The Kid Stays in the Picture is a fascinating True Hollywood Story-esque look on the tumultuous life of Robert Evans, a prolific Hollywood producer who had it all, lost it all, regained most of, all while living a life filled with sex, drugs, and movie stars.

This film is based on Robert Evans’ autobiography, so he narrates in the first person, starting by being discovered by Norma Shearer to play a bit role in James Cagney’s Man of a Thousand Faces. He take parts in some minor films, including a hilariously campy horror flick, but what sticks out to him is when after a take on the set of The Sun Also Rises, film legend Daryl F. Zanuck states, “The kid (Evans) stays in the picture!” Evans works his way up to becoming head of production of Paramount Pictures during the making of hits like Rosemary’s Baby and Love Story, but the studio really takes off with the making of The Godfather. Evans gives us an intimate look at the making of now classic movies, as well as his marriages and dates with beautiful women, and his struggles to stay on top before his cocaine bust and downfall.

It’s truly a gripping story, and Evans is very lucky to have gotten his career back on track. Film fans are going to have a field day with this one with the clips of classic films and the stories about Hollywood legends.

Parents should know that there’s some very strong language, including slurs about Roman Polanski, who is Polish. There’s some non-graphic sexual references and drug use, which is amended by an amusing all-star sing-a-long called Get High on Yourself! arranged by Evans. And of course, there are some violent clips of the R-rated movies Evans produced, including the most famous scene in Chinatown.

Families should ask what significance the title has, other than what Daryl Zanuck said years ago. They can also discuss what would happen if certain events that almost didn’t work out actually failed; can anyone imagine Francis Ford Coppola not directing The Godfather? Anyone who sees this film should enjoy seeing the aforementioned modern-day classics that Evans worked on.

“Undercover Brother” combines broad comedy with clever satire to happily skewer blacks, whites, men, women, the “blaxploitation” movies of the 1970’s, O.J. Simpson, and just about everything else that comes within range. Selected by the Washington Film Critics as the guilty pleasure of 2002, it is worth a look.

Comedian Eddie Griffin plays Undercover Brother, a guy with the tallest Afro, the highest platform shoes, and the coolest attitude on earth. He drives a gold-colored Cadillac with an 8-track tape player and a license plate that says, “Solid.”

Undercover Brother works on his own to fight injustice (he’s the “Robin Hood of the ‘hood”), but he is not aware of the seriousness of the threat. It seems that a mysterious bad guy known only as “The Man,” operating out of a remote island command center, is responsible for discrediting black public figures. Come to think of it, that explanation for Urkel and Dennis Rodman makes more sense than the real one.

A popular black general (Billy Dee Williams) is about to declare his candidacy for President. The Man is furious at the prospect of a possible black President (“Let’s keep the White House white!”). So, he directs his henchman (“Saturday Night Live’s” Chris Kattan) to stop him. Somehow, the general’s announcement turns out to be the opening of a chain of fried chiicken restaurants featuring the “nappy meal.”

An organization called The Brotherhood” asks Undercover Brother to join them in fighting The Man. With their top agent, Sistah Girl (Anjnue Ellis), Undercover Brother infiltrates The Man’s world, disguised as a Rastafarian caddy, a preppy office worker and someone I will just describe as a performing artist.

But the Man fights back with “black man’s Kryptonite” in the form of Denise Richards. For a moment, it seems that Undercover Brother will even eat tuna with extra mayonnaise. But Sistah Girl comes to his rescue, and they are soon off for the final confrontation.

The movie is filled with such high spirits and good humor that the jokes are pointed but not barbed. Director Malcolm Lee (a cousin of Spike Lee) has a marvelous eye for telling details (the re-creation of a 1970’s-style credit sequence is hilarious) and Eddie Griffin gives the title character some heart along with a lot of attitude.

Parents should know that the movie has very strong material for a PG-13 — as usual, the MPAA is much more lax with a comedy than they would be if the same material appeared in a drama. The movie has sexual references and situations, smoking, drinking, and drug humor, and comic violence.

Families who see this movie should talk about the stereotypes that the movie uses for humor and to make its points. How can some issues be addressed more effectively through comedy than through drama? Parents might find that they have to explain some of the humor to teenagers who are too young to remember some of the outfits and expressions satirized in the movie.

Families who enjoy this movie should take a look at some of the movies that inspired it, the “blaxploitation” movies of the 1970’s. Some of the best are included in the Pam Grier Collection and Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song. Note: both have very mature material.

Charlie’s Angels” manages to fulfill the middle-school-age fantasies of both boys and girls and to make it clear that it does not take itself too seriously. The result is a lot of silly popcorn fun. This is the kind of movie where the action sequences may be sped up, but the heroines’ hair is always in slow motion, a sort of “Josie and the Pussycats” crossed with “Mission Impossible.”

The angels are three fabulously gorgeous, often scantily-clad women who are as brilliant as they are beautiful, and who can kick-box five guys at a time. They work as detectives, solving cases brought to them by the mysterious Charlie, who communicates with them only by speakerhone. Dylan (co-producer Drew Barrymore), Alex (Lucy Liu), and Natalie (Cameron Diaz) are so technologically adept that they can tug a few wires and make a fast food drive-through speaker sound like an MP3 track. They will stop in the middle of tracking a suspect to give each other flirting pointers and stop in the middle of a life-or-death kickboxing fight to take a phone call from a boyfriend.

