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Author: Diana Paul

Trial by Fire–A Personal Ordeal

Trial by Fire, based on the memoir written by Neelam and Shekhar Krishnamoorthy, explores the lack of legal accountability and justice following  the Uphaar fire in a Delhi movie theater  in 1997.  Fifty-nine people were killed, mostly families treating themselves to an afternoon at the movies.  The Krishnamoorthy couple lose both of their teenage children in the tragic disaster.   What follows is a first-hand look at the frustration of the victims investigating the Uphaar theater fire. Neelam organizes other victims’ families to advocate for a fair...

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Chloe–A Fatal Attraction

Chloe is a 2009 erotic sleeper of a remake of the 2003 French thriller, “Nathalie,” and directed by Atom Egoyan. A middle-aged affluent couple, Catherine (Julianne Moore) and David (Liam Neeson), seem, on first appearance, to be a happily married professional couple. Catherine is a caring and devoted gynecologist and David is a professor of music. Their teenage son Michael (Max Thieriot from “Bates Motel”) is   interested in music and has a closer relationship with his father than his mother who desperately wants to be closer.   When David misses a flight back...

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The Last Thing He Told Me—Things Unsaid

Based on the popular novel by Laura Dave, The Last Thing He Told Me is an Apple+ mini-series in  eight episodes. It tells the story of Hannah, a newly married second wife (Jennifer Garner) and  her teenage stepdaughter,  Bailey  (Angourie Rice), who go in  search of the suddenly gone-missing husband and father, Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau- Jaime Lannister in  “Game of Thrones”).  The FBI  suspects Owen of involvement in a high-tech Ponzi scheme.  Owen leaves a two-word message for Hannah:  “Protect her.”  The problem: ...

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The Whale–- Moby Dick Revisited

The Whale is an  adaptation of  Sam Hunter’s play, directed by Darren Aronofsky (“Requiem for a Dream”, “Black Swan”, and “mother!”). The  opening scene zooms in on a middle-aged, morbidly obese professor, Charlie (the Academy-Award winning role for Brendan Fraser) sitting in front of a computer in his claustrophobic, dark apartment in a small town in Idaho.  He teaches creative writing online to aspiring college students.   His face is blocked out by the camera, revealing nothing of his physical condition.   Now terminally ill with congestive...

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A Man Called Otto–A Warm Kiss for the Soul

In this Netflix movie we see a retelling of the bestselling Frederick Backman novel, A Man Called Ove,  set in Pittsburgh instead of Sweden and with cultural shifts in narrative. Themes of aging,  loneliness and depression from  the loss of one’s soulmate,  isolation and feelings of irrelevance from forced retirement all play front and center […]

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Stranger (Season 1)–Let the sleuthing begin

Stranger is a Korean crime thriller in two seasons (2017-2020) and  was included  on the New York Times 2017 list of Best TV Shows.  Prosecutor Hwang Si-mok (Cho Seung-woo) underwent surgery as a child removing part of his cerebral cortex so that he would not suffer from the excruciating pain of hearing high-frequency sounds.  However, the postoperative result was an extreme absence of empathy, a lack of social skills similar to autism spectrum disorder and its associated lack of communication, difficulty in expressing emotion through facial expressions, and lack...

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