The presence of a Hollywood icon as an actor and director cannot overcome the predictability in the script in “Blood Work.”

Clint Eastwood stars as Terry McCaleb, a veteran FBI profiler similar to Eastwood himself in having an enviable record and struggling to stay in the game for longer that his body wills him. However, while on the verge of capturing a taunting murderer, McCaleb suffers a heart attack and is forced into retirement. Two years later he is slowly recovering from a heart transplant when he is visited by the sister of the woman whose heart now beats in McCaleb’s body. Her sister’s murderer is still on the loose, and she wants McCaleb on the case. He reluctantly agrees and is soon finding clues and getting in danger just as he used to, sometimes being driven along by his lazy fishing neighbor (Jeff Daniels) who mostly plays Watson to McCaleb’s Holmes. And of course, McCaleb has to disobey doctor’s warnings and dodge the bumbling fellow officers to carry out his case, also becoming close to the woman (Wanda DeJesus) and her nephew (Mason Lucero).

The trouble with “Blood Work” is that the believable parts are unsurprising and the surprising parts are unbelievable. Eastwood’s presence hasn’t diminished one bit over the years and his storytelling skills still shine, and Daniels also does a very good job, but the movie is simply never too interesting to anyone who’s seen this kind of film before, especially after they’ve been done so well in Manhunter and The Silence of the Lambs. The film’s climax is probably the most interesting part, but it’s hard to believe that the McCaleb who was so perceptive in the film’s first half wouldn’t have figured out the killer and his/her motive much sooner, which seemed obvious to much of the audience.

Parents should know that this film has some strong language as well as some graphic images (mostly on videotape) of people getting shot. There is also some offscreen sex, and the happening and recovery of the heart attack are well documented.

Families who see this film should ask whether McCaleb felt the need to catch the killer because the murdered woman’s heart saved his life or because he cared about the woman and her nephew.

People who enjoy this movie should check out the Thomas Harris adaptations, as well as Eastwood’s best, Unforgiven and Dirty Harry.

Any documentary about gun violence in America in which the single most intelligent and insightful comment is made by a guy named after a dead beauty queen and a serial killer is worth a look. Then there is the bank that gives out free rifles to customers who open up new accounts, a guy who sleeps with a gun under his pillow, and of course Charlton Heston standing up at a meeting of the NRA just after the shootings at Columbine and yelling “From my COLD DEAD HANDS!”

So shock-rock star Marilyn Manson sounds positively statesmanlike when film-maker Michael Moore asks him what he thinks of the two boys who listened to his music before they took guns into their high school and killed 13 people and injured 21 more before turning the guns on themselves. Mason, wearing his garish stage makeup but speaking quietly, compares the endless media coverage of the Columbine shooting to the way the media all but ignored the record-breaking U.S. bombing in Kosovo that same day, the most extensive bombing expedition in world history. And then, when Moore asks what he would say to the boys in Columbine, Manson says simply, “I wouldn’t tell them anything, I would listen to what they had to say– which is what no one did.”

Moore is deeply concerned and the ultimate bleeding heart liberal, but he is not an ideologue. He learned to shoot in high school and is a life member of the NRA. When the bank gives him a rifle, he casually checks the action while he asks if anyone ever considered that maybe guns and banks were not the best possible combination. Much of the time he lets the story tell itself, as when he interviews the brother of Timothy McVeigh’s co-conspirator, Terry Nichols. John Nichols, who sleeps with a gun under his pillow, says that he believes that anyone should have access to guns or even bombs. Then Moore asks whether he thinks that anyone should have access to nuclear weapons, and McVeigh looks at him like he is crazy and says, “No! There are some real crazies out there!” Sometimes, Moore becomes the story, as when he brings two young survivors of the Columbine shooting to K-Mart’s national headquarters to protest their selling of ammunition, including the bullets still in the bodies of the two young men. After a day of deliberation, a K-Mart spokeswoman reads a statement

This is more mosaic than polemic and mordantly funny, though it does veer a bit over the top when Moore tries to link television producer Dick Clark to the murder of a six-year-old by a six-year-old, because the boy who killed his classmate had a mother who worked at one of Clark’s restaurants in a welfare-to-work program. And his relentless questioning of a clearly memory-impaired Charlton Heston, leaving a photo of the murdered girl in Heston’s home after Heston stalks out of the interview, has the unintended result of making Heston seem more sympathetic.

