Unhealed Wound – Page 2 – Passion for Art, Movies, and Culture

The Perfect Couple–Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder

Written by Diana Paul on October 27, 2024. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. No Comments on The Perfect Couple–Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder

The Perfect Couple, an American seaside mystery based on the 2018 novel of the same name by Elin Hilderbrand, was released on Netflix in September. Set in Nantucket in an opulent mansion, Greer Garrison Winbury (Nicole Kidman), a famous murder mystery author, is obsessing over the wedding for her favorite son, Benji (newcomer Billy Howle), to a middle-class zookeeper, Amelia (Eve Hewson of “Bad Sisters”). The wedding is abruptly interrupted when the maid-of-honor, Merrit (Meghann Fahy), is discovered face down on the beach in front of their estate. The wedding is...

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 veteran...

Hotel Portofino–A Pleasant Stay?

Written by Diana Paul on October 13, 2024. Posted in Television reviews. No Comments on Hotel Portofino–A Pleasant Stay?

In this three-season British historical drama, Hotel Portofino, Bella Ainsworth (Natasha McElhone), the beautiful middle-aged daughter of a wealthy manufacturer of fabrics, moves to Italy in the 1920s to fulfill her dream of having a luxury boutique hotel in the resort town of Portofino. Problem is that Mussolini is on the verge of seizing power in Italy and destroying what she has built. On a personal level, Bella’s ne’er-do-well womanizing husband, Cecil (Mark Umbers), is sabotaging her efforts to create a life of her own. Alice Mays-Smith (Olivia Morris), Bella and Cecil’s daughter,...

For Love and Life: No Ordinary Campaign

Written by Diana Paul on October 6, 2024. Posted in movie reviews. No Comments on For Love and Life: No Ordinary Campaign

In the extraordinary 2024 documentary, For Love and Life, portraits in courage, we witness ALS patient Brian Wallach as well as his wife, Sandra, as they power through a commitment to fight for a cure. Previously an Obama administration lawyer, Brian and Sandra, also a lawyer, become indefatigable activists for ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a disease whose prominence and awareness are due largely to the baseball player, Lou Gehrig, and the physicist, Stephen Hawking. Both Gehrig and Hawking had endured the inevitable disabilities which weaken and...

Happy Valley: A Micro-Exorcism

Written by Diana Paul on October 1, 2024. Posted in Television reviews.

Happy Valley, a three-season Acorn mini-series, is an unnerving police procedural based in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. The name “Happy Valley” is the local police’s pejorative term for the low-income Halifax neighborhood. It suffers from a high rate of drug addiction and crime. Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire of “Last Tango in Halifax”), is a no-nonsense policewoman with a tragic family history. She is committed to an incorruptible enforcement of the law. Colleagues look the other way. After the workday ends, Catherine is devoted to raising her young grandson, Ryan,...

Serpent Queen – Venomous Power Grab

Written by diana on September 18, 2024. Posted in Television reviews.

Based on Leonie Frieda’s 2004 biography, Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France, Serpent Queen, a Starz mini-series, follows Catherine de Medici (Samantha Morton). We first see her as a teenager unexpectedly orphaned by a series of unfortunate events. That her bloodline is from the renowned and extremely wealthy Medici family results in treacherous schemes. Catherine escapes an oppressive Florentine convent to rise as the imperial mastermind of the French Valois court in 1547. Her reign survives for over forty years. Deception...