what's on the main menu?

After dinner on a weeknight, I often like to saddle up in front of the television and watch a DVD. In the mornings, I tend to read and mobile-blog on the trains (as I'm doing now) and listen to music. And for about 8 hours-a-day I'm in front of a computer at work, researching and writing for rather technical reports. Thus, the few hours before bed then become dedicated to rather mindless activity.
Tuesday night was the movie "Click", pretty much a modern-day version of It's a Wonderful Life, and last night I watched the first Macaulay Culkin movie I'd seen in a long time, called "Saved!". I really knew little about Saved before popping it in the disk player, and although the overall mood of the movie was rather "after-school special", I put the educational undertones aside and, for the most part, enjoyed it. Sure, at that point in the day, I'm likely to enjoy anything with a storyline and a credit role, but the movie managed to take the pieces of an old formula (in this case, an antagonist up against restrictive social conditions that not only threaten to stifle her self-expression, but also the stability of her future due to poor decisions made in the past - hence a simultaneous search for redemption and a new, more ideal ideology) and mix them together in such a way that it made an enjoyable picture to watch. The basic elements of the story are tried and true, but it doesn't always turn out so well. In fact, Click tried to pull off something along the same lines - granted, in a radically different context - by putting an old formula in a new package, but I didn't ever question the outcome or the feel the internal struggle of the main character.
Before putting in Saved!, actually, I was going to watch a wacked out, pirated version of the animated movie Chicken Little. For those that laugh at my intention to watch a "kids'" movie, just wait til I tell you about the translation job someone performed. The setting for English audio was actually French and the English sub-titles were probably composed by a teenager making his debut in the translation biz, but embarrassed with the movie's kiddie dialogue, deciding to jazz it up a bit so that Chicken Little proclaims his surprise with four-letter expletives quite unbecoming of an animated bird boy.
Nonetheless, my transformation into a nightly arm-chair critic (sans arm-chair) seems an enjoyable way to spend time relaxing after work. And although my daily formula for activity doesn't always add a twist, at least I hope this wonderful life defies the formulaic or at least comes with extra selections to be enjoyed following the main feature. One more day and then it's the weekend! :)