Judith Traherne (Bette Davis) is an impetuous and headstrong heiress who lives life with furious energy. Her life revolves around parties and horses. She sees Dr. Frederick Steele (George Brent) for her headaches and dizzy spells, and he tells her she has a brain tumor. He operates, and she believes she is cured. Her soul is cured as well, because she and the doctor have fallen in love, and for the first time she feels genuine happiness and peace.

She learns that Frederick and her friends have kept the truth from her; her prognosis is negative, and she has very little time left. She breaks the engagement, telling Frederick he only wants to marry her out of pity. At first, she returns to her old life, trying to bury her fears and loneliness in a frenzy of parties. But she is terribly sad, and when Michael, her stableman (Humphrey Bogart) tells her that she should allow herself to see that Frederick really loves her, and take whatever happiness she can, in whatever time she has left, she knows he is right.

She marries Frederick, and has blissful months with him on his farm in Vermont before she dies, having had a lifetime of love and happiness in their time together.

This classic melodrama is also almost an encyclopedia of emotions. At first, Judith is in denial about her illness and about her feelings. She shows displaced anger when she breaks her engagement to Frederick. Most important to discuss with kids, though, is that she makes a classic mistake of confusing pleasure and happiness. The contrast between her frantic efforts to find distraction through parties (“horses, hats, and food”) and fast living, and the peace and joy of her time in Vermont with love and meaningful work (okay, it’s her husband’s meaningful work, but this was the 1930s) is exceptionally well portrayed by Davis and by director Goulding. This is one of the most important emotional distinctions for kids to learn, especially teenagers.

Families who see this movie should talk about questions like these: Why is it so hard for Judith to find happiness, even before she learns she is sick? How can you tell that she does not understand herself very well? Why does she break her engagement with Frederick? What does Michael tell her that makes her change her mind? Why doesn’t she tell Frederick that she is close to the end, sending him away instead?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “The Big Lie,” another romantic drama with Davis and Brent.

Steven Seagal is definitely in “Fat Elvis” mode in this color-by-numbers honest-cop against corruption story. He’s got Wayne Newton-style black hair and a William Shatner-style sucked-in paunch, and I suspect that at least some of the cuts in the fight scenes were added to give him some time to catch his breath.

No surprises here at all. Seagal plays a break-the-rules cop who takes on a whole team of commandos to save the Vice President and then gets dressed down by his commanding officer (“You don’t follow orders! You’re unmanageable!”) and assigned to the toughest precinct in town as punishment. He even gets put on traffic duty and sent to anger management class by the gorgeous precinct commander. But somehow, wherever he goes, trouble finds him, and people we think are good guys turn out to be bad and people we think are bad guys turn out to be good. Yawn.

Seagal has aged since his “Under Siege” days, and he now does more shooting than kicking. The movie tries to help him out with a lot of support from talented co-stars. Rapper DMX has a very strong screen presence, though it wavers when he has to say more than a dozen words at a time. It is always a pleasure to see Isaiah Washington, who deserves a leading role the next time around. Michael Jai White makes the most of his brief time on screen. Tom Arnold and Anthony Anderson (quickly becoming the movies’ favorite fat funny sidekick) are there to provide comic relief. Their raunchy improvised dialogue that accompanies the credits is one of the movie’s high points. The low point is certainly the plot, which has logic holes big enough for Seagal, Arnold, and Anderson to jump through, followed by the dialogue, which is pretty much cut and pasted from a dozen other scripts of this genre. The title is just a menacing term that has nothing whatsoever to do with the story, further evidence that no one involved really cares very much about this movie.

Parents should know that the movie is very violent, with graphic injuries and the death of at least one major character. There is also the obligatory nightclub scene with erotic topless dancers smearing something all over each other. Characters use strong language and there is even stronger language in the soundtrack, including repeated use of the n-word. On the positive side, there are strong, loyal, brave women and minority characters.

Families who see this movie should talk about real-life cases of police corruption and the temptations presented to people who risk their lives for low pay and little thanks. They may also want to talk about how we decide whom we will trust, and what happens when that trust is violated, and about “anger management” and how it works.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Gone in 60 Seconds” and “Romeo Must Die,” as well as Seagal’s best film, “Under Siege.”

High Crimes” is merely mediocre, an all-but-thrilless thriller of the “loved not wisely but too well” betrayed-woman genre.

Ashley Judd plays spirited and telegenic defense lawyer Claire Kubik, who thinks she has things pretty well figured out. She knows just when and how much time she needs for a sexual encounter with her handsome and devoted husband (Jim Caviezel) so that she can get pregnant. She feels confident that she is doing the right thing in freeing man accused of rape by claiming that his rights were violated by a technicality. As she explains to the television cameras, “When the rights of any defendant are violated, we are all at risk until justice has been redressed.” And then, just in case we missed the message, we get to hear it again when she watches herself on the news.

But when a bungled robbery attempt leads to a fingerprint check of their house, she discovers that there are some things she didn’t know. For example, she did not know that her husband’s name is really Ron Chapman, that he was once a Marine, and that he is wanted by federal authorities for his part in a massacre in El Salvador.

He is arrested by military authorities, and Claire is almost as disoriented by her unfamiliarity with the military justice system as she is by the unfamiliarity of the husband she thought she knew. But she swings into action. The lawyer assigned to Chapman is willing, but inexperienced. Claire hires a “wild card” lawyer who has “beat the Marines before and is hungry to do it again.” Charles Grimes (Morgan Freeman) may be a recovering alcoholic with a run-down practice, but she hires him. Then there are some predictable twists and turns and betrayals and threats, and then it ends. Badly.

