Rules that are emblazoned onto the fabric of a culture have lives of their own. And in Joe Knight’s take on the Tolstoy classic “Anna Karenina,” set in Russia, in 1874, Anna (Keira Knightley) finds out just how unforgiving those regulatory Saturnine moral pronouncements can be. Based in St. Peterburg, where she lives with her […]
Film: ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ (2012)
November 16, 2012 by
David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook” only seems like a fluid, edgy romantic comedy. At its core, the movie is a serious and even gut-wrenching exploration of what constitutes imprisonment. The Zodiac’s Neptune-ruled 12th house is traditionally the domain of confined spaces, including prisons and mental institutions. It’s an arena whose inhabitants, behaving unconsciously, become […]
Film: ‘Lincoln’ (2012)
November 13, 2012 by
Abraham Lincoln’s political accomplishments, specifically his orchestrating the passage of the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery, have generally been tied to his Aquarian penchant for idealism, freedom, humanitarian efforts, progressive thinking and doing what was best for the collective. This simple rendering of what made Abe tick – an astrology-centric analysis that honors his Uranian […]
Film: ‘Skyfall’ (2012)
November 13, 2012 by
There’s enough life-and-death chases, derring-do, femmes, and an over-the-top villain in “Skyfall,” the latest addition to the James Bond cinematic catalog, to make it feel familiar. But this entertainment is just as much Moon-and-Mum as it is Mars-and-Guns. As Silva (Javier Bardem), the villain, puts it: “Mommy was very bad.” Mom, of course, is M […]
Film: ‘Flight’ (2012)
November 12, 2012 by
Nothing dissolves boundaries like air travel. And in “Flight,” the new movie from director Robert Zemeckis that debuted on the final day of the New York Film Festival, no one is as involved with boundaries – either traversing over state lines while commandeering a jet, or blurring boundaries through his addiction to alcohol and cocaine […]
Film: ‘Arbitrage’ (2012)
September 10, 2012 by
Mogul Robert Miller (Richard Gere) is in the process of selling his family-owned company. But beneath the entrepreneurial gloss, the event is more akin to a fire sale. That’s because Miller needs to unload his prize before anyone with accounting smarts detects a more than a $400 million fraud. Pluto rules the big reveal of […]
Film: ‘The Good Doctor’ (2012)
September 7, 2012 by
For many people, bedside manner plays a big role in assessing how “good” a physician is. In “The Good Doctor,” Martin Blake (Orlando Bloom), a British doctor doing a residency in the U.S., has an inspired connection with his patient Diane (Riley Keough) that’s off-the-charts impressive: caring, calming and sweetly personal. But we’ve previously seen […]
Film: ‘Lawless’ (2012)
August 29, 2012 by
At its core, the Prohibition moonshine-and-brass-knuckles saga “Lawless” is a movie about three entrepreneurs. Not quite an instructional how-to business flick, but the Saturnian themes of persistence, survival and ends justifying the means are as rampant and hardcore here as the violence. The movie – based on a real-life family and set primarily in Franklin, […]
Film: ‘Premium Rush’ (2012)
August 24, 2012 by
If you propelled Mercury, ancient messenger of the gods, into the 21st century, there’s a good chance he’d be a bicycle courier. Because he served the deities, he’d have to ride really fast. And he’d probably be a lot like Wilee, the speed-demon messenger in “Premium Rush.” Mercury’s domain is commerce, transportation, communication, the mind, […]
Film: ‘ParaNorman’ (2012)
August 16, 2012 by
Norman Babcock, the 11-year-old hero in the stop-motion 3D animated feature “ParaNorman,” sees dead people. In addition to communing with the spirits of those who have passed on – he’s severely bullied and marginalized at school for his preoccupation – Norman has brand loyalty to Zombie-centric toothbrushes, posters and otherworldly paraphernalia. In other words, he’s […]
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