Quoyle (Kevin Spacey) is a huge, almost-silent lump of a man who married the first woman who spoke to him, a selfish good-time girl named Petal (Cate Blanchett). She ignores him and their daughter, Bunny. She spends most of her time out drinking, and when she comes home she brings men back with her. But Bunny and Quoyle love her, and keep hoping that she will love them back.

Petal is killed in a car accident, and Quoyle goes to Newfoundland to stay with his aunt Agniss (Judi Dench). In that cold, desolate place, he learns enough about his past and himself to begin to heal.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Annie Proulx presented a real challenge to filmmakers. Its dense descriptions of crafts and weather do not translate to the screen. The real action in the story goes on inside the undemonstrative Quoyle, and only an actor of extraordinary range and power could communicate that to a movie audience.

Screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs (nominated for an Oscar for last year’s “Chocolat”) and director Lasse Halleström (“Chocolat” and “The Cider House Rules”) have done a masterful job of adapting the story, with cinematic equivalents for some of the book’s best prose. Kevin Spacey, one of the most brilliant actors ever to appear in movies, provides Quoyle with emotional eloquence, even when he does not speak. Every performance is jewel-like, including Judi Dench as Agniss, Cate Blanchett as Petal, Julianne Moore as Wavey (Proulx is a little cutesy with names), Bunny’s teacher who befriends Quoyle, Scott Glenn as Quoyle’s boss, and, incredibly, triplets who together play the part of Bunny.

Parents should know that the movie has some mature material, including references to homosexuality, adultery, rape, and incest. Petal is selfish. cruel, and promiscuous. There are images of dead bodies, one separated from the head. Characters drink and smoke. When some characters get drunk, they destroy property and one embarrasses himself by behaving badly to someone he cares about.

Families who see this movie should talk about why some families seem to be trapped by their history. Why was kindness so hard to come by in Quoyle’s family? Why did Tert become so angry at Quoyle? Who in the movie finds it hard to talk about feelings? Why? What made Quoyle begin to think that he could change things for himself and Bunny? How did the lesson about headlines make Quoyle think differently? What would be your headline today? Quoyle learns that every boat has a story. Is that true about cars? Houses? Families? Anything else? What does water symbolize in the movie? The weather? Where is the beating heart at the center of your story?

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy Halleström’s The Cider House Rules and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. They may also want to try My Life as a Dog (subtitled).

Mel Gibson shows us just what women want in his first-ever romantic comedy — we want Mel Gibson.

Mel plays Nick Marshall, a Chicago advertising executive who is successful at work (he thinks up ideas like the Swedish bikini team) and with the ladies, whom he wheedles and charms but never really thinks about. His ex-wife (Lauren Holly) says that he never understood her, but, even on the day of her marriage to someone else, she still softens when she speaks about him. His 15-year-old daughter says that he is more like an “Uncle Dad” than a father.

Nick is pretty sure he has it all figured out, until the day that instead of getting promoted to Creative Director, he gets a new boss, Darcy Maguire (Helen Hunt). It turns out that the advertising agency needs to appeal to women consumers, and the Swedish bikini team just does not send the right message. Darcy hands out a pink box filled with products for the staff to explore, and Nick does his best, experimenting with mascara, leg wax, nail polish, and exfoliater. But an accidental near-electrocution leaves him with a new power — the ability to hear women’s thoughts.

At first horrified, Nick realizes that there are some real advantages to being the only straight man in the world who knows how women think. He uses it to manipulate women, including Darcy and a pretty coffee shop waitress (Marisi Tomei). But it turns out that women do not think about Nick the way that he thought they did, and he is forced to think about himself in a new way. Nick has never listened to women before, but now he can’t help it. He sees the damage that he has done, and he begins to correct it. And of course he begins to fall in love with Darcy and to connect to his daughter.

Gibson is sheer heaven in the movie, dancing to Frank Sinatra in his apartment, watching his daughter try on prom dresses, or just reacting to snippits of thoughts he hears from girls, women, and even female dogs as he walks down the street. He has the physical grace of a leading man and the timing and unselfconsciousness of a comic. The script sags in places, but Gibson keeps the movie floating in the clouds.

Parents should know that the movie has stronger language than indicated by the previews. Nick manipulates the waitress into having sex with him by reading her thoughts. He is apalled to hear her thoughts in bed and find out what a poor lover he is. So, he listens to her thoughts and is able to give her an extraordinary experience which leaves her deeply touched. He then forgets all about her, until she confronts him a week later. He take the only out he can think of to explain why he had not called her — he tells her that he is gay.

