Year: 2020

The Queen’s Gambit–A Passion for Winning

Written by Diana Paul on November 16, 2020. Posted in movie reviews. 7 Comments on The Queen’s Gambit–A Passion for Winning

The Queen’s Gambit is a fictional story based upon the 1983 Walter Tevis novel by the same name. A Netflix original series released October 30 of this year, the drama opens with a scene of an eight-year old girl, Beth Harmon (newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy), soon to become an orphan residing at a bleak...

“Hinterland” —The Remote Interior of the Mind

Written by Diana Paul on November 1, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews, Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on “Hinterland” —The Remote Interior of the Mind

An original Welsh-noir murder series on Netflix (in three seasons, 13 total episodes), Hinterland is for those who love this genre. The main character, DCI Tom Mathias, is a deeply troubled unsympathetic detective who, together with his more mature and brilliant partner Mared Rhys,...

The Way I See It–What’s Before Your Eyes

Written by Diana Paul on October 25, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 3 Comments on The Way I See It–What’s Before Your Eyes

The Way I See It, a documentary film released by MSNBC on October 16, 2020, narrates the career of the former Chief Official White House Photographer, Pete Souza. He covered two of the most popular US presidents of the past fifty years: Ronald Reagan and Barack...

“Flesh and Blood”–Deadly Sins

Written by Diana Paul on October 18, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews.

Don’t be fooled. This dysfunctional family gives the appearance of happiness and love, but Flesh and Blood disguises a murder. This mystery-thriller set in the sunshine and warm beaches of West Sussex is a multigenerational psychodrama. The gentle surf and sunny skies can lull the residents...

“Ratched”–Ratcheting Up the Tension

Written by Diana Paul on October 12, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 1 Comment on “Ratched”–Ratcheting Up the Tension

This Netflix quasi-horror thriller creates a backstory for Nurse Ratched, the heartless villain in the 1975 Academy-Award winning classic “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”. “What made Ratched so vile and so unimaginably cruel and unempathetic?” The answer, of course, has roots in...