Month: August 2020

“The Good Liar”–A Story Within a Story

Written by Diana Paul on August 31, 2020. Posted in movie reviews. 2 Comments on “The Good Liar”–A Story Within a Story

The Good Liar, a 2019 crime thriller, based on the titular novel by Nicholas Searle, is a cat-and-mouse plot featuring a septuagenarian wealthy widow, Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren) and an octogenarian con artist Roy Courtnay (Ian McKellen). They meet on a first date scheduled through a dating app for seniors. Roy obviously does not have good intentions and his motives are soon recognized as dishonorable by Betty’s grandson, Stephen (Russell Tovey), who grows increasingly suspicious and resentful. Betty, on the other hand, seems smitten. Will...

“High Seas”–“Death on the Nile” meets “Murder on the Orient Express”

Written by Diana Paul on August 24, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 3 Comments on “High Seas”–“Death on the Nile” meets “Murder on the Orient Express”

In this Spanish melodrama (Spanish: Alta Mar) , two sisters discover some very disturbing family secrets aboard a ship sailing from Spain to Brazil just after World War II. Agatha Christie’s style of mystery plotting, overlaid with the Spanish love of melodrama and telenovela, makes High Seas an unusual series. Following the death of their father, sisters Eva and Carolina Villanueva travel on the luxury ocean liner, Bárbara de Braganza. The sisters, over the course of three seasons, become committed to investigating mysterious...

“Humans”–“Dark Mirror” Meets “Ex Machina”

Written by diana on August 17, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 1 Comment on “Humans”–“Dark Mirror” Meets “Ex Machina”

The Amazon Prime sci-fi series, Humans (three seasons), takes place in the not- too-distant future where the affluent purchase “synths”, artificially intelligent human-looking robots that can perform a multitude of tasks from housecleaning, surveillance, and sex-toy services. A suburban family buys Anita (the exquisitely beautiful Gemma Chan of “Crazy Rich Asians”) to help with the burdens of a professional couple. The father, Joe (Tom Goodman-Hill), is a manager in a factory who is replaced by synths. His wife, Laura (Katherine Parkinson of Pirate Radio and Doc...

“The Alienist: Angel of Darkness” (Season Two)–Stranger Things Happen

Written by Diana Paul on August 11, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 1 Comment on “The Alienist: Angel of Darkness” (Season Two)–Stranger Things Happen

In this relatively seamless sequel to “The Alienist”, based on Caleb Carr’s second psychological thriller, season two is a retelling of Carr’s Angel of Darkness. But this is much more than a sequel. (For my review of season one, see my April 29, 2018 review: “The Alienist”–Something Wicked This Way Comes). The year is 1897, a scant three years before the dawn of the 20th century, in the Gilded Age. In New York City, a serial killer is kidnapping and murdering babies. Angel of Darkness opens with a grisly...

Dark Waters–Still an Abyss

Written by Diana Paul on August 3, 2020. Posted in movie reviews. 4 Comments on Dark Waters–Still an Abyss

Dark Waters is a 2019 American legal thriller directed by Todd Haynes (“Carol” and “Far from Heaven”). The movie dramatizes the whistleblowing story of a cover-up of toxic waste. We see close up the corporate corruption involving Dupont’s manufacturing of Teflon. The hero is Robert Bilott, (played by Mark Ruffalo of “I Know This Much is True”) an Ohio lawyer who spends more than eighteen years proving that DuPont was responsible for poisoning the town of Parkersburg, West Virginia with...