Plot: Shy paleontologist David Huxley (Cary Grant) is hoping for three things: a rare dinosaur bone fossil, a million dollar research grant, and his marriage to colleague Miss Swallow. Madcap heiress Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn), instantly smitten with David when he objects to her playing his golf ball and driving off in his car, manages to disrupt his life completely when she asks him to help her transport a leopard named “Baby” to her aunt’s estate in Connecticut. Complications include Susan’s dog George taking the irreplaceable bone fossil to bury somewhere, serenading the leopard to get him down from a neighbor’s roof, being thrown in jail, confusing Baby with a vicious circus leopard, and the destruction of an entire dinosaur skeleton. David does not ultimately get the million dollars (it turns out that Susan’s aunt was the prospective donor), but Susan does, so everyone lives happily ever after, including Baby.

Discussion: “Bringing Up Baby” is generally considered to be the ultimate example of the screwball comedy, which reached its apex in the 1930s. These movies featured outlandish plots (most often featuring wealthy people subjected to utter chaos) carried out at breakneck speed with a lot of witty repartee and romantic tension.

Questions for Kids:

· What is it that Susan likes so much about David?

· Why, ultimately, does he like her?

· Would you like to meet someone like Susan?

Connections: Grant and Hepburn made three other films together. Two are also classic: “The Philadelphia Story” and “Holiday.” The third, “Sylvia Scarlett,” is an odd little movie (though with an enthusiastic cult following) about a group of performers that has Hepburn dressed as a boy through most of it. Other classic screwball comedies include, “My Man Godfrey,” “Nothing Sacred,” “It Happened One Night,” “The Palm Beach Story, ” and Peter Bogdanovich’s attempted update, “What’s Up Doc?” For very thoughtful and serious essays on “Bringing Up Baby” and some of the other screwball classics, see The Pursuit of Happiness, by Stanley Cavell.

Activities: Kids who enjoy this kind of comedy might enjoy some of the stories by P.G. Wodehouse, like “Uncle Fred Flits By,” which portray the same kind of deliriously joyful anarchy. And this movie may inspire them to take a look at dinosaur skeletons in a museum, though there is no such thing as an “intercostal clavicle.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Gordy, a fireman whose wife and son are killed when a bomb goes off in a terrorist attack. As he becomes convinced that the government will not do anything to bring justice to the man responsible, a Colombian nicknamed “The Wolf,” Gordon decides to get justice for himself, by finding The Wolf and killing him.

The original release of this movie was delayed following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. It may still be too soon – in fact, it may never be possible to be as casual about fictional terrorism again. The movie is too close to reality to be able to enjoy it as pure entertainment and too far from reality to be able to get any feeling of satisfaction from it.

It is very formulaic. Arnold is told of the insurmountable obstacles. He surmounts them. Finally, he arrives in the secret lair of the bad guy. We see how bad a guy the bad guy really is, to make us feel even better about what lies ahead of him. Arnold is very clever and utterly unstoppable. Many explosions later, we get to what comes as close as possible to a happy ending.

The best parts of the movie are the brief appearances by John Turturro as a Canadian mechanic and John Leguizamo as a charming cocaine producer. The decision not to allow Gordon to carry a weapon provides for some moments of creativity in the plot. But Arnold is getting too old for this kind of thing, and, given our recent experiences, audiences may feel that they are, too.

Parents should know that the movie is very violent, with extreme peril. Many characters are killed, including a child. A character is killed by having a poisonous snake forced down his throat. A character’s ear is bitten off and spit out. The movie has strong language, and references to drug trade. The jitters of a character who appears to have had an overdose of cocaine are supposed to be funny.

The movie tries to make a connection between Gordon and The Wolf. Both are formerly gentle and loving men who became killers after losing children. The Wolf even asks Gordon how they are different. Gordon replies, “Because I am just going to kill you.” Families who see this movie should talk about the impulse for revenge and how to determine the best way to respond to terrorism. Were any of The Wolf’s claims legitimate, even if his tactics were not? Do all conflicts create “collateral damage?”

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the best of this genre, including Die Hard and Under Siege.

This is another attempt at creating a new “Sixth Sense,” and it falls far short. It is dreary, it is boring, and worst of all, it is phony. And it completely wastes the talents of two brilliant Oscar-winning actresses, Kathy Bates and Linda Hunt.

Kevin Costner plays Joe Darrow, a doctor whose pregnant wife is killed on a humanitarian mission in South America. He is heartbroken. He begins to believe that she is sending him messages through the sick children she used to care for. Somehow, when they have near-death experiences, they communicate with her.

