Tag: HBOMax mini-series

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...

Two Sides of the Abyss–Cat and Mouse

Written by Diana Paul on July 29, 2024. Posted in Television reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on Two Sides of the Abyss–Cat and Mouse

A disturbing German psychological crime thriller, Two Sides of the Abyss (2023) opens with an obsessive, grieving police officer, Luise Berg (Anne Ratte-Polle), determined to re-incarcerate the murderer of her teenage daughter. Berg is outraged that Dennis Opitz (Anton Dreger) has been released early from prison. His psychiatric evaluation suggests he is completely rehabilitated. Berg believes otherwise and is obsessively driven to achieve justice. Other murders occur shortly after Dennis Opitz’s release, including a brutal murder in a...

“Tokyo Vice”–Yakuza on Ice

Written by Diana Paul on June 13, 2022. Posted in Television reviews. No Comments on “Tokyo Vice”–Yakuza on Ice

Tokyo Vice, adapted from the titular 2009 memoir, by Jake Adelstein, retells and also fictionalizes the experience Adelstein had as a 20-something American expatriate determined to be a reporter for the largest Japanese newspaper. The first episode details Jake’s (Ansel Elgort of “Baby Driver” and “West Side Story) obsession to pass the competitive entrance exam for one of the prestigious internships at Meicho newspaper. Hired in 1999 into a newsroom with strict rules of journalistic procedures Jake fights the...

“Mare of Easttown”–Living with the Unacceptable

Written by Diana Paul on July 12, 2021. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 5 Comments on “Mare of Easttown”–Living with the Unacceptable

Mare of Easttown, a seven-episode HBOMax mini-series, we watch a mother, Mare Sheehan (the remarkable Kate Winslet) attempting to come to terms with her unexpressed and unresolved grief over the death of her young adult son, Kevin. She is also a detective living in Easttown, a working-class suburb of Philadelphia, who is investigating the murder of an adolescent single mother, Erin McMenamin. Mare is a local hero, a high-school basketball champion dating back 25 years. She now has multiple setbacks and tragedies to deal with: an unsolved missing case of a young...

Tag: HBOMax mini-series

Penguin–A Waddle of Weirdness

Two Sides of the Abyss–Cat and Mouse

“Tokyo Vice”–Yakuza on Ice

“Mare of Easttown”–Living with the Unacceptable

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