Freeman and Judd have a lot of chemistry, as we saw in the much better “Kiss the Girls.” But the script is at or below the level of the average Lifetime made-for-tv movie. Here’s hoping they find a better one for their next movie together.

Parents should know that the movie has some violent moments, including flashbacks to a massacre by US armed forces and a bombing that kills civilians. Characters are in jeopardy, and some are wounded, one has a miscarriage, and one is killed. A character is an alcoholic and there are scenes in a bar. There are sexual references and situations, including prostitutes, and some very strong language. The issue of betrayal may also be upsetting for some audience members.

Characters in this movie deal with many conflicts about trust. Families who see this movie should talk about how we learn whom to trust and how we feel when our trust is betrayed. Characters also have to deal with ends-justify-the-means conflicts. How do you feel about the way they resolve them? Some family members may want to talk about the choice Charles makes when he is asked to take a drink.

Families who enjoy this movie may also enjoy the much more graphically violent “Kiss the Girls” and a movie about a Justice Department lawyer on the trail of a female serial killer, “Black Widow.

Something more than a video game but something less than a movie, “Tomb Raider” has some great action sequences and the ever-watchable Angelina Jolie. What it does not have is much of a plot, interesting characters, or a reason to care about the outcome. A clumsy salute to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” is just a reminder of how much better that movie is. At least when you are playing the game you have points to keep you going. Here, all you have is a dreary old “cryptic letter from long-dead father” and “mean lawyer from some mysterious coven wants to take over the world by controlling time” story, and the movie sags whenever the action stops.

Lady Lara Croft (Jolie) is something of a cross between Indiana Jones, Batman, and Barbie. She lives in a huge old mansion with an Alfred-style butler and a computer geek (Noah Taylor) who helps her with technology, except when she doesn’t let him – as he meticulously documents each screw he removes from an antique clock she interrupts by smashing it apart. The planets are about to align for the first time in 5000 years, which means that she has just days to collect the two pieces of a triangle that controls time from ruins on opposite sides of the globe. Meanwhile, the bad guys want it, too, and will do anything to try and stop her.

The action sequences are fine, especially one that shifts from Lara’s lyrical, acrobatic session on a bungee cord in her cavernous living room to a full-scale, window-smashing invasion by a small army of masked intruders. I also liked the icy ruins in Siberia. Jolie has the kickboxing skills and the acting chops to deliver what people who go to this movie want to see (she even walks in character, moving like a great panther), but the screenwriter and director let her down when it comes to the boringly generic bad guys and the missing-father motivation. I guess it is too much to expect the people behind this kind of movie to attempt to create a real character or know very much about women, but even by those standards, this movie gets it so wrong that it interferes with our connection to Lara. She is so tough that she shrugs off the near destruction of her home, but she is willing to risk her live to save a man who has done nothing but betray her. She responds to her butler’s “A lady should be modest” by dropping her towel, but her appearance in a dress and hat is considered to be some kind of progress. Lara always looks a little relieved when she gets a chance to fight, and we agree with her.

Parents should know that in addition to the extensive action sequences with characters in peril and many deaths (mostly anonymous minions), there are a couple of bad words and some implied nudity.

Families who see this movie should talk about why Lara is such a loner, and whether she has any interest in the history or art of the treasures she raids from tombs. They may want to discuss some of the conflicts between people who see antiquities as art for universities and museums and those who consider them sacred items that should never be moved. If you had the chance to stop time and see one person who has died, who would it be?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the Indiana Jones trilogy and the director’s previous “Con Air.”

“Monster’s Ball” is the derisive term the prison guards use for the gruesome ceremonies the night before a death row prisoner is to be executed. In the movie of that name, Hank (Billy Bob Thornton), one of those guards, clings to his hatred and racism as a way of distancing himself from his loneliness and misery. He throws two black boys off his property, even though they are his son’s friends. He cannot even allow himself to agree to call a condemned man’s child just before execution to tell him that his father will not be allowed to say goodbye to him. And when his son (Heath Ledger), now a third generation death row guard, gets sick while escorting the prisoner to the electric chair, Hank brutally assaults him physically and emotionally. Although it is clear that it is Hank’s own vulnerability and isolation that terrifies him, the attack and its aftermath are horrifying.

Meanwhile, Leticia (Halle Berry), the condemned prisoner’s wife, is desperate. Her son drowns his misery in candy and is very overweight. She has lost her waitress job, her car has broken down, and she is about to lose her house.

Hank and Leticia see their lives as hopelessly bleak, and they get worse as unspeakable tragedy strikes them both. In a way, the tragedy frees them. Having lost everything, there is no longer any reason to try to hold on to old notions and old fears.

The artificiality of the plot is a distraction, at times seeming like a bizarre version of the old Hollywood imperative that the romantic couple has to “meet cute.” But Thornton and Berry are magnificent. Berry deservedly won an Oscar for her brave and vulnerable performance and Thornton matches her every step of the way. The dignity and poignancy of both performances is deeply moving. Sean Combs is outstanding in his brief appearance as Leticia’s husband, demonstrating great dignity and a range of emotion as he prepares for his execution.

Parents should know that this is an extremely brutal movie. It includes an explicit execution, a suicide by gunshot, the death of a child, and extremely explicit sexual situations, including prostitution. There are very disturbing family situations involving emotional and physical abuse. Characters use very strong language, and they drink and smoke.

Families who see this movie should talk about how people become racist and how we find help when we need it. Do you agree with what Hank decided about his father? What is Leticia thinking at the very end of the movie? What do you think will happen next?

Families who appreciate this movie will also appreciate Sling Blade, which Thornton wrote, directed, and starred in.