They say you should dress for the job you want, not the job you already have. In Roland Emmerich’s White House Down, decorated Afghanistan war veteran John Cale (Channing Tatum) orchestrates a new-career move when he spontaneously takes on the mantle of a secret service agent during a large-scale attack on the nation’s capitol, saving […]
Archives for June 2013
Astrology: Film: ‘The Heat’ (2013)
There’s nothing like the hint of a job promotion to fuel a worker’s desire to impress the boss. In Paul Feig’s female-buddy comedy The Heat, FBI agent Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) finds herself in exactly that situation. The maniacally professional and book-smart Ashburn’s ascent up the corporate ladder is now tied to her nailing a […]
Astrology: Film: ‘A Hijacking’ (2013)
When you’re CEO, you’re unquestionably in Plutonian control of the entirety of the enterprise. In A Hijacking, Tobias Lindholm’s psychological and weapon-wielding thriller, procedural certainty disintegrates instantly when Danish shipping company chief executive Peter (Soren Malling) learns that his cargo vessel, the Rozen, has been hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. We know, […]
Astrology: Film: ‘20 Feet From Stardom’ (2013)
Musician Lou Reed, in his “Walk on the Wild Side,” paid tribute to the gals who trilled rock-and-roll’s historic doo-do-doo’s. Now, thanks to director Morgan Neville, there’s a cinematic tribute to those legendary and predominantly African-American female background singers in his documentary 20 Feet From Stardom. The part of the body associated with the Venus-ruled […]
Astrology: Television: ‘Orphan Black’: Uranian Sisters
“Orphan Black” started out when a gal with a drug debt, desperately in need of cash, stole a look-alike suicide’s ID. That’s when this dramatic thriller, broadcast in the U.S. through BBCAmerica, changed its identity. Make that identities. And after the program’s Season 1 finale, the audience learned the full ramifications of that theft. As […]
Astrology: Film: ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ (2013)
It turns out, even in the 16th century, that mischievous friends were setting up unlikely and often unlikeable members of their circle to become romantic partners. And in Joss Whedon’s modern-day-SoCal version of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing – Whedon also adapted the Bard’s words – Mercury the Trickster plays center stage in the romance […]
Astrology: Film: ‘The East’: Director Zal Batmanglij Talks ‘Food’ Archetype
There’s a scene, relatively early on in The East, in which Brit Marling’s character Sarah, a corporate spy working for a high-end consultancy, has her loyalty tested by the members of the eco-terrorist group she’s infiltrated. The proceedings look like a conduit for torture: Sarah’s at the communal dining table, bound in a straightjacket, unable […]