Directors have dreams and producers have products. One slaves over the same story for month or years to express a grand idea. The other counts pennies to deliver a concise product to earn a profit. Everyone else is in between, contracted to perform duties that will ultimately assist the director and producer, as a team and individually. Supporting Characters explores those people in control of a film once it leaves the director’s hands and before the producer delivers it for exhibition. Also, how the post-production process parallels our own lives.

I read The Great Gatsby for the first time a year ago in anticipation for the film’s late 2012 release, however the film was postponed until this past weekend. Yet, it was not until the tragic ending of the film that I reached an understanding of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, now considered a masterpiece. Although it made a soft landing during its initial publication, the novel was nearly forgotten by the time of the author’s death. Baz Luhrman’s 2013 release effectively captures the essence of the novel, a faithful adaptation about the pitfalls of excess, of which, the film offers an ironic but appropriate version in 3D, scored by contemporary hip-hop artists.

Evangelists dominate Sunday morning services in their mega-churches, yoga gurus instruct scantily-clad men and women to contort their bodies in heated rooms, and self-help authors coach their students to create image boards. This is just a small sample of people who lead religious or spiritual lessons to millions of men and women looking for their place in the world, or even their own bodies. Spiritual guidance, in all its many forms, is a vast niche of people looking for something other than materialism, and the documentary Kumaré explores the role of spiritual leaders and how they gain a devoted following through performance art.

How does a massive cinematic franchise return when it unlinks itself from the convergence of another colossal franchise? How does one re-assimilate into society after a major traumatic event, perhaps war, between countries, between galaxies? Iron Man 3 follows Tony Stark’s post-Avengers’ life, the role that disfigurement has on traumatized individuals, and the very real implications of military and terrorist-industrial complexes.