Charlie Kaufman is one of the most gifted and distinctive screenwriters in the movie business, and with the recent release of his directorial debut Synecdoche, New York on DVD, I decided to take a look back at his career to date, particularly his original screenplays. Each original Kaufman film has its share of ardent admirers, but according to the Screengrab readership, none is better than his mindbending relationship story, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Sunshine brought Kaufman his only Oscar to date, and clearly the voters agreed with the movie’s awesomeness, having given it a full 50% of the vote against some pretty heavy competition. That competition, of course, includes a number of critical and cult favorites, including Being John Malkovich (his first produced screenplay) and Adaptation., which garnered 17% of the vote apiece. Synecdoche, being rather more downbeat and divisive than its predecessors, hasn’t generated as much as enthusiasm as those other films, but 11% of voters (myself included) were passionate enough about it to choose it first in this company. And even the “flop” of the bunch, 2002’s Human Nature nonetheless was the favorite of 6% of you (as mentioned last week, I excluded Confessions of a Dangerous Mind for the reason that the film’s strangeness has at least as much to do with its subject and source material as it does with Kaufman).

This week, in conjunction with this weekend’s release of I Love You, Man, we take a look at the film’s leading man, Paul Rudd. Over the last decade, Rudd has morphed into one of the most dependable comic actors in the business, in addition to his other actorly gifts. True, he might have made some questionable career choices (what could have convinced him that co-starring with Eva Longoria Parker in Over Her Dead Body was a good career move?), but in my opinion Rudd, when he’s on his game, is one of the funniest guys in movies. After all, both Judd Apatow and the boys from The State have made Rudd a regular collaborator. So which is your favorite Paul Rudd comic performance? Forced to boil my list down to only a handful of Rudd’s films, I’ve chosen two Apatow productions and two from the State guys, but since there were plenty of other options to choose from, I’ve included an “other” pick for all you fans of Knocked Up or The Chateau.



As always, the comments section is open, especially for those of you who choose “Other.” See you next week!