movie reviews – Page 3 – Unhealed Wound

May-December–Mirror, MIrror on the Wall

Written by Diana Paul on December 18, 2023. Posted in movie reviews. No Comments on May-December–Mirror, MIrror on the Wall

Loosely based on the tabloid-heavy coverage of a scandalous sexual affair by a 36-year-old teacher, Mary Kay Leourneau, perpetrated on her 12-year-old student, Vili Fualaau, Todd Haynes’ May December continues the story over twenty years later. The couple, Joe (Charles Melton) and Gracie (Julianne Moore) are a picture-perfect married couple with two children, (born while Gracie was serving her prison sentence). Currently, the family is ensconced in a waterfront mansion in Savannah, Georgia, blissfully ignoring their past. In walks a B-list actress, Elizabeth (Natalie Portman),...

The Burial–Reaching Beyond the Grave

Written by Diana Paul on October 30, 2023. Posted in movie reviews. No Comments on The Burial–Reaching Beyond the Grave

The wealthy almost always have an impact on the financial decisions of the poor and on limiting their options to make informed choices. Combine that with the shameful racist history in the US and we have the new Amazon Prime release: The Burial. Based upon a true story, the opening scene features small business proprietor, Jeremiah O’Keefe (Tommy Lee Jones), celebrating his seventy-fifth birthday. Surrounded by his loving wife and many adult children and grandchildren, all is not well for Jeremiah. His Biloxi, Mississippi funeral home business of eight branches...

Can You See Us?–Before Your Eyes

Written by Diana Paul on October 23, 2023. Posted in movie reviews. No Comments on Can You See Us?–Before Your Eyes

The first full-length Zambian movie released on Netflix (August 27), Can You See Us? is inspired by the life of John Chiti, a popular international singer, who is albino. (The main character is named Joseph in the film, not John.) When Chama gives birth to Joseph, his father rejects him and his mother. Chama is thrown out of her home with nowhere to go. A compassionate taxi driver Martin (Kondwani Elliot Zulu) marries her and adopts Joseph as his son. The young family’s life becomes more and more difficult. As an albino child, Joseph must navigate a childhood of bullying....

The Whole Truth–And Nothing But….

Written by Diana Paul on October 16, 2023. Posted in movie reviews. No Comments on The Whole Truth–And Nothing But….

In this 2016 legal thriller The Whole Truth defense attorney Richard Ramsay (Keanu Reeves) comes to the aid of Mike (Gabriel Basso), the seventeen-year-old son of his friends Boone (Jim Belushi) and Loretta Lassiter (Renée Zellweger). Mike has been accused of the murder of his father, a secretively abusive womanizer, who browbeats his son into attending Stanford University. A police officer at the scene of the crime testifies in court that Mike mumbled “I should’ve done it long ago” and asserts that Mike’s fingerprints were found on the murder weapon. Mike has completely...

Bending the Arc–Towards Justice and the Right to Health

Written by Diana Paul on October 2, 2023. Posted in movie reviews. No Comments on Bending the Arc–Towards Justice and the Right to Health

Bending the Arc is the 2017 Netflix documentary of the renowned public health advocate and physician, Paul Farmer. We see, first hand, Farmer taking on the medical establishment in his fierce and heroic fight to treat poor people suffering from curable but deadly diseases. Known as “the man who could cure the world, ” according to the Pulitzer-prize winning author, Tracy Kidder in his biography of Farmer, “Mountains Beyond Mountains.” Bending the Arc can be considered the visual companion to Kidder’s moving homage to Dr. Farmer. Dr. Farmer began...

Women Talking–In the Name of Religion

Written by Diana Paul on September 25, 2023. Posted in movie reviews. No Comments on Women Talking–In the Name of Religion

Directed by Sarah Polley, based on the titular novel by Miriam Toews, Women Talking is inspired by a true story of horrific mass rapes in a small Mennonite community. Intentionally ambiguous with regard to time and place, the religious colony in Women Talking is cut off from the modern world: any place in America full of barns, overalls and horse-drawn-carts will do. Women Talking explores the wide-ranging challenges and obstacles faced by women when their bodies and dignity have been ravaged. Co-produced by Frances McDormand (“Macbeth”....