Author: Diana Paul

My Top 25 Movies and Series of 2025

Written by Diana Paul on January 4, 2026. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews.

I have twenty-five films and series to recommend. These are dramas I watched in 2025, but many were produced much earlier. Some are less well-known and under-the-radar. Here are the reviews I wrote this past year with the criteria that they were available for streaming free. Of the 44 reviews I posted this year, these...

Wake Up Dead Man–A Holier-Than-Thou Mystery

Written by Diana Paul on December 29, 2025. Posted in movie reviews.

Wake Up Dead Man takes place in Chimney Rock, a small town in upstate New York, where a newly ordained Catholic priest named Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) has been assigned to work under Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). An aging, hateful right-wing cleric, Wicks has nothing but contempt for gay...

The Beast in Me–Animal Instincts?

Written by Diana Paul on December 22, 2025. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews.

The Beast in Me (2025), a psychological whodunit, is set in Oyster Bay, an affluent suburb in Long Island, where the uber-wealthy play with impunity from law and order. In this drama focused on the dark side of privilege, Aggie Wiggs (Claire Danes), a Pulitzer-Prize-winning author and affluent resident, is still riding the success...

Dickensian–A Twist on Sherlock Holmes?

Written by Diana Paul on December 14, 2025. Posted in Television reviews. 1 Comment on Dickensian–A Twist on Sherlock Holmes?

Dickensian is a 2016 BBC historical drama mini-series that borrows from several of Charles Dickens’ novels to present his characters’ personalities in a murder mystery, Sherlock Holmes style. The creator, Tony Jordan, repositions some of the most well-known characters from The Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Great...

A Mother’s Son–Parental Doom?

Written by Diana Paul on December 8, 2025. Posted in Television reviews.

In this two-part psychological thriller, A Mother’s Son,(2012) a teenage girl is found brutally stabbed to death in a small town in Suffolk, England. On the night of her murder, newlyweds Ben (Martin Clunes of “Doc Martin”) and Rosie (Hermione Norris), are grappling with their four teenage children’s ...

Frankenstein (2025) – – Beauty and the Beast?

Written by Diana Paul on November 30, 2025. Posted in movie reviews.

In this artistic retelling of Mary Shelley’s 1818 masterpiece, Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus by Academy-Award winning director Guillermo del Toro (of “The Shape of Water”, “Pan’s Labyrinth”, “The Devil’s Backbone” and “Hellboy”), we see his trademark signature of portraying ...