I had never heard of Adam Shankman until I rented the completely awful movie he directed last year, “Bringing Down the House”. Now I know that Shankman also has credits as mostly a choreographer and sometimes an actor, so now he has taken up directing. Maybe he’ll become an opera singer next year…………

His distinguished movies include, “The Pacifier”with Vin Diesel, “The Wedding Planner”, “Cheaper by the Dozen 2” (2006), and the TV series “Monk”.

“Bringing Down the House” epitomizes the infantilization of Hollywood moviemaking. There is a sickeningly sweet soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin, and sitcom stupid performances by Betty White, Steve Martin and Queen Latifah. Filmed on location in Pasadena in sky blue perfection, the film features a white family who lives in a two million dollar house and is harassed by a low class black woman who wants to clear her name. The comic timing is non-existent, the dialogue could have been written by a fifth grader, the plot goes nowhere slowly.

Who are these studio heads who bestow millions of dollars on directors, writers and others who have zero talent and would have been thrown out on their asses in the days of Louis B. Mayer, Harry Cohn and Darryl F. Zanuck? The soulless corporate movies of today are the equivalent of McDonalds : full of advertising and product placement, inside every mall, beloved by the masses, and nutritionally empty. They excel as money driven, technical and marketing vehicles slammed straight into our cerebrums.

Who is Adam Shankman? He’s the man directing the next movie you won’t want to see and probably won’t remember.