Being unlucky is often in the eyes of the beholder. That’s the conceit at the heart of Logan Lucky, a comedic heist movie directed by Steven Soderbergh, which takes a couple of brothers – their entire “simpleminded” family is nestled in Boone County, West Virgina and carries the generational “bad luck” stigma – and watches […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Colossal’ (2017)
April 7, 2017 by
The word “colossal” evokes massive Greek statues that adorned the ports of ancient islands, a tacit and imposing warning to ensure that visitors with bad intentions turn their ships around. Colossal, written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, is a bit like that. Except, instead of these big artful structures keeping people out, it’s about people […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Graduation’ (2017)
April 6, 2017 by
Graduation, written and directed by Cristian Mungiu, is an incisive exploration of expansion – educational and travel-based – through archetypal Jupiter. The humans caught up in this dyad are Romeo Aldea (Adrian Titieni), a respected physician in a small town, whose daughter Eliza (Maria Dragus) is about to graduate from high school. She’s a good […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘The Big Short’ (2015)
December 12, 2015 by
In the continuously expanding and contracting world of finance, fortunes are made by those able to spot markers ahead of everyone else, just like the men propelling the narrative in The Big Short. Co-written and directed by Adam McKay, and based on Michael Lewis’ non-fiction book about the meltdown in the housing market in 2008, […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘Fargo’: Sioux Falls, Jung and the Flying Saucer (2015)
December 9, 2015 by
In “The Castle,” “Fargo”’s Season 2’s penultimate episode, Hank (Ted Danson) tells a local cop, who has legal jurisdiction but poor strategy, an anecdote. The story centers on a feisty lieutenant who, during the war, criticized their commanding officer, General Eisenhower, for his Very Bad Plan. Hank does not succeed at making this same point […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Brooklyn’ (2015)
November 4, 2015 by
Robert Frost wrote that home was the place where, if you had to go there, they have to take you in. Whether the guest wants to stay permanently is another matter entirely, and it’s at the heart of Brooklyn, a lyrical film about a young Irish immigrant to that titular New York City borough, who […]
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: Film: Review: ‘The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ (2015)
February 26, 2015 by
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, overstuffed like a frenetically busy street in Mumbai, is short on narrative and richly heavy on the theme of aging. The movie’s predecessor, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, focused on the eruptive Uranian surge that sparked a light in a group of retirees to live out the rest of […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Paddington’ (2015)
January 9, 2015 by
Broadening one’s outlook often occurs through travel and education. Both these archetypes of expansion are the heart of Paddington, which delights in sharing the arrival, in London, of the iconic teddy bear immortalized in Michael Bond’s books. Written and directed by Paul King, the movie, a combination of live action and CG (for the bears), […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Selma’ (2014)
December 27, 2014 by
Saturnine self-mastery is never easy. The challenge becomes even more formidable when one’s values and integrity are tied up with the political well being of a people. In Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay, the Rev. Martin Luther King finds himself in exactly this position as he straddles being true to his core beliefs while creating […]
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