Beware of any youngish mainstream director of “big inclusive” family comedies whose films have made mountains of money, who seems fairly satisfied with his life and his work, who giggles and guffaws when he watches his work, who graduated from Yale at age 20 and who seems to be “genuinely excited all the time,” and who believes that making good comedies are “about doing what you love, with people you love, for the fun of it…that’s the point.”

Okay, you needn’t beware, but I hate guys like this. Guys with lovely supportive wives and big homes and a couple of kids and a nice flagstone patio and several wise investments. I despise people who’ve figured out how to get rich (and make their corporate employers rich) by jiggering their movies just so and then covering them with kid-friendly family sauce. I hate pat. I hate nice easygoing movies that look a little bit too attractive. I hate carefully key-lighted hair.

And so I hate movies like Night at the Museum, Just Married, Cheaper by the Dozen,The Pink Panther, etc.

Films like this have their place. They entertain people who aren’t looking for much. They pay for other kinds of movies. And guys who crank them out are not Beelzebub. But they give me the creeps all the same.

I don’t really hate Night at the Museum. I saw it for the first time on a plane, and I was marginally entertained. I watched it without sound, though. It may have played better that way.

I was going to mention this yesterday, but I was driving around Long Beach Island and doing a Lebowski thing.