It's... it's full of stars

Charlie Kauffman's "Synechdoche, New York" deserves an essay, not a review. I cannot write that essay right now, so this will have to do. "S, NY" is about Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an acclaimed playwright whose life begins to disintegrate/intensify/evolve. It's about life, death, age, ego, the unconscious, theatre-making, acting, pretending, sex. It's a rich, complex film that I will justly campaign for as an example of a MAM (Modern American Masterpiece). There aren't many of those around. Moviegoers with a distaste in intellectual adventurism need not apply.