Articles by Neil Rosen
Ajax, the Dutch and the War/Simon Kuper
British football reporters – with the exception of Ian Hawkey and before him Brian Glanville of The Sunday Times – are noted for their insularity. There is little coverage of the game outside Britain. One writer I like is Simon Kuper of the Financial Times. Born in Johannesburg, [...]
Vanishing Act
Vanishing Act is the true story of Melissa Caddick – a dishonest Sydney financier operating a Ponzi scheme who disappeared and whose body has never been found – though a training shoe with her foot in it was. Maybe because of Neighbours it’s hard to take Australian drama too [...]
Art of Film/Comedy/Sky Arts
Last night Ian Nathan presented the latest in the series on comedy. It’s obviously hard to cover this vast topic in an hour but nonetheless I was disappointed by the omissions. Mel Brooks and The Producers got a deserved mention but not Woody Allen. Although the point was made that comedy [...]
Art of Cinema/depiction of war
I was so looking forward to Ian Nathan and the Sky Arts film team appraising war films in this series but I was disappointed. There were too many omissions and the emphasis was on British films like The Cruel Sea, an excellent film, but one featuring a merchant navy corvette, not the Royal Navy. [...]
Frances McDormand
I read Olive Kitteridge and saw the HBO series after Melanie’s recommendation of both. The series did indeed highlight what a great actress Frances McDormand is. She rose to fame as the detective in Fargo, a typically unglamorous rôle, in which she is mainly in a bulky anorak to keep herself [...]
The Admirable Crichton (1957)
I livened up Monday morning by watching this film, directed by Lewis Gilbert, on Film 4 yesterday. Dramas on service and class have always been popular. Think of Upstairs Downstairs, Downton Abbey and Remains of the Day. In many ways the genre all started with the J.M. Barrie play and Lewis [...]
Bad week for the Beeb
It’s hardly been a great week for ‘Auntie’. The Reckoning was produced by ITV studios but broadcast on Mondays and Tuesdays on BBC 1. The final episode’s credits revealed that an investigation by Newsnight into Sir Jimmy Savile had been dropped. Next up was their coverage of the [...]
The Fabelmans (2022) – Sky Movie Greatest
When a great director reaches a certain age and status he/she can do pretty much what they like. Thus Steven Spielberg, probably the best ever director at making films for kids which their parents enjoy too, decided to make The Fabelmans, based on his own childhood and processing his feelings [...]
Haunting in Venice
John Malkovich has done it once unsatisfactorily, Peter Ustinov twice and now Kenneth Branagh three times. Albert Finney, Orson Welles and Alfred Molina had one go. None of them get as near to Hercule Poirot as David Suchet on ITV. He is Poirot. Yesterday I saw Haunting in Venice in which producer, [...]