Over at the American Mental Health Foundation, America contributor William Van Ornum looks at anxiety and autism in the film "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close":
Finally Hollywood has discovered a good man with the right stuff to play the part of an incredibly loving father who happens to be a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, loves baseball, and who has just a enough of Asperger's syndrome qualities (a mere scent) to bond closely with his nine-year-old, a boy so riddled with fears that when he sees the swing set in Central Park he immediately sees in his mind an awful swing crash catastrophe. Dad finds unlimited fun ways to engage his intellectually gifted and timid boy, through fantasy trips and excavations of all kind, topped by the search for the Sixth Borough of New York, which floated away from the city one day and never returned. Read the rest here.
The film was nominated this morning for an Academy Award in the category of Best Picutre. America already has weighed in on several other nominees in that category. Check out our reviewers' opinions before you enter your Oscar pool:
James Martin, S.J., reflected on Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life."
Online editor Tim Reidy looked at Alexander Payne's "The Descendants."
Michael V. Tueth writes about what 'The Help' has to say and about Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris."
And John P. McCarthy writes about Steven Spielberg's "War Horse."
