blonde curls but, in the film, the role finally went to 16 year old redhead Judy Garland who is a delight. The colourful cast includes Dorothy’s loveable travel companions along the Yellow Brick Road, The Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), The Tin Woodman (Jack Haley), and The Cowardly Lion (Bert Lehr), and together they eventually encounter The Wizard (Frank Morgan). We have a good witch, a bad witch, 120 ‘munchkins’ (played by an entertainment troupe called Singer’s Midgets), and Toto the male dog played by Terry a female terrier,
The movie begins in sepia black and white but, 20 minutes into the story, a door opens to a dreamland of luscious Technicolour. My favourite line – a version of which I often use when something unexpected happens – is “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more.”. I once saw Dorothy’s magic ruby slippers in the Museum of American History in Washington DC.
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The USA is 250 years old today – but how did it start?
July 4th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
In 2000, I went to see the film “The Patriot” starring Mel Gibson and I thought that the American revolution could not possibly have been that simplistic so, on a trip to Washington DC later that year, I bought a book at the National Museum of American History: “A Short History Of The American Revolution” by James L Stokesbury. He is an American who worked as a professor of history at Acadia University in Canada. His book – first published in 1991 – is a lucid account of a seminal event encompassed in just short of 300 pages.
I suppose that, for Americans, the story of the revolution is a very familiar one, taught in schools and part of the psyche. However, for someone like me – British and with no schooling whatsoever in the period – Stokesbury’s book was a revelation. I just learned so much.
For starters, I had thought of the war as a relatively intense and short-lived affair of some months. In fact, it lasted eight years (1775-1783) and involved twenty or so major battles. For much of the time, though, “the war just bumbled along” and frequently looked like “a sort of equilibrium”. It looked as if “neither side was capable of winning it and both were tired of waging it” and, five years on, it was “less a contest of physical forces than of willpower or, more correctly, staying power”. Arguably the decisive battle of the war was Yorktown in late 1781, but peace was not signed until almost two years later and the British maintained their holdings in America even longer than that. At the end of it all, “The country was militarily exhausted and financially ruined”.
I had not appreciated either how much the American War of Independence was in fact a civil war. About 50,000 Americans actively fought for the British side. Stokesbury puts it this way: “The general estimates are that perhaps a third of the population were active supporters of the Revolution or Patriots; and one third were actively for the King or Loyalists or Tories; with the other third wanting to be left alone as much as possible; or, that one quarter took either active position, and as much as one half formed the amorphous and neutral middle”. One of the dreadful features of so many civil wars is often atrocities and, in this case, both sides were guilty of brutalities.
I had certainly not understood that this so-called American war was in effect a world war. From the start, the British employed foreign units, notably some 30,000 Germans (most of them from Hesse-Cassel). For their part, the Americans sought and obtained allies from the European powers opposing the maritime strength of thalassocratic Britain. First, the old enemy France declared war on Britain; then Spain and the Netherlands came out against the British; and finally the Baltic powers – Russia, Denmark and Sweden – combined in an anti-British coalition called ‘Armed Neutrality’ and, before the war ended, Prussia, Portugal, Austria and the Two Sicilies had all joined this alliance. So, as well as America, there were major theatres of war in the West Indies, the Mediterranean, India, and the English Channel.
Through the mists of time, we tend to see history in black and white terms in which events had almost an inevitability about them. Stokesbury makes it clear that reality was much more complicated.
For a start, in spite of all the intense research of the period, so much is still unknown or unclear. We do not even know who fired the first shot of the war on 18 April 1775 at Lexington. The conduct and casualties of many of the battles are confused.
Also the supporters of independence were far from a united army battling the evil British. There was enormous conflict between the Continental Congress and the individual states – a tension which continues today – and immense rivalry over who was to command which forces with the infamous Conway cabal against George Washington. There was desertion, mutiny and even treason in the shape of Benedict Arnold. Stokesbury writes: “It is fair to say that George Washington was the one indispensable man of the American Revolution and that, without him, there were several times when the whole enterprise would probably have collapsed”.
Then there is the odd situation of New York, then – as now – the chief city of the continent. For most of the war, it was securely held by the British and the Americans could do nothing to retake it. Stokesbury explains: “The military theory of the period held that, if you took the enemy’s capital, or his major cities, he would have sense enough to make peace. But the Americans were not involved in a conventional eighteenth-century war”.