Charlie’s latest client is a software firm whose programming genius, Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell), has been kidnapped. His voice identification program, if combined with global positioning technology, could be used to track anyone, even Charlie. So the angels are off to the rescue.

Just as in the old television show, this requires many costume changes — the angels go undercover as belly dancers, a race car pit crew, corporate consultants, and lederhosen-clad messengers. It also involves placing the angels in jeopardy every 17 minutes or so. But these angels don’t use guns. They take on bad guys with their wits and their feet.

The angels have so much fun that it is impossible not to enjoy them. The fight scenes were staged by the same person who did “The Matrix,” and the angels get a huge charge out of their suspended-air kicks and chops. A soundtrack of cheesy 1970’s music (“Brandy,” “You Make Me Feel Like Dancin’,”Heaven Must be Missing an Angel”) and sly digs like an airline passenger disgusted by the prospect of watching “T.J. Hooker: The Movie” keep things light-hearted. The angels are all terrific, especially Cameron Diaz, whose pure pleasure in doing horrible retro disco dances lights up an entire room. Bill Murray has some good moments as their sidekick, Bosley.

Parents should know that in addition to a lot of “action-style” violence (very little blood), the movie has drinking, smoking, and some profanity and innuendo. One of the angels is shown waking up after a one-night-stand, clearly intending never to see the guy again. She later has a sexual encounter that turns out to have been a mistake.

Families who see this movie should talk about how Dylan’s absent father affected her life, especially her decision to work for a man who would never meet her. Knox, too, was affected by an absent father. Why don’t the angels want the men in their lives to know what they do? What would happen if they told them? Even movies as essentially silly as this one can also provide good lessons in problem-solving and ethics. How do they break down the problem of getting access to the GPS software into solvable pieces? Why won’t the angels give Knox access to the GPS software? Families may also want to talk about the way that the angels use their looks as well as their brains and muscles. In some ways, a beautiful woman is impossible to miss, but in other ways she is invisible, because she is not perceived as a threat. And when they dress up in German costume and pretend to be delivering a telegram, their obvious enjoyment shows that they are the ones exploiting the befuddled recipient rather than the other way around.

Families who enjoy this movie should watch the original television show in reruns or on video as well as other television classics like “Honey West,” “Get Christy Love!” and “Police Woman.

Plot: Despite the title (insisted on by the studio following the producer’s very successful — and scary — “The Cat People”), this is a gentle story of a lonely and sensitive girl and her “friend,” who may be imaginary or may be the ghost of her father’s first wife. Amy (Ann Carter) is a dreamy kindergartener, not very clear about what is real and what is fantasy, and “a very sensitive and delicately adjusted child,” according to her teacher. Her father Oliver (Kent Smith), still in great pain from his first wife’s tragic death, is very protective, and worries about her “losing herself in a dream world.” When no one shows up for her birthday party, it turns out that Amy “mailed” the invitations in a tree, believing that it was a magic mailbox, as her father had whimsically told her years before. The party goes on with her parents and Edward, their Jamaican houseman. When she blows out the candles, she wishes to be a “good girl like Daddy wants me to be.” The next day, after the other girls refuse to play with her, she finds a spooky old house, where a voice speaks to her and invites her inside. A handkerchief falls from an upstairs window, containing a ring for Amy. She wishes on the ring for a friend, and later says she got her wish, and that her friend sang to her. Amy goes back to the spooky house and meets Julia Farren (Julia Dean), an elderly woman who was once an actress, and who insists that the other woman in the house is not her daughter, but her caretaker. Amy sees a photograph of Irena, her father’s first wife, and recognizes her as her “friend.” Irena promises to stay “as long as you want me” but tells Amy never to tell anyone about her. But when Amy sees a picture of Irena and her father together, she tells him. He spanks her for lying, and Irena tells Amy “now you must send me away.” Amy leaves the house in a snowstorm, looking for Irena. When she knocks on the Farren’s door, Mrs. Farren says she has to hide. Her daughter, bitterly jealous of the affection her mother denies her but lavishes on Amy, has said she will kill Amy if she ever comes back. Mrs. Farren collapses trying to take Amy upstairs. Barbara is furious. But Irena appears, her image flickering over Barbara, and Amy calls out “My friend!” and embraces her. Barbara, softening, hugs her back, as her parents arrive. “Amy, from now on, you and I are going to be friends,” her father tells her, and this time he says that he, too, sees Irena. Discussion: This movie is not for everyone, but children who can identify with Amy will like it, and may be able to talk about themselves in talking about her. Oliver worries that Amy’s dreams will lead to madness, as he believes they did for Irena. Amy just wants someone who will be her friend, and has a hard time connecting to other children. The counterpoint is Mrs. Farren, whose delusion that her child is dead is deeply upsetting to her daughter, in her own way as needy for friendship as Amy is. This movie does a good job of showing how Amy and her parents worry about each other, and that parents make mistakes. Amy blames herself when her parents argue about her, and you may want to make it clear that children are not responsible for family conflicts. Children may be concerned about Mrs. Farren’s delusions, and how upsetting they are for her daughter. They should know that most old people are fine, but that some have an illness that makes them forgetful.