Sandra Bullock the producer found a pretty good vehicle for Sandra Bullock the actress in this variation on the classic Hollywood “makeover movie.” As in predecessors from “Cinderella” to “My Fair Lady” to “Pretty Woman,” this is at its core the story of an ugly duckling who finds empowerment and a boyfriend after a few pointers on good grooming and accessorizing. But Bullock’s performance and a couple of new twists on the classic formula make it a pleasant and entertaining effort.

Bullock plays the ironically named “Grace,” an FBI agent who lives for her job. She gets in trouble for not following orders and is considered so expendable that she is the one sent to Starbucks for coffee. She is more at home subduing a suspect than having a conversation with an attractive man, and spends more time with her gun than she does with a hairbrush or make-up mirror. When the FBI needs an agent to go undercover as a contestant in a beauty pageant (sorry, I mean “scholarship pageant”), she is the only one who might be able to pass. So the Bureau hires Victor Melling (Michael Caine), a consultant, to oversee her transformation and her transition into the world of big hair and baton twirling.

There are few new jokes to be made about beauty pageants, but Bullock delivers the lines as though no one had ever said them before. The plot is so flimsy that it would disappear if I tried to explain it, but Bullock plays it as though it is really happening. She gets some fine support from Caine and from Candice Bergen and William Shatner as the pageant’s director and master of ceremonies, both far more three-dimensional than Benjamin Bratt as Grace’s FBI colleague/Prince Charming.

Parents should know that the movie has some strong language, a bulimia joke, some sexual references (“No wonder you’re still a virgin!”), including a lesbian contestant, and there are various shoot-outs and scenes of peril (no serious damage). Grace makes a joke about praying that some people might find insensitive.

Families who see this movie should talk about why “in place of friends and relationships, has grumpiness and a gun.” What does the incident from Grace’s childhood tell us about the way she turned out? Was she afraid to get close to anyone? Grace gets in trouble for not following orders in the beginning, and it turns out that she was wrong. But later on, she refuses to follow orders again, and urges her colleague to “throw out the rulebook.” What rules did she follow? How did she decide? What did she learn from the other girls? What did the villain hope to accomplish? How?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Some Like it Hot” and “Smile.”

Plot: This Chaplin classic (he produced, wrote, directed, starred, and composed the music) is about two people struggling with the isolation of the industrial era. Chaplin (simply called “A worker” in the credits) is tightening bolts on an assembly line. He does it so intently that his arms continue to twitch as though he is still tightening when he takes his break. On a break, he smokes in the men’s room until the big boss appears on a television screen to tell him to quit stalling and get back to work.

The boss watches a demonstration of a new machine, designed to feed employees while they work, to reduce breaks. Chaplin is selected to try it out. Everything goes wrong in the most deliriously slapstick fashion. He eventually becomes trapped in the huge factory machine itself, stuck in the gears. He comes out a little crazed, tightening everything resembling bolts. He loses his job. A doctor tells him to take it easy and avoid excitement.

Nevertheless, he almost immediately finds excitement by accidentally leading a communist parade while just trying to return the red flag to the man who dropped it. He is arrested. The prison is not unlike the factory in its regimentation. At lunch, the guards come in “searching for smuggled nose powder.” The prisoner who has smuggled it puts it in a salt shaker. When he is taken away, Chaplin sprinkles it on his food and becomes a bit delirious. When he comes upon an attempted escape, he captures the prisoners and releases the guards.

Meanwhile, we have met “a gamin,” Paulette Goddard, stealing food for herself and other children. Her unemployed father is killed in a street fight, and she and her siblings are taken into state custody, to be sent to an orphanage. Goddard escapes as Chaplin remains “happy in his comfortable cell.” However, he is pardoned because of his heroism in the attempted escape, and is given a letter of recommendation to get a job.

After another job disaster, he is “determined to go back to jail” where he was safe and warm. He sees Goddard captured for stealing bread, and confesses that it was he who stole it. But a witness identifies Goddard. He orders a large meal, eats it, then turns himself in as being unable to pay, and happily settles into the police truck on the way back to jail. When Goddard is put in the same truck, they escape together. He takes a job as night watchman in a department store, and they enjoy having the store to themselves. But robbers break in — Chaplin’s former colleague at the factory. And the next morning, Chaplin is arrested again.

Goddard is waiting for him when he gets out of the police station. Goddard gets a job as a dancer in a nightclub and arranges a job for him as a singing waiter. He is a huge hit (even though he forgets the words to the song and has to make them up). But the police come after Goddard, to take her back into the custody of the state. They escape once more, and walk off into the sunset together.

