The addiction-centric archetypes associated with “Mad Men”’s Don Draper (Jon Hamm) have been consistent over the series’ seven-season run. In the pilot, viewers learned that Don drank, smoked and was unfaithful. Over several dozen episodes, they realized those habits – booze, cigarettes and sex – were embedded in the man’s sinews. And that these activities […]
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: ‘iZombie’ (2015)
March 18, 2015 by
You are what you eat plays out big time in CW’s undead-medical procedural “iZombie,” adapted from a comic book series by the creatives that brought you “Veronica Mars.” “iZombie” features another plucky female, the well named Olivia “Liv” Moore (Rose McIver), a medical resident whose life literally transforms one night during some zombie mayhem at […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Chappie’ (2015)
March 5, 2015 by
The feeling- and consciousness-infused machine has been one of cinema’s more popular go-to sci-fi archetypes. Add the titular robot of Chappie to that list. Set in a near-future Johannesburg that’s riddled by crime gangs, Neill Blomkamp, the movie’s co-writer and director, has created a parable – sandwiched between two revenge tales – about one man’s […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘The Missing’ Season 1 Finale
January 11, 2015 by
Not every kidnapping provides closure. The merged realities resulting from years of searching for a loved one – is the victim dead, living under a new identity, an unwilling participant in a dreadful ongoing scenario, or all of these? – is the substance of “The Missing,” a miniseries on Starz which broadcast its Season 1 […]
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 […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Big Eyes’ (2014)
December 24, 2014 by
If eyes are the windows to the soul, you can’t get a better view of the psyche than by peering through the gigantic orbs painted on despondent-looking waifs’ faces by Margaret Keane half a century ago. Big Eyes, a movie about Keane’s creations which were both jarring and evocative, explores these sad wide-eyed wonders as […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘Mr. Turner’ (2014)
December 16, 2014 by
Genius often erupts in strange packages, a notion personified in Mr. Turner, the biopic of iconic 19th century English painter J.M.W. Turner. Written and directed by Mike Leigh, the movie explores the quotidian behavior of the portly, trundling Turner (Timothy Spall), a most ordinary-looking individual with a jutting lower lip who, somehow, through his artistic […]
Astrology: Film: Review: ‘Inherent Vice’ (2014)
December 9, 2014 by
Inherent Vice, based on Thomas Pynchon’s druggy novel, isn’t just about people under the influence of a proverbial purple haze. Adapted and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the movie is itself a purple haze, a cinematic rendering of archetypal Neptune’s perennial blurry fuzzed-out state and penchant for purple, which makes it literally impossible to pinpoint […]
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 […]
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