Passionate intensity

[J]ust when you think it’s safe to go back to the movies, the plunger sucks up something from a clogged drain like the unspeakable, unpronounceable Synecdoche, New York, and you’re forced to take back every prematurely made prophecy about “the worst movie ever made.” Because no matter how bad you think the worst movie ever made ever was, you have not seen Synecdoche, New York. It sinks to the ultimate bottom of the landfill, and the smell threatens to linger from here to infinity. —Rex Reed, NY Observer

[Peter Vansittart's] first novel, "I am the World," about the rise and fall of a dictator, was published in 1942. One critic pronounced it "the worst book ever published," a judgment that Mr. Vansittart managed to shrug off as he embarked on a writing career that would produce about 50 novels and dozens of other works. —William Grimes, "Peter Vansittart, 88, Historical Novelist" (obituary), NYT