In 2000, a willfully ugly all-new model appeared, and although 2001's UK300 version was a belter, 2003's facelift easier on the eye and the later WR1 managed to wring 311bhp out of that redoubtable 2.0-litre flat-four, the momentum was gradually, inevitably slipping away.
But "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" had its detractors, and though his performance in it as a willfully mute grandfather is touching, he doesn't propel that story the way his rival does his.
On Sunday, though, the joke was on viewers as Cyrus performed her power ballad "Wrecking Ball" in front of a willfully amateurish image of a cat mouthing the tune's anguished lyrics.
On one intriguing original on the new album, "I Got It Easy," Mr. Bublé seems to hint at his own good fortune: "Now I'm not trying to brag about it," he sings in the bridge, though a willfully ungenerous reading of the song might suggest that he is.
And in "Miller's Crossing" (1990), a willfully somber look, indebted to "The Godfather" and 1930's gangster pictures, does little to illuminate a needlessly complicated yarn that lifts moods and motifs from the work of Dashiell Hammett to no emotional purpose.
And because Lydia is a willfully bland woman living in the suburbs, Ali has written a novel about a willfully bland woman living in the suburbs.
