by Coeli Carr | Aug 16, 2013
Given that the protagonist of Lee Daniels’ The Butler does the bidding of others for a living, the theme of service – tied to Neptunian self-abnegation and passivity – is the heart of this movie. Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), a based-on-a-true-story fictional... 
by Coeli Carr | Aug 15, 2013
In Joshua Michael Stern’s Jobs, our first glimpse of Steve Jobs (Ashton Kutcher) is at the Apple Town Hall staff meeting in 2001, as he’s making his way towards the podium minutes before introducing the iPod. He’s walking his idiosyncratic forward-leaning walk – short... 
by Coeli Carr | Aug 14, 2013
Sometimes child emotional abuse continues well into adulthood. You Will Be My Son, a French film directed by Gilles Legrand, explores a parent-child relationship in which the earnest adult son of a renown and highly successful vintner in Saint-Emilion just can’t... 
by Coeli Carr | Aug 13, 2013
The female character portrayed by Golshifteh Farahani in The Patience Stone – co-written and directed by Atiq Rahimi, the Afghan-born filmmaker who also wrote the novel on which his movie is based – has every reason to be talking to herself. She’s a young Muslim woman... 
by Coeli Carr | Aug 13, 2013
Kick-Ass 2 may be a live-action cartoon, but its clear-eyed sentiments go well below the surface. The movie, directed by Jeff Wadlow, poses the question of whether the costumed life one takes on – as do the superheroes here – is more true and valid than one’s “real”... 
by Coeli Carr | Aug 9, 2013
In a World…, a smart girl-power movie starring, and written and directed by Lake Bell, is literally about our heroine’s defining (Saturn) her own voice (Mercury). Carol (Bell) is a speech and vocal coach, whose dream is to make it big as voice-over artist. Her... 