Who gets 21 million dollars to make a movie spun out of an arcane figure of speech? Charlie Kaufman does. His latest puzzler SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK is another onion-layered, art-vs-illusion, reality-vs-metafiction gimmick a la Malkovich, but at the end of the day, who cares? It’s 8 1-2 with a death wish, or a more self-serious STRANGER THAN FICTION. — Jeff Schultz