Discussion: We have to remind ourselves how prescient this movie was. To us, it may not be surprising that the boss watches the workers on screen, but this was before the invention of television–and more than a decade before the publication of Orwell’s 1984. Interestingly, it was several years after the invention of the talkies. But Chaplin wanted to make a silent movie, and silent this one is, except for a few words, some sound effects, and a gibberish song. Children will adore the slapstick in this movie, especially the scenes where Chaplin tries out the feeding machine and when he experiments with roller skates at the department store. Grown-ups who watch with younger children can read them the title cards, and help them follow the story. They can tell older children something about the Depression and the concerns about the dehumanizing effect of technology that are a part of this movie. Point out the use of sheep at the beginning, and then their human equivalents, the crowds of people on their way to work.

Questions for Kids:

· Why did the boss want Chaplin to try the eating machine? What would Frank Gilbreth of “Cheaper By the Dozen” think of the machine?

· Why did Chaplin want to go back to jail? Why didn’t Goddard want to go to jail?

· Did Chaplin want you to think that prison was like the factory? Better? How can you tell?

· How did Chaplin and Goddard differ in their reactions to their troubles?

· For high school age: Why was Chaplin arrested for leading the communist parade? Does that violate the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment?

Connections: Some of the Chaplin shorter movies like “The Rink” and “The Gold Rush” are delightful for kids. “City Lights” is a wonderful movie with a darker tone and a more ambiguous ending.

The new movie from the people behind “James and the Giant Peach” and “A Nightmare Before Christmas” has some of the same trademark visual inventiveness, but this is no children’s story.

“Monkey Bone” is based on a “graphic novel” (i.e., upscale comic book), and the plot is something like “The Wizard of Oz” crossed with “Orpheus and Eurydice” by way of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”

Brendan Fraser plays Stu, a shy comic artist whose repressed emotions are acted out by his cartoon creation, Monkey Bone. After a celebration of his new cartoon television series, and on his way to propose to the girl he loves (Bridget Fonda as Julie), his car crashes. Julie is not injured, but Stu is in a coma. Stu’s sister Kimmy (“Will and Grace’s” Megan Mullally, playing pretty much the same role) wants to pull the plug.

What Kimmy and Julie don’t realize is that while Stu appears to be unconscious, he has really traveled into “Downtown” a place that literally lives on nightmares. Hypno, the god of sleep (Giancarlo Esposito, from the waist up), rules Downtown, but the one who decides which souls can leave, either to die or to be awakened, is Death herself (Whoopi Goldberg as a cross between The Wicked Witch of the West and the Wizard). Stu tries to get back home, but Monkey Bone steals his body. While everyone back on earth tries to get used to the new anything-but- repressed Stu, the real Stu has to find a way to get back, even if it is just long enough to tell Julie that he loves her.

This simple story is just an excuse for some extraordinary art direction and some adolescent humor. If you think that having Stu threaten to choke his monkey is wildly funny, then this is the movie for you. But if you enjoy seeing wildly fantastic images that look like Hieronymus Bosch on acid, then this is your movie, too. Fraser is first-rate both as Stu and as the Stu body with Monkey Bone inside, and Rose McGowan is delicious as a cat woman with very fetching whiskers. But this movie will primarily appeal to teen-agers who like the offbeat.

Parents should know that the movie has some mature material, especially for a PG-13 rating. In a cartoon at the very beginning we see the origin of Monkey Bone when a young Stu is humiliated by becoming aroused in class by his teacher’s saggy arms. There is some strong language and elaborate flatulence humor. We see documentary footage of monkeys mating that is brief but graphic. Comic injuries and violence and some brief gross scenes of internal organs may be upsetting to some viewers.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai.”

“Monster’s Ball” is the derisive term the prison guards use for the gruesome ceremonies the night before a death row prisoner is to be executed. In the movie of that name, Hank (Billy Bob Thornton), one of those guards, clings to his hatred and racism as a way of distancing himself from his loneliness and misery. He throws two black boys off his property, even though they are his son’s friends. He cannot even allow himself to agree to call a condemned man’s child just before execution to tell him that his father will not be allowed to say goodbye to him. And when his son (Heath Ledger), now a third generation death row guard, gets sick while escorting the prisoner to the electric chair, Hank brutally assaults him physically and emotionally. Although it is clear that it is Hank’s own vulnerability and isolation that terrifies him, the attack and its aftermath are horrifying.

