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Stranger (Season 1)–Let the sleuthing begin

Stranger is a Korean crime thriller in two seasons (2017-2020) and  was included  on the New York Times 2017 list of Best TV Shows.  Prosecutor Hwang Si-mok (Cho Seung-woo) underwent surgery as a child removing part of his cerebral cortex so that he would not suffer from the excruciating pain of hearing high-frequency sounds.  However, the postoperative result was an extreme absence of empathy, a lack of social skills similar to autism spectrum disorder and its associated lack of communication, difficulty in expressing emotion through facial expressions, and lack...

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The Diplomat–Tact Needed

In this new Netflix series, The Diplomat is part comedy, espionage, politics, combined with a troubled marriage thrown into an action-packed eight-episode drama. The drama takes place mainly in British embassies and cabinet offices with plenty of tense negotiations and suspicious deaths in both England and the US. The opening scene focuses on a bombed British warship off the coast of Iran. Who bombed the ship and who is trigger-happy enough to cause a world war over it? Enter US Ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell from “The Americans”) who is determined to use reason and diplomacy...

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The GloryForgiveness vs Revenge?

The Glory is a sixteen-episode Korean revenge drama about high school bullying and associated  trauma. Eighteen years later an elaborate, convoluted plot is conceived by the beautiful, scarred victim, Moon Dong-eun.  Her obsession is to destroy the two girls and two guys who brutalized her and caused her to drop out of high school at the age of fourteen.  She has been waiting eighteen years to mastermind their annihilation and humiliation. Dong-eun, abandoned by her drug-addicted, alcoholic mother at the age of fourteen, works menial jobs for years, earns her high...

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Crimson Rivers–”Silent Witness” meets “Engrenages”

Crimson Rivers (“Les Rivières Pourpres”-2018-2022), a twenty-four episode French detective series,  has three seasons of two-episode crimes which  special investigator Pierre Niémans (Olivier Marchal) and his protégée, Lieutenant  Camille Delauney (Erika Sainte) are obsessed  to solve.  The much-younger Camille Delauney, intrepid to a fault, always finds herself in difficult situations chasing after clues.   The aging Niémans arrogantly dismisses, derides, or reveals his Gallic disdain for anyone–especially Camille–who questions his authority and judgment.  She is often on the right...

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Holy Spider—A Web of Horror and Mayhem

 Holy Spider, based on a true story and a graphic novel, retells the harrowing battle of a fearless woman journalist, Rahimi (Cannes Film festival award winner for best actress, Zar Amir- Ebrahimi) who investigates a brutal murderer nicknamed “Spider Killer”.   Sixteen young prostitutes  in the religiously conservative Iranian town of Mashhad City have each been dumped into a field.    A fanatical psychopath on a religious mission to “cleanse” the streets of sex workers, middle-aged Saeed, is a construction worker and war veteran. He   becomes a vigilante who stalks...

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Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962) –A Classic

This legendary thriller marked its sixtieth anniversary last year.  Yet so many young viewers have yet to witness this masterpiece of film-making: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.  This Robert Aldrich-produced film stands the test of time.  An unforgettable  descent into chaotic madness is exquisitely dramatized in true Alfred Hitchcock fashion.  (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane was released only two years after “Psycho”, another masterpiece of psychic horror.) Child star ‘Baby Jane’ Hansen (Bette Davis), supports her family by playing a sweet innocent...

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