"Before I Speak, I Have Something to Say"

In championing Charlie Kaufman, I’m hardly defending the era in which, by dint of birth, he’s destined to labor in. I mean, if we're getting to pick here, I might sign up for George S.’s era, too – I always wanted to be a rat-a-tat-tat-talking newspaper gal à la Rosalind Russell. Great hats, too. But great hats have about as much relevance in a discussion about the merits of George as do “dick jokes” and W. with Charlie – which is to say, none at all. (And let’s not rose-color the Age of George, either – tell me you didn't cringe when that braying goblin Jimmy Durante crated Rita Hayworth in a mummy’s tomb and carted her off to Nova Scotia [whaaa?]. On second thought, screw the hats – I’ll happily stick with the aughts.)

So what we’re talking about here are two screenwriters – one of whom is stylistically and staggeringly innovative and easily skips from genre, subject, and director while still maintaining his own authorial voice … and one of whom is actually only credited with one original work written for the screen (Night at the Opera).

Now you’ve repeatedly assured me that even though others were called in to adapt Kaufman’s source plays – and, oh, yeah, Kaufman himself had a collaborator on most of those plays – the adaptations are faithful representations of his work. And that’s fine. I’ll take your word for it. Regardless, the roots are showing: In each one of the adaptations I’ve seen, they’ve felt largely stagebound – overlong, hyper-verbal, and aesthetically underwhelming. What happens in a movie outside of the dialogue is just as significant a part of the screenwriter’s work, and nothing in a George Kaufman picture comes close to the vision of a Charlie Kaufman one. And it doesn't matter if it's Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry or George Clooney in the director's seat – when you're watching a movie written by Charlie Kaufman, you know it.

For all my grumbling, I really do like George. He’s a terrific writer (“you have the touch of a love-starved cobra”) and an ace at corralling chaos. But there’s a casual cruelty in his writing that doesn’t jibe at all with all your Saint Georgedness – and I find that cruelty far more off-putting than the supposedly clever and cold Charlie Kaufman. But more about that later.

I might as well as fess up to this now, since you'll out me anyway – and do you see how I’m going to bury this after the jump? Crafty, no? ...

I do not care for the Marx Brothers.

I know. I know. Mark this as my Funny Farm moment of Day 2. (By the way, I've seen the voting tally for yesterday. I am in the tank, my friend.)

I could hem and haw about the less than ideal viewing circumstances of my entrée into the Marx Brothers – on crappy VHS tapes and all alone in my house, without the encouraging laughter of a like-minded audience... but that's just me hedging, because honestly, I always thought I’d be the kind of girl who liked the brothers Marx. I certainly admire what’s come out of them, out of their influence – Woody Allen and Alan Alda, to name two. But this business of negligible plot, setup and punchline, and silly non sequiturs that don’t add up to much more than terribly clever wordplay – all of it leaves pretty cold.

Let the hate mail begin.