“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.” That spirit-leveling Shakespearean tidbit, delivered by Gloucester in “King Lear,” gets a radical makeover in, of all places, a maniacally existential, animated, supermarket dramedy. Yes, in Sausage Party the same sentiment is explosively rendered by a desperate jar of […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Indignation’ (2016)
July 26, 2016 by
Indignation, typically a strong reaction to an offense, also suggests a sense of unworthiness or feeling like an outlier uncomfortable in one’s own skin. Written and directed by James Schamus, the film Indignation, based on Philip Roth’s novel, brings together two non-mainstream individuals who, precisely because of their inability to fit into their culture, fall […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Don’t Think Twice’ (2016)
July 21, 2016 by
There’s communication that happens through traditional Mercurial processes. And then there’s the Uranian kind which bypasses logic. With Uranus in the driver’s seat, the mental goods drop into your cranium unobstructed and insanely quickly – no detours – like some kind of enlightenment. It’s not unlike improvisational theater: split-second, unhinged and out-of-left-field dialog. Don’t Think […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Captain Fantastic’ (2016)
July 6, 2016 by
We’d all be a lot happier, wrote Plato, if government overseers were philosopher-kings, rulers who also loved wisdom. Turns out that political hyphenate, an aspirational theme in Captain Fantastic, is much easier to execute on paper than in reality. Figuring out which “real world” is the viable one is at the heart of this movie, […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Janis: Little Girl Blue’ (2015)
November 26, 2015 by
Amy Berg’s documentary about Janis Joplin, Janis: Little Girl Blue, doesn’t tell us whether the ‘60s R&B rocker was a serious student of astrology. But twice in the film Joplin notes she’s a Capricorn. Turns out the girl knew enough about her sun sign to aim high and not take no for an answer. However, […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Carol’ (2015)
November 18, 2015 by
Venus, the archetype signifying love and pleasure, is at the heart of most enduring relationships. Although same-sex unions are now increasingly embraced by the general population, they were at one time more than Venusian. They were non-mainstream-Venusian, and aligned with the Uranian archetype of uniqueness, rebellion and, for some, subversiveness. However, this notion of anarchy-in-love […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Trumbo’ (2015)
November 2, 2015 by
Governments that run nations are not unlike larger-than-life parents – the mother lands and father countries with their books of rules that keep the machine from falling into chaos. Trumbo is about a period of time in U.S. history when that so-called list of no-nos and smackdowns got a bigger workout than usual. Directed by […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘Mr. Robot,’ Prometheus and Stealing Fire from the Gods (2015)
September 3, 2015 by
An early episode in the first season of cyber-thriller series “Mr. Robot,” created and written by Sam Esmail, has Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) pondering the college loans that hang like an albatross around the neck of his childhood friend and now work colleague Angela (Portia Doubleday). Wouldn’t it be a gift if the financial burdens […]
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: ‘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 […]
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