Articles by Neil Rosen

About Neil Rosen

Neil went to the City of London School and Manchester University graduating with a 1st in economics. After a brief stint in accountancy, Neil emigrated to a kibbutz In Israel. His articles on the burgeoning Israeli film industry earned comparisons to Truffaut and Godard in Cahiers du Cinema. Now one of the world's leading film critics and moderators at film Festivals Neil has written definitively in his book Kosher Nostra on Jewish post war actors. Neil lives with his family in North London. More Posts

Film criticism and Mark Kermode

In France film reviewing is taken very seriously. The film review magazine Cahiers du Cinema – literally translated as “Exercise books of Cinema” – spawned a fine generation of Auteurs like Jean Luc Goddard, Francois Truffaut and Alain Resnais. In the UK film reviewing can [...]

August 13, 2019 // 0 Comments

Secret of the Unicorn

There has been some reportage on the Rust on recalling the moon landings which prompted me to investigate whether a film or TV series cartoon was made of the two stories Destination Moon and Explorers of the Moon by Hergé featuring Tintin and Captain Haddock’s lunar exploration. I could not find [...]

July 23, 2019 // 0 Comments

Stanley Kubrick exhibition at the Design Centre

Monday I went to the Stanley Kubrick exhibition which was exceptionally well curated. Kubrick’s canon of films Paths of Glory, Spartacus, Dr Strangelove, Lolita, Clockwork Orange, Space Odyssey and Full Metal Jacket are notable for their sheer diversity and the costume drama Barry Lyndon remains [...]

July 10, 2019 // 0 Comments

Mr Klein (1976)

A few years ago I met up with the noted French film buff Ginette Vincendeau. Conversation turned to what was essentially a complicity by the Vichy Government with the occupying Nazis leading to the infamous round up (Le rafle) of the Parisien Jews In 1942. Some of the French police officers in Le [...]

June 25, 2019 // 0 Comments

Defending war films

Whenever I meet my fellow film reviewers at the Sundance Film Festival rest assured when we take a latte after some indie film of indescribable tedium and conversation turns to our favourite genres and films I’m under bombardment for enjoying war films most, yet I continue to defend them not [...]

June 6, 2019 // 0 Comments

Ben Hecht/Adina Hoffman

We film critics live in a bubble so I should not be surprised that few outside our world have apparently ever heard of scriptwriter Ben Hecht. His is a strange craft. Movies are star driven, a few directors are household names, but never a scriptwriter. Typically on a film there will be a group of [...]

May 25, 2019 // 0 Comments

The Desert Fox/1951

The Desert Fox, a biopic of Field Marshal Irwin Rommel starring James Mason, can rightfully claim to be the most groundbreaking war film of all as it lauds a German soldier but 6 years after VE Day. James Mason, ironically a conscientious objector, gives a fine performance as Rommel, Leo G. Carroll [...]

May 12, 2019 // 0 Comments

“You’re only supposed …”

No doubt Rusters will have their own favourite candidates, but today I found a piece by Brian Viner detailing a list of his “Best movie one-liners” which I thought worthy of a recommendation – see here, on the website of the – DAILY [...]

May 10, 2019 // 0 Comments

Kelly’s Heroes

Kelly’s Heroes (1970) supports my theory that a war film tells you as much about the time it was made as the time it covers. In 1970 America was involved in Vietnam and the film is less about gung-ho heroism than a buffoon general (Don Rickles), a long-haired hippie soldier (Donald Sutherland) [...]

May 5, 2019 // 0 Comments

That was then but this is now (revisited)

Without doubt a prime candidate as the greatest agent of impetus in human civilisation is the invention of means of ‘recording’ first language (in the form of writing) and then – as regards performing arts – the use of devices capable of recording sound and movement ‘in the moment’. [...]

April 6, 2019 // 0 Comments

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My sporting weekend

August 19, 2019 // 0 Comments

Unusually for me I did not have a tickle all weekend though I had some golf bets in the week. Sometimes I just want to watch sport free of angst. I started with the Bledisloe [...]
Truth as a commodity and other issues

August 19, 2019 // 0 Comments

I don’t know whether I’m ga-ga, delusional, or even turning into a hard line, “hang ‘em and flog ‘em” right-wing Tory, but over the past couple of years, on the [...]
A memorable day at the Test

August 18, 2019 // 0 Comments

The Saturday of a Lords Test is always special, an Ashes one very special, but yesterday can only be described as very, very special. I cannot remember a more absorbing day [...]
A bit of a damp squib

August 18, 2019 // 0 Comments

For my sins – despite the ‘Phoney War’ nature of all these Rugby World Cup warm-up games – yesterday I made a point of watching Channel Four’s live coverage of [...]
The Tanner report: Huddersfield 1 Fulham 2

August 17, 2019 // 0 Comments

I had the utmost respect for those Fulham diehards on a very wet night – when the match was televised – who made it up to the Smith Stadium and were rewarded by a [...]