Why do movies suck?

The simplest answer is filmmakers' lack of imagination, of course. But as Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon explain in their memoir -- an indispensable Christmas present for any would-be screenwriter who'd sell his grandmother and soul to get a Lexus -- the most successful writers TRY to be unimaginative. They live to sell concepts that can be expressed in a dozen words or less, and Hollywood producers revere them.

The book's title is "Writing Movies for Fun and Profit," and the words "Fun and" have been crossed out with a red pencil. (It comes from Touchstone Books and costs $23.99. Even if you have no intention of prostituting yourself in Hollywood, you'll get $24 worth of laughs.)

These guys know whereof they speak. They have worked on "Night at the Museum" and its sequel, the Jimmy Fallon/Queen Latifah turkey "Taxi," "Herbie Fully Loaded" and "The Pacifier," which along with their other films have collectively grossed more than a billion dollars. They're now collaborating on "Hell Baby," described this way on IMDB: "An expectant couple who move into the most haunted house in New Orleans call upon the services of the Vatican's elite exorcism team to save them from a demonic baby." Nuff said!

What makes their book so entertaining is that they speak truth so bluntly. Most of us assume moronic movies are failed attempts to do better work, but their theory is the opposite: Hollywood strives to make movies as bland, derivative and free of novelty or daring as possible, in order to appeal to the widest possible audience. That audience often can't tell the difference or doesn't care, so everyone involved goes home rich. (An example: The $177 million U.S. gross for the brain-dead "Night at the Museum 2.")

Their book offers frank, funny advice about real situations: joining the Writers Guild of America, entering arbitration over credits, what to do when your movie goes into turnaround (i.e. the person who fought for you at the studio gets fired, and his replacement hates you). You could use it as a guide to breaking into the business, while laughing over chapters with titles such as "I'm Drinking Too Much: Is That a Problem?" and "Why Does Almost Every Studio Movie Suck Donkey Balls?"

The book's depressing if you take it seriously, because it implies that thousands of people who might otherwise be at least slightly creative have devoted themselves to feeding you junk food. But as long as audiences buy that junk food cheerfully, why should they make anything else?