The female character portrayed by Golshifteh Farahani in The Patience Stone – co-written and directed by Atiq Rahimi, the Afghan-born filmmaker who also wrote the novel on which his movie is based – has every reason to be talking to herself. She’s a young Muslim woman – the players in this chilling parable are designated […]
Astrology: Film: ‘Kick-Ass 2’ (2013)
August 13, 2013 by
Kick-Ass 2 may be a live-action cartoon, but its clear-eyed sentiments go well below the surface. The movie, directed by Jeff Wadlow, poses the question of whether the costumed life one takes on – as do the superheroes here – is more true and valid than one’s “real” life without an alternate wardrobe. This question […]
Astrology: Film: ‘In a World…’ (2013)
August 9, 2013 by
In a World…, a smart girl-power movie starring, and written and directed by Lake Bell, is literally about our heroine’s defining (Saturn) her own voice (Mercury). Carol (Bell) is a speech and vocal coach, whose dream is to make it big as voice-over artist. Her surname is different from that of her father, Sam (Fred […]
Astrology: Film: ‘Lovelace’ (2013)
August 8, 2013 by
In Lovelace, the first glimpse of Linda Lovelace (Amanda Seyfried) is total glam – she’s bedecked in pearls, wearing a fashionable scarf and driving a posh car. That shot, though, was a role she was playing – a notoriety-making one – in the top-grossing porno movie Deep Throat. Her real story was far more Saturnine […]
Astrology: Film: ‘Prince Avalanche’ (2013)
August 7, 2013 by
In Prince Avalanche, painting yellow lane-dividing lines on rural roads is serious Saturnine business. And the no-nonsense taskmaster who takes extraordinary pleasure in the work while reveling in the solitude this neck of the woods provides is Alvin (Paul Rudd), a man whose head space is way older than his years. Under his wing is […]
Astrology: Film: ‘Elysium’ (2013)
August 7, 2013 by
In the 2154 have vs. have-not world of Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, the wealthy and elite have taken up residence in a well manicured pseudo-planet in the sky. To the down-trodden masses in Los Angeles, that domicile overhead, which is called Elysium, gleams. It’s Utopia, pure and simple – a Neptunian vision to aspire to, or […]
Astrology: Film: ‘We’re the Millers’ (2013)
August 6, 2013 by
What constitutes a family – nature vs. nurture – is the question at the heart of We’re the Millers, a road movie whose four-member clan is brought together as a family (Moon) by ulterior motives and Neptunian deceit. In the movie, directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, the guy who’ll become the ring-leader patriarch is Dave […]
Astrology: Film: ‘The Spectacular Now’ (2013)
August 6, 2013 by
For many teens, even those with good grades, high school is a four-year stretch of fuzzed out, Neptunian captivity. The overall blurriness – a minimally defined sense of self, ample opportunity to idealize the wrong people and pursuits, and a dose or two or unrequited love – sends young minds scrambling to inhabit utopian fantasy […]
Astrology: Film: ‘2 Guns’ (2013)
July 30, 2013 by
The boundless movement, talk and sibling-like play that pervades 2 Guns makes this movie Mercurial to the core. The leading male characters are undercover DEA agent Bobby Trench (Denzel Washington) and Marcus “Stig” Stigman (Mark Wahlberg), a naval intelligence officer who’s gone AWOL. The two men, as we learn, stumbled upon each other a while […]
Astrology: Film: ‘Blue Jasmine’ (2013)
July 25, 2013 by
Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine is the assured work of an older artist unafraid to make the point that people typically go to their graves clutching the archetypes they’ve been projecting and embracing for decades, no matter how self-destructive. Blue Jasmine, the character, is actually Jeanette (Cate Blanchett), who took on her flowery moniker years earlier […]
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