From the time he was a young man, cosmologist Stephen Hawking was obsessed with the notion that time had a beginning. In 1988 he even published a book on the topic, A Brief History of Time. Not surprisingly, then, the predominant archetype in the Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything is Saturn, whose domain is […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘Citizenfour’ (2014)
October 25, 2014 by
The most vibrant movie characters, fictional or biographical, tend to carry the most riveting archetypes. Citizenfour, Laura Poitras’ documentary about Edward J. Snowden, falls – rather, bursts – into that category of memorable players. And, like most of the U.S. population unaware of how its government was massively breaching citizens’ privacy, Poitras begins her project […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘Force Majeure’ (2014)
October 24, 2014 by
Blindingly white and light-reflective, snow shows a surprisingly dark side in Force Majeure, which abruptly detours from its seeming family-vacation premise to one family member’s full-blown side trip to a hell of his own making. Written and directed by Ruben Östlund, the movie is set in a postcard-perfect ski resort in the French Alps, with […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘St. Vincent’ (2014)
October 7, 2014 by
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: 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: 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, […]
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