Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Gone Girl’ (2022)

Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Gone Girl’ (2022)

Containers abound in Gone Girl, directed by David Fincher and based on the popular novel by Gillian Flynn, who wrote the screenplay. There are envelopes, which hold the clues for the treasure hunt Amy Elliott Dunne (Rosamund Pike) has prepared for her husband Nick...
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘The Giver’ (2014)

Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘The Giver’ (2014)

Many people refer to their homeland as the mother country. Those people didn’t know The Chief Elder, a matriarch as stern as they come who’s running the show in the country depicted in The Giver. Directed by Philip Noyce and based on the YA book by Lois Lowry, The...
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Get On Up’ (2014)

Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Get On Up’ (2014)

It’s all there. The riffs, the shoes that swivel maniacally as though greased, the slurrified words, the clipped throaty growls. But Tate Taylor’s Get On Up, the biopic of soul-funk innovator and icon James Brown, ups the ante by letting us see the legend living out...
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘The Congress’ (2014)

Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘The Congress’ (2014)

Can the veil that separates Saturnine corporeal reality from the transcendent Neptunian realm actually be a cruel trick devised by Hollywood moguls? Yes, indeed, and it’s the premise of Ari Folman’s part live-action, part animated film The Congress, loosely based on...
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Calvary’ (2014)

Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Calvary’ (2014)

Everyone has a cross to bear. But a parish priest tending his flock in Ireland’s County Sligo has really gotten more than his share in Calvary, a movie that addresses archetypal Pluto issues of power, abandonment and revenge, as well as Neptune themes of sacrifice and...
Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Lucy’ (2014)

Archetypes: Film: Review: ‘Lucy’ (2014)

Luc Besson’s new sci-fi thriller Lucy could easily have been titled Mercury in Hyperdrive, a breathless tale about the archetype that rules thought and communication gone cinematically ballistic. Bigger, faster and stronger describe the new-and-improved mental...