Film.com's FREE movie of the week is "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror." This 1922 classic of cinema based on Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (but with names changed) directed by F.W. Murnau and starring Max Schrek in one of films most famous and frightening make-up jobs.
Hunter "Patch" Adams was criticized in his official medical school record for "excessive happiness" and was once told by a faculty advisor, "If you want to be a clown, join a circus." Patch did, in fact, want to be a clown. But he also wanted to be a physician. Combining vastly different sides of his personality, he became both. Patch's remarkable story, which includes having been a patient and a doctor at a mental institute, celebrates the triumph of spirited individualism and the unending pursuit of an idealistic dream.
In a good movie, the hero faces difficulties that the audience can recognize and identify with, and he overcomes them through his own strength and tenacity. That's in a good movie. In a bad movie -- say, Patch Adams, to choose one…