But the movie confronts complex questions fearlessly, even as it acknowledges that it does not have the answers. Why do our fellow North Americans in Canada, who have proportionately the same number of guns, shoot each other only one-tenth as often? Why are Americans fearful even out of proportion to the amount of violence we subject ourselves to? The movie’s violation of strict “documentary” standards by shifting some scenes around has been criticized. For one example, see this website. Moore’s response to some of the questions about the movie is here.

Parents should know that the movie’s subject is violence and it includes explicit real-life footage of the shootings at Columbine. It also includes very strong language and brief references to drinking, smoking, and sex.

Families who see this movie should talk about the questions Moore raises. Why do Americans shoot each other so much more often than any other country? Why don’t Canadians lock their front doors? Why was Moore successful in persuading K-Mart not to sell ammunition any more? What can you do to try to reduce violence or to change other things that matter to you?

Families who enjoy this movie should see Moore’s first film, “Roger and Me,” about General Motors and Moore’s home town of Flint, Michigan.

All of the ingredients for a good, old-fashioned chick flick are here – an Oscar-winning cast willing to pull out all the stops; quirky, flawed, but relentlessly adorable and completely devoted characters with cute names; handsome, supportive, understanding, and completely devoted boyfriends (one with a cute accent); and a mother-daughter reconciliation. Everyone is just as colorful as can be. It even has a built-in audience of fans who made the book into a sleeper sensation.

But it doesn’t quite make it into the pantheon of chick flick greatness, alongside such classics as “Terms of Endearment” and “Steel Magnolias.” The story has more flash than heart, and the resolution is a little too pat and easy. We hear a lot about the great friendship but don’t really feel it. There is something truly unsavory about the portrayal of knocking someone out and abducting her as madcap and charming. And the plot is a Swiss cheese of logical holes. Still, it is a great pleasure to watch these fine actresses give their all, and to hear the soundtrack by T. Bone Burnett, the guy behind the magnificent Grammy-winning soundtrack of “O Brother Where Art Thou.”

Playwright Sidalee Walker (Sandra Bullock), preparing for a Broadway opening of her autobiographical play, tells a reporter for Time Magazine that her childhood was troubled, and her mother, Vivi (Ellen Burstyn) throws a fit and stops talking to her. So Vivi’s lifelong friends, who as children in a moonlight ceremony involving blood, chocolate, and very elaborate headgear, declared themselves to be the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, take off for the Big City to kidnap Sidalee so that they can explain a few things to her.

Now it would all be too easy for them to just sit down with her in her apartment in Manhattan and talk to her. So, they put knock-out-powder in her drink (am I the only one who thinks that it is impossible to make a rufie anything but horrifying) and, with the help of her devoted Irish fiancé Connor (Angus MacFadyen), pour her into an airplane seat. She wakes up in a secluded cabin, where the Ya-Yas present her with a scrapbook that will help her understand and forgive her mother.

So, we go back in time and meet Vivi as a spirited young girl and teenager, and, after her fiancé is killed in World War II, a broken-hearted young woman, and a loving but overwhelmed mother. She drinks and smokes a lot. She doesn’t love her husband – she is still angry with him because he is alive and the man she really loved is dead. She tells Sidda to pretend to drown so that she can pretend to rescue her. But when it comes time for a real rescue, when the kids all get sick at once, she cannot handle it and runs away. And of course the children blame themselves.

Sidda learns that it was not her fault and it was not really Vivi’s fault, either, and Vivi learns a few things, too, so there is a happy ending for everyone. But it never feels real. Part of it is the absence of the people far more likely than Vivi’s friends to help Sidda sort through everything – where are her sisters and the other petites ya-yas (children of the Ya-Yas)? It is superficial and a little manipulative – the big revelation that is supposed to answer all questions is not so big and leaves more than a few questions still open.

The acting is a joy, though, especially the divine Maggie Smith as a steel magnolia who drags around an oxygen tank and tosses off quips drier than any martini. Burstyn and Judd do a terrific job of melding their performances so that you can believe they are playing the same character.

Parents should know that the movie features characters who drink and smoke a lot, and drinking is shown to be a light-hearted way to bond with friends, though alcohol abuse is shown to be painful for the children of the drinker. There are mild sexual references including inexplicit nudity. While the main characters object to racist remarks in very strong terms, and the feelings of one black character are treated respectfully, the treatment of the black characters is stereotyped. They are portrayed as devoted family retainers. A character abuses prescription drugs, apparently inadvertently. A mother neglects and abuses her children.

Families who see this movie should talk about why it was so difficult for the characters to talk with each other about their feelings.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Where the Heart Is, Fried Green Tomatoes, Steel Magnolias, and Postcards from the Edge.

