A review of the 1991 classic film “The Silence Of The Lambs”
May 25th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
When this film was first released, it shocked audiences and, to this day, it is still chilling to watch. An adaptation of the bestselling novel by Thomas Harris, it portrays the efforts of new FBI recruit Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) to track down an elusive serial killer with the unlikely aid of imprisoned serial killer Hannibal ‘The Cannibal’ Lector (Anthony Hopkins). A complex relationship, with some mutual respect, ensues between the reptilian prisoner and the clever but vulnerable novice agent. Although Foster has the most screen time and is excellent, it is Hopkins who is stunning and has the best lines, most notably: “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
“The Silence Of The Lambs” was the first horror movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and actually all five major Oscars, including Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Director (Jonathan Demme). Following the success of the film, there was a sequel, “Hannibal” (2001) and a prequel, “Red Dragon” (2002) which in fact was a remake of “Manhunter” (1986).
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A review of the 1954 classic film”A Star Is Born”
May 25th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
This story has been told four time in films but this is the classic version of the musical. A male star whose career has peaked acts as mentor to a rising female star whose success soon outshines his. In this case, it is film star Norman Maine (James Mason) who befriends singer, dancer and actor Vicki Lester (Judy Garland). The film is an absolute triumph for Garland who, following a four-year break from the big screen, stormed to success with some set-piece singing and dancing and some heavy-weight acting. The big numbers are “The Man That Got Away” and “Born In A Trunk”.
This version is both the examination of a tortured relationship and a satire on the Hollywood system and indeed, in a case of art imitating life before life imitates art, there is even a scene involving the award of the Oscars. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Actor and Best actress, but did not actually win any.
In 1983, more than 20 minutes of previously cut footage was restored (using stills for lost scenes), taking the running length now to some three hours but, in the cinema, there is an intermission.
For the record, the other versions star Fredric March and Janet Gaynor (1937), Kris Kristofferson and Barbra Streisand (1976) and Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga (2018). Although the 1954 version is regarded as the classic, I loved the 2018 remake.
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A review of the latest episode of the “Star Wars” saga:”The Mandalorian And Grogu”
May 24th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
I’ve been a “Star Wars” fan since we release of what we now call “A New Hope” in 1977, so I wasn’t going to miss this 12th contribution to the cinematic canon. However, if (like me) you haven’t been following the development of the franchise on Disney+ streaming TV series, you might welcome a bit of explanation regarding the titular characters of this new film.
The Mandalorian (played by Pedro Pascal) is a bounty hunter in a helmeted costume and from a group introduced to us by Boba Fett, who seemingly can kick and shoot his way out of any danger, while Grogu (presented by a collection of puppeters) is a young and speechless member of the species to which Yoda belonged, who is still maturing his telekinetic powers. The timeframe is just after “Return Of The Jedi” when there are still warlords from the defeated Empire plotting against the New Republic. Remember Jabba the Hutt? Well, his son and a couple of other Hutts are a central part of the plot.
So, in this adventure, there are references to familiar characters and plenty of familiar themes with plenty of new creatures threatening our heroes. We even have cameos from Sigourney Weaver (as if appearing in the “Alien” and “Avatar” franchises was not enough sci-fi credit) and the veteran director Martin Scorsese (voicing a four-armed, street-food vendor). And there’s lots of action from the get-go. There’s a problem, however, if your leading character hardly ever reveals his face and mumbles through a mask – think Tom Hardy as Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises” – and too much of the action is in the dark and too much of the dialogue is clunky, so this is a thoroughly entertaining film but lacks some of them magic of the original sequel.
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A review of the 1953 classic film “From Here To Eternity”
May 20th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Based on a best-selling novel by James Jones, a 950-page work of the same title, this film is a gritty account of life on a US army base in Hawaii in 1941, just prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Although very much toned down from the scandalous book, this cinematic adaptation was still an unusually adult film for the time.
There is a lot going on in this wordy script which is much more character-driven than action-based. Burt Lancaster is the efficient sergeant who runs a tight operation but takes a risk in romancing the commander’s wife (Deborah Kerr), Montgomery Clift is the newly arrived rifleman who refuses to give in to bullying while falling in love with a local dancehall ‘hostess’ (Donna Reed), and Frank Sinatra plays an Italian-American soldier who is insulted and brutalised by an obnoxious stockade sergeant (Ernest Borgnine).
The movie is best-known these days for its scene of Lancaster and Kerr passionately kissing on the beach while the waves possess them, but this is a classic which attracted no less than 13 Academy Award nominations, including five for six of the named actors. It actually won eight, including Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Picture and Best Director for Fred Zinnemann who introduced a screening of the film at London’ National Film Theatre which I attended in 1982 when he was 75.
Note: The title phrase comes originally from Rudyard Kipling’s 1892 poem “Gentlemen-Rankers”, about soldiers of the British Empire who had “lost [their] way” and were “damned from here to eternity”.
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A review of “Kokuho”, the most successful Japanese film ever
May 19th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Since the early 17th century, Japanese culture has featured a form of theatre known as kabuki which mixes dramatic performance with traditional dance. Although the original version was performed by a female troupe, the art form soon developed into its present all-male form after women were banned from performing in kabuki theatre and the men who perform the female roles are known as onnagata.
“Kokuho” – literally translated as ‘national treasure’ – is set in post-war Japan over a period of some 50 years and centres on the initial friendship and subsequent rivalry between Kikuo (played by Ryo Yoshizawa), the son of a yakuza crime boss who – unlikely as it seems – has a rare talent as a onnagata, and Shunsuke (Ryusei Yokohama), the son of an acclaimed kabuki practitioner.
This is a long film (three hours) and Westerners (like me) will sometimes struggle to follow the plot, but it is a stunning piece of work: the colour and costumes plus the singing and dancing all contribute to a visual and aural treat.