Joe is committed to a rational view of the world, and is torn between wanting to hold on to what he believes and wanting to hold on to what he had with his wife. Finally, the messages are impossible to ignore, and he goes off in search of whatever it is that is she is trying to tell him.

The movie has some highly predictable surprises as Joe gets everything but a telegram showing the weird curvy cross sign that turns out to symbolize a waterfall. As hard as Costner tries, you can’t help feeling that he does not really care that much about it, and neither does the audience.

Parents should know that the movie has a mild sexual situation involving a married couple and some chilling moments. There is also a very mild reference to a lesbian relationship.

Families who see this movie should talk about their own views on life after death and the ability of dead loved ones to communicate with those left behind.

Families who enjoy this movie should watch the vastly superior “The Sixth Sense” and “Truly, Madly, Deeply.”

Plot: Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) is the beautiful and headstrong daughter of of the owner of a Southern plantation called Tara. She has “the smallest waist in three counties” and dozens of beaux clamoring for her attention. But the one she believes she loves is gentle Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard). At a party, just as the Civil War is beginning, she finds out that he is going to marry his cousin Melanie (Olivia DeHavilland). Her fury at this news is witnessed by Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), a dashing, but cynical man who refuses to participate in hypocricy and speaks very directly, telling Scarlett that she is “no lady” and telling the men at the party that the South cannot win a war.

In a pique, Scarlett impulsively agrees to marry Melanie’s brother Charles (her sister’s beau), who dies just after he enlists. This leaves Scarlett as a widow, encumbered to the point of suffocation by the mourning rituals of the era, which restrict her to elaborate black clothes and very limited social activities. She goes to visit Melanie, now married to Ashley, in Atlanta, and meets Rhett again, now a war profiteer, who shocks the community by pledging money for the war effort if she will dance with him. She is delighted to have an excuse to dance. His directness makes her uncomfortable, but also intrigues her, because she has been used to men who are both predictable and easy to control. Melanie has a baby just as Sherman comes through with his soldiers. Scarlett stays with her, then gets Rhett (staying at a bordello) to take them all back to Tara. She tells Rhett he was right not to join the Confederate army, but he has decided that now is the time to join, and leaves her at Tara.

Her mother is dead, her father has had a breakdown, and her sisters are ill. They have no food, and all but two of the slaves have left. Scarlett takes charge, swearing she will never be hungry again. When a Union deserter tries to steal her mother’s jewelry, she shoots him, and Melanie helps her bury the body.

The war ends. About to lose Tara, she tries to get the money from Rhett, and when he refuses, she marries Frank Kennedy (her other sister’s fiancé), a merchant, to get the money. Frank is killed in a KKK- style raid, and she marries Rhett. But she thinks that she still wants Ashley, and by the time she realizes that it is Rhett she loves, he leaves her, with the most famous exit line in the history of the movies. After he is gone, she reminds herself that she will go on and work for what she wants, that “Tomorrow is another day.”

Discussion: Considered by many the definitive example of the Hollywood movie, this is by any standard one of the greatest films of all time. It could be — and should be — viewed from a dozen different perspectives, but it is, above all, a story about adapting to the most challenging circumstances possible. Interestingly, our heroine is not especially brave or smart or considerate. On the contrary, she is completely selfish. And she has very little interest or understanding of the world around her or of her own feelings. Yet the movie shows us that she has qualities like stubbornness and focus that enable her to survive, while those like Melanie and Ashley (who are thoughtful and honorable) do not. In the first scene, her father tells her that what matters most is Tara, and that becomes her symbol of survival. At the end of the movie, with her emotional life devastated, her first thought is to return there to start over again.

In the first scenes of the movie, we get a glimpse of the South before the Civil War. The lives of the landowners are similar to those of British landed gentry, with even more elaborate standards of gentility, chivalry, elegance, and refinement. Listen to Mammy (Hattie MacDaniel) before the barbecue party, reminding Scarlett of the conventions of the era, from how much it is appropriate for ladies to eat in front of gentlemen to how much skin it is appropriate to expose in the afternoon. All that is shattered when the war begins, and shattered again when the illusions about the war as an exercise in chivalry and sportsmanship are relentlessly swept away by the realities of combat with a vastly more powerful adversary. Every belief and assumption the Southerners had about themselves and their future is challenged.

Notice how much of what goes on between Scarlett and others is about power. She and Ashley have little in common; indeed, the qualities she thinks she admires in him are the ones that make her feel contempt for Melanie. Scarlett’s primary interest in Ashley seems to be in making sure she can enslave him as she has the Tarleton twins and every other man she knows. In a scene that is even more controversial today than it was when it was filmed, Rhett’s willingness to overpower her sexually increases her respect for and interest in him.

