Unhealed Wound – Passion for Art, Movies, and Culture

The Diplomat–Tact Needed

Written by Diana Paul on May 28, 2023. Posted in Television reviews. 1 Comment

In this new Netflix series, The Diplomat is part comedy, espionage, politics, combined with a troubled marriage thrown into an action-packed eight-episode drama. The drama takes place mainly in British embassies and cabinet offices with plenty of tense negotiations and suspicious deaths in both England and the US. The opening scene focuses on a bombed British warship off the coast of Iran. Who bombed the ship and who is trigger-happy enough to cause a world war over it? Enter US Ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell from “The Americans”) who is determined to use reason and diplomacy...

The Glory—Forgiveness vs Revenge?

Written by Diana Paul on May 21, 2023. Posted in Television reviews. Leave a Comment

The Glory is a sixteen-episode Korean revenge drama about high school bullying and associated trauma. Eighteen years later an elaborate, convoluted plot is conceived by the beautiful, scarred victim, Moon Dong-eun. Her obsession is to destroy the two girls and two guys who brutalized her and caused her to drop out of high school at the age of fourteen. She has been waiting eighteen years to mastermind their annihilation and humiliation. Dong-eun, abandoned by her drug-addicted, alcoholic mother at the age of fourteen, works menial jobs for years, earns her high...

Crimson Rivers–”Silent Witness” meets “Engrenages”

Written by Diana Paul on May 14, 2023. Posted in Television reviews. 1 Comment

Crimson Rivers (“Les Rivières Pourpres”-2018-2022), a twenty-four episode French detective series, has three seasons of two-episode crimes which special investigator Pierre Niémans (Olivier Marchal) and his protégée, Lieutenant Camille Delauney (Erika Sainte) are obsessed to solve. The much-younger Camille Delauney, intrepid to a fault, always finds herself in difficult situations chasing after clues. The aging Niémans arrogantly dismisses, derides, or reveals his Gallic disdain for anyone–especially Camille–who questions his authority and judgment. She is often on the right...

Holy Spider—A Web of Horror and Mayhem

Written by Diana Paul on May 8, 2023. Posted in movie reviews. Leave a Comment

Holy Spider, based on a true story and a graphic novel, retells the harrowing battle of a fearless woman journalist, Rahimi (Cannes Film festival award winner for best actress, Zar Amir- Ebrahimi) who investigates a brutal murderer nicknamed “Spider Killer”. Sixteen young prostitutes in the religiously conservative Iranian town of Mashhad City have each been dumped into a field. A fanatical psychopath on a religious mission to “cleanse” the streets of sex workers, middle-aged Saeed, is a construction worker and war veteran. He becomes a vigilante who stalks...

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962) –A Classic

Written by Diana Paul on May 1, 2023. Posted in movie reviews. Leave a Comment

This legendary thriller marked its sixtieth anniversary last year. Yet so many young viewers have yet to witness this masterpiece of film-making: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. This Robert Aldrich-produced film stands the test of time. An unforgettable descent into chaotic madness is exquisitely dramatized in true Alfred Hitchcock fashion. (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane was released only two years after “Psycho”, another masterpiece of psychic horror.) Child star ‘Baby Jane’ Hansen (Bette Davis), supports her family by playing a sweet innocent...

The Last of Us–An Apocalypse?

Written by Diana Paul on April 25, 2023. Posted in Television reviews. Leave a Comment

In a fictional America presented as 2023, not in the future, The Last of Us opens with the country under siege from a pandemic caused by a deadly fungus (cordyceps.) Based on the insanely popular video game (over 20 million copies sold) by the same name, the screen adaptation takes the viewer into a toxic world with more developed characters and personalities. Ellie (Bella Ramsey of “Game of Thrones”) is a teenage orphan who is believed to be immune to the fungal disease that has wiped out most of the planet’s population. Those who survive the fungus turn into monstrous,...