“The New Guy” is a waste of talent. This high school epic, supposedly about one boy’s path to true cool is so half-baked and uncool that it’s embarrassing. It is also another case of the MPAA giving a PG-13 rating to a comedy that has material that would get an R in a drama.

Chickenesque D.J. Qualls, this generation’s Don Knotts, plays Dizzy, a funk-loving dork stranded at the bottom of the school pecking order with his pals, played by Parry Shen, the magnificent Zooey Deschanel (“Big Trouble” and “Almost Famous”) and Jeord Mixon. After an opening-day incident where Dizzy is injured in an unlikely and spectacular and deeply personal way, he decides he must escape. Deciding to get expelled, his antics at first only merit a diagnosis of Tourette’s syndrome and some stupefying medication. Now drug-addled as well, his behavior escalates until he gets thrown in jail. There his meets the mentor he’s been needing: Eddie Griffin, playing an inmate who’s cultivated a fierce facade to survive the comic rigors of movie-prison life.

Under his tutelage, Dizzy is transformed into the punky Gil. At a new school, on the other side of town, Gil uses his newfound abilities to spout decade-old pseudo-Ebonic aphorisms and publicly beat the local bully. His badboy status confirmed, he begins to restructure the social hierarchy of the new place. Eventually, he’s forced to confront the fact that Gil is just an invention, and also forced by the lame script to win the heart of the school bully’s sexy girlfriend, as portrayed by Eliza Dushku.

It is painful to see some of today’s most talented young actors wasted in this dreck. They’re given very little to work with in the script. The writer and director have sadly bought into the same limited mindset about popularity and conformity that they are purportedly skewering.

The most troubling aspect of “The New Guy” might be strained impressions D.J. Qualls calls upon in his quest for status. It’s intrinsically funny to watch the gawkiest white guy on the planet attempt to imitate macho black posturing (especially when the source of this posturing is the chihuahua-like Eddie Griffin). But so much of it goes on for so long that posturing begins to seem a little like caricature. And it’s precisely this behavior, the epitome of imitative uncool, which is supposed to secure “Gil’s” status.

Parents should know that this film contains a lot of sexual talk, a little sexual activity (offscreen), and a mutilating injury that is supposed to be funny. Dizzy/Gil overdoses on medication, crashes a motorcycle, and sets his father’s head on fire (by accident, for comic effect). The slapstick of the film is pretty violent, and there are frequent kicks to the groin. One character is described as a “slut” and likes to have sex in public. Another pages a friend on a store intercom, reporting a “pair of lost testicles.”

Families who see this movie should talk about who the arbiters of social status are in real high schools, and what qualities determine a person’s status. What are the advantages of popularity? What are the consequences (advantages?) of being unpopular? Is social status fixed, or changeable? Does any of this really matter after high school?

Families who enjoyed this film might want to catch D.J. Qualls’ breakout role in “Roadtrip”, or give Eddie Griffin some space for his comedy in “Double Take”, alongside the underutilized Orlando Jones.

“Windtalkers” is not the right name for John Woo’s new film. A more apt title would be “Sergeant Enders and the Windtalkers,” because the film mainly focuses on the complicated, half-crazed main character rather than the Navajos recruited as Marines in World War II to use their language as a military code that was vital in the allied victory. The movie does a disservice to the men it is intended to honor by perpetuating their marginalization and making the much less interesting Nicolas Cage character the main focus of the story.

We meet Sgt. Enders (Nicolas Cage) in the midst of battle. He is injured and witnessing the deaths of his friends is slowly driving him mad. His hearing loss could get him sent home, but he stays to keep fighting. He and Sgt. “Ox” Henderson (Christian Slater) are assigned to protect newly enlisted Navajo fighters Pvt. Ben Yahzee and Pvt. Charlie Whitehorse, (played superbly by Adam Beach and Roger Willie, respectively) whose abilities with the Navajo code are essential in the war. Enders is noticeably disgruntled at his new duties, but through a series of events he gains a mutual respect for the men he must protect, often in entertaining but predictable fashion. The dialogue is not very memorable with lines from the Navajos like “I’ve never seen so many white men!”

“Windtalkers” follows suit of most post-“Saving Private Ryan” war films and tries to make its point by dousing us with relentless violence. As in too many war movies, there are soldiers who talk about their dreams for when they get home and say things like, “If I die, tell my wife…” and whose purpose in the plot is to help the hero learn something when they die. There’s a tough, bigoted soldier (“The Truman Show’s” Noah Emmerich) who learns that the Navajos are actually good people when one of them saves his life. There’s the doe-eyed girl next door nurse (A.I.’s Frances O’Connor) who loves her stoic, tough but somehow likeable man at war.

