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: Film: Review: ‘The Gift’ (2015)
August 5, 2015 by
Written and directed by Joel Edgerton, The Gift is a tight, stark and claustrophobic little thriller that spools as murky as the script’s reference to “let bygones be bygones.” The pair at the receiving end of those words – initially we don’t know exactly what the “bygones” are which need to be absolved – are […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl’ (2015)
August 1, 2015 by
Nothing is as intoxicating – or terrifying – as power that’s been thrust on you and which shockingly fits you like a glove. In The Diary of a Teenage Girl, 15-year-old Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley) learns about wielding such power through the carnal and emotional pleasures of sex. The downside is that her first, two-decades […]
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 […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Amy’ (2015)
July 5, 2015 by
Extraordinary English vocal talent Amy Winehouse broke hearts when she died at 27 in 2011 from alcohol poisoning. Asif Kapadia’s documentary, Amy, only heightens our sadness as we relive it. As Amy demonstrates, Winehouse didn’t so much die as orchestrate her own disappearance, a phenomenon associated with archetypal Neptune, whose bailiwick also includes drugs, addiction, […]
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 […]
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Ted 2’ (2015)
June 24, 2015 by
The non-human partner in cinematic interspecies-like procreation has typically been extra-terrestrial. It’s time to add plush toys to the mix, specifically, Ted, the teddy-bear BFF of man-child John Barrett. Co-written and directed by Seth MacFarlane, Ted 2 continues the saga of John, who was gifted with Ted in the mid-’80s. Ted, of course, turned into […]
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