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Archives for January 2015

Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Mommy’ (2015)

Motherhood can turn the best maternal caregivers into moonstruck lunatics, an identifier that pays tribute to the always changing waxing and waning night-sky luminary. The Canadian film Mommy makes a meal of the Lunar principle – tied to nurturing, emotion, security, family and home – in all its messy, excessive and often thankless glory. Written […]

Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Cake’ (2015)

Physical and psychological immobilization caused by pain can be literally life-halting. This inability to go forward is at the heart of Cake, a sly exploration of the energy-fueled Mars archetype. Typically the operative archetype in summer tentpole actioners, Mars – the ability to go after what one wants in life through will power, ego, motion […]

Archetypes: Film: ‘Nightcrawler’ (2014): Rene Russo’s Nina Romina’s Older Working Woman’s Survival Strategy

Over the years, movies have given us a wide array of female characters at all levels of professionalism who supervise, control and make life-and-death decisions. But last year no cinematic woman stayed in my head as long as Nina Romina, the fictional news director at a television station in Nightcrawler. The original screenplay, written by […]

Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘The Missing’ Season 1 Finale

Not every kidnapping provides closure. The merged realities resulting from years of searching for a loved one – is the victim dead, living under a new identity, an unwilling participant in a dreadful ongoing scenario, or all of these? – is the substance of “The Missing,” a miniseries on Starz which broadcast its Season 1 […]

Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Paddington’ (2015)

Broadening one’s outlook often occurs through travel and education. Both these archetypes of expansion are the heart of Paddington, which delights in sharing the arrival, in London, of the iconic teddy bear immortalized in Michael Bond’s books. Written and directed by Paul King, the movie, a combination of live action and CG (for the bears), […]