FilmMattic

Strains, Lanes and Automatons        Not quite the year of Planes, Trains and Automobiles , 2011 distinguished itself as the year, which demonstrated Hollywood's recidivist tendencies (bad habits), driven, unsurprisingly, by a strong capitalistic urge to promote superheroes, comic book characters, and any other potentially robust profit stream; I guess the ancillary benefits associated with excessive merchandising are too potent a force (sadly Luke Skywalker would pose no threat to the gross infiltration of Hollywood executives, after all, his franchise helped establish the model). Indeed, 2011 was the year of the superhero. But these monetarily-inspired incarnations, while neither transcendent nor groundbreaking, were quite commendable ( X-Men: First Class, Thor, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 ), revealing an advantageous benefit of superhero hysteria: Successful blending of art-house and commercial fare.       Obj...

Compassion For Life       Embedded in Will Reiser's autobiographical script, which springs to life from the jovial stewardship of Jonathan Levine ( The Wackness ), is an axiom of humanity that I, myself, learned from an Eastern Philosophies class after being subjected to a quaint little film, Patch Adams . This axiom, transplanting space and time, consists of a core human function: Compassion. While Patch treats this universal philosophy blithely, almost in a reductive course, the message still resonates. A philosophy of compassion, exemplified in the treatment of patients through humor and humility, is one I suspect Reiser identifies with most closely.