There is immense attention to the detail of the kabuki art form: the author of the novel on which the film is based, Shuichi Yoshida, spent an unprecedented three years working backstage of a theatre; lead actors Ryo Yoshizawa and Ryusei Yokohama trained for a year and a half in traditional kabuki dance and movement; and the film’s director engaged a professional kabuki actor as the official consultant and instructor for all the stage performance scenes.
On its release in 2025, “Kokuho” was so successful in its home country that it became the all-time highest-grossing Japanese live action film.
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A review of the 1971 classic film “Get Carter”
May 19th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
This gangster thriller did reasonably well on its release but, over the years, it developed a cult following and it is now regarded as one of the best British films ever made. Michael Caine is Jack Carter, the hard man in a London organised crime gang who returns to his Northern hometown of Newcastle to investigate the recent death of his brother. It is a triumph for Caine who is rarely off screen, but there is an interesting cast list which includes Ian Hendry, John Osborne and Britt Ekland.
Shooting was on unusual locations with a heavy emphasis on class structure and atmosphere was enhanced by Roy Budd’s minimalist jazz score. The plot is rather complicated and increasingly violent and amoral, but it is a well-paced and gripping story written and directed by Mike Hodges in his directorial debut. Among the most memorable scenes are one with the anti-hero totally naked but sporting a shot gun and the final confrontation on a coal-strewn beach.
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Political predictions are a perilous activity – but …
May 14th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
On a turbulent day in Labour Party politics, as a lifelong member I boldly offer what I think would be the best and the worst outcomes.
My dream scenario:
– Prime Minister Andy Burnham
– Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner
– Chancellor Ed Miliband
My nightmare scenario:
Keir Starmer stands for the leadership and, because of the preferential voting system, wins the ballot.
Let’s see what happens …
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A review of the novel “The Rose Field” by Philip Pullman
May 14th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Published in 2025, this is the third part of the trilogy “The Book Of Dust”, following the original trilogy of “His Dark Materials”. The interval between publication of the first and second novels in the “Dust” trilogy was only two years, but the wait between the second and third novels was an uncomfortable six years. Pullman explains this as a result of both the global pandemic and his ageing (he was 79 in 2025).
“The Rose Field” is the sequel to the second book of the second trilogy, set some 10 or so years after the first trilogy. Almost the whole of the text is set in the same universe as that occupied by Lyra Belacqua/Silvertongue, which we were originally told is like our own universe “but different in many ways”, and the narrative picks up exactly at the conclusion of the second novel in the trilogy “The Book Of Dust” titled “The Secret Commonwealth”.
All the leading characters – Lyra herself, her estranged daemon Pantalaimon, her close friend Malcolm Polstead, the wicked head of the Magisterium Marcel Delamare, and the evil reader of the alethiometer Olivier Bonneville – are heading to the Far East, looking for The Red Building and The Rose Field, both of which are connected to this thing called ‘dust’. We meet some wonderful characters and there is plenty of action in this most enjoyable adventure which brings to an end both the “His Dark Materials” trilogy of 1,300 pages and “The Book Of Dust” trilogy of a further 1,900 pages (not to mention four, very short novellas).
The six books represent a brilliant and monumental endeavour, a veritable tour de force in storytelling with so many amazing characters and fascinating ideas. But “The Rose Field” does not take us much further forward in understanding the nature of ‘dust’. It seems that it is “related closely to human consciousness” and that it “permeates everything in the universe”. So: “There is consciousness everywhere”.
In Pullman’s view, the manifestation of ‘dust’ is ‘imagination’ or free thinking. He is fiercely opposed to organised religion, especially the Catholic Church, which is represented in the novels by the Magisterium, the opponent of dust, imagination and free thinking. So the notion of ‘dust’ in Pullman’s writing is ambiguous which is intentional. We are supposed to think.
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A review of the 1967 French classic film “Belle de Jour”
May 14th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
It took a long time for the 1928 French novel of the same name by Joseph Kessel to be made into a film and, when the French language adaptation was produced, it came from Luis Bruñuel, a Spanish filmmaker known for his surrealist work. But then this unusual story is told in a dream-like fashion from the point of view of sexually repressed, middle class housewife Séverine, played by the doll-like beauty that was Catherine Deneuve, who becomes a daytime prostitute in an effort to make herself available eventually to her doctor husband Pierre.
Like so many great films, the opening and closing scenes are especially memorable. The fantasy sequences are striking. The film may be all about sex, but sex is never shown and neither is nudity. In this engrossing but enigmatic film, the cause of Séverine’s repression is never explained and neither are her masochistic sexual fantasies. Yet we never doubt her good intentions: she loves Pierre and wants to please him. However, her strategy is inherently risky and rightly the viewer fears for how it will work out.
The film won the Golden Lion award for best film at the Venice Film Festival.
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A review of the new film “The Devil Wears Prada 2”
May 13th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
ou can wait wait a long time for a movie sequel these days and it’s 20 years since we first visited the fashion magazine “Runway”. This enables the new film to feature some of the consequences of the dramatic shift from print publications to the online world and to hint at recent efforts to make modelling a little more inclusive and production less scarred by sweatshops.
But the strength of this enjoyable sequel is not in its narrative, which is rather silly, but in its wonderful casting. All four stars of the original movie are back: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci and Emma Blunt. Additionally there are cameos from Kenneth Branagh and Lady Gaga and a host of public figures, mainly from the world of fashion, playing themselves.
So visually the work is a treat: the actors, the clothes and the locations (New York, Milan, Lake Como) dazzle in this fast-moving romp. Just – as before – don’t expect anything thoughtful or biting in this comedy of terrors.
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