What does a host say to the newly arrived? Especially when they’re aliens? That’s the key question posed in Arrival: What’s your business here, given that 12 of your ships that look like squished Bosu balls standing upright have plopped down all over our planet. Directed by Denis Villeneuve and based on the Ted Chiang […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk’ (2016)
November 6, 2016 by
Much of the anticipation surrounding Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk involves both the film’s 4K ultra-high resolution and 3D run at 120-frames-a-second. This experimental technique, created by the film’s director, Ang Lee, is designed to foster a greater level of cinematic artistic expression. And the speed – five times that of traditional movies – gives […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Elle’ (2016)
November 6, 2016 by
Gamers get off on winning battles against creatures that aren’t real. So it’s no wonder that the hot-shot, female, gaming executive in Elle lives her life in Paris as though it were a simulated contest. Directed by Paul Verhoeven, Elle follows the story of Michele LeBlanc (Isabelle Huppert), a divorced woman who, in the first […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘The Eagle Huntress’ (2016)
November 4, 2016 by
Who needs a canine for a companion when a gal can have an eagle? That’s the aspiration behind poetic documentary The Eagle Huntress, which follows the yearnings of a young teen who’s got it in her head to break a 12-generation, Kazakh-family tradition in the soaring, magnificently photogenic mountain ranges of the Mongolian steppe. Directed […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Loving’ (2016)
November 4, 2016 by
Occasionally real-life events enter the fray adorned with the sort of proverbial beacons that signal their relevance and even fatedness. The story captured in the quiet, gem-of-a-film Loving, written and directed by Jeff Nichols, is one such piece of historicity. It’s 1958 and the protagonists are Richard and Mildred Loving, with their surname suggesting that […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Doctor Strange’ (2016)
November 4, 2016 by
The adage “Time heals all wounds” is the anti-mantra that pervades Doctor Strange, the new addition to Marvel’s filmography about a gifted neurosurgeon who goes down the proverbial rabbit hole. Co-written and directed by Scott Derrickson, the movie describes the mental and mystical evolution of Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) within a framework of Saturnine […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Morgan’ (2016)
September 2, 2016 by
Motherhood set against a wash of sophisticated biotechnology is the prevailing theme of Morgan, a futuristic thriller directed by Luke Scott. The title character with the sexually ambiguous name is Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy), an “It” – a “hybrid autonomous organism” – which has been generated in a remote location by a dedicated tribe of corporate […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘The Night Of,’ the Feet and Neptune (2016)
August 29, 2016 by
Feet often slip. They and whatever coverings shield them don’t always take people where they want to go. Typically because the wearer doesn’t have a good sense of the direction in which they’re headed. This pretty much describes the eight-part drama “The Night Of” – it could easily have been called “Feets, Don’t Fail Me […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Don’t Breathe’ (2016)
August 23, 2016 by
Typically the hallmarks of romantic cinema, Mars and Venus get a different sort of work out in Don’t Breathe, a nimble horror film about a burglary gone very wrong. Co-written and directed by Fede Alvarez, the movie gets to the basics quickly. Three young adults – Rocky (Jane Levy), her hot-headed boyfriend Money (Daniel Zovatto) […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Mia Madre’ (2016)
August 22, 2016 by
The fine line between balancing one’s family and professional life cuts a deep groove in Mia Madre (My Mother), an incisive dramedy co-written and directed by Nanni Moretti. Margherita (Margherita Buy) is an earnest but nit-picking middle-aged movie director who has turned into a frustrated caregiver on set. Her charge is Italophile actor Barry Huggins […]
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