‘Mad Men’’s penultimate episode was titled “The Milk and Honey Route,” evoking a place or time where the sweetness of creation coalesces into a destination of fragrant bounty. Instead, the x-ray of Betty Draper’s (January Jones) aggressive, terminal lung cancer only suggested piles of gray, foul-smelling cigarette ashes contaminating the notion of paradise. Archetypally, though, […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘Mad Men’ (2015): ‘The Archetypal Significance of Betty Draper’s Death’
May 11, 2015 by
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Slow West’ (2015)
May 11, 2015 by
Just about the only purity and innocence you’ll see in Slow West are the breathtakingly pristine natural vistas of this country in 1870 – mountains, rivers, fields and day-and-midnight-blue skies – and Jay Cavendish, a lovestruck teen from Scotland who’s traveling through “the baking heart of America” to locate the woman he fell for in […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Hot Pursuit’ (2015)
May 7, 2015 by
On the surface, Hot Pursuit is about an uptight law enforcement agent shepherding an unwilling witness to court to testify against a drug lord. Archetypally, it’s a joust between by-the-book, tightly coiled Cooper (Reese Witherspoon) and renegade Colombian hottie Daniella (Sofia Vergara). Given that one woman intensely colors inside the lines and the other doesn’t […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘Mad Men’: Peggy Takes Back Her Projections
May 4, 2015 by
Last night’s episode of “Mad Men” was aptly titled “Lost Horizon.” Visually conjuring up an inability to pinpoint where the sky ends and the sea begins, the image is about fuzziness which, when applied to the lives of this series’ characters, amounts to an existential blur. But from what just transpired in this episode, that’s […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ (2015)
April 27, 2015 by
Although set in Dorset, England, in 1870, period movie Far from the Madding Crowd is a modern take on relational independence and interdependence, the age-old push-pull between affectionate Venus and emotionally free-from-all-ties Uranus. Written and directed by Thomas Vinterberg and based on the classic Thomas Hardy novel, the movie opens with heroine Bathsheba Everdene (Carey […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Welcome to Me’ (2015)
April 26, 2015 by
Welcome to Me is a fairytale for grown-ups. Its message? The way to address life’s limitations is often through embracing further limitations. Primed to learn this lesson – the hard way – is the film’s deluded heroine Alice Klieg (Kristen Wiig). Alice, a 30-something denizen of Palm Desert, California, who suffers from borderline personality disorder, […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘The Americans’ Season 3 (2015): Parent-Child. Parent-Asset
April 23, 2015 by
Children are the most personal entities in the world. But, in the spy arena, to refer to someone in the field as a nameless “asset” is as impersonal as it gets. “The Americans” sees these two categories of individuals – neither of whom, for different reasons, are capable of fending for themselves and ensuring their […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘True Story’ (2015)
April 13, 2015 by
On the surface, True Story is about the connection between a disgraced reporter and a man on trial for murdering four members of his family in the early aughts. Directed by Rupert Goold, the drama, at its core, is about the challenges and transformational potential of communication. Mercurial activities, such as conversation and writing, are […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Clouds of Sils Maria’ (2015)
April 7, 2015 by
A bit of meteorological magic – fast-moving clouds that take on the appearance of a determined snake energetically moving through the Maloja Pass in the Swiss Alps – oversees the transformations at the heart of Clouds of Sils Maria. Written and directed by Olivier Assayas, the movie provides extensive details about this phenomenon which, from […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘Mad Men’ (2015): Jung’s Unlived Life of the Parent
April 6, 2015 by
“Severance,” the first of “Mad Men”’s final episodes, refers to the financial exit package for Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton), newly fired from SC&P. The timing is eerie, because just the other day Ken had seriously addressed both his disenchantment with his industry and his lack of time to pursue his literary talent. Because he has […]
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