Television reviews – Page 9

Tokyo Vice (season 2)–American in Translation

Written by Diana Paul on June 20, 2024. Posted in Television reviews.

Based on an American reporter’s experience as a twenty-something neophyte journalist in Tokyo, Jake Adelstein, (Ansel Elgort from “Baby Driver”) is a cocky American. Living in Tokyo during college, Jake becomes fluent in Japanese, both spoken and written, in order to become a reporter for a major Japanese newspaper. He is the first...

Ripley (2024)–The One Who Got Away?

Written by Diana Paul on June 9, 2024. Posted in Television reviews.

Based upon Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 classic, The Talented Mr. Ripley, this neo-noir remake reinterprets good and evil, survival and triumph, guilt and psychopathology. Tom Ripley is a young intelligent grifter residing in squalor in the 1960s, sharing a filthy bathroom with sewage backing up into the drain. Feeling...

Prisoner–Trapped with No Escape

Written by Diana Paul on May 28, 2024. Posted in Television reviews.

In this six-episode Danish prison drama (2024), Prisoner, the action pops in the opening scene. Miriam (Sofie Gråbøl) is a veteran prison guard with some compassion for the inmates, perhaps the only one with human feelings for the incarcerated. Until Sammi (Youssef Wayne Hvidtfeldt), of Danish-Arab ethnicity: a new...

Lawman: Bass Reeves–A Truthful Western

Written by Diana Paul on May 19, 2024. Posted in Television reviews.

This true untold story about the first Black US Marshall highlights Lawman Bass Reeves responsibilities for law enforcement in the Oklahoma Territories including Native lands. One of the most legendary lawmen in the Old West, Lawman: Bass Reeves (David Oyelowo) opens with Reeves heroically fighting in the Confederate army alongside...

Arctic Circle–Shivering with Fear

Written by Diana Paul on April 22, 2024. Posted in Television reviews.

Set in the Lapland region of Finland, the Finnish-German three-season thriller, Arctic Circle, Nina Kautsalo (Iina Kuustonen), is determined to solve three multiple murder cases, one in each season. Nina is a single mom with a Down syndrome daughter, Venla, who is cared for by her devoted grandmother. Nina, in turn, is supported by an...

Woman in the Wall–Imprisonment in the Magdalene Laundries

Written by Diana Paul on April 14, 2024. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews, Unhealed Wound.

Set up as a six-episode thriller, Woman in the Wall is based on the horrific exploitation of teenage girls and young women in “the homes for unwed mothers” in Ireland. The scandal of the Magdalene Laundries has damaged the Catholic Church for over a century and a half. This fictionalized account focuses on Lorna Brady...