Like archetypal wing-footed Mercury who zips through the air and Underworld doing the bidding of the gods, pilot Barry Seal, the anti-hero of Doug Liman’s American Made, flies. And, in Mercurial style, there are a lot of deities from whom he takes orders. Relentlessly and dizzyingly in motion, the movie is so consistently zany – […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘The Mountain Between Us’ (2017)
September 27, 2017 by
At what point does impediment become a portal? That’s the question posed by The Mountain Between Us, directed by Hany Abu-Assad, which is essentially two characters trying to escape death from both the elements and their deepest fears and regrets. The players are Ben (Idris Elba), a neurosurgeon, and Alix (Kate Winslet), a photojournalist. They […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Crown Heights’ (2017)
August 20, 2017 by
Being part of a community can be as profound as being nurtured by family. That’s only partly true in Crown Heights, a film whose protagonist is betrayed by both law enforcement and the tightly knit group of people who live in the titular Brooklyn neighborhood. The cost of this betrayal by community is a 21-year […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Logan Lucky’ (2017)
August 19, 2017 by
Being unlucky is often in the eyes of the beholder. That’s the conceit at the heart of Logan Lucky, a comedic heist movie directed by Steven Soderbergh, which takes a couple of brothers – their entire “simpleminded” family is nestled in Boone County, West Virgina and carries the generational “bad luck” stigma – and watches […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Alien: Covenant’ (2017)
May 15, 2017 by
The Alien franchise’s signature archetype has been the Moon, signifying Lunar birthing and caregiving: there’s the space vessels’ operating system MU/TH/UR, simply referred to as “Mother”; the extraterrestrial xenomorph, keen on reproducing; the absentee mom who misses out on her daugheter’s entire life – easy to do when you’re lost in space – and who […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Snatched’ (2017)
May 10, 2017 by
A sharp turn off the beaten track – defying one’s traditional pattern of behavior – is at the heart of Snatched. Directed by Jonathan Levine, the female-centric movie adds another archetypal dimension to its Mother-Daughter theme: Saturnine safety and convention vs. Uranian risk, individualism and non-conformity. Emily (Amy Schumer) has just been dumped by her […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: Feminine Archetypes in ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’ (2017)
April 22, 2017 by
Families bequeathe their most valuable possessions to subsequent generations to preserve legacy. In HBO’s fact-based dramatization “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” based on the book by Rebecca Skloot, an item as dear as gold is gifted to the world and bypasses the offspring. The story focuses on what’s medically known as the HeLa cell […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Colossal’ (2017)
April 7, 2017 by
The word “colossal” evokes massive Greek statues that adorned the ports of ancient islands, a tacit and imposing warning to ensure that visitors with bad intentions turn their ships around. Colossal, written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, is a bit like that. Except, instead of these big artful structures keeping people out, it’s about people […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘Big Little Lies” and the World of Neptune (2017)
April 6, 2017 by
As the waves relentlessly crash onto the shoreline of Monterey, you anticipate the emergence, any minute now, of bearded Neptune, sporting his trident as though waiting to pierce some high-end seafood and olives. “Big Little Lies,” HBO’s seven-episode drama based on Liane Moriarty’s novel and directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, is about a murder tied to […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Life’ (2017)
March 23, 2017 by
Life will out. As a viable entity, it has no choice except – as we known from the story of the scorpion and the frog – to survive by acting according to its nature. That’s not good news for the six-member crew of an international space station in Life, directed by Daniel Espinosa, whose mission […]
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