"Lakeview Terrace" (PG-13) -- Samuel L. Jackson plays a psychotic next-door-neighbor-slash-cop threatening an interracial couple after he sees them having sex through the window.
" Nights in Rodanthe" (PG-13) -- Richard Gere and Diane Lane in a sappy, adulterous, beachside soap opera. I'd rather gargle Drano than watch that.
"The Duchess" (PG-13) -- a British costume drama about an unhappy arranged marriage. Interest level for an 11-year-old boy? Zero.
"Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" (PG-13) -- Teenage indie-music nightlife hipster movie. Pass.
"Eagle Eye" (PG-13) -- This action thriller might have appealed to us, until critics suggested you'd need a full-frontal lobotomy to enjoy it.
In the PG category, we were left with "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" (if you're into diamond-clad, talking mini-pooches), "The Express" (a "true" story with a completely fictitious scene of racist epithets at a West Virginia football game in Morgantown in 1959), and "Fireproof," which is an admirable independent Christian movie about a fireman gaining faith and saving his marriage, but that plot is of negative appeal for the average pre-teen boy.
There was almost one -- one -- possibility, "City of Ember," until I read reviews that thoroughly panned it. A movie dominated by "unclear mythology and sci-fi gibberish" just isn't worth an outing.
What in the world is the problem with Hollywood? Is it just incapable of producing a good, healthy, enjoyable movie for youngsters? I'm not asking for something on the level of "The Sound of Music."
But on second thought -- why not? Hollywood has the talent. It has creative geniuses, both as writers and directors. It has extraordinary actors. Don't any of them have children? And if so, aren't they just as perplexed and saddened that this once-great industry can no longer produce magic?