Unhealed Wound – Unhealed Wound

Descendant–The Last Slave Ship

Written by Diana Paul on March 16, 2025. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on Descendant–The Last Slave Ship

Descendant is a National Geographic-produced documentary about their mission to discover the Clotilda, the last known slave ship to bring African people to the US. The Clotilda arrived in Mobile Bay, Alabama in 1859 carrying 110 men, women, and children as cargo. The Clotilda was illegally transporting these people. The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves in 1807 was flaunted and the slave trade continued even after the Civil War ended. Hoping to remain under the radar, the owners of the Clotilda set the ship afire to destroy evidence and avoid possible criminal...

A Real Pain–Heartache

Written by Diana Paul on March 9, 2025. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on A Real Pain–Heartache

Somehow imagine a comedic road-trip between two polar-opposite young cousins–David and Benji– to Auschwitz. That is A Real Pain, starring Jesse Eisenberg (“Social Network”) and Kieran Culkin (of “Succession”). The two cousins are given an all-expenses paid trip to Poland by their now deceased grandmother to honor her survival from Auschwitz and to remember the unthinkable. David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Culkin) are not as close as they once were growing up together in New York. Both are fond of their grandmother and grieving for her. David is now gainfully employed, has...

Penguin–A Waddle of Weirdness

Written by Diana Paul on December 1, 2024. Posted in Television reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on Penguin–A Waddle of Weirdness

Based upon the DC Comic Batman and one of his nemeses, Penguin, this HBOmax mini-series is a spinoff of the 2022 Batman movie. Premiering on September 19 as a weekly installment, each episode tightly leads the viewer to the next surprising and noirish plot point. Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell), rather derisively called Penguin because of a limp and a disfigured face, no longer wants to be the nebbish that the mob boss, Carmine Falcone (Mark Strong of “Law and Order” fame), orders around contemptuously as his driver and go-fer in Gotham City. Not...

Civil War–Battleground States

Written by Diana Paul on October 21, 2024. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 2 Comments on Civil War–Battleground States

In the 2024 film Civil War a van of war correspondents travels undercover from New York City to Washington DC to bear witness to the civil war between a dictator/president (Nick Offerman of “Parks and Recreations” fame) and violent secessionists. There is no explanation of why there is a civil war, who is fighting whom, or what the expected outcome or mission is. The protagonist is Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), a renowned war photojournalist, who seems immune to the horrors of wars she was assigned to photograph in the past. Her mentor and...

Man in Full–Empty and Unhinged

Written by Diana Paul on September 2, 2024. Posted in Television reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on Man in Full–Empty and Unhinged

Based on Tom Wolfe’s book of the same title (1998), Man in Full crosses genre. Charley Croker, a “Succession” type aging patriarch like Logan Roy, still basks in his former football star fame although he is now a mega real-estate developer and womanizing magnate with an oversized, explosive ego. (Sound familiar?) Croker’s emotional dial tone is contempt for everyone who does not shine a light on him. Now on the verge of bankruptcy from overleveraging and excessive borrowing, banks are calling in hundreds of millions of dollars of loans and...

Under the Bridge–Beyond Mean Girls

Written by Diana Paul on August 26, 2024. Posted in Television reviews, Unhealed Wound.

A true-crime thriller mini-series, Under the Bridge is based upon the 2005 titular book by Rebecca Godfrey and the memoir, Reena: A Father’s Story by Manjit Virk. A brutal murder takes place in 1997 in Victoria, British Columbia. The victim is a fourteen-year old girl, Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta) whose middle-class parents are Indian immigrants and Jehovah Witnesses. As a new arrival, Reena wants to fit in with other teens, especially the “popular” girls housed in Seven Oaks, a nearby foster home. Most of the foster girls are from extremely...