Nick hears his daughter thinking that she has promised to have sex with her boyfriend on prom night. After an awkward attempt to talk to her about it, he neglects her until crisis strikes. Fortunately, she manages to make the right decision without him, and he is there after the fact to provide some support. Nick drinks a lot, and another character responds to stress by smoking a joint. In an embarassing moment, Darcy says, “A smart person would get very drunk now.” And a character plans to commit suicide.

Families should talk about whether it is hard for men and women to figure each other out, and how they can do better. They may also want to talk about the pressure Nick’s 15-year-old daughter feels to have sex with her 18-year-old boyfriend and how she decides what to do about it. They should also talk about how a small act of kindness can be very important to someone who is coping with depression. (But make sure that children know that clinical depression is a serious illness that cannot be “cured” by a few kind words.)

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “You’ve Got Mail.”

Plot: Francie Nolan (Peggy Ann Garner), an imaginative and sensitive girl, lives with her family in a Brooklyn tenement. She adores her father, Johnny (James Dunn), a dreamer with a drinking problem, and respects but resents her down-to-earth mother, Katie (Dorothy McGuire). The family struggles to rise from poverty. Francie and her brother must each read a page aloud each night from the Bible and Shakespeare, and their parents are intent on their becoming the first family members to graduate from grade school. Francie dreams of going to a better school in a wealthier neighborhood, and her father makes it possible by telling the principal that she is moving in with a fictitious wealthy aunt. A teacher there encourages her to pursue her love of writing. But Katie is pregnant again, and decides that Francie should leave school. When Johnny dies, Francie is devastated. She is angry with her mother, feeling that her mother did not love Johnny enough, and does not love her enough either. But when her mother has the baby, Francie sees that she loves them both, and that Katie hates having to be practical and “hard.” A kind policeman asks permission to court Katie, and Francie knows that their life will be easier, and that her father and what they shared will be with her always.

Discussion: This family has a great deal of love but a lot of difficulty showing it. Although they clearly love each other, Johnny and Katie have too many shattered expectations to accept tenderness from each other, as we see when he comes home with the food from the party and sees her with her hair down, and when she tries to tell him how much she likes hearing him sing “Annie Laurie.”

They have trouble being honest and direct about their circumstances and their feelings. They have to move to a cheaper apartment, but insist — to themselves and to everyone else — that they are doing it to get more sunlight. When Katie decides that she wants her sister back in her life, she sends the message via the insurance collector. When Francie tries raising the subject of the school she wants to attend in a roundabout way, Katie tells her to speak more directly. But Johnny lets her tell him in her own way, and, over Katie’s objections, makes it possible for her dream to come true. Francie has a hard time understanding that Katie loves her and relies on her, until Katie is in labor and almost does not know what she is saying. This is a good opportunity to talk about the ways that families do (and do not) communicate with each other. Older kids may also want to discuss the impact that Johnny’s drinking and unreliability had on Katie and why it was different for Francie.

Questions for Kids:

· What does the title refer to?

· What did Francie’s teacher mean about the difference between imagination and pipe dreams?

· Why did the members of the family have such a hard time talking to each other about what mattered to them?

· Why does the family use the word “sick” to describe Johnny’s alcoholism? Why does Johnny seem so sad when Francie talks with him about being “sick”?

· Why was it so important to Kate that the death certificate be changed?

Connections: James Dunn won an Oscar for his performance. Joan Blondell appeared as a brassy second lead in a number of early musicals, including “Footlight Parade” and “Gold Diggers of 1933.” Peggy Ann Garner is also lovely as the young “Jane Eyre.”

Activities: Kids should read the book, by Betty Smith, who based it on her own childhood.

An ordinary sequel to the first Wesly Snipes vehicle, based on the Marvel Comics superhero, this bloody punch-fest lacks the charming antagonists that livened the original movie.

Wesley Snipes plays the title character, Blade, a half-vampire whose mother was bitten hours before he was born. This mixed parentage gives him superhuman virtues without the traditional vampire sensitivities to sunlight, silver and garlic, which he uses, along with an arsenal of hi- tech weaponry, to avenge himself on the vampire community for their manifold sins.

When last we left our hero, his mentor and gunsmith Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) has been vampirized and abducted by the undead, and held suspended in a blood-support tank to endure eternal torture. With the help of his new idea-man, Blade breaks Whistler out, and cures him of the vampire virus with an injection and a 24 hour dry-out program.

