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Author: Diana Paul

“Lila & Eve”–Loss Without Justice

Lila & Eve, a 2015 sleeper female vigilante thriller ,  stars Viola Davis (“How to Get Away With Murder”) as Lila and Jennifer Lopez (“Hustlers”) as Eve, The opening scene shows Lila’s 18-year-old son, Stephon (Aml Ameen), in a pool of blood from a drive-by shooting. A grief-fueled fragile mother is determined to fix her life: to bring the murderers of her son to justice so she can move on in nurturing her fourteen-year- old son. Unsure how to go on with the effort of living, partly numbed by anti-anxiety drugs, Lila joins a  support group for moms...

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“I’ll Be Gone In the Dark”–Don’t Watch This Alone at Night

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, a six-part HBO documentary series based on Michelle McNamara’s  book,  explores the author and  her obsessive investigation into the dark world of the “The Golden State Killer”  who terrorized California in the 1970s and 80s.  It is mostly due to McNamara’s investigative reporting that this cold case was kept alive and solved.  Incredibly,  that didn’t happen until  late 2018 when the perpetrator was identified, charged and convicted of 50 rapes and 12 murders out of more than 100 known...

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Queen & Slim–Majestic Yet Thin

Queen & Slim, directed by Melina Matsoukas (“Insecure”) and written by Lena Waithe (“Master of None”),  was influenced by the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin.  A story about police brutality and the stress and horror of daily life for a black person in America, Queen & Slim is a gripping fictional film that feels all too real.   A first Tinder date– mediocre and uneventful–  takes an unexpected turn.  On their way home in a blustery winter night in Cleveland, a young couple are  pulled over for a minor traffic incident....

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“The Restaurant”–A Banquet of Plots

This Sundance Now series from Sweden begins  in May 1945 in celebration of the end of World War II. Calle Svensson, a young working class aspiring chef, plants an impulsive kiss on a pretty young stranger, Nina Löwander.  Her family owns a traditional, if old-fashioned, restaurant in Stockholm.  Although officially neutral during the war,  Sweden had both Nazi supporters and resisters.  The first of three seasons in The Restaurant grapples with the war’s aftermath. While peace is proclaimed all over Europe, a family battle begins to rage among Löwander...

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“The Aftermath” (2019) — Unforeseen Consequences

Hamburg is in ruins five months after Germany surrenders in 1946.  The Aftermath opens with scenes of German residents  starving and displaced in bombed-out neighborhoods.  Now, they must face Brits and Americans bossing them around their native land, requisitioning their most luxurious homes for their own use during the occupation. Some Germans are so resentful they’re still willing to die defiantly in the name of Hitler. We don’t often see  a film centered on the immediate aftermath of World War II from a German perspective.  Yet The Aftermath is not...

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“Mrs. America”–A Closet Feminist?

Mrs. America is the history-packed and binge-worthy nine-episode Hulu series created by Dahvi Waller (of “Mad Men”). We see a dazzling sweep of history from the early 1970s  to 1982 as the  fight against ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment unfolds.  Still unpassed, the ERA would create a  constitutional ban on discrimination against women.  Its failure to win approval was due in large measure to the  brilliant political strategist Phyllis Schlafly. Cate Blanchett embodies captivating contradictions as Schlafly, the antiheroine in Mrs. America. The...

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