Pluto in Capricorn at the movies

In 2009, I posted that Disney Pixar’s Up, an animated film featuring a septuagenarian as its key protagonist is unprecented. I surmised that this reflected the new age of Pluto in Capricorn, where our perceptions about age (Capricorn) are being transformed (Pluto). That the film is an animated feature aimed at children is also significant in that the sign of Capricorn, while representing age and wisdom, produces natives who are supposed to get younger as they grow older.

Up proved phenomenal success, earning nearly US$300 million in the US alone and $450 million in the rest of the world, hugely profitable given that the production budget was about $175 million (source: Box Office Mojo). Grumpy old Carl became a household face in weeks. Sure, there have been films about old people getting young, and Ron Howard’s 1985 Cocoon is one example, but the pensioners in Cocoon eventually had to leave on a spaceship to retain their youthfulness. Carl is old and youthful.

A tale of two (work) cultures

Kermit as Bob Cratchit in A Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.

— Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

Once upon a time, there was an astro-blogger who tried to make sense of two very different work cultures she experienced while working for the same institution. Whether it was because she was born under the sign of the Twins, or that as a Gemini, she was more sensitive to dualities, she found, soon after she started her new job, that she would be working for two different bosses under two sub-groups within the larger organisation. As time went on, it became clear that the two managerial styles, and thus the group work cultures emerging from under them, could not be more opposed.

One was very Jupiterian (say Group 1) — forward- and outward-looking; the other very (almost too) Saturnian (say Group 2) — always cautious, always fearful, always looking over one’s shoulder. While the larger umbrella organisation was already itself Saturnian (Saturn rules institutions), there was never any danger that the Jupiterian culture of Group 1 would indulge itself excessively (this is the era of budget cuts after all); but it meant that the Saturnian culture of Group 2 found its own paranoia reinforced. Jupiterian optimism in Group 1 meant that meetings with them always ended up trying to look for positive ways to work around budget cuts and other limits, while still trying to maintain standards and produce results; and Saturnian caution in Group 2 meant that meetings with them always ended up listing all the things they could never achieve.

The Sunshine Boy

The Sunshine Boy (Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, Iceland 2009)

There are some films that have the power to change the world, and I hope this one actually proves it.

Fridrik Thor Fridriksson directs this documentary about one woman’s journey to try and understand her autistic son’s mind. In adopting the voice of one mother’s search for answers, and help, for her son, the film introduces the wide spectrum of effects this condition can have on individuals and families, many of them heart-breaking.

I/Thou/We/They

The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self-awareness
— Annie Savoy (played by Susan Sarandon), Bull Durham (Ron Shelton, 1988)

Aural textures

Is it possible for auras to have textures? Words use to describe auras tend to be visual: clear, bright, dark, murky, and so on; sometimes even in colours. Is it possible to come into contact with someone whose aura feels slimey? Where coming into contact with them makes you feel the need to scrub it off later?

Melancholy baby

I have been weepy all week.

There. I’ve come out and said it. Ordinarily, I’d wait to process the pain before confessing to it, my Capricorn moon preferring to hide in the basement until it passes, but I have been bolstered by the courage of those like the inimitable Lucy Looking Upward to bear their souls and share mine.

Put it down to the yod in my chart, the Hades Moon, the current Pluto transits, or the once-in-a-lifetime Jupiter-Neptune-Chiron conjunction (personally, I prefer Lucy’s more colourful ‘Clusterfuck of Doom’), it doesn’t really matter. In reality, it’s probably all the above exerting tremendous pressure on my 7th house Venus in Cancer.

We are reminded constantly of the message behind this rare triple conjunction: wounding, awareness, healing, and so on. Personally, I wouldn’t mind the occasional dose of Neptunian anaesthesia from time to time. I know I’m supposed to take lessons from it, I know I am being asked to re-assess what I value, I just wish it didn’t have to feel like a botched bikini wax, metaphorically speaking.

How you know Pluto is really in Capricorn now

The opening film at this year’s Cannes film festival stars a 78-year- old animated retiree who decides to go on a balloon adventure. An unprecedented choice of subject and medium.

If you build it, they will come

Nearly 20 years after its release, the signature phrase from Field of Dreams (1989) has entered the popular consciousness. Its message of hope and optimism may seem rather naive, or relevant (depending on one’s inclination), given the madness that we seem to be embroiled in today.

Late to bed and later to rise

I recently discovered something called the B-Society, and no, for once, it is not something from a Japanese manga series (that would be B Complex, B Reaction, B Shock ).

Remembrance of film(s) past

To continue with the Proustian reference from the last post, I’ve had a wonderful revisiting of a film by Shunji Iwai called Love Letter (1995). Can’t believe it’s been 12 years since I last saw it. But as they say in Zen, time is an illusion, n’est-ce pas?