Meanwhile, a mutant super-vampire sneaks into a corrupt Czech blood bank, and eats the vampire-phlebotomists with his daringly different super- vampire bloodsucking anatomy.

The waxy emperor is forced to offer a truce to Blade, in order to fight their mutual enemy. But it is immediately clear that the truce can only be temporary.

Snipes is occasionally funny, though not as often as he should be. Most of the rest of the cast is not funny, except Ron Perlman, re-doing his lovable thug routine (Cronos, Alien Resurrection) as an evil vampire hitman.

Parents should know that the movie has intense gore, which falls just on this side of a slasher film. All kinds of decapitations, bloodletting, tracheotomies, etc., are inflicted on various human-like beings. Although the vampires combust in a cloud of sparks when killed, it comes too late to avoid seeing brains, hearts and tendons, and oceans of blood. Blade, at one point, gets strapped to an impalement table, which shoots spikes through various limbs and organs. There is also a scene of horrible vampire self-mutilation. Even by action-movie standards, it is very graphic. Characters use strong language and there are sexual situations. Interestingly, in the original Blade, the vampires were a rainbow nation of evil with many different ethnic groups represented, but in Blade II, there are two ethnic vampires on Blade’s hit-squad, but none in the crowd scenes, or as antagonists.

Families who see this movie should talk about its themes of betrayal and loyalty. For what it’s worth, Blade is a black superhero. He calls the shots, is never condescended to, and shows loyalty, courage and integrity. Parents may want to discuss the nature of wish-fulfillment, and the way violence and problem-solving are conflated in the movies versus the way they interact in real life.

Families who enjoyed this movie will also enjoy the original “Blade” and “Darkman.”

Plot: Star (Shirley Temple), an orphan, lives with Captain January (Guy Kibbee), a retired sailor who runs a lighthouse. They adore each other, and she loves her life there, with the large community of sailors as her extended family and “Cap” to take care of her and teach her. A meddlesome and jealous woman, Agatha Morgan (Sara Haden) tries to prove that Cap is not a suitable guardian for Star, and that she should be in school, but when she is tested, her performance is well ahead of her grade level.

When the lighthouse is automated, Cap loses his job, and this gives Miss Morgan another chance to take Star away. To keep her from Miss Morgan, Cap’s friend Captain Nazro (Slim Somerville) tracks down Star’s wealthy relatives, who come to get her. They do everything they can to make her happy, finally realizing that she cannot be happy without the people who have become her real family. They bring Cap, Nazro, and her other special friends to be the crew for their new boat so they can be together.

Discussion: This is one of Shirley Temple’s best movies, and it provides an opportunity to discuss some of the most sensitive issues facing some children. Children who are home schooled will appreciate seeing the success of Shirley’s home schooling with Cap. And children who are in foster homes or have had to face custody issues may appreciate the opportunity to discuss Shirley’s situation as a way of addressing their own.

When Shirley is taken away from Cap, she says, “Why are they taking me away from you? What have I done?” This is a good chance to talk with children about how many kids mistakenly blame themselves for the problems that are created by the grown-ups around them. Star sings a song about how all that matters is “the right someone to love,” and imagines what it would be like to be Cap’s nanny. She says that he needs her to take care of him. Children need to know that it can be fun to pretend to be the caretaker, but that it is the grown-up’s responsibility to take care of the child. The movie also depicts the difficulty of finding work, especially after a job has been made obsolete.

Warning: this is a “happily ever after” movie, and children whose own situation make it difficult to watch an ending that ties everything up too neatly may have a hard time with it.

Questions for Kids:

· Why does Paul try to get Mary to “bend the rules” for Star’s test, and why won’t she do it?

· How can you tell that Cap and Nazro are friends, even though they insult each other and argue?

· How does Star notice that Cap is sad?

· Nazro does not give Cap two important pieces of information — what are they, and why doesn’t he tell Cap?

· Star and Cap both give reasons they are glad to leave the lighthouse — do you believe them? Why do they do that?

· Nazro says that children “forget quick.” Is that right?

Connections: Television fans with sharp eyes will recognize Buddy Ebsen (of “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “Barnaby Jones”) as Star’s friend Paul, who dances with her to “At the Codfish Ball.”

Activities: Children might like to visit a lighthouse or a museum exhibit showing the way they used to operate before the automation portrayed in the movie. They might also like to learn something about the opera Shirley pretends to be in, “Lucia de Lammermor;” the public library may have a recording you can borrow. Cap and Nazro pay pinochle, which children might like to learn. And they might like to make up a story, as Star does so well in her test at school.