Meanwhile, Leticia (Halle Berry), the condemned prisoner’s wife, is desperate. Her son drowns his misery in candy and is very overweight. She has lost her waitress job, her car has broken down, and she is about to lose her house.

Hank and Leticia see their lives as hopelessly bleak, and they get worse as unspeakable tragedy strikes them both. In a way, the tragedy frees them. Having lost everything, there is no longer any reason to try to hold on to old notions and old fears.

The artificiality of the plot is a distraction, at times seeming like a bizarre version of the old Hollywood imperative that the romantic couple has to “meet cute.” But Thornton and Berry are magnificent. Berry deservedly won an Oscar for her brave and vulnerable performance and Thornton matches her every step of the way. The dignity and poignancy of both performances is deeply moving. Sean Combs is outstanding in his brief appearance as Leticia’s husband, demonstrating great dignity and a range of emotion as he prepares for his execution.

Parents should know that this is an extremely brutal movie. It includes an explicit execution, a suicide by gunshot, the death of a child, and extremely explicit sexual situations, including prostitution. There are very disturbing family situations involving emotional and physical abuse. Characters use very strong language, and they drink and smoke.

Families who see this movie should talk about how people become racist and how we find help when we need it. Do you agree with what Hank decided about his father? What is Leticia thinking at the very end of the movie? What do you think will happen next?

Families who appreciate this movie will also appreciate Sling Blade, which Thornton wrote, directed, and starred in.

This is a big overstuffed everything- and the kitchen sink mess of a movie. It is an ambitious, often gorgeous, occasionally brilliant mess. But for all its superficial abundance, there is an essential stinginess at its core. It teases the audience with glimpses of dazzling images and snippets of familiar songs but never gives either a chance to connect. It’s like one long coming attraction, without the payoff of a chance to relish the full version. There is more than enough for the eye, but nothing for the soul.

The story is supposed to be eternal, with echoes of classic themes from Orpheus to La Bohème (with references to everything from “Singin’ in the Rain” to “The Sound of Music,” Nirvana, Fellini, MTV, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles, and even a love triangle with a gun climax right out of “Titanic”). Those may be shortcuts to pleasure and even amusement, but they don’t work when it comes time to making us care about what happens. The movie is busy to the point of hallucination, but it has so little time for its characters that it comes across more as melodrama, with young lovers menaced by a villain who all but twirls his moustache and ties her to the train tracks. The story tells us that it is supposed to be about love, but it tries so hard to be postmodern and ironic that the audience is left feeling as cold-hearted as the wicked Duke.

The movie opens brilliantly with a proscenium arch and as the curtain goes up we see the conductor and hear a song about “a very strange enchanted boy.” Christian (Ewan McGregor), a naive young poet, comes to Paris at the turn of the 20th Century and meets up with a group of Bohemian artists who want him to write a musical play for the star of a combination nightclub, dance hall, and brothel, a “kingdom of nighttime pleasures” called the Moulin Rouge. The star’s name is Satine (Nicole Kidman), and she and Christian fall in love, which is bad for business. The emcee of the show (Jim Broadbent as Ziglar) wants Satine to get the wealthy Duke to pay to transform the Moulin Rouge into a legitimate theater and back the first show. That means that she has to persuade the Duke that she is in love with him, and she has to sleep with him.

Satine wants stardom and she wants Christian. She does not have much time; she faints at the end of her big musical number, and she has been coughing up blood.

Christian learns that it is not as easy to be a Bohemian as he thought; Satine learns that acting like she loves many men is not as hard as acting like she does not love one. They both learn that the show is more real than they thought. The sitar (played by John Leguizamo as Toulouse-Lautrec) does tell the truth and love’s first kiss does wake the princess,

The highlight of the movie is the art direction. The sets and costumes are spectacular, and everything else is secondary at best. McGregor and Kidman use their undeniable star power to do as much to hold our attention as anyone could. Their singing voices are passable, but not arresting.

Parents should know that the movie has some strong language (including double entendres) and sexual references and situations. The main character is a prostitute and the atmosphere is decadent. Christian and his friends drink absinthe, and have a hallucination.

Families who see this movie should look at some of the pictures by Toulouse-Lautrec of the real Moulin Rouge. They should talk about Satine’s comment that she had learned to think that she was only worth what someone would pay for her. How did being in love with Christian change that? Did the Bohemians really change the world around them? What do you think will happen to Christian? To the Duke?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Luhrman’s other films, “Strictly Ballroom” and “Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet,” which have his trademark visual flair and clever musical selections, and which also have better scripts.