Tag: Amazon Original Series

Three Pines–A Forest of Clues

Written by Diana Paul on January 15, 2023. Posted in Television reviews. No Comments on Three Pines–A Forest of Clues

Beloved Chief Inspector Armand Gamache (played perfectly by Alfred Molina), the star of the Louise Penny series of mysteries, investigates murders in Three Pines, outside Montreal. In this eight-episode first season which debuted in December on Amazon Prime, five homicides occur. As in the novels, Gamache has a unique mindset for looking where others do not. Three Pines relishes in the whodunit tradition: it is not what you have seen but what you think you have seen. And Gamache sees it all: the light behind the darkness, the secrets and ghosts in a labyrinth shifting from moment...

“Goliath” Season 4 (Finale)–Addiction

Written by Diana Paul on October 5, 2021. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 2 Comments on “Goliath” Season 4 (Finale)–Addiction

In this final season of Goliath we again see the still down-and-out “lemon lawyer” Billy McBride (Billy Bob Thornton) take on a giant corporation. This time it is an opioid mega-corporation, Zax Pharmaceuticals, and its billionaire CEO, George Zax (J.K. Simmons). In a fierce and lurid courtroom battle in San Francisco (eerily conjuring the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma in recent headlines), will McBride prevail? Season 4 opens with a flashback to Billy McBride, narrowly escaping death by gunshot. Billy’s mental...

“Underground Railroad”–Tracking US History

Written by Diana Paul on July 5, 2021. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 1 Comment on “Underground Railroad”–Tracking US History

Based upon the Pulitzer-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, Underground Railroad, is produced and directed by Barry Jenkins (“Moonlighting”). This gripping portrayal is an allegorical account of slavery and the role it has played in American history from colonial times. The Underground Railroad, in the mid-1800s, was actually a network of safe houses and routes from the southern US up into Canada– with other routes to Mexico (which had abolished slavery decades earlier). The book and film re-imagine these escape routes and safe havens as an actual train...

“Tell Me Your Secrets”–Tell Me Your Lies

Written by Diana Paul on June 27, 2021. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 1 Comment on “Tell Me Your Secrets”–Tell Me Your Lies

In this Amazon Prime mini-series of ten episodes, Tell Me Your Secrets has three plots: 1) The main plot involves a woman named Karen Miller (Lily Rabe), who was arrested seven years ago as a presumed accomplice to her boyfriend, Kit (Xavier Samuel) for the brutal murders of nine women. She claims not to remember anything, due to trauma. 2) Mary Barlow (Amy Brenneman), a wealthy woman who has established a foundation to help find missing children, believes her own daughter, Theresa, was kidnapped by Karen Miller and Kit and is still alive. 3) John...

“Blow the Man Down”–Maine Down Under

Written by Diana Paul on April 19, 2020. Posted in movie reviews. 1 Comment on “Blow the Man Down”–Maine Down Under

Premiering at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, Blow the Man Down is a film debut by writer-directors Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy. It opens in Easter Cove, a small parochial fishing village along the coast of Maine, in a somewhat clichéd but contemporary riff on “Murder She Wrote”. We see a history of covering up secrets by the small town’s residents. And we listen to a chorus of fishermen sing “blow the man down” –referring to the shoving of a man to the bottom of a boat, either accidentally or on purpose. ...

Hanna–“Handmaid’s Tale” meets “Jack Ryan”

Written by diana on April 8, 2019. Posted in Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on Hanna–“Handmaid’s Tale” meets “Jack Ryan”

Hanna, starring Esme Creed-Miles On the surface Hanna (Amazon original series) might appear to be another conventional espionage thriller/dystopia about discovery of identity and revenge against those who hid the truth. However, this reinterpretation of the 2011 action movie starring Saoirse Ronan, is also a dark sci-fi treatise on fascism and violence in society. In this new release we follow an isolated teen (newcomer Esme Creed-Miles) with almost super-human powers. She learns both survival and assassin skills from her ex-government operative father (Joel Kinnamon),...