IT'S NOT COMPLICATED ENOUGH: The problem with It's Complicated goes deeper than its general wish-fulfillment fantasy structure which panders shamelessly to its women-of-a-certain-age target audience. Apparently, it wasn't enough that it's all about the Meryl Streep character being pursued by two desirable, erudite professional men who flatter her and insist she not change a thing, that she was physically and otherwise perfect already (as was her house, pre-renovations). Instead, it had to go further with its tunnel vision and close off any concern to the happiness of every other character in the film -- indeed, when the impact of the lead characters' decisions becomes too inconvenient, they just get disappeared from the film's universe altogether.


Spoiler below the fold (if I've figured out how to this to work) ...

NO, NO, IT'S JUST A CHARACTER I WROTE: I've generally enjoyed both The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire, but a query--is it just me or is co-lead Mikael Blomkvist one of the worst cases of Mary Sue-age ever? Like the late author Stieg Larsson, he's a muckracking journalist for a magazine in financial difficulties, who gets portrayed as smarter than basically everyone else in both books (save only Lisbeth Salander, his fellow investigator), irresistible to women of all varieties, and otherwise leading a glamorous and exciting life.

Discussion on this topic, as well as our occasional "what are you reading now?" topic, is in order, including what books were received for holiday reading and what books you've been reading to make the holiday travel season more bearable.

KENNEDY, I'M ON MY LEARNER'S PERMIT AFTER DARK: Matt Zoller Seitz pens an appreciation of the men he regards as the most important creative forces of the Aughts, Charlie Kaufmann and David Chase. On Kaufmann:

Kaufman defies Hollywood's demands that lead characters must be "relatable," that goals must be clearly defined (and preferably achieved) by the end of the story and that every event must be fed through the industry-sanctioned three-act-structure meat grinder. Each of Kaufman's aughts screenplays had a different tone, a different point, and found a new portal into issues that obsessed him. Taken together, his scripts are more distinctive, creatively unified and relevant to modern life than the collected works of almost any contemporary filmmaker, domestic or foreign -- a formidable achievement in a culture that views directors as gods and writers as chumps.

And Chase, about whom he's written so much great analysis:

The near-total elimination of medium-budget, classically styled adult dramas from mainstream film production this decade coincided with the rise of "Sopranos" and shows that drew inspiration from "The Sopranos." It's impossible to identify the chicken and the egg in that process. Either way, feature films became more like the Marshall McLuhan-era academic's kneejerk stereotype of TV (jumpy, trashy and stupid), while the best of aughts TV, led by Chase, embraced classically cinematic storytelling rhythms and visual grammar.

From Zoller Seitz's Directors of the Decade series.

WHAT WOULD BREESUS DO? While I'd prefer a list which commented upon and related back to its 2009 offerings, that's not going to stop me from pointing you towards the WaPo's annual list of What's In and Out for the New Year (for Hall & Oates, cupcake trucks and pickling, your moment has arrived!), with bonus decennial Fondly Remembered (OutKast, free baggage check, Uma Thurman's yellow track suit) and Good Riddance (Crocs, Uggs, Leno) lists for the Aughts.

COME AT THE KING, YOU BEST NOT MISS: Our Friend Dan Fienberg:

I just completed a hastily assembled list of the Top 31 movies of the decade and "The Wire" towers over any one of them and, as a 60-hour series, probably towers over the totality of my list of 31 movies. I didn't do a list of my favorite books of the decade, but rest-assured that "The Wire" ranks above any novel I've read in the decade, especially as a piece of cumulative storytelling. So, keeping things neat and simple, I have no trouble saying that "The Wire" is the decade's defining creative endeavor.

Soon you start expanding the circle, though. Is "The Wire" the best series ever produced for television? I'd say "Yes," while acknowledging that there's competition.

But looking more broadly still, if I'm teaching a college course on the United States of America and the American Dream -- it's a big topic, so it's probably an intro AmCiv class -- I'm putting "The Wire" on the syllabus next to "Citizen Kane" and "The Godfather II," alongside "Moby Dick," "The Jungle," The Great Gatsby," "Invisible Man" and "The Grapes of Wrath."

Okay, New Year's Cultural Resolution: I guess I should finally start watching those Wire DVDs that I have at home ...

IF YOU LIKE IT THEN YOU SHOULDA GOTTA FEELING: DJ Earworm mashes up the Billboard Top 25 Hits of 2009. Impressive. (Also, his 2007 and 2008 editions.)

JASON CASTRO WILL NOT BE AMUSED: Via PopWatch, some website claims to rank The Ten Worst Muppets and yet manages to skip Rizzo the Rat and Lew Zealand. Go figure.