If you’re allergic to the kind of movie that starts with a funeral and then goes into a flashback about a sensitive kid’s last childhood summer, then stay away. But audiences with an appreciation or even a tolerance of this genre will find this to be above average. It is based on a story by Stephen King. There is some tension and an element of the supernatural, but this is King’s coming of age mode (“Stand By Me”) and contact with an extraordinary character mode (“The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile”), not a horror movie.

It is summertime, and Billy has just turned 11. His mother’s birthday gift is not the bicycle he dreams of but an adult library card. She is quick to remind him that they have very little money, since Billy’s father died leaving them with unpaid bills and no insurance. Billy’s friend Carol points out that his mother buys new clothes for herself, but Billy defends her, saying that she has to look good for work.

A stranger comes to live above Billy and his mother. His name is Ted Brautigan (Anthony Hopkins). He hires Billy to read him the newspaper and watch out for “the low men,” who wear hats, drive fancy cars, and leave odd messages in code on telephone poles. Billy thinks Ted is a little loony, but he agrees, at first because he wants to earn money for the bicycle, and then because he is drawn to Ted’s warmth, humor, and even to his strangeness. He begins to see signs of the low men, but he does not tell Ted. He knows that when Ted hears that the low men have come, he will have to leave.

Billy gets a chance to see through Ted’s eyes, which may be weak when it comes to reading but which see important things very clearly. When Billy touches Ted, he gets a little bit of Ted’s ability to somehow “know” things. All of a sudden, in the next room, Billy can tell that what Ted is wondering about is his cigarettes. And a surprised three-card monte shark (well-played by “A Knight’s Tale’s” Alan Tudyk) finds that Billy can tell him where the Queen of Hearts is without even looking at the cards. Even more important, though, is that way that Ted, like all special grown-ups in the lives of children, guides Billy to a new knowledge of himself and the world. Ted helps Billy realize that his friend Carol is more special to him than he thought, that he deserves better treatment from his mother, and that the town bully is not as powerful as he thinks.

Parents should know that there is some strong language, characters are in peril and some are injured, and a character is raped (inexplicit and mostly offscreen). A character is wrongfully accused of molesting a child. A bully who accuses others of being “queer” turns out to be acting on his fears about his own sexuality. Fighting back is portrayed as heroic. There are a couple of chaste kisses.

Families who see this movie should talk about the grown-ups who inspired them the most, and might also want to discuss how we decide whom we will trust.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Stand By Me – Special Edition(some mature material).

Jet Li is always a pleasure to watch, even in this silly story about a Chinese spy befriended by an American prostitute on a mission in Paris.

No longer the pretty boy in the equally silly but more romantic “Romeo Must Die,” this time, in a story he created, Li lets us see some chicken pox scars on his face and he lets us see him get knocked down a few times, too.

But don’t confuse that with realism. This is still a ridiculous fantasy story about an evil policeman named Richard (Tchéky Karyo) who seems to be behind most of the crime in Europe. Richard runs prostitutes and deals in drugs. And when the Chinese government sends a representative to help investigate drug traffic into China, Richard kills his Chinese contact and frames the representative, whom he insists on calling “Johnny.”

All of this is, of course, just a thin excuse for extensive and sometimes inventive fight scenes, featuring lots of punching and kicking and also injury and death by grenade (which blows a guy in half), laundry irons (applied to faces), automatic weapons, chopsticks to the throat, a billiard ball to the head, and some tiny acupuncture pins with devastating effects. My favorite encounter was when Li, chasing through the police station, locks himself inside a room only to turn around and discover that he is facing an entire class of cops who are in a karate class.

Parents should know that the movie is extremely violent and very graphic, with many gross, bloody deaths and behavior that is reckless to the point of insanity. Richard makes Al Capone look like a consensus-builder. Even most movie bad guys are not as out of control as Richard, who wildly shoots automatic weapons into crowds of civilians. Li made headlines the week before the film was released by recommending that parents not allow their children to see the movie, which is rated R for extreme and graphic violence, drug use, and sexual references and situations. This is good advice.

Families who do see the movie should talk about how Jessica, an American girl from North Dakota, made the foolish choices that left her a heroin-addicted prostitute and kept her away from her daughter. What other options did she have? What will happen to her after the movie ends?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Jet Li in Romeo Must Die and Lethal Weapon.

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 only way to write about “On the Line” is to have separate mini-reviews for the three categories of people who are most likely to be curious about it. I’ll begin with the group least able to wait (but also least likely to care what anyone else says about it): N’Sync fans. You will like the movie. Lance Bass (who also co-produced) and Joey Fatone appear throughout the movie and are cute. There are a lot of jokes and there is a sweet romance. There are some N’Sync songs on the soundtrack and some good songs by other performers and some cameo appearances by other stars, including Richie Sambora and Brandi. You also get to hear Joey perform some hard rock songs like “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” and Lance sings “Two Princes.” The other members of N’Sync appear very briefly during the end credits. Judging by the reaction of the mostly teenage girl audience in the screening I attended (and that was a group of intense fans who aced a pre-show N’Sync trivia contest), that was the highlight of the film.

