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: ‘The Danish Girl’ (2015)
November 27, 2015 by
The Feminine unfolds and blossoms at a tempo unique to the individual who either embraces or grapples with the gifts of Aphrodite. Einar Wegener, a male, 20th-century, Danish artist, whose story is at the core of The Danish Girl, was unique in confronting this Venusian challenge. Directed by Tom Hooper, and based on David Ebershoff’s […]
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: ‘Creed’ (2015)
November 25, 2015 by
What could be worse than being the son of an absentee father? Try being illegitimate, and having Dad – an iconic boxer – die before you were born. Those are the sizable issues gnawing at the soul of the protagonist of Creed, the sixth sequel in the Rocky franchise. Directed and co-written by Ryan Coogler, […]
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: ‘Spectre’ (2015)
November 3, 2015 by
Like a sturdy shoe stomping cockroaches, James Bond, as British Agent 007, exists to exterminate cartoonish villains whose goal is to appropriate global power. Directed by Sam Mendes, Spectre, the latest offering in the franchise, gives us more of the same derring do, at a critical moment involving national security. The “007” program is likely […]
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: ‘Leviathan’ (2014)
December 25, 2014 by
A Russian modern-day epic, Leviathan begins and ends with an images of nature at its most pristine. Gradually the geography becomes more contaminated until we rest on a wreck of a house that’s the fragile link between a one-time unspoiled ancestral heritage of land and its exploitation. The inciting incident that drives Leviathan, written and […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Two Days, One Night’ (2014)
December 24, 2014 by
The work world is notoriously time-obsessed. One toils a certain number of days and hours, gets a certain amount of time as vacation and, depending on the employer, may be required to punch a time card to prove accountability. How fitting then, that in Two Days, One Night, a woman has only a limited period […]
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 […]
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