From the producers of the Veggie Tales series comes a new computerized cast starring in gently funny stories with gentle morals about integrity and sharing. But this time, instead of vegetables starring, they now have space exploring penguins! (How do they think of this stuff?)

The second in the series, “321 Penguins! The Cheating Scales of Bullamanka” features speckled-wearing twins Michelle and Jason furiously combating in a board game called “Squid-Tac-Toad”. When Michelle cheats to win, though, it’s time for the Penguins to call, sucking her up into their space ship and whisking her away to Bullamanka, where the dishonest Lizard King is cheating in a game eerily similar to Michelle’s. But the difference is when he cheats, innocent Bullamankan lives are at stake! It’s up to Michelle and the Penguins to prove that the Lizard King is corrupt. Even though you can guess what the outcome will be, this is still fun to watch. It’s not as visually engaging as the Veggie Tales series, but it is better than most of what is out there for this age group.

Some parents may be concerned about the mild reference to God’s not wanting us to cheat. Be prepared to talk to kids about your own family’s notion of morality and religion. If the kids liked the penguins, you might want to take them to a museum about the Arctic or check out some books about penguins from the library. “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” is a perennial favorite.

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There’s a reason that they call comedies like this one “sophomoric.” It is because they are designed to appeal to high school sophomores who are just beginning to go out on dates. For the girls, there is a happy-ever-after love story with a wedding and it is even emphasized throughout the movie that the couple is very young, which makes it even more romantic – if you are very young yourself. For the guys, there is that hit-on-the-head-style comedy of excruciation, with jokes on such always-reliable topics as a rich lady named Pussy, huge, electrical marital aids, body cavity searches, getting hit on the nose, getting hit on the head, and getting hit on the head again.

Brittany Murphy plays Sarah, the daughter of a wealthy family, who wants a relationship where she won’t always know what is going to happen next. Ashton Kutcher plays Tom, a community college graduate who wants to be a sportscaster but is currently the substitute late-night traffic announcer on a radio station. They met when he (just try to guess) beans her with a football pass as she is walking her dog on the beach. A month later, they are living together, and nine months after that, they get married.

Then they go on a honeymoon that is one disaster after another. She gets a bloody nose on their wedding night. They arrive at a dream honeymoon castle, but get kicked out after frying the hotel’s entire electrical system by trying to plug in a marital aid. They end up having to sleep their car after it gets stuck in a snow bank, and then in a decrepit little hotel in Venice. They have the three most popular marital arguments: sex, money, and in-laws. They hurt each other’s feelings. And they each worry about a past lie. Sarah never told Tom that she had sex with the guy her parents wanted her to marry. And Tom never told Sarah that he was indirectly responsible for her dog’s death. These revelations will come at a bad moment, just as each suspects the other of cheating. Tom and Sarah have to learn to trust each other and to trust themselves.

Murphy and Kutcher are cute together. They became a real-life couple while making this movie and their chemistry comes across on the screen. But the movie relies too much on Murphy’s twinkly laugh and Kutcher’s goofy grin to cover up the tired jokes. Tom and Sarah are immature and annoying. At one point, in a crowded plane, they announce that they aren’t talking to each other any more and the other passengers applaud. The audience felt the same way.

Parents should know that this is a PG-13 that keeps just a millimeter away from an R. There is no nudity but there are frequent sexual references and situations, some graphic, and some raunchy, including an attempted sexual encounter in an airplane bathroom and overheard sex in the next room. The same material in a drama would have earned an R rating. Characters drink a lot, often to help themselves feel better when they are upset. A character refers to regrets about having sex with someone after drinking too much champagne. There is strong language (and much attempted humor from the name “Pussy”).

Families who see this movie should talk about how people in any kind of relationship, but especially any kind of family relationship, have to learn how to communicate honestly and how to cope with catastrophe without blaming each other. What clues do you see to the strengths and weaknesses of the relationship that Sarah and Tom have? They have different backgrounds and interests, but they have some very important things in common – what are they? An issue in any romantic relationship is how much of yourself you have to give up for the other person. Where do you see Tom and Sarah deal with that issue? The idea for this movie came from the screenwriter’s own honeymoon catastrophes. What events in your life could make a good movie?

