Sainthood is aspirational at best and yet, as depicted in St. Vincent, it’s a possibility within reach in the real world. Written and directed by Theodore Melfi, the movie makes the surprising agent of divinity a curmudgeonly Brooklyn guy named Vincent (Bill Murray) who’s in his late sixties, drinks, gambles, is in debt to a […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘The Good Lie’ (2014)
October 5, 2014 by
Whether it’s called the Motherland or Fatherland, one’s native country is an extension of family, especially in the face of tragic uprooting. The Good Lie, written and directed by Philippe Falardeau, uses the civil war in Sudan and the “Lost Boys” it generated as inspiration for a fictional story about how the human spirit strives […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘Gone Girl’ (2014)
October 3, 2014 by
Containers abound in Gone Girl, directed by David Fincher and based on the popular novel by Gillian Flynn, who wrote the screenplay. There are envelopes, which hold the clues for the treasure hunt Amy Elliott Dunne (Rosamund Pike) has prepared for her husband Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) to celebrate their fifth anniversary, the very day […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘The Giver’ (2014)
August 14, 2014 by
Many people refer to their homeland as the mother country. Those people didn’t know The Chief Elder, a matriarch as stern as they come who’s running the show in the country depicted in The Giver. Directed by Philip Noyce and based on the YA book by Lois Lowry, The Giver essentially rips in half the mother archetype, […]
Astrology: Television: ‘The Knick’: The Mercurial Bridge between Life and Death
August 11, 2014 by
Mythological Mercury was the god who, at the behest of the deities, winged his way back and forth from Olympus to the Underworld. In Cinemax’s “The Knick,” directed by Steven Soderbergh, New York City’s Knickerbocker Hospital, at the turn of the 20th century, metaphorically and efficiently does duty as both locations. The hospital’s residential Mercurial […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘Get On Up’ (2014)
July 29, 2014 by
It’s all there. The riffs, the shoes that swivel maniacally as though greased, the slurrified words, the clipped throaty growls. But Tate Taylor’s Get On Up, the biopic of soul-funk innovator and icon James Brown, ups the ante by letting us see the legend living out what the movie’s title promises. Brown did “get on […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘The Congress’ (2014)
July 28, 2014 by
Can the veil that separates Saturnine corporeal reality from the transcendent Neptunian realm actually be a cruel trick devised by Hollywood moguls? Yes, indeed, and it’s the premise of Ari Folman’s part live-action, part animated film The Congress, loosely based on the sci-fi novel by Stanisław Lem. At the beginning of The Congress, the real, […]
Astrology: Fashion: Emma Stone’s Red Sailor Suit in ‘Magic in the Moonlight’
July 27, 2014 by
It’s tough to resist a gal in uniform, and that goes for Emma Stone’s character Sophie Baker in Magic in the Moonlight. Although Sophie’s fame is as a mystic – she’s communing with the spirits in France when we meet her – she’s also meant to be seen as a regular gal. The contrast between […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘Calvary’ (2014)
July 26, 2014 by
Everyone has a cross to bear. But a parish priest tending his flock in Ireland’s County Sligo has really gotten more than his share in Calvary, a movie that addresses archetypal Pluto issues of power, abandonment and revenge, as well as Neptune themes of sacrifice and victimization. Directed and written by John Michael McDonagh, Calvary, […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘Lucy’ (2014)
July 26, 2014 by
Luc Besson’s new sci-fi thriller Lucy could easily have been titled Mercury in Hyperdrive, a breathless tale about the archetype that rules thought and communication gone cinematically ballistic. Bigger, faster and stronger describe the new-and-improved mental delivery system involuntarily foisted on a young woman, Lucy (Scarlett Johansson). Lucy is studying in Taiwan and, through the […]
Latest Tweets