I started smiling ten minutes after the movie began, and didn’t stop until ten minutes after it ended. What a delight! I cannot resist saying that this “dish” is delicious.

It’s about one part of the race to the moon that Tom Hanks didn’t cover in his superb miniseries. It turns out that the United States had the technology and the resources to send astronauts to the moon, but it did not have the position on the planet necessary to broadcast pictures of that historic event back to the 300 million people who would be watching. That broadcast had to come from the Southern Hemisphere. So NASA sent a scientist to Parkes, Australia, a remote town with the world’s biggest satellite dish in the middle of a sheep paddock.

At first, the NASA scientist, Al Burnett (Patrick Warburton) and the three on-site engineers are suspicious of each other. But benign leader Cliff Buxton (Sam Neill), tempermental “Mitch” Mitchell (Kevin Harrington) and shy Glenn Latham (Tom Long) are drawn together by mutual respect and by awe at “science’s chance to be daring.” They are thrilled about being a part of the incredible adventure of a trip to the moon. But they are also shaken by the responsibility.

The town of Parkes is also a little overwhelmed by the visibility. All of a sudden, a town no one ever paid any attention to is being visited by dignitaries and the press, and that creates opportunities for all kinds of upheaval, presided over by the mayor, whose political ambitions are significant, but nowhere near as important as his ability to get real joy from his wife and from what is going on all around him.

The Prime Minister and the American ambassador are coming to town and must be duly celebrated. All goes pretty well, with a few hitches like a sulky teenager and a small confusion between the “Star Spangled Banner” and the theme song from “Hawaii Five-O.”

The real problem arises when Parkes, selected as the site for the dish because of its stable weather conditions, is subjected to high winds just at the time its position needs to be most precisely calibrated. We all know what happened, but that does not interfere with the pleasure of seeing how it happened.

The movie features dozens of sharply but observed moments and delightfully quirky characters including a dim security guard, a military-obsessed teenager with a crush on the mayor’s daughter, and the engineers themselves. Warburton, best known as Puddy on “Seinfeld” and as one of the highlights of last year’s “The Emperor’s New Groove,” is sheer pleasure to watch as the straight-laced NASA representative. Tom Long is marvelous as an engineer who can catch the errors in the NASA specifications but who can never quite get up the nerve to ask out the girl who delivers the sandwiches. Sam Neill’s comfort in being back home in Australia comes through in his warm portrayal of a man who had to be reminded to be excited about the trip to the moon, but who understood that all they needed in the contract with NASA was “we agree to support the Apollo 11 mission.”

Parents should know that there is brief strong language, social drinking and smoking, and some tension.

Families who see this movie should talk about the decisions that the engineers faced, including the decision to lie to NASA. Was that the right thing to do? Why or why not? What did it mean when Cliff told Glenn that “failure is never quite so frightening as regret?” Was he talking about more than one thing? Watch how the engineers respond to problems. What questions do they ask? How do they evaluate their options? How did Al and the Australians learn to trust each other?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Apollo 13,” with Tom Hanks, and Hanks’ superb miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon.”

Sort of a cross between “Richard III” and “Hamlet,” this is the story of Simba (voice of Jonathan Taylor Thomas as a child, Matthew Broderick as an adult), the cub of Mufasa (James Earl Jones), the king of the jungle. Simba “just can’t wait to be king.” But his evil Uncle Scar (Jeremy Irons), bitterly jealous of Mufasa, wants to be king, so he arranges for Mufasa to be killed in a stampede and to have Simba think he is responsible.

Simba runs away, and finds friends in Pumbaa the warthog (Ernie Sabella) and Timon the meerkat (Nathan Lane), who advise him that the best philosophy is “hakuna matata” (no worries). Simba grows up thinking he has escaped from his past, but his childhood friend, Nala finds him, and tells him that under Scar’s leadership, the tribe has suffered badly. She persuades him to return to take on his responsibilities as King of the Pridelands. He learns that it was Scar who caused Mufasa’s death, and he vanquishes Scar to become King.

NOTE: The death of Mufasa is genuinely scary. More troubling is the arrogance of the “Circle of Life” explanation, which is mighty reassuring as long as you are the one on top of the food chain. And worse than that is the whole “hakuna matata” idea, which is genuinely irresponsible. Make sure that kids realize that even Simba finds out that he cannot run away from his problems.

Not just a movie, but a marketing phenomenon, this blockbuster was the highest grossing film of the year. Amazingly, it made even more money in merchandise than it did at the box office, a fact for which audiences have been paying ever since, as each subsequent Disney animated movie seems to be designed primarily as a commercial for teeshirts, lunchboxes and action figures. The score, and the song “Circle of Life,” with authentic African rhythms and instruments, won Oscars for Elton John and Tim Rice, and the movie later became a Broadway blockbuster.

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.