“Zero Dark Thirty,” which recounts the decade-long search for and killing of Osama bin Laden, opens with a black screen and the sound of panicked 9-11 voices desperately making a final verbal connection with the outside world. The set-up is pure Mercurial activity: thought, speech, communication and transportation between the real world and hell. Directed […]
Film: ‘The Guilt Trip’ (2012)
December 18, 2012 by
“The Guilt Trip” seems like an unassuming road-trip movie. On the surface, it’s about two travelers – a son whose lack of professional success is eating away at his self-esteem, and his mother whose love for her son fuels her eating. But the movie’s a lot more clever than that. Directed by Anne Fletcher, “The […]
Astrology: Television: ‘Homeland’: Carrie’s and Brody’s Planetary Neuroses
December 18, 2012 by
Falling in love has been described as each partner’s infatuation with the other’s neuroses. Nowhere is the adage more true than on “Homeland,” the Emmy award-winning drama from Showtime which just broadcast its Season 2 finale. Although viewers became increasing disenchanted with implausible and irksome character behavior this season, to say that “Homeland” fell off […]
Film: ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ (2012)
December 12, 2012 by
There’s a familiarity to Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” the first installment of the movie trilogy based on the J.R.R. Tolkien book that preceded “The Lord of the Rings.” That lived-in quality has everything to do with the hero protocol which requires the protagonist’s upheaval from his geographic roots and subsequent trek to […]
Film: ‘Amour’ (2012)
December 11, 2012 by
Unlike romance, where love is enough, the marriage contract also asks for commitment. And no movie tests the longevity of that pledge better than “Amour,” a sobering look at what happens when illness severely tries a long-wed couple. Directed by Michael Haneke, “Amour” is the gut-wrenching story of Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), […]
Film: ‘Les Misérables’ (2012)
December 7, 2012 by
Transforming one’s life is tough enough. What’s worse is the backlash from people who, out of self-interest, preferred you the old way. That’s pretty much the idea behind Tom Hooper’s “Les Misérables,” the extravagant musical film based on the theatrical musical rooted in Victor Hugo’s novel. The story, set in 18th century France during revolutionary […]
Film: ‘Hyde Park on Hudson’ (2012)
December 6, 2012 by
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the U.S., would have liked nothing better than to spend all his time at the family home at Hyde Park on Hudson which belonged to his mother, an archetypal lunar figure whose main reason for existence is to nurture. Not surprisingly, in Roger Michell’s “Hyde Park on Hudson,” […]
Television: ‘The Walking Dead’: Individual Leadership vs. the Collective
December 5, 2012 by
In “The Walking Dead,” zombies come and go. What remains unchanged in this sci-fi action-thriller – the program just broadcast its mid-third-season finale – is the issue of survival (Saturn), ultimate power (Pluto), and the conflict between individual leadership (Sun and Mars) and the collective (Uranus). “The Walking Dead”’ arrived with an intense archetypal underbelly, […]
Film: ‘The Sessions’: John Hawkes Contains Himself in Virgo Role and Scores Spirits Award Nom
November 27, 2012 by
Most Virgos have a thing for containers. Lots of containers. Especially those that nest in each other. John Hawkes, a Virgo, spent most of his time shooting “The Sessions” in such receptacle. An iron lung. “I’m trapped in a big metal box,” says Hawkes’s character in the movie. And his physically confined performance – to […]
Film: ‘Killing Them Softly’ (2012)
November 25, 2012 by
Any thriving business arguably owes a good part of its success to Saturnine measures: firm management and a strict protocol of following rules and weeding out trouble makers. Why should neighborhood mob activities be any different? In “Killing Them Softly,” Andrew Dominik’s riveting and brutally ugly movie about an ill-fated mob-sponsored card game, the rigors […]
Latest Tweets