Year: 2020

“Mr. Sunshine” (2018): Jane Austen meets Downton Abbey

Written by Diana Paul on March 10, 2020. Posted in movie reviews. 1 Comment on “Mr. Sunshine” (2018): Jane Austen meets Downton Abbey

Viewers are treated, in this 24-episode series, Mr. Sunshine, to a glimpse of Korean history that few outside of Korea will be familiar with . Screenwriting legend, Kim Eun Sook, has created an intricate historical romance set in 1871, when a US military ship docked in Korea, wishes to expand into Asia for the exploitation of...

The White Ribbon [Das Weisse Band]

Written by Diana Paul on March 2, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on The White Ribbon [Das Weisse Band]

[Guest reviewer Barbara Artson, author of the novel Odessa, Odessa ] Director Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon (2009) opens in total darkness. We see nothing but hear only the elderly voice of a narrator: “I don’t know if the story that I want to tell you is entirely true. Some of it I only know by...

“For Sama”—A Letter to My Daughter

Written by Diana Paul on February 24, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on “For Sama”—A Letter to My Daughter

For Sama is the most searing documentary about war that I have ever seen. Nominated this year for an Academy Award for Best International Film, For Sama presents some of the most unflinching war coverage and remarkable and courageous footage. A love letter to her infant daughter Sama, born in Aleppo, For Sama is a Syrian mother’s...

“Clemency”–No Mercy or Absolution

Written by Diana Paul on February 17, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound.

What’s the psychological and moral cost to a society that administers the death penalty? That’s the question raised in Clemency, the winner of the Sundance drama award last year. So much more than a “death-row drama” , Clemency shifts the lens to the impact of bureaucratized human cruelty: a...

The Report—An Exposé for Us All

Written by Diana Paul on February 10, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound.

Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT)—is the focus of The Report, a provocative Amazon political thriller. A Senate staff researcher, Daniel Jones (Adam Driver) is assigned by Sen. Diane Feinstein (Annette Bening) to investigate detainees held by the CIA in “black sites”. A shameful chapter of American history unfolds , where torture...

1917—This Great War Is Not So Great

Written by Diana Paul on February 2, 2020. Posted in movie reviews. 2 Comments on 1917—This Great War Is Not So Great

The multiple award-winning 1917 is inspired by “American Beauty” writer-director Sam Mendes’s great grandfather’s experience during World War I. Almost everything you’ve ever seen in a war film is here in 1917. There are several homages to the classic Stanley Kubrick film, “Paths of Glory” (1957),...