Year: 2019

My Top 15 Movies and TV Series for 2019

Written by Diana Paul on December 31, 2019. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on My Top 15 Movies and TV Series for 2019

Here are the reviews I wrote this year with the criteria that they were available online or were at local movie theaters, although not necessarily under broad distribution nor widely distributed through move theaters. Of the 43 reviews, here are my favorites. Another difficult year to make my listicle. As in past years, both television and cinema have continued to produce phenomenal story-telling and intriguing characters. The following list is not ranked, only grouped by genre and date of review. INDIES and FOREIGN CINEMA 1) Lo and...

Knock Down the House—A Remodel is Needed

Written by diana on December 20, 2019. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on Knock Down the House—A Remodel is Needed

This investigative journalistic documentary invites the viewer to take a closer look at four committed women who ran for Congress in 2018: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Cori Bush of Maryland, Paula Jean Swearengin of West Virginia, and Amy Vilela of Nevada. First and foremost, however, Knock Down the House is AOC’s story. The former bartender from the Bronx turned first-time congresswoman needs no introduction. Because of director Rachel Lears’s early access to the four Congressional candidates, she and her camera have...

Luce—A Beam of Light?

Written by diana on December 16, 2019. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on Luce—A Beam of Light?

Luce the movie The title character, Luce (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is an all-star athlete and model straight-A student who is expected to achieve greatness in college. Luce’s liberal adoptive parents—physician Amy (Naomi Watts) and financier Peter (Tim Roth) adopted Luce when he was a little boy in Eritrea, a boy-soldier who experienced unimaginable horror. A volatile and incendiary essay he has written for an English teacher, Harriet Wilson (Octavia Spencer), is brought to the attention of Luce’s parents. The essay inflames the liberal-minded community and...

Booksmart—Today’s “Breakfast Club”?

Written by diana on December 10, 2019. Posted in movie reviews. No Comments on Booksmart—Today’s “Breakfast Club”?

Booksmart follows two academic superstars and high school best friends who, the night before graduation, suddenly realize that they should have worked less and played more. Major late-blooming FOMO!

Late Night–Women Do It Right

Written by diana on November 25, 2019. Posted in movie reviews. 2 Comments on Late Night–Women Do It Right

Late Night movie In Late Night we see a notoriously, male-dominated world of late-night network TV in which a woman–Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson)– is the host of her own talk show. (Think “The Devil Wears Prada” and Meryl Streep as the “bitch-boss from hell”). The world of late-night television is even more turned upside down when Katherine hires her first and only female staff writer, Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling) to tamp down criticism of the show’s lack of diversity– a...

Tricky Dick–His Own Fantasy World

Written by diana on October 30, 2019. Posted in Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on Tricky Dick–His Own Fantasy World

Narrated by Anderson Cooper, Tricky Dick is a four-part CNN documentary that presents the lesser-known story of Richard Nixon’s life and times. The rise, fall and almost unbelievable comeback and final self-sabotage of his political career are adroitly deconstructed. Through access to archival footage never before seen by the public, the backstory of Richard Nixon’s complex view of opportunity and ambition unfolds. The story of Nixon’s aggressive strategy for political success, together with his resentment of the elite and his animus towards the press,...