Author: Diana Paul

Civil War–Battleground States

Written by Diana Paul on October 21, 2024. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 2 Comments on Civil War–Battleground States

In the 2024 film Civil War a van of war correspondents travels undercover from New York City to Washington DC to bear witness to the civil war between a dictator/president (Nick Offerman of “Parks and Recreations” fame) and violent secessionists. There is no explanation of why there is a civil war, who is fighting...

Hotel Portofino–A Pleasant Stay?

Written by Diana Paul on October 13, 2024. Posted in Television reviews.

In this three-season British historical drama, Hotel Portofino, Bella Ainsworth (Natasha McElhone), the beautiful middle-aged daughter of a wealthy manufacturer of fabrics, moves to Italy in the 1920s to fulfill her dream of having a luxury boutique hotel in the resort town of Portofino. Problem is that Mussolini is on the verge of...

For Love and Life: No Ordinary Campaign

Written by Diana Paul on October 6, 2024. Posted in movie reviews.

In the extraordinary 2024 documentary, For Love and Life, portraits in courage, we witness ALS patient Brian Wallach as well as his wife, Sandra, as they power through a commitment to fight for a cure. Previously an Obama administration lawyer, Brian and Sandra, also a lawyer, become indefatigable activists for...

Happy Valley: A Micro-Exorcism

Written by Diana Paul on October 1, 2024. Posted in Television reviews.

Happy Valley, a three-season Acorn mini-series, is an unnerving police procedural based in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. The name “Happy Valley” is the local police’s pejorative term for the low-income Halifax neighborhood. It suffers from a high rate of drug addiction and crime. Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire of “Last Tango...

Man in Full–Empty and Unhinged

Written by Diana Paul on September 2, 2024. Posted in Television reviews, Unhealed Wound.

Based on Tom Wolfe’s book of the same title (1998), Man in Full crosses genre. Charley Croker, a “Succession” type aging patriarch like Logan Roy, still basks in his former football star fame although he is now a mega real-estate developer and womanizing magnate with an oversized, explosive ego. (Sound...

Under the Bridge–Beyond Mean Girls

Written by Diana Paul on August 26, 2024. Posted in Television reviews, Unhealed Wound.

A true-crime thriller mini-series, Under the Bridge is based upon the 2005 titular book by Rebecca Godfrey and the memoir, Reena: A Father’s Story by Manjit Virk. A brutal murder takes place in 1997 in Victoria, British Columbia. The victim is a fourteen-year old girl, Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta) whose middle-class...