Stars
ENTERTAINMENT
with Lilith
AS UR ANUS RETROGR ADE IN ARIES K I C K S O F F A F I V E- M O N T H DA N C E S -W I T H A N G E R T R A N S I T, R O C K B A N D T H E S C R I P T ’ S LY R I C S O F F E R A C R E AT I V E O P T I O N : TA K E T H AT R A G E , P U T I T O N T H E P A G E , TA K E T H E P A G E T O T H E S TA G E . . . ARIES: With Uranus in your sign joining Pluto, Saturn and Neptune retrograde, this is a great time to dig in. Nest. Flex your creative muscles, get stuck into your favourite interests. And most importantly, find graceful ways of dealing with distractions and intrusions – snappy reactions won’t make you or anyone else happy.
LIBRA: This week’s leonine vibes in your social sector promise gratifying gettogethers, extravagant gestures, creative solutions, heaps of appreciation, and won’t be averse to a spot of luxury spending. You’ll probably have to umpire personality clashes reminiscent of old-time circus-ring lion-taming though, so polish up on those whip skills.
TAURUS: Retrograde, shmetrograde – the present power-saving planetary pace suits you right down to the ground those Tauran hooves stand on. And with your planetary diva Venus in the sign of home base, that’s where this week’s action is: with visitors, rellies, tradies and unexpected guests. Considering renos? Go for it.
SCORPIO: The life of Scorpio’s firing impressively right now, exercising your talents to full stretch. Self-promotion works well this week, especially if you strike out from the familiar comfort zone and take a chance on doing something new. While innovation can pay off, making significant decisions without consultation isn’t recommended.
GEMINI: With the coming month’s astral emphasis in Gemini’s communications department you’re networking dervishes, all over the latest techno innovations. Information, ideas and media are your thing, but also the place you need to take the most care this week not to cross lines via gossip, hearsay, rumour or fake news. CANCER: August brings two big eclipses, during which you lunar beings are advised that the moon space shuttle was only ever on track a small percentage of its journey – mostly it was coursecorrecting. Like life on Earth, which needs attention this week to material world earnings, investments, savings, assets and paperwork – just saying. LEO: With feisty, argumentative Mars behaving like a temperamental rock star, feelings you’ve kept under wraps, even from yourself, could surface to sabotage this week’s interactions. Best suggestions? Don’t be stubborn. Do compromise. Avoid emotional extremes. Maintain your composure. Take the lead as diplomatic negotiator, peace ambassador and patient mediator. VIRGO: Has some project been languishing in the pending file? Blaming yourself only ends up in the guilts, but how does the prospect of revisiting it in a creative new way appeal? Retrograde planetary moves tend to reconnect us to unfinished business, making this week ripe for another try: a wholehearted, give-ityour-best effort.
SAGITTARIUS: Retrograde Uranus brings surprises, not always of the welcome variety, and Venus in Cancer is often highly emotional. Being deliberately provocative or challenging isn’t this week’s smartest move; playing good listener will be way more rewarding. To paraphrase a popular saying, don’t waste any opportunity for eloquent silence. CAPRICORN: With pushy Mars in proud Leo pressuring this month’s eclipses and retrogrades, self interest’s rampant and unexpressed feelings, unaddressed issues or ongoing conflicts could erupt. During late-week Capricorn moon remember that being right doesn’t necessarily get you liked. And that most dramas benefit from a little humour and a lot of tolerance. AQUARIUS: Relationships of all kinds – public, private, committed, casual, cordial and competitive – are this week’s focus. As Venus activates your emotional history (sometimes confronting for Aquirkians), your primo planet Uranus settles in for a spot of detoxing. Modern technologies are your forte, so find inventive new ways to make peace with the past.
CINEMA REVIEWS BY JOHN CAMPBELL
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES
PARIS CAN WAIT
Obviously, being a Coppola makes it easier to get a director’s gig. Eleanor (wife of Francis) has provided us with a movie that is both a puerile and glossy travelogue of business-class France and a terminally boring homage to gluttony and pomposity. You can almost see in the thought bubbles above the heads of her characters Anne and Jacques (Diane Lane and Arnaud Viard), as they sit down to yet another 5-star Michelin meal, the words ‘I wonder what the poor people are doing?’ Anne’s husband, Michael (Alec Baldwin, receiving more money than you or I will earn in a year for barely remembering his trite lines) is a Hollywood producer who has to fly from Provence to Hungary to oversee another major project.
Following on from Rise of (2011) and Dawn of (2014), Matt Reeves’s film completes what no appreciation of fine food has been a brilliant and unexand wine. She rolls her eyes pectedly profound trilogy. ecstatically at everything End of days is approaching Jacques orders. And what in the long conflict between a supreme achievement of man and ape. Taking refuge culinary art it is that escarin the depths of the forest, gots need to be cooked alive. Caesar (Andy Serkis) and (The French are so sophistihis tribe have been hunted cated, didn’t you know?) Every down by the US army. After mouthful she takes is like a devastating loss, Caesar is entering heaven, while the torn between taking flight Frenchman – so recherché in and leading his apes across his love of les fags – tells her the desert to a promised land, all she or anybody needs to or seeking bloody revenge know about the grog they are on the bald Colonel (Woody drinking. Harrelson) who has gone Thankfully, the movie’s cringe feral and is a law unto himself (Brando’s Kurtz is the gift that is apparent early, when Anne keeps giving in apocalyptic sighs, ‘Why do flowers smell so much better in France than epics such as this). in the States?’ (vomit), so you Having acquired the language can at least get a handle on of his former keepers, Caesar the voguish emptiness of it all. has also learnt from them to A bit of candy-arsed flirting put vengeance before other happens along the way, but considerations – so he goes sadly, this is a film of appalling after the Colonel. Caesar is cliché made for people who remarkably believable, not have never travelled.
just for the creature’s faultless facial expressions, but also because he is a chimp struggling with the homo sapiens instincts that he absorbed in his captive youth. In pursuit of the Colonel, he and his band of close followers adopt an orphaned, pretty young girl (Amiah Miller) who has lost the power of speech as a result of the simian flu that has affected our species. Her name, Nova, is not exactly a subtle indicator of the future that lays in wait for her in the evolving world order, but the film is otherwise not lacking in nuance or keen observation of social mores and behaviour. Nor is it short on references to cinema classics (Spartacus, The Great Escape, even Cool Hand Luke among them). Again being written by Mark Bomback (and Reeves), it is a seamless successor to Dawn, with perfectly coherent and recognisable characters. Visually, the action takes place in a dark, wintery landscape that accentuates the gravity of the drama and, augmented by Michael Giacchino’s intense, brooding score, the effect is gripping from start to finish. And the labour-camp scene in which Nova brings food to Caesar is an absolute heartbreaker.
Anne, poor thing, has an earache that prevents her from joining him on the private jet to Budapest (life is so demanding for the rich), so Jacques, Michael’s associate, volunteers to drive Anne to Paris in his convertible retro Peugeot. And guess what? Jacques knows every best restaurant in the world between there and the City of Light. This might come as a surprise too, but Anne, not having Gallic sensitivities, has
PISCES: Hard to tell fact from exaggerated claims and fantastic fictions this week, but don’t take the strength of someone’s convictions as an accurate gauge of their worth. Sidestep damage control by checking background sources, verifying information, and if something seems just too good to be true it probably is.
North Coast news daily: www.echonetdaily.net.au
The Byron Shire Echo August 2, 2017 43