A few years back, we introduced a movie night ritual into our family. Initially on Friday, this was switched to Saturday a year ago when Brittany had dance class on Friday evening. This year it's Nicole's turn to dance Friday night, and classes on both Saturday and Sunday don't end until 4:00 p.m. As a result, movie night has now evolved from a regular date to any night that we feel like watching a movie. Last night was one of those nights.

Outside of the Disney/Pixar canon and a few others of note, there is not a lot worth seeing that is appropriate for pre-teens. I would think the ratio of bad to good is something like three to one, and the good often tends to be good only in comparison to the alternatives. And while there have been some very pleasant movie night surprises (such as "Big Fat Liar", "Max Keeble's Big Move" and "What A Girl Wants"), these have been more than made up for by such terrifying experiences as "Uptown Girls", "Cheaper by the Dozen", "Are We There Yet?" and, the worst of the worst, "The Lizzie McGuire Movie" (which somehow sucked away the charm of a basically tolerable television series). By the way, if anyone can explain Brittany Murphy's career to me, I'm all ears. Because I haven't seen her breasts yet, and at this point I can only assume that a lot of producers have seen them and more.

(I did a quick Google images search to see if the public unveiling of Ms. Murphy's breasts had somehow evaded my antennae, and was disappointed to discover it had not. There were some quite pleasant photos caught in the Google net, but nothing so wonderful as to make me think there isn't more to her career than is evident on the surface. After all, there are many, many girls who are much more attractive than Brittany Murphy, and no one is throwing away money making movies with them that nobody goes to see.)

The girls stayed home sick from school yesterday afternoon, and we decided last evening to watch "Racing Stripes" on The Movie Network, now in its final week on the On Demand channel, which is where I watch most of my movies. As films go, it ranks in the bottom third or so of what I've seen: predictable, sentimental, manipulative, illogical - you get it, all the things one expects from a piece of cinema aimed at the softer parts of children's brains. After listening to Frankie Muniz for 90+ minutes, I am beginning to doubt that he has any future as an actor, since his vocal range is almost non-existent. But there were two redeeming performances from the voice actors: Joe Pantoliano as a Sopranosish pelican named Goose, and David Spade as a fly named Scuzz. A confession: I think Spade is hilarious, and can only attribute his lack of a real movie career to one of bad choices or poor opportunities. It may just be that I like him because he's a smartass, but as a guy who tends to sit at the back of the room making wisecracks himself, I sense a kindred soul.

That was over by 7:30, and since the ailing children and my wife all hit the hay early, I chose to watch another movie to flush the stench of "Racing Stripes" out of my nostrils. At 9:00 was the final Movie Network airing of "American Splendor", and I am glad I stayed up for it. The story of comic book writer Harvey Pekar, it mixes reenactments, archival footage and present-day interviews to tell the story. Scenes from Pekar's books are recreated then dissolve into the drawing from the book, and many scenes have thought bubbles or blocks of text setting the scene as in a comic book. It's a very clever and creative film, and Paul Giamatti is amazing in the lead, wearing a perpetual scowl on his face.

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I hate my job today. Just thought I'd share that.