Finally, there is a tendency to think of both the outbreak of the revolution and its success as inevitable. A more sensitive handling of genuine grievances by King George III and his Ministers would have made all the difference. Canada was kept for the British and the thirteen states could have been secured as well. A more determined effort by the British at the end of the first year of the war – following the taking of New York – and world history could have been very different. If one sees the conflagration as a world war, then Britain won in four of the five theatres.
And not one mention of Mel Gibson …
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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 the bodies start to mount up, seven months pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) sets out on the trail. Sounds crazy? It is – but most enjoyably so.
This is a Coen brothers production: both wrote the script, Ethan produced, and Joel directed, while McDormand was married to Joel. The terrain is a character in itself: the plot begins in Fargo, a town on the west of North Dakota, but most of the action is in the centre of neighbouring Minnesota, the Coens home state. The brothers make effective use of the location in their script, since there is a good deal of ‘Minnesota nice’ (the reputation for mild-mannered behaviour) and use of an exaggerated version of the local, Scandinavian-influenced accent (endless occasions of “Yah, you betcha”).
The last time that I saw “Fargo” was in 2026 at the British Film Institute when it was preceded by an interview with the film’s cinematographer Roger Deakins (then 77). He recalled that, setting the story in the depths of winter required lots of snow, but strangely there was a lack of it in central Minnesota that year, so they had do do filming in the north of the state and bring in snow machines.
Running just 97 minutes, the film won Academy Awards for both the Coens (Best Original Screenplay) and McDormand (Best Actress).
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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 the superhero movie. The second – and most enjoyable – section reviews 50 key films (at the time of reading, I’ve seen 37) from “Intolerance” (1916) to “Roma” (2018). The third section describes 26 movements from German Expressionism to Romanian New Wave. Finally, there is an examination of 28 techniques from various film formats to the use of 3D. Almost every page has an illustration and there is a lot of cross-referencing.
Originally, I used this book as a reference source, but then I read it from cover to cover and learned so much. I found the work helpful for my own forthcoming, self-published book, provisionally entitled “A Film Lover’s Guide To 250 Classics”. I.H.S is a real expert and I am a mere enthusiast, but I’d like to feel that there’s room for both our books on your shelves.
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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, Keir Starmer had to go.
We are fortunate that we have an an alternative in Andy Burnham who is not just credible but compelling. No other politician could have beaten Reform in the by-election. He is an excellent communicator and campaigner with far more experience of government than Starmer or Blair when they first entered No 10.
If he chooses a good team and carries out a sensible review of policy, he will return Labour to a lead in the polls and a second term of office. We have to wish him well and give him our enthusiastic support.
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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 Catholic. When he refused to acknowledge the claim of Henry to be head of the Church of England, he was executed. After his execution, his head was mounted on a pike on London Bridge and publicly displayed as a graphic testimony of his dissent.
More’s devoted daughter Margaret Roper arranged to have the head taken down and delivered to her. She placed it in a casket and had it buried in the family vault in St Dunstan’s Church in Canterbury. It remains there to this day.
This weekend, I visited the church and learned this story when I visited friends who live near to Canterbury.
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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 are not alone in the universe and that other life forms, who have reached us, wish us well – an optimistic message at any time, but particularly when – as in this film – the world appears to be on the brink of nuclear war.
Two individuals hold the key: television weather presenter Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) and security expert turned whistleblower Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), although they don’t seem to know each other. Two others know something about what’s going on: the head of a malicious defence company (Colin Firth) and some guy in a warehouse (Colman Domingo). It takes a while before the viewer can make any sense of it all – but enjoy the ride.
The acting here is good – especially from Blunt in her best performance to date – although it’s hard to picture our charming Colin Firth as such an evil character. And there are some exciting sequences – notably when a car holding the two heroes and a train speeding down the track come into the same space. But the film is too confused and over-long with some weak special effects. Most seriously, the plot is so full of black holes.
It would take remarkable intelligence and technology for any aliens to reach Earth so, having gone to so much trouble: why do they keep crashing in remote areas of the USA? why do they reveal themselves to so few people (usually Americans) and in such oblique circumstances? and why don’t they give out more widely those wonderful gadgets that can do all sorts of magical things? If there is to be a big reveal to the global population, why don’t those clever aliens just take over any number of television channels? And, if this great revelation is to be left to a local tv station in the US, how come everyone instantly believes them (someone mentions that the government films might be AI) with no due diligence whatsoever?
So, less a case of disclosure day and a more a matter of a disappointing two and a half hours.
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