The adage “Time heals all wounds” is the anti-mantra that pervades Doctor Strange, the new addition to Marvel’s filmography about a gifted neurosurgeon who goes down the proverbial rabbit hole. Co-written and directed by Scott Derrickson, the movie describes the mental and mystical evolution of Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) within a framework of Saturnine […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Morgan’ (2016)
September 2, 2016 by
Motherhood set against a wash of sophisticated biotechnology is the prevailing theme of Morgan, a futuristic thriller directed by Luke Scott. The title character with the sexually ambiguous name is Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy), an “It” – a “hybrid autonomous organism” – which has been generated in a remote location by a dedicated tribe of corporate […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘The Night Of,’ the Feet and Neptune (2016)
August 29, 2016 by
Feet often slip. They and whatever coverings shield them don’t always take people where they want to go. Typically because the wearer doesn’t have a good sense of the direction in which they’re headed. This pretty much describes the eight-part drama “The Night Of” – it could easily have been called “Feets, Don’t Fail Me […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Don’t Breathe’ (2016)
August 23, 2016 by
Typically the hallmarks of romantic cinema, Mars and Venus get a different sort of work out in Don’t Breathe, a nimble horror film about a burglary gone very wrong. Co-written and directed by Fede Alvarez, the movie gets to the basics quickly. Three young adults – Rocky (Jane Levy), her hot-headed boyfriend Money (Daniel Zovatto) […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Mia Madre’ (2016)
August 22, 2016 by
The fine line between balancing one’s family and professional life cuts a deep groove in Mia Madre (My Mother), an incisive dramedy co-written and directed by Nanni Moretti. Margherita (Margherita Buy) is an earnest but nit-picking middle-aged movie director who has turned into a frustrated caregiver on set. Her charge is Italophile actor Barry Huggins […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Sausage Party’ (2016)
August 10, 2016 by
“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: ‘Hell or High Water’ (2016)
August 8, 2016 by
When a guy who hasn’t exactly been the best “older brother” wants to make amends, the bounty can be both huge and illegal. In Hell or High Water, a taut, muscular little movie directed by David Mackenzie, jailbird Tanner (Ben Foster) wasn’t around much to help his kid bro Toby (Chris Pine). When she died, […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘The Little Prince’ (2016)
August 8, 2016 by
Finding one’s way back home is one of storytelling’s most popular themes, especially when a character, like the Little Prince, travels through galaxies to re-root physically, emotionally and spiritually. The Little Prince, the animated movie, directed by Mark Osborne and based on the 1943 for-children-of-all-ages classic by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, uses a modern framework to […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Little Men’ (2016)
August 4, 2016 by
Two 13-year-old boys become pawns in a much larger family scenario involving homes, livelihood and money in Little Men, a film about gentrification of neighborhoods and human spirits. Co-written and directed by Ira Sachs, the movie quickly sets up a seemingly insoluble issue. Through his father’s death, Manhattan resident Brian Jardine (Greg Kinnear) has inherited […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Jason Bourne’ (2016)
July 26, 2016 by
We’re long past identity, supremacy, ultimatum and legacy. Now, as the title says, it’s just Jason Bourne, with the entirety of his chiseled-six-pack essence reduced to finding the truth about the trajectory that led him to become amnesiac Jason Bourne (Matt Damon). Bourne has kept in touch with Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) who has gone […]
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