Scarlett and Rhett are both free from considerations of honor and duty and therefore able to think in strictly pragmatic terms about survival. The difference is that Rhett is always honest with himself and others about what is going on, while Scarlett insists on keeping her illusions about Ashley, until it is too late.

Questions for Kids:

· Why were the Southerners so wrong about their ability to win a war with the North?

· Why does Scarlett marry Charles? Why does she marry Frank? Why does she marry Rhett?

· Why is Tara so important to her?

· Why does Rhett like Scarlett? Why do his feelings about her change?

· What do you think will happen after she goes back to Tara?

Connections: This film, the long-time box office champion, won eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel, who beat Olivia DeHavilland to become the first black performer to win an Oscar ). Amazingly, director Victor Fleming, the fifth director assigned to the movie, directed “The Wizard of Oz” the same year. With five directors and at least 12 screenwriters, the credit for “authorship” of the movie must go to producer David O. Selznick, whose vision for the film was spelled out meticulously in long memoranda, published in Memo from David O. Selznick. A made-for-television movie, “The Scarlett O’Hara War” is based on the furious efforts in Hollywood by all of the actresses (including Bette Davis, Paulette Goddard, Joan Crawford, and Tallulah Bankhead) who wanted this juiciest of parts. “Scarlett,” a television miniseries, continues the story, but with not even a fraction of the quality of the original. Read the original book by Margaret Mitchell instead.

Hard-core Kevin Smith fans (I don’t think there are any other kind) will find this just the movie they were waiting for. It’s a love letter to his characters and to his fans, a sort of movie equivalent to the holiday greetings the Beatles used to send out to members of their fan club. “Jay and Silent Bob” is filled the cheery vulgarity, sweet sprit, deliriously crackpot dialogue, and cornucopia of arcane references to pop culture and to Smith’s view askew world. In other words, it is the ultimate culmination of Smith’s oeuvre. It either clears the decks and enables him to move on to something new, or it just paves the way for another round of Red Hook-based, self-referential little gems.

What this means is that if you don’t already know who Jay and Silent Bob are, see Smith’s other movies before you see this one. This movie is a sort of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” (or The Wind Done Gone) of Smith’s previous movies. He has taken two tangential characters who have appeared in all of the other films and given them their own movie.

Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (played by screenwriter/director Smith) are two small-time drug dealers who spend their lives hanging out in front of the convenience store that provided the setting for Smith’s fist film, “Clerks.” In his third film, “Chasing Amy,” it turned out that they were the inspiration for the offbeat superhero stars of a successful comic book created by the lead characters (played by Ben Affleck and Jason Lee).

In the latest installment, Jay and Silent Bob find out that there is going to be a movie based on the comic book, and they go to Hollywood to stop the production. Along the way, they run into the Scooby-Doo gang, a minivan of gorgeous girls and a guy with a guitar who say that they are on their way to protest animal testing, just about every character from the previous four movies, and many of today’s hottest young stars, happy to show everyone that they are not taking themselves too seriously.

This is the kind of movie that has Ben Affleck say, “Who would pay to see a movie about Jay and Silent Bob?” and then turn toward the camera to give those of us who did a knowing wink. Everyone on screen makes fun of the movie, the characters, and themselves. Smith fans will have a lot of fun — and even more when the DVD comes out and they can add another layer of arcania and in-jokes.

Parents should know that, like all of Smith’s movies, this has the strongest possible vulgarity and profanity, including drug use and very explicit sexual references. Smith has been criticized by gay activists for some homophobic dialogue and has already agreed to pay a fine and put explanatory language in the credits. He notes, however, that the comments are made by people who are not intended in any way to be role models, and that these comments are just one example of behavior that makes this very clear. One female character does point out to the completely clueless Jay that women do not like to be called “bitches.” It is obvious though, that Jay is ignorant, not mean-spirited. Indeed, despite his nonstop monologue of vulgarity, it is clear that Jay is really very sweet, even tender-hearted. And a brief flashback shows us that the only reason he talks that way is that he never heard anything better from his mother.

Families who see this movie should talk about how the real-life Jason Mewes might feel being turned into the movie’s Jay, and how Smith, who puts such rich dialogue into the mouths of other characters, created a silent character for himself. They should also look at Smith’s View Askew web pages to get more insight into the world of Smith and his characters.

Families who enjoy this movie should see Smith’s other films. They might also like to get a glimpse of Jay and Silent Bob in the otherwise stupid “Scary Movie”.