Tag: Netflix

“Retribution”–Karma is a Beast

Written by Diana Paul on December 7, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on “Retribution”–Karma is a Beast

Retribution ( a 2016 BBC production originally titled “One of Us”) opens with a horrific double murder, which will tear apart the lives of two families, the Douglases and the Elliots. They are friends who live side-by-side in the isolated Scotland Highlands hamlet of Braeston. The atmospherically remote Scottish scenery is reminiscent of Nordic noir landscapes. Events soon take an even more brutal turn when a badly injured man arrives at the Douglas family’s doorstep after his car careens off the road – a man who they...

“Richard Jewell”–A Hidden Gem

Written by Diana Paul on November 30, 2020. Posted in movie reviews. 1 Comment on “Richard Jewell”–A Hidden Gem

In Richard Jewell, a 2019 Clint Eastwood docudrama, Richard Jewell (played by relative unknown Paul Walter Hauser) , is first adored as a hero for thwarting the bombing of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. But “alternative facts” and frenzied media coverage turn against him. His daily life is turned upside down when he is considered the principal suspect in the bombing by FBI and local police. Jewell is almost a caricature of the lonely white male, living with his mother (Kathy Bates, in an Academy Awards-nominated performance). Deeply proud of his...

“Belgravia”– Downton Abbey REDUX

Written by Diana Paul on September 7, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 1 Comment on “Belgravia”– Downton Abbey REDUX

Belgravia, based on “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes’ 2016 novel of the same name, opens two days before the Battle of Waterloo at an aristocratic ball. Two London families—the Earl (Tom Wilkinson) and Countess of Brockenhurst (Harriet Walter) and the up-and-coming merchants, Anne (Tamsin Greig) and Philip Trenchard (Philip Glenister), are uncomfortable in their brief interactions. There are insurmountable class differences and if that were not enough, the romance between the Brockenhursts’ son and...

“The Good Liar”–A Story Within a Story

Written by Diana Paul on August 31, 2020. Posted in movie reviews. 2 Comments on “The Good Liar”–A Story Within a Story

The Good Liar, a 2019 crime thriller, based on the titular novel by Nicholas Searle, is a cat-and-mouse plot featuring a septuagenarian wealthy widow, Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren) and an octogenarian con artist Roy Courtnay (Ian McKellen). They meet on a first date scheduled through a dating app for seniors. Roy obviously does not have good intentions and his motives are soon recognized as dishonorable by Betty’s grandson, Stephen (Russell Tovey), who grows increasingly suspicious and resentful. Betty, on the other hand, seems smitten. Will...

“High Seas”–“Death on the Nile” meets “Murder on the Orient Express”

Written by Diana Paul on August 24, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 3 Comments on “High Seas”–“Death on the Nile” meets “Murder on the Orient Express”

In this Spanish melodrama (Spanish: Alta Mar) , two sisters discover some very disturbing family secrets aboard a ship sailing from Spain to Brazil just after World War II. Agatha Christie’s style of mystery plotting, overlaid with the Spanish love of melodrama and telenovela, makes High Seas an unusual series. Following the death of their father, sisters Eva and Carolina Villanueva travel on the luxury ocean liner, Bárbara de Braganza. The sisters, over the course of three seasons, become committed to investigating mysterious...

“Valhalla Murders”—The House of the Dead

Written by Diana Paul on March 30, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 2 Comments on “Valhalla Murders”—The House of the Dead

Kudos to Netflix for another great Nordic noir production. In this eight-episode series, Netflix’s first Icelandic co-production, we have a crime thriller about a gruesome serial killer whose murders go back over thirty-five years. Valhalla Murders is actually based upon a series of murders that took place in Reykjavik. There is some uneven pacing, but it is over shadowed by the unexpected twists and turns of this Nordic murder mystery. In the opening scene the main character, Detective Kata, is severely wounded and on the verge of death. Immediately Valhalla Murders flashes...