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Characters On The Couch

How a psychologist thinks about your favorite Film & TV characters.

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Dallas Buyers Club - How to buy a Will to Live

DALLAS BUYERS CLUB 
How to Buy a Will to Live

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

There are two radical choices when faced with a death sentence: jolt into a potent sobriety and fight to live. Or, sink into despair so deep that drugs are a greater solace than fighting the monster killing you. Ron Woodroof, played brilliantly by Matthew McConaughey (Golden Globe Best Actor), in Dallas Buyer’s Club, chooses the …

Read moreDALLAS BUYERS CLUB 
How to Buy a Will to Live
The Wolf of Wall Street There are no friends in the world of Greed

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET
No Friends In A World Of Greed

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street is an indulgently voyeuristic picture of MORE, MORE, MORE, (we call it Greed), at every level. Money, sex, drugs – there’s no stopping the film’s main characters, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his cohorts, from their purely hedonistic pursuits. And, yet, that’s still not enough. Is Martin Scorsese …

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No Friends In A World Of Greed
SAVING MR BANKS: You Think This Movie is About Saving Mr. Banks ... Oh Dear

You Think This Movie is About SAVING MR. BANKS? Oh, Dear…

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Saving Mr. Banks takes many of us back to delicious childhood memories of Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke singing “Jolly Holiday,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” “Let’s Go Fly a Kite,” and “A Spoonful of Sugar Makes The Medicine Go Down.” Yet, what we couldn’t know as children is the heartbreaking story behind PL Travers’ Mary Poppins; a trauma …

Read moreYou Think This Movie is About SAVING MR. BANKS? Oh, Dear…
Heartburn A Novel by Nora Ephron

HEARTBURN
A Novel by Nora Ephron

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

“’Tis the season to be jolly.” It’s also the season to miss people. Nora Ephron is someone to be missed. She could make us laugh at our necks, and at almost anything. Her novel, Heartburn (a barely fictionalized account of the end of her marriage), even manages to make us laugh at divorce. Why does she …

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A Novel by Nora Ephron
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS Can Ruthlessness and Empathy Coexist?

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
Can Violence & Empathy Coexist?

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

I grip my armrests. As Captain Phillips begins, the theater becomes the USS Maersk Alabama. We, the audience, are the crew, stormed by Somali pirates bent on winning their power battle no matter what. It’s terrifying, and Paul Greengrass’s riveting documentary-style film Captain Phillips makes that terror almost unbearable. But there’s more to the film than …

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Can Violence & Empathy Coexist?
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Inspiration

“We come to Film and TV to find our hidden stories. If we look deeply into a character’s psyche, there is much to see about ourselves.”

Recent Posts

The Power of the Dog Why Phil Burbank’s Cruelty is About What He Hates in Himself
SOUND OF METAL How Silence Stops A Man From Running
The Father Dementia and The Fight To Hold Onto Who He Was

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