Next, for parents of kids who want to see the movie and want to know how bad it is: I’ve seen worse, but then I am one of the few adults who has seen all three “Pokemon” movies AND all three “Mighty Ducks” movies. But I well understand the audience for this movie — back in the day, I went to see an awful musical called “When the Boys Meet the Girls” just because it had a performance by Herman’s Hermits.

If your kids want to see the movie, it is probably because they are fans of N’Sync, because, though it never mentions the group in its advertising, the movie stars two of its members. The story is a basic boy meets girl (on Chicago’s elevated train), loses girl because he is too shy to ask for her name and phone number, and then finds her again after several near misses. It is rated PG for some crude humor and brief bad language. On the scale of pop star vanity productions that reaches from the depths of “Glitter” and “Can’t Stop the Music” to the pinnacle of “Hard Day’s Night,” it is not very good but not destined for status as a legendary disaster. It’s about as harmless as an average sitcom episode.

Finally, in case there is anyone out there who is considering going to this movie for any reason other than its N’Sync connection: don’t bother. Go see “Serendipity” instead – it has a similar story with a better script and a much better cast. The script is really terrible, not just dumb but sloppy. It can’t even get the definition of “tweens” right, a pretty big lapse, considering that tweens are the primary demographic for the movie’s audience. Much of the movie takes place on Chicago’s famous “El” trains, and yet in the movie they spell it “L.” And Lance’s character either goes massively into debt with a last grand gesture to find the girl of his dreams or he embezzles the client’s ad campaign money to put his copy on their billboards. Apparently, this little detail was not important enough to clear up. Furthermore, the movie unforgiveably wastes the talents of Dave Foley and Jerry Stiller. We may forgive Stiller for complaining about his internal organs and bodily functions in “Zoolander” — that was a favor to his son, who wrote and directed it. But in this movie we get the same shtick for no reason whatsoever.

Parents should know that the movie has some vulgar humor and some strong language for a PG (there is some obvious overdubbing that indicates that the movie may have been cut down from a PG-13). Characters drink beer and wine. One actor does what could be considered an insensitive caricature of flamboyant gay male behavior. Guys ask each other how much “action” they got following a date. Despite some crude conversation, the behavior of the characters is not inappropriate and one male character comes on too strong is told by his date in no uncertain terms that his behavior is inappropriate, a good role model for the young girls in the audience.

Families who see the movie should talk about how it can be hard to take a risk. Parents may want to talk about some of their own experiences and how they learned from their mistakes.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the best teen idol movie ever made, A Hard Day’s Night, starring the Beatles.

Like the life of its subject matter, there is a lot that is wrong with this movie, but there is also something right enough for a bittersweet happy ending.

Drew Barrymore stars in the true story of Beverly Donofrio, whose dreams of going to NYU and becoming a writer seemed impossible when she became pregnant at age 15. Beverly was the daughter of a policeman (James Woods) and a homemaker (Lorraine Bracco). When she became pregnant by a sweet but irresponsible drop-out (Steve Zahn as Ray), her parents insisted that they get married. They spent the next seven years on welfare. As the movie begins, Beverly has written her life story. She and her son, now in college, have a wintery journey of reconciliation as they seek out Ray to get him to sign a release so that the book can be published. The story alternates between that snowy car ride and flashbacks to the past that led up to it.

The commercials for this movie make it look like an up-beat story with a lot of cute sit-com-y moments, but it is not. Bev is not a good mother. She is so angry at Ray, her son Jason, and her parents that her behavior is often selfish and bitter. If an actress less irresistible than Barrymore were in the role, we would stop caring whether she ever got to college. The script makes some odd choices in showing us too many scenes of Bev’s despair and nothing about what she did that finally pulled her life together. Jason’s romantic involvement seems to tie up too many loose ends to be authentic. Director Penny Marshall bangs too hard on the cultural signifiers of each era Bev lives through. Her music choices are uncharacteristically pedestrian, with nothing that hasn’t been used dozens of times before. I hereby propose punishment of a week in movie-maker prison for the next person who puts “I Feel Good” in a movie. It is the most over-used song in movie history.

But the movie gets four stars just for Barrymore’s performance as she shows us Bev at 15, 20, and 35. Zahn, always a marvelous actor in comedy or drama, gives a performance of great generosity and heart. There are also great moments from Brittany Murphy, as Bev’s friend Fay, and Woods as Bev’s dad.

Parents should know that the movie has non-explicit teenage sex and pregnancy. Characters drink, smoke, and use drugs, including use of a hallucinogenic drug while watching a child and heroin addiction. A character sells drugs, and Bev and Fay briefly become involved in helping him. There is a painful scene of withdrawal. All of this is presented in a realistic manner with realistic consequences that should help teenagers understand the seriousness of this behavior. There is also some strong language.

Families who see this movie should talk about how families support members who have made bad choices and the importance of accepting responsibility for your mistakes. What did Bev’s family do wrong? What did they do right? Why was she able to achieve her dream? What did Jason do to make her see things differently? What do you think about Ray’s comment that the best thing he could do for Jason was to leave him?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Diner (some mature material).