Author: Diana Paul

Big Mistakes–Errors in Judgment

Written by Diana Paul on June 21, 2026. Posted in Series.

Big Mistakes is first and foremost, about a big messy family, with a single mom, Linda (Laurie Metcalf), and three adult children. Only the highly organized and systematic youngest (and favorite), Natalie (Abby Quinn), seems to have her mother’s respect and affection. Linda, highly community-centered, decides to run...

Margo’s Got Money Troubles–Cash is King

Written by Diana Paul on June 16, 2026. Posted in movie reviews.

Created by David E. Kelley (of “Big Little Lies”, “Nine Perfect Strangers”), Margo’s Got Money Troubles, breaks new ground with quirky, colorful characters . Tackling sex work, sexual predation, addiction, desperate unemployment, and parenting, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is spiced with humor and farce, and bits of...

The Testaments–To Girl Power, A Covenant for the Future

Written by Diana Paul on June 9, 2026. Posted in Series, Unhealed Wound.

The new Hulu series, The Testaments, is a sequel to the blockbuster six-season “The Handmaid’s Tale” (See my May 14, 2017 and June 2, 2025 reviews) Both series are based on novels of the same name by Margaret Atwood. Continuing the dark world where Gilead girls are trained to become Gilead women, The...

Straight to Hell–The Devil Is in the Details

Written by Diana Paul on May 31, 2026. Posted in Series.

Straight to Hell (Japanese: Jigoku ni ochiru wa yo) is a 2026 drama about Kazuko Hosoki, Japan’s most famous psychic, and her highly controversial and questionable tactics. The title Straight to Hell is taken from her notorious warning: “You’re going straight to hell”. [Are there echoes here of another TV celebrity’s questionable persona...

The House of Spirits (2026)–Karma and Magical Realism

Written by Diana Paul on May 25, 2026. Posted in Series.

In this screen adaptation of the award-winning novel by Chilean author Isabel Allende, La casa de los espíritus, opens with Alba Trueba (Rochi Hernández), the granddaughter of a powerful, extremely wealthy landowner and mining magnate, grieving over her beloved grandmother, Clara del Valle Trueba (Dolores Fonzi). Spanning over half a...

The Cleaning Lady–Doctoring Crime

Written by Diana Paul on May 18, 2026. Posted in Series, Unhealed Wound.

In this four-season series based on an Argentine drama, The Cleaning Lady is not what she seems. Rather, she is an undocumented Cambodian doctor, Thony de la Rosa (Élodie Yung), a casino cleaner in Las Vegas. Not able to find other US employment to pay the medical costs for her young son’s autoimmune disease, she is living a very tenuous...