movie reviews – Page 28 – Unhealed Wound

The Commuter –Train to Hell

Written by diana on July 8, 2019. Posted in movie reviews. 1 Comment on The Commuter –Train to Hell

The Commuter Action thrillers are not a staple in my movie-going diet. Nonetheless, I like the ones Liam Neeson stars in , and The Commuter fits his murder conspiracy/ abduction genre. Insurance salesman Michael MacCauley (Liam Neeson’s character) is a 60-year-old ex-cop turned insurance salesman who commutes to midtown Manhattan every day, familiar with almost all of the other passengers. On the train home, Michael meets a mysterious woman named Joanna (the always-excellent Vera Farmiga), who claims to be a psychologist researching distinct classifications of personality...

Always Be My Maybe–Rom-Com At Its Best

Written by diana on June 22, 2019. Posted in movie reviews. 2 Comments on Always Be My Maybe–Rom-Com At Its Best

The Netflix Original Always Be My Maybe gives us a reason for watching rom-coms again. A modern riff on “When Harry Met Sally.” Set in San Francisco, Always Be My Maybe is a story of childhood sweethearts who go their separate ways only to meet up fifteen years later. Sasha Tran (Ali Wong) and Marcus Kim (Randall Park) were best friends who, as teenagers, had sex for the first time and then stopped talking to each other. Marcus is now a dorky musician still living at home with his widowed dad, and working in his dad’s business. Sasha...

Which Way Home –Is There One?

Written by diana on June 17, 2019. Posted in movie reviews. 1 Comment on Which Way Home –Is There One?

In this gripping 2010 Academy Award nominated HBO documentary, Which Way Home opens with something large and bulbous floating down the Rio Grande. The viewer soon learns it is a corpse, perhaps that of a child, and an observer comments matter-of-factly that this happens multiple times a day. Director Rebecca Cammisa follows the struggles of a handful of young, unaccompanied Central American children (all of them boys except for one nine-year-old girl) who are determined to jump the border to a new home in the United States. Riding on the top of freight trains nicknamed “The...

The Hate U Give –T.H.U.G.

Written by diana on June 9, 2019. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on The Hate U Give –T.H.U.G.

The Hate U Give is an adaptation of Angie Thomas’s bestseller by the same name (released in February 2017). Starr Carter, a sixteen-year-old gifted student, has to adeptly maneuver between two worlds — her poor, mostly black neighborhood and a wealthy, mostly white prep school. Facing pressure from all sides, Starr must find her voice and decide to stand up for what’s right. Beautiful newcomer, Amandla Stenberg, is perfectly cast as the wounded, courageous high school student who attends an elite white private school because her mother Lisa...

In Order of Disappearance–Plowing through Suspense

Written by diana on April 21, 2019. Posted in movie reviews. 4 Comments on In Order of Disappearance–Plowing through Suspense

In this combination of black comedy and Nordic noir, we are treated to a series of scenes involving gangster mobs, drug trade, a father’s revenge, kidnapping, and snow plows. In Order of Disappearance is part “Fargo” and part other Coen brothers’ comedic treatment of snow country. The main character, Nils (the Scandinavian acting legend Stellan Skarsgard), is a Norwegian government employee, a snow plower, who has recently been awarded a Citizen of the Year Award. When his only son is murdered for being at the wrong place at the wrong time with...

Kusama–Infinity

Written by diana on April 14, 2019. Posted in Art, movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on Kusama–Infinity

The art of critically-acclaimed Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama, now commands the highest price for any female artist alive today. As an art-world superstar, Kusama has attracted millions of museum-goers worldwide who wait for hours for the chance to take selfies to post on Instagram in one of her mirrored Infinity Rooms. Yet little is known of this nonagenarian artist obsessed with dots and the film Kusama-Infinity reveals much about the artist. She committed herself to a mental hospital in the 1970s, out of fear that she might commit suicide. Her...