No wonder grandparents are so culturally revered. Their nurturing and protective genes still glow, they can usually set down a good plate of food and ignore curfews from the parental unit and, if track records are good, even shine as confidantes. The ones in The Visit are not those sort of elders. They’re different, and […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Straight Outta Compton’ (2015)
August 10, 2015 by
The music group N.W.A. smashed rules to become a seminal force in creating the new revolutionary musical genres of hip hop and gangsta rap. When it came to growing their business, though, they were stuck dealing with mundane business-as-usual deceits and manipulation. The contrast between these two archetypal energies – Uranian rebellion, insight into future […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Mistress America’ (2015)
August 8, 2015 by
In the same way people steal content and images off the Internet, some folks arbitrarily co-opt the lives of others, using them, as would heartless deities, for sport. Such psychic and experiential theft is at the core of Mistress America. Directed and co-written by Noah Baumbach, the movie is essentially the tale a sudden friendship […]
Archetypes: Television: ‘True Detective 2’: The Three-Legged Chair Theory
July 31, 2015 by
With two episodes to go, the second season of “True Detective” could use some love. Viewers can’t seem to get season one’s dyad of Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) out of their heads. Two oddballs – Cohle and Hart fit that bill extraordinarily well – are much easier to stack up […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘The End of the Tour’ (2015)
July 29, 2015 by
Two people participate in an intense bonding experience which ultimately turns out to have a limited shelf life. That notion – the ephemeral nature of human connection – is made especially poignant in the haunting The End of the Tour, which posits that embracing the moment may be the most solid option in life. Directed by James […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Trainwreck’ (2015)
July 14, 2015 by
It’s every dad’s dream that his little girl lovingly takes to heart the life lessons he drops like pearls. In Trainwreck, one daughter who embraced such messages years ago now finds herself on a bleak road trying to undo the sins of the father. Directed by Judd Apatow, the movie starts as young Amy and […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘The Stanford Prison Experiment’ (2015)
July 11, 2015 by
Where’s that “safe word” when you need it? Male Stanford students, who participated in a daring piece of psychological research in 1971, thought the “contracts” they had with that academic institution guaranteed them a way out at any time. But as The Stanford Prison Experiment, a film based on those events, demonstrates, the study took […]
Astrology: Fashion: Gingham
July 8, 2015 by
There’s a moment in Amy, the Amy Winehouse documentary, that seems like a huge fashion disconnect. It’s the singer wearing gingham. Sure, it’s a strapless dress with a scalloped trim. But there’s an unspoken law about the globally popular fabric that bows to a courtroom populated by Dorothy Gales, utililitarian-chic workers and homespun fashion-minimalists. The […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Self/less’ (2015)
July 5, 2015 by
Death means disintegration of the body, as well as the evaporation of every thought and mental talent the deceased ever accrued in life. Damian Hale, a wealthy real estate mogul with terminal cancer, is one of those people who’d like to stick around a bit longer. Self/Less, a medical thriller directed by Tarsem Singh, explores […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: Magic Mike XXL (2015)
July 1, 2015 by
Putting away the things of childhood is the extra-extra large theme behind Magic Mike XXL. Sure there’s plenty of male skin here. But the movie, directed by Gregory Jacobs, has its serious underside: a likeable bunch of strippers’ search for their self-identities. There’s a lot of archetypal Mars – males, physicality, energy, sex and sexual […]
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