Unhealed Wound – Page 9 – Passion for Art, Movies, and Culture

Tokyo Vice (season 2)–American in Translation

Written by Diana Paul on June 20, 2024. Posted in Television reviews. No Comments on Tokyo Vice (season 2)–American in Translation

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 non-Japanese to have such a position. In season 2 (see June 17, 2022 review of season 1) Jake continues his investigation of the Yakuza who control the police and the government. Again we see the unlikely partnership between the politically...

Ripley (2024)–The One Who Got Away?

Written by Diana Paul on June 9, 2024. Posted in Television reviews. No Comments on Ripley (2024)–The One Who Got Away?

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 destined for the best that money can buy, Ripley is determined to set out to live that life, leaving his small-time operation as a con-man in Brooklyn. We know little of his backstory except he was an orphan having been abandoned after the death of...

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 recruit who desires to support prisoners for the good of society at large. Henrik (David Dencik) is also a veteran prisoner guard, one who has manipulated the prison system for his own self-interest, taking a percentage of the drugs that...

Lawman: Bass Reeves–A Truthful Western

Written by Diana Paul on May 19, 2024. Posted in Television reviews. No Comments on Lawman: Bass Reeves–A Truthful Western

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 his Texas slave owner on the eve of Reconstruction. Despite brutal circumstances and the lawlessness of racists and prairie vigilantes, Reeves struggles to be a man with integrity in the face of immoral institutions. Crisis after...

Marsh King’s Daughter–A Companion Piece to Where the Crawdads Sing?

Written by Diana Paul on May 14, 2024. Posted in movie reviews. No Comments on Marsh King’s Daughter–A Companion Piece to Where the Crawdads Sing?

In this mystery thriller based on Karen Dionne’s novel of the same name, we see a story taking place in a swamp with a young girl and her mother trapped by an abusive father. The Marsh King’s Daughter opens with the ten-year old Helena [Brooklyn Prince of “Florida” (November 7, 2017 review )] in the woods with her father (Ben Mendelsohn of “Bloodline”), having a lesson in survival skills. Helena is shown how to hunt and skin wild animals as well as how to interpret animal tracks. All of these skills will prove...

Poor Things–The Lucky Devils

Written by Diana Paul on May 6, 2024. Posted in movie reviews. No Comments on Poor Things–The Lucky Devils

Poor Things, starring Emma Stone in her 2024 Academy Award-winning role, is a feminist Frankenstein-like tale based upon Alasdair’s 1992 eponymous novel. Opening with emotionally and physically scarred mad scientist Godwin (“God”) Baxter (Willem Defoe) admiring his creation, Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) on the operating table, we know immediately that God’s sinister surgery has produced a freak. He has given the gift of life back to Bella (ironically, “the beautiful”), now reborn after she jumped off the London Bridge. Pregnant before...