Year: 2024

Paranoid–Someone’s After Me

Written by Diana Paul on December 9, 2024. Posted in Television reviews.

Paranoid, a British police procedural crime series (2016) set in the small town of Woodmere, opens with a brutal murder of a general practitioner pushing her young son on a swing in a public park. The woman is murdered in public by an unknown man in a black hoodie. Who could be the murderer? And what can the witnesses sitting in the park provide as clues to a possible suspect? Mysterious notes sent by a “Ghost Detective” contribute valuable evidence for identifying and tracking down the murderer. Three detectives–Nina Suresh (Indira Varma of...

Penguin–A Waddle of Weirdness

Written by Diana Paul on December 1, 2024. Posted in Television reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on Penguin–A Waddle of Weirdness

Based upon the DC Comic Batman and one of his nemeses, Penguin, this HBOmax mini-series is a spinoff of the 2022 Batman movie. Premiering on September 19 as a weekly installment, each episode tightly leads the viewer to the next surprising and noirish plot point. Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell), rather derisively called Penguin because of a limp and a disfigured face, no longer wants to be the nebbish that the mob boss, Carmine Falcone (Mark Strong of “Law and Order” fame), orders around contemptuously as his driver and go-fer in Gotham City. Not unlike...

Disclaimer–Truth or Fiction?

Written by Diana Paul on November 25, 2024. Posted in Television reviews. No Comments on Disclaimer–Truth or Fiction?

Five-time Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaron (of “Roma”, “Y Tu Mama Tambien”, “Pan’s Labyrinth“, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban”, and more) directs Disclaimer based upon Renée Knight’s novel of the same name. The middle-aged protagonist, Catherine Ravenscroft (Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett), receives a career-defining award for her courageous coverage and truth-telling. Flush with the recognition for her efforts as a journalist, a book, The Perfect Stranger, arrives at her office. Purportedly written by Stephen Brigstocke (Kevin Kline) as his novel, The Perfect Stranger,...

Slow Horses–Win the Race

Written by Diana Paul on November 19, 2024. Posted in Television reviews. No Comments on Slow Horses–Win the Race

Slow Horses, a multiple award-winning British spy thriller based on the Slough House series of novels by Mick Herron, will have at least a six-season run due to its phenomenal popularity. [The first four seasons are available for streaming now.] MI5 recruits and some agents who have failed training or assignments are banished to Slough House, the tawdry hellhole (“slough”=swamp) for those destined to fail. But they don’t. The slow horses are ridiculed by the intelligence department at the top of the organization, particularly by the First Desk,...

Moonflower Murders–M is for Murder

Written by Diana Paul on November 11, 2024. Posted in Television reviews. No Comments on Moonflower Murders–M is for Murder

The PBS series Moonflower Murders, the eponymous mystery series by Anthony Horowitz, is the sequel to the PBS series, “Magpie Murders” (see my January 9, 2023 review). Susan Ryeland (Lesley Manville), book-editor-turned-sleuth, is known for having discovered and managed the Atticus Pund mystery series by the late Alan Conway (Conleth Hill of “Game of Thrones”). What now develops is another mystery-within-a-mystery, following the first PBS series. A murder in present day Suffolk, England parallels a fictional murder in the Atticus Pűnd (Tim McMullan) mystery...

Operation Napoleon–Frozen Conspiracy

Written by Diana Paul on November 4, 2024. Posted in movie reviews.

Operation Napoleon, a conspiracy treasure-hunt thriller, will have you thinking you are watching an “Indiana Jones” drama. Romanticizing parts of a true story, Operation Napoleon opens in April 1945, when a Nazi airplane flies over Iceland in the middle of a storm. The plane crashes with no survivors. Germany surrenders a few days later. Flash-forward to today. A corporate lawyer, Kristín (Vivian Ólafsdóttir), is seen demolishing an arrogant entrepreneur’s deceptive business plan to finance his company’s search for resources...