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"My favorite short film of 2007, Matthew Lessner's By Modern Measure is a masterfully executed gem, which uses beautifully grainy black-and-white film and French New Wave techniques to comment on just how difficult it is to make an honest romantic connection in our commercialized and corny modern world. But there's a sincerity and gravity to the work that makes it more just mere satire and elevates it to greatness. This, my friends, is what short films should be."

- Michael Tully, Indiewire

“Recent banter about the independent film scene, particularly with regards to young filmmakers, charges that the works are essentially apolitical. Interested in insular worlds dominated by personal mishaps and mayhems, signed by a lo-fi, digital aesthetic or with lo-lit 16mm print, these indies, now so common in the scene, eschew world issues at large, exploring in their creative spaces instead, the “I” of collective existence. Somehow, oddly these individual explorations, many beautifully drawn, fall prey to ridicule for their narrow scope, and while this extreme reaction is often unjustified, there is a bite of excitement when a young filmmaker delves into the absurdities of society and politics with keen focus and a clear vision.

“ With both his short film By Modern Measure, filmmaker Matthew Lessner does just that with great ease. Under his guidance, political and social commentary surfaces to extenuate humor; it’s never didactic and always sharp-witted. By Modern Measure riffs off the French New Wave, following two wandering twenty-somethings in an exploration of modern society at a peak of socially-conscious befuddlement.

“ And, so it happens that Lessner is a young filmmaker who’s doing just those things that sources report other young indie directors are straying from. When he’s told all this about the nature of his work, Lessner says, quite humbly, “I appreciate that"

- Noralil Ryan Fores, Short End Magazine

“Lessner’s sideways look at modern US Culture has a wry humour, poetic presentation and an undercurrent of compassion for the US he berates.”

- Holly Grigg-Spall, Screen International Magazine

“A perfect short film. It’s tight, smart, funny and sad. It reaches back to the French New Wave to shed light on the MySpace Generation.”

- Lya Guerra, SXSW

"A poignant comment on the decided lack of political agitation in our own generation (Y)."

- Kristin MacDonald, The Michigan Daily

"Love stories are unique, thrilling and romantic. Aren't they? Choosing the form of a black and white road movie, Matthew Lessner caricatures the banality of fiction films that sell the illusion of love as a mixture of destiny and entertaining dialogues. As in Richard Linklater's BEFORE SUNSET, a boy and girl meet by coincidence and spend a day together. Since they are both Americans falling in love in front of an American Taco store, they are not threatened by the foreseeable separation of Linklater's protagonists, who share only one day in Vienna before they must continue on journeys with different destinations. So, what could prevent the couple from staying together? Perhaps indifference, boredom and the fact that they both suffer from skewed perceptions, fed by the odds and ends of internet information and the omnipresent imagery of advertisements and interchangeable action films. A highly entertaining criticism of a visual and emotional conformism, the film is vital proof of an innovative art, that claims America back from the producers of American stereotypes."

- Heike Kuehn

"I loved this film, I laughed the entire time, and for reasons I knew not why. Lessner creates this pompous atmosphere, sets his story down in modern suburbia with two young people and then asks “How can they be so void of priority, when the world is in such peril?” Yet, he does it with a chuckle, and never wags his finger at us."

- Felix Vasquez Jr., Film Threat

"A clever and playful swipe at the MySpace generation."

- John Razook, The Austin Chronicle