This “Formula” is missing some key ingredients – like plot, characters, and dialogue.

Here is what it does have: the undeniably cool Samuel L. Jackson (who co-produced) in a kilt, fending off attackers with golf clubs and one funny joke. Unfortunately, it also has Samuel L. Jackson fending off some other attackers by inducing what I will tactfully call severe intestinal distress. And the joke is stolen from “Pulp Fiction,” in a much better scene featuring, um, let me think, yes, Samuel L. Jackson. It also has lots and lots of violence, with many people getting shot or blown up. And there are, oh, about 20 or 30 words in the script that are not profane, though none profane or otherwise that are particularly witty or memorable. It has kilt jokes, though none that are particularly original or memorable, plus I can’t figure out why so many people who live in England which is right next door to Scotland seem never to have seen a kilt before or at least know what it is called.

Jackson plays Elmo McElroy, a pharmacist by training who never got his license because of a drug conviction. So, he spent 30 years cooking up concoctions for a very mean drug dealer (played by rock star Meat Loaf) who not only speaks of himself in the third person but when doing so actually calls himself “The Lizard.” McElroy has an idea for one last big deal to buy his freedom. All he has to do is blow up all of his current customers and sell his latest invention, a drug 51 times more powerful than any ever invented before while avoiding the beautiful assassin who is trying to kill him.

Director Ronny Yu brings out the tired old Hong Kong camera tricks. Every other scene is either sped up or slowed down. He wastes the talented Robert Carlyle and Emily Mortimer. They play characters who have different motivations and even different personalities from scene to scene. They do whatever moves the story forward, which means whatever will cause the most destruction.

Parents should know that the movie has extreme graphic violence and non-stop profanity. The language used includes many exceptionally vivid British swear words, the literal meaning of which may not be familiar to some viewers. The characters are drug dealers (who generally themselves do not use drugs), and there is a generally lax attitude toward substance abuse of all kinds. There is one sex scene that is moderately explicit and brief non-sexual nudity.

Families who see this movie should talk about how McElroy developed the plan that would allow him to achieve his dream (which is not fully revealed until the credit sequence). Why was that dream so important to him? Speaking of dreams, they might like to talk about what it was about this material that made Samuel L. Jackson want to produce and star in it.

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy the far better “The Transporter” and Jackson version of “Shaft.”

“Hey Arnold! The Movie” is as unimaginative as its title and far too long at 74 minutes. Hard core fans of the television series (if there are any) will enjoy seeing the characters on the big screen, but anyone else, particularly those who’ve seen a movie or two, are going to be bored with the characters, the animation, and the utterly predictable chain of events.

“Hey Arnold!” finds its football-headed hero with a heart of gold in a save-the-neighborhood situation. A big bad wolf industrialist named Scheck (voiced by Paul Sorvino) wants to turn Arnold’s happy suburb into a “mall-plex.” Most of the adults reluctantly sell their homes, but Arnold arranges benefits does research on how to save the town, undiscouraged by Scheck’s constant attempts to crush him and the pessimism of everyone else. He eventually finds out about a Boston Tea Party-esque event that occurred in his town during the revolutionary war and works to get the town saved as a historical landmark.

There’s nothing remotely new or exiting about the plot, and nearly all of the situations are annoyingly dumb. Kids may enjoy seeing Arnold save the day, but adults will snooze through it, due to a storyline everyone’s seen before, animation that is below the “Fat Albert” level, and characters that range from uninteresting to unappealing. There are some amusing voice cameos from Jennifer Jason Leigh and Christopher Lloyd, as well as timely references to Men in Black II and The Hulk. And if anyone these days comes close to being Mel Blanc, its Dan Castellaneta (“The Simpsons”), who gives wildly different characters such genuine personality that one would never guess that they come from the same guy. If only those voices had a better script.

Parent should know that “Hey Arnold!” is just violent enough to get a PG rating, but there’s really nothing that most kids over six can’t handle. More disturbing are the stereotyped characters, from Arnold’s best friend/token black kid Gerald to Arnold’s grandparents to a one-legged bus driver.

Families can discuss what exactly it is that keeps Arnold so positive during such stressful times, and why his neighbor Helga (who looks and acts almost exactly like Rugrats’ Angelica) feels the need to hide her crush on Arnold by being mean to him.

Families who like this movie will probably enjoy the other Nickelodeon films, from the animated Rugrats, Doug’s 1st Movie and Jimmy Neutron to the live-action Snow Day and Harriet the Spy.