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy Kutcher in “Dude Where’s My Car?” A little-known gem about a couple’s first days of marriage after an impulsive wedding is “Period of Adjustment,” the only comedy written by Tennessee Williams, starring Jane Fonda and Jim Hutton.

This is not a movie in the conventional sense of the word. There is no story and there are no characters. It is not a documentary because it features stunts created just for the movie. What it is is an endurance contest for adolescents (and perpetual adolescents) and a comedy for people so bereft of empathy that they think it is funny to see people hurt themselves.

When discussing the idea of seeing the movie Jackass, prospective viewers should ask themselves one question: how enjoyable would it be for you to watch a movie in which people abuse their bodies to perform stunts in the most grotesque manner imaginable? If you answered that you would find this highly enjoyable and extremely amusing, Jackass is the movie for you. Anyone else, however, should run screaming in the other direction.

Jackass is an extended, more explicit version of the popular MTV show in which a group of idiotic guys perform idiotic stunts that involve such things as running around in their underwear and puking. Like the MTV show, the movie does not have a plot. It documents the same group of people from the TV show, led by Johnny Knoxville, performing extremely stupid and often very dangerous stunts. To give you a taste of the movie’s humor, one of the stunts involves a man snorting wasabi up his nose and then proceeding to vomit it out. Another stunt involves a man who is eating a snow cone—except that in this case the man has urinated on the snow, and therefore knows he is eating his own bodily waste. Another involves a man using the demo toilet in a store’s plumbing display, even though it is not hooked up to any plumbing. Then there are the stunts involving stuffing objects not intended for that purpose into bodily orafices also not intended for that purpose. The most appropriate commentary on the movie comes from a cameraman who becomes so disgusted that he throws up, which, of course, gets incorporated into the movie. Even for people who enjoy bathroom humor, Jackass wears thin because its unremitting brand of literally painful bathroom humor just isn’t funny.

This movie earns an R rating due to the excessive display of bodily fluids and use of vulgar language. But there is no rating contemplated by the MPAA that would provide any useful guidance about its appropriateness for audiences of any age. Parents should know that the movie includes very disgusting and visually explicit gags (a very appropriate term).

The one interesting feature of the movie is what it doesn’t show: at no point do any women participate in the incredibly stupid, hazardous tricks portrayed in Jackass. Was the director trying to make a subtle statement about the common sense (or lack thereof) of men vs. women?

Jackass raises a fundamental question: how far should a person really go for laugh? After 120 minutes of watching endless, hazardous, foul, gory, gruesome, execrable, and moronic tricks the answer seems clear: not really as far as the “jackasses” in this have chosen to go.

The Pianist is an emotionally devastating true story of a Jewish pianist in Poland caught up in the horrors of World War II.

Director Roman Polanski, himself a survivor of the Holocaust who lost many family members, powerfully conveys the epic journey of a man who is transformed by a series of events from an elegantly dressed, highly cultured musician to a scavenging, debased shell of a human being.

The Nazis invade Poland, confine Jews to a ghetto, and eventually ship them off to concentration camps. There is heartbreaking and graphic violence. Yet, Polanski delivers this difficult message in a very thoughtful, skillful way. Just when the audience is on the verge of becoming numbed by the grim life in the ghetto, the pianist escapes for a day and walks through the bright flower stalls in the crowded market outside the ghetto. It reminds the viewer of how far the pianist has fallen from a “normal” life, but it gives the viewer the same brief respite that it gives the pianist. Just when the Nazi brutality against the Jews seems unbearable, a music-loving German soldier treats the pianist kindly while Jewish victims prey on each other.

The most effective parts of the movie are the small, vivid, almost unbearably poignant human moments. In one, a family awaiting a transport train which will take them away to a concentration camp combines all their remaining money to buy a single caramel which they carefully divide into four tiny portions.

This is clearly not a movie for children. However, in addition to being an excellent work of art, it is an instructive movie for teenagers who take for granted the comfort and stability of their world. In “The Pianist,” war is not glamorous and the most principled and courageous people are among its first victims. “The Pianist” is an excellent movie about survival, fate, and values. It is a very worthwhile movie for young adults.

Parents should know that the movie has strong language and graphic and horrific violence, including casual murder of Jews.

Families who appreciate this movie will also appreciate “Life is Beautiful,” “Schindler’s List,” and “The Harmonists.”