Cage, Slater, and a solid supporting cast of character actors are all dependably good, and it’s interesting to see John Woo’s distinctive action style put into a war film. The culture clashes are never boring, and scenes where a peace pipe ritual is carried out on a cigarette and Henderson duets on a harmonica with Whitehorse’s wooden flute are handled with sensitivity.

Parents should know that there is a great deal of graphic battle violence and very strong language, including racial epithets. The Navaho characters are portrayed as patriotic, brave, and dedicated.

Families who see this should discuss the way that Enders and Yahzee change during the course of the movie. Anyone who enjoys this movie will probably also like recent WWII films like the aforementioned Ryan, The Thin Red Line, Enemy at the Gates, and this year’s overlooked Hart’s War. Fore more on the real story of the Windtalkers, see this article.

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.

If you know the premise of this movie, you know the plot and you undoubtedly know the jokes. Here’s the premise: Tootsie on a basketball team. A conceited pro basketball player gets fired, and the only job he can get is on a woman’s team. So, he dresses up like a woman. He’s in for some lessons about life, and we’re in for some locker room humor.

The film was a bit of a surprise, though with a nice spirit and a willingness to avoid the obvious. It’s nowhere near “Some Like it Hot” or “Tootsie,” or even “Mrs. Doubtfire,” but it is better than recent cross-dressing films like “Big Momma’s House” and the abominable “Sorority Boys.”

Jamal Jeffries (Miguel A. Nunez Jr., in his first starring role) is a star basketball player whose bad attitude and poor sportsmanship are constantly getting him in trouble. He is indefinitely suspended after one particular mishap (which, in the real world, could have landed him in jail) and he loses his fake friends as fast as the money he spent so irresponsibly. With his main priority making back some money and playing the game he loves, he takes up his only option, dressing like woman and playing women’s basketball.

Through the women he reluctantly learns to be a supportive team player and falls for the team’s star, Michelle (“Independence Day’s” lovely Vivica A. Fox). Obviously the usual chaos ensues, and Jamal has to learn several lessons to stay on the team as well as maintain his cover. Besides the talented stars, a supporting cast consisting of reliable character actors like Kevin Pollak, Tommy Davidson, and Wayans’ sister Kim, as well as good turns from hip-hop stars Genuwine and Lil’ Kim. The “dude looks like a lady” plot has been done many times before and there’s nothing new here, from the awkward moments with the love interest to the big moment where all is revealed to the men who were hitting on the main character. So the plot is predictable and a lot of the jokes are lazy. Although there were no surprises and some gratuitous stereotypes, I found myself caring about the characters.

Parents should know that this movie has a lot of raunchy humor, mostly revolving around Jamal’s anatomical differences from his teammates, but pretty typical for the increasingly graphic PG-13 rating. Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy Tootsie and Some Like it Hot selected by the American Film Institute as the funniest movie ever. They may also want to try a more serious story about romantic relationship between hoops players, Love and Basketball.

In this fourth installment of Pokemon feature films, Ash and his friends explore an enchanted forest and meet Celebi, a dove-like Pokemon with the power to move through time. They also make friends with a boy named Sammy who was catapulted 40 years into the present day when he tried to protect Celebi from being captured. But then Celebi is captured and turned into a supercharged evil force. Sammy, Ash, Pikachu, and their friends have to find a way to save Celebi and the forest. And Sammy has to go back to his own era.

This movie has more of a story than the previous Pokemon features, some surprisingly lovely background paintings, and a very impressive computer-animated monster made out of twigs and straw. I was a bit relieved to get away from the concept of possessing the pokemons and focus more on cooperation and friendship. But it is still a long slog for anyone but the most committed Pokemon fan, and parents may feel that the movie’s title is a reference to its running time.

Parents often wonder about the appeal of Pokemon. As I have written before, there are three reasons that children are drawn to characters like Pokemon. First is the perennial appeal of characters who appear to be weak but have hidden sources of power. Kids, who live in a world of powerful giants are drawn to stories of transformations and secret strength, from Clark Kent who is secretly Superman on through the Transformers, Ninja Turtles, and Power Rangers. Next, the many facts to memorize about Pokemon give children a chance to master something that is vastly beyond the ability of adults, giving them a sense of power and competence. Finally, as children start to develop social skills, fads like Pokemon provide a shared language that can help those conversations and imaginative games get started.

Parents should know that the movie has characters in peril and one apparent death that could be upsetting for younger children. There is one mildly crude joke that kids will find funny.

Families who see this movie should talk about how Ash and Sammy will continue to be close to each other, even though they will not be together. How did Celebi stop being violent? What is the difference between Jesse and James and the other member of Team Rocket they meet? What do you think Team Rocket is?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the other Pokemon movies.