Tag: Sarah Paulson

Mr. and Mrs. Smith–Trust Issues

Written by Diana Paul on March 26, 2024. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews.

The mini-series, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which premiered in February of this year on Amazon Prime, is much more than a remake of the popular 2005 movie starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. While still anchored in a main plot of espionage hijinks, now the drama has been embedded within a rom-com infused by the chemistry between its charming leads, Donald Glover (John Smith) and Maya Erskine (Jane Smith). As two lonely, unemployed millennials, they independently agree to become secret agents for a mysterious organization requiring them to go undercover as a married...

Impeachment: American Crime Story

Written by Diana Paul on November 29, 2021. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 2 Comments on Impeachment: American Crime Story

We revisit former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment from the point of view of Monica Lewinsky (Beanie Feldstein of Booksmart). This Hulu mini-series begins with a naive twenty-two years old intern’s infatuation with a charismatic president. There are more than several awful and illegal actions taken against Monica: interrogation in a hotel room by the FBI without legal counsel present; threats by Bill Clinton’s staff; media “slut-shaming” for her testimony–all make Impeachment a compelling narrative presenting facts and corrupt behavior not...

“Run”–Walking Is Not An Option

Written by Diana Paul on December 21, 2020. Posted in movie reviews. 1 Comment on “Run”–Walking Is Not An Option

Run is an intense and suspenseful thriller starring the master at horror and diabolical characters: Sarah Paulson. Portraying Diane, the mother of Chloe, a disabled seventeen-year-old girl (newcomer Kiera Allen, who is also wheelchair-bound in real life), has chosen to raise her daughter at home, in a rural town outside Seattle. Mother and daughter seem to be very close. They begin each day settled into a cozy routine of daily lessons in physics or American lit, relaxing meals around the kitchen table, an occasional movie in town. But...

“Ratched”–Ratcheting Up the Tension

Written by Diana Paul on October 12, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 1 Comment on “Ratched”–Ratcheting Up the Tension

This Netflix quasi-horror thriller creates a backstory for Nurse Ratched, the heartless villain in the 1975 Academy-Award winning classic “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”. “What made Ratched so vile and so unimaginably cruel and unempathetic?” The answer, of course, has roots in Nurse Ratched’s tragic early years, unhealed wounds that continue to fester. Ratched is a female-villain origin story. Ratched opens in 1947 as Mildred Ratched arrives in Big Sur to seek employment...

“Mrs. America”–A Closet Feminist?

Written by Diana Paul on June 23, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 1 Comment on “Mrs. America”–A Closet Feminist?

Mrs. America is the history-packed and binge-worthy nine-episode Hulu series created by Dahvi Waller (of “Mad Men”). We see a dazzling sweep of history from the early 1970s to 1982 as the fight against ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment unfolds. Still unpassed, the ERA would create a constitutional ban on discrimination against women. Its failure to win approval was due in large measure to the brilliant political strategist Phyllis Schlafly. Cate Blanchett embodies captivating contradictions as Schlafly, the antiheroine in Mrs. America. The...