Category Archives: Autism

2015, Autism, Binge worthy, Bloody scenes, Conspiracy, Controlling personality, Disguises, Divorced Mother, DO NOT MISS, Failed Marriage, Family Conflict, Family Secrets, Father-daughter relations, Gay Bashing, Gay theme, Lesbian Theme, Mother-daughter relations, Muddled biblical references, Murder, Occasionaly violent, PBS Masterpiece Streaming, Personality or religious cult, Physical fighting, Police Investigation, Profiler, Religious fanatic, Romance, Suspense, Swedish crime series, Swedish Detective

Modus (2015)

From IMDB;

During a snowy Christmas season in Sweden, psychologist and profiler Inger Johanne Vik and her autistic daughter both get drawn into the investigation of a number of disturbing deaths.

From PBS Masterpiece Streaming you can stream  the 8 episodes of this Swedish mystery series. Each episode lasts about 45 minutes.

Just because the villain intends to kill multiple victims does not, as I understand the term, make the villain a serial killer. Rather in this well-done series his motive has a homicidal rationality.  But I will leave it up to you to guess for yourself that motive before the profiler Inger Vik realizes what is happening.

Many well-presented characters interact.  Throw a romance into the pot and the result is successful suspense.

DO NOT MISS!

 

 

2014, Acceptable Trash, Accidental Death, Addiction, Alcoholism, Alzheimer's disease, Amazon Prime, Arson, Art Marketing, Autism, Binge worthy, Brother-Brother relations, Brother-Sister relations, Cancer theme, Cooking and food, Corny at times, Corrupt Prison Guards, Courtroom scenes, Depression, Detective, Divorce, DO NOT MISS, Drugs, Dysfunctional Lives, Ethical struggles, Explicit sex, Explicit sexual discussion, Extramarital Affair, Failing Marriage, False Imprisonment, Family Conflict, Father-daughter relations, Father-son relations, Fishing, Flashbacks, Flirting, Friendship, Gay theme, Happy Family Gatherings, Husband leaves wife, Illegitimate Child, Incompetent or unfit mother, Lawyers, Longsuffering wife, Love Story, Love Triangle, Marital Infidelity, Medical Theme, Mental Illness, Mother-daughter relations, Mother-son relations, Murder, Murder Investigation, Murder Trial, Narcissist, Nudity, Occasionaly violent, Prison, Psychiatrists, Romance, Small Town, Small Town Atmosphere, Soap Opera, Suicide, Surfing, Unhappy Marriage, Unmarried mother, Weird California Cultures, Wife leaves husband, Womanizing

The Affair (2014)

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From IMDB:

A struggling novelist and a young waitress strike up an extramarital relationship that promises to forever change the course of their lives.

From Amazon Prime you can stream the 10 episodes of this steamy romance and crime series. Each episode is just under 1 hour.

UPDATE:  Now from Amazon Prime you can stream 5 seasons of the soap opera that never ends. Season 2 has 12 episodes. Season 5 has 11 episodes. Seasons 1,3, and 4 have 10 episodes. Each episode is still about one hour.  That gives us a total of 53 hours of soap opera escape.

Nothing is perfect. Some portions are downright corny.  There is a strange interruption in plot when Noah seems to be having a series of psychotic episodes.  Did the writers forget to finish that part of the story?   Sometimes present events plus flashbacks from the past might seem somewhat confusing.

Toward the end I watched slowly because I did not want the story to end.  If a LOOOONG soap opera with a fair number of sometimes explicit sex scenes is your thing, DO NOT MISS!

Original review:

Noah Solloway is played by Dominic West,  the British actor with a long acting resumé. At the time of filming he was 45 years old.

Alison Bailey is played by Ruth Wilson, the British actress whose own resumé is just as long even though she was only 32 years old at the time of filming.  Her role as the sociopath “Alice Morgan” in the TV series “Luther” was chillingly unforgettable.

Alison’s marriage is failing while she and her husband morn the death of their young son.  Noah is having trouble writing his second novel and is trying desperately to be faithful to his wife even though he is immediately attracted to Alison.

Along the way there is a death that is being investigated  by Detective Jeffries.

As soap operas go, this one is not too bad.

2016, Action Film, Action Hero, Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, Brother-Brother relations, Bullying, Computer geeks, Contract Killing, Father-son relations, FBI, Finance, Financial malfeasance, Frenetic, Invincible Hero, Netflix DVD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Psychological Drama, Revenge, Suspense, Torture

The Accountant (2016)

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From IMDB:

As a math savant uncooks the books for a new client, the Treasury Department closes in on his activities and the body count starts to rise.

From NetFlix

Offering two very different skills to his clients, a financial forensics expert and trained assassin goes to work for a tech mogul who’s determined to eliminate those responsible for secretly manipulating the company’s financial records.

Netflix sent me this DVDS which lasts 2 hours 8 minutes.

Of all the many Ben Affleck films I have seen, in some respect this is one of his best Instead of a romantic hero, he is an autistic,  number savant, assassin. Naturally you can expect a lot of violence. Moreover the action and shooting sequences are over the top if not just plain impossible. Still isn’t it fun to see that our anti-hero never misses a punch or a shot? And such advanced weaponry!

But there is more to the story than just the noise, because in some way the major theme is autism. We get to see Christian Wolff’s childhood traumas, his siblings, and  the extremes to which his father goes so that Christian can protect himself during his lifetime. In that regard expect a great plot twist.

Ben Affleck was 44 during the filming.  Older actors include J.K. Simmons (Will Pope in “The Closer”),  Jeffrey Tambor (the transsexual dad in “Transparent”),  and John Lithgow (who has a huge resumé).  One of the younger stars is Anna Kendrick who plays Dana Cummings, whom Christian is determined to protect.

Such violent action films are my guilty pleasure. Loved it!

2014, Abduction, Acorn TV, Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, Bloody scenes, British Mystery Series, Child abuse, Detective, Eccentric Detective, Mildly Violent, Mother-daughter relations, Nudity, Police Politics, Serial Killer, Suspense, TV Series

Chasing Shadows (2014)

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From Acorn TV:

Reece Shearsmith stars as DS Sean Stone, who has an uncanny ability to identify and predict patterns of human behavior. He knows how people work, but he doesn’t understand them.

Welcome to another “Eccentric Detective” TV Series. Most certainly DS Sean Stone must lie somewhere on the Asbergers-Autism spectrum.  In fact autism in a person often exhibits as extreme ability with patterns coupled with a corresponding inability to understand human emotions.  Needles to say his lone wolf behavior and air of infallibility drive his colleagues to puzzlement,  anger, and exasperation whereas his pattern recognition abilities earn respect.  His superiors want to get rid of him while some colleagues defend him.

Good plots, good acting, and an unusual detective make for compelling entertainment (as long as you don’t mind a nasty serial killer or two).