P.S., We Love You

A life cut too short, but we've still got Hoffman's role as Caesar Honeybee in the next two Hunger Games movies... I'm sorry, it's... Plutarch Heavensbee?  What kind of name is that?  The era of Dr. Strangelove is back!  Murkin Muffly!  General Jack D. Ripper!  Plutarch Heavensbee?  Must be Greek or something.
Of course, we'll all remember Philip as Truman Capote in Capote, and to a lesser extent, his playing  way against type in The Big Lebowski.  But Capote's not even in his IMDb Top 4!  For now, that would Be M:I-III, Moneyball, that sex scene from Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, and Lebowski.  I gotta be honest here: I haven't seen, say, The Savages or sat all the way through Synecdoche, New York.  I'm kind of burned out on the whole indie genre right now, not just his.  I wonder how Joel Schumacher feels about all this.  He praised Hoffman for his work in Flawless, and said something about how he'll always get work as a character actor... in a nice way, of course!  Personally, I'll always cherish his Chris Farley impression in Twister, but that's probably just me.
Anyway, back to business.  We've got two debuts this week at the box office.  First up: it's that awkward Hollywood film after a fresh new star like Miles Teller kicks complete ass in an indie film, and it's appropriately called That Awkward Moment.  Ah, my fellow nerds.  Why don't girls find us attractive?  Is it the high whiny voice?  Is it the short limp penis?  What is it about that combination that's so very unappealing?  What plan does God have in store for us?  Are we all just the genetic defectives doomed to be cast aside by Darwin's perpetual "survival of the fittest" machine?  Or are we the veritable Mystics destined to bond with the jock Skeksis at some rather specific place and time in the future?  If only Earth had two more moons.  So many questions... Anyway, the other debut this week is Labor Day, the Nicholas Sparks-ish story of... whatever.  Redemption, I guess.  Here's my problem: the casting.  Titanic Girl and Brolin Boy?  Really?  These are the two vessels through which we as a society have decided to express our need for love?  Well, it's a little better than, say, Ben Stiller and Kristen Wiig.  Let's just say we look at Labor Day and see who we'd like to be, and we look at the Walter Mitty remake and see more like what we actually are.  Ah, Valentine's Day.  The holiday you love to hate.  More romantic than Labor Day, anyhow.  Incidentally, what does Labor Day have to do with Labor Day, if anything?  And for all you stand-up comedians out there who still don't understand the apparent paradox of Labor Day being a day off from work... it's because our job sucks.