Month: November 2022

Top Gun: Maverick–Targeting Its Audience

Written by Diana Paul on November 28, 2022. Posted in movie reviews. 1 Comment on Top Gun: Maverick–Targeting Its Audience

This aviator cinematic sequel to the 1987 classic Tom Cruise movie, “Top Gun”, sees Pete “Maverick” Mitchell still having his need for speed, Fast and Furious style. Top Gun: Maverick picks up the story thirty years later, with Maverick still addicted to testosterone-driven airborne risk. Always a rogue, he has not made any high-ranking friends. In the Top Gun academy to which he is now assigned a teaching role, not a combat pilot on a mission, Maverick comes face-to-face with Rooster Bradshaw (an underserved...

Extraordinary Attorney Woo—Palindromes Anyone?

Written by Diana Paul on November 21, 2022. Posted in Television reviews. 2 Comments on Extraordinary Attorney Woo—Palindromes Anyone?

In Extraordinary Attorney Woo, a newly minted attorney, Woo Young Woo (the exceptional Park Eun-bin) has just graduated from prestigious Seoul National University School of Law and is hired by one of the two top law firms in Seoul. It is somewhat unusual that the two top law firms are headed by female CEOs. But even more noteworthy is the fact that young attorney Woo has autism. She introduces herself with palindromes: “My name is Woo Young Woo, whether it is read straight or flipped: kayak, deed, rotator, noon, race car, Woo Young Woo.” And...

Inside Man–Incarceration or Cancellation?

Written by Diana Paul on November 15, 2022. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on Inside Man–Incarceration or Cancellation?

A dramatic four-episode mini-series by Steven Moffat (Doctor Who creator), Inside Man was released on Netflix October 31. There are two parallel plots: Former law professor Jefferson Grieff (Stanley Tucci) is on death row for strangling and beheading his wife. A brilliant Hannibal Lecter-style genius for solving cold cases, he waits execution. The second plot involves an English vicar Harry Watling (David Tennant who played Doctor Who) and his wife Mary (Lindsey Marshal). The vicar reluctantly accepts a flash drive from the deeply disturbed verger (vicar’s attendant) who wants...

The Watcher–Don’t Bother

Written by Diana Paul on November 7, 2022. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. No Comments on The Watcher–Don’t Bother

The Watcher (a seven-episode Netflix mini-series by Ryan Murphy, creator of Stranger Things and American Horror Story) was released on October 13 of this year and is currently rated #1 on that platform. Loosely based on a true story, a creative middle-aged couple Nora (Naomi Watts) and Dean Brannock (Bobby Cannavale), buy a mansion in a wealthy insular country-club enclave: Westfield, in upstate New Jersey. Soon they are haunted by a stalker, and besieged with financial problems from purchasing a home they couldn’t really afford. Their teenage daughter is, at first,...

Money Monster–A Wall Street Trick-or-Treat

Written by Diana Paul on November 1, 2022. Posted in movie reviews. 4 Comments on Money Monster–A Wall Street Trick-or-Treat

In this 2016 sleeper directed by Jodie Foster, we see cocksure television financial guru Lee Gates (George Clooney), a television huckster hosting “Money Monster”, (similar to “Mad Money with Jim Cramer”.) Gates specializes in helping the small-time investor by recommending stocks that are a sure winner, “better than your savings account”. Evangelizing stocks for the amateur looking into the action from outside, Gates recommends Ibis Clear Capital, which inexplicably craters, losing an astronomical $800 million in one day’s trading. A distraught...