Every so often, people criticize films for the most bizarre reasons. "Charlie Kaufman-lite" seems to be a tag that a number of people have tried to stick to "Stranger than Fiction."

First, the film bares little semblance to any of Kaufman's work. More importantly, are there rules out there saying only Andrew Niccol and Charlie Kaufman can come up with clever, original concepts? Or do we want all our films to be formulaic to the nth degree?

I don't think "Stranger than Fiction" is any sort of masterpiece, if it has aged well in my mind in the last few days. It's just that dumb criticisms like this really bother me. But I suppose fancy catchphrases make one look clever!