Introduction Joseph Campbell’s seminal 1949 work on mythic structure, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, postulated that there was only one myth in the world (the “monomyth”) which was told and retold with endless variations by every culture on earth. Heavily influenced by Freud and Jung, he argued that the monomyth is universal because it [...]

SPOILERS ALERT 3:10 to Yuma (Mangold, 2007) could have been great. It could have been about a perverse desire of the Good Man to be the criminal he sought to bring justice to, the man who could take what he could and feel free of judgment or ties to a simple life. At one point, [...]

Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others; von Donnersmarck, 2006) Germany This German film won the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Picture the year it released (2006). It came out of nowhere and beat out the front-runner Pan’s Labyrinth for the prize. It shocked me at the time, but having seen the film now [...]