Plot: John MacReedy (Spencer Tracy) gets off a train in a tiny, dusty little Western town. It is rare for any stranger to come to the town; it is the first time the train has stopped there in four years. The town residents move from suspicion of the one-armed man in a suit to open hostility when MacReedy enters the local hotel and asks about a local farmer named Komoko. Pete Wirth (John Ericson), the hotel manager, refuses to give him a room, saying they are all booked. When MacReedy takes a key anyway, a bully named Hector David (Lee Marvin) insists that it is his room. MacReedy takes another room. Hector and most of the rest of the town report to Reno (Robert Ryan). When he tells them to push MacReedy without giving him information, they are happy to oblige. But the town doctor (Walter Brennan) tells MacReedy how to get to Komoko’s farm, and Liz Wirth (Anne Francis), Pete’s sister, rents him a jeep to get there. MacReedy finds the farm deserted. Coley Trimble (Ernest Borgnine), another of Reno’s henchmen, chases MacReedy back to town, driving him off the road and slamming into the jeep with his truck.

MacReedy realizes that Reno will never let him get out of town alive. He tries to make a phone call or send a telegram, but Reno has cut him off. When Trimble harasses him at the diner, he refuses to fight, then finally, when Trimble persists, MacReedy devastates him with a karate chop to the neck. That buys him some time, but MacReedy is cornered and he knows it. He persuades Liz Wirth to drive him out of Black Rock. But it is a trap. Reno is waiting for them. As Liz runs to Reno, he shoots her; he no longer trusts her to keep his secret. MacReedy puts the jeep’s leaking gas into a bottle, stuffs it with his tie, lights it, and throws it at Reno, who is killed.

MacReedy had come to Black Rock to give Komoko the medal his son had been awarded by the U.S. Army for heroism. Komoko’s son had saved MacReedy’s life before he was killed in battle. But Komoko was also dead. Reno and his henchmen killed him at the start of World War II because he was Japanese.

The doctor asks MacReedy if he will leave the medal in Black Rock. MacReedy gives it to him, then puts out the flag so that the train will stop in Black Rock again, for the second time in four years.

Discussion: “A man is as big as what makes him mad.” MacReedy says this to Reno in one of this movie’s key scenes, and it is a concept children (and parents) should think about. It is also interesting that Reno killed Komoko after he was found ineligible to enlist in the Army. His hostility toward Komoko was based on displaced of his anger and frustration as much as it was based on racism.

MacReedy did not choose this battle, but he never turns away from it. A man who had no direction, and no goal beyond the presentation of the medal to Komoko, becomes a man who will not allow Reno and his thugs to win. He is fighting them not just for Komoko, but for himself, and in doing so finds a pride and dignity that enables him to go on.

This is a good movie to use for a discussion of prejudice, not just about race, but also about disabilities.

Questions for Kids:

· What does it mean to say, “a man is only as big as what makes him mad?” Think about a time you got mad. How big was the thing that made you mad? How do you measure?

· The people in the town had different reasons for obeying Reno. What were they?

· How did MacReedy change? What did he learn about himself?

Connections: Compare this to “High Noon,” another movie about a lone force for justice. Anne Francis, known to baby boomers as television’s “Honey West,” plays opposite Robby the Robot in the science fiction classic “Forbidden Planet.” In both movies, she is the only woman in the cast.

Interestingly, MacReedy’s handicap, so central to the story, was a last-minute addition in order to make the character challenging enough to attract Tracy to the role.

This is the true story of the brave dog who saved the lives of Alaskan children with diphtheria when he brought medicine to them through the snow. Kevin Bacon provides the voice for the heroic canine, half wolf, half dog, and not accepted by either species. A jealous rival frames Balto for theft that he will be selected to lead the rescue mission. But when they get lost, Balto steps in to save the day, with the help of his friends, a Russian goose (voice of Bob Hoskins) and two polar bears (both voice of pop star Phil Collins).

Children who visit Central Park in New York City can see a statue of Balto.

Spike Lee’s new movie is ambitious, provocative, complex, thoughtful, and just about review-proof. Anyone who doesn’t like it could be accused of not getting it. Anyone who does like it could be accused of liking it for the wrong reasons and not getting it, either. So the best I can do is describe it and react to it and hope that it will give readers some idea about whether they want to see it for themselves. I hope they do.

Damon Wayans plays the lone black executive for a troubled television network. He has given himself the name “Pierre Delacroix,” which has no association with his racial, cultural, or family heritage. He has adjusted his speech so that speaks with a precise, Ivy League accent. And he has adjusted his ideas so severely that even he is not sure what he thinks about the compromises he has had to make to work in the white world.

His boss, Mr. Dunwitty (Michael Rapaport) insists that he is blacker than Delacroix. He decorates his office with photos of black athletes and African art. Dunwitty says that his black wife, bi-racial children, and identification with black culture give him the right to use words like “nigger.” He says, “If Old Dirty Bastard can use it, why can’t I?” He says that he is the one who is “keepin’ it real.”

Dunwitty tells Delacroix to develop a new television show that will boost the station’s ratings, a real “coon show.” Delacroix, disgusted with himself, sets out to create a program so offensive that he will be fired. With the help of his dedicated assistant, Sloan (Jada Pinkett Smith), he puts together the most racist, insulting program imaginable. It is a minstrel show performed by black people in blackface, set in a watermelon patch, with every possible stereotype from Topsy to Aunt Jemima to a black man wearing a leopardskin loincloth.

The show is a huge hit. All across America, white and black fans put on blackface and happily yell out, “I’m a nigger!” adopting the exaggerated mannerisms of black images from our bigoted past.

The show’s stars, former street performers, are thrilled to be rich and famous, but increasingly haunted by the roles they must play. Sloan’s militant brother Julius, who wants to be called Big Black Africa, is the leader of a gang called the Mau Maus. They want their own television show (“Like the Monkees!”) and they want to do something to protest the minstrel show. They kidhap the star, with tragic results.

This movie has some of the most striking images ever put on film. The stars of the minstrel show put on blackface made from burnt cork, exactly as their predecessors did a century ago. They peer into mirrors to put on exaggerated red lips. A tear slips down a blackened cheek. Two characters argue in front of highly stylized life-size cutouts of the minstrel show characters. While Dinwitty collects African art, Delacroix begins to surround himself with racist items, beginning with a “jolly nigger bank.” Delacroix visits his father, a black entertainer who does not compromise to be acceptable to white audiences. He is comfortable with himself and with his all-black audiences, but he is an alcoholic. Lee, himself a maker of award-winning commercials, creates searing parody ads for malt liquor and “Timmi Hillnigger” clothes. The sole white member of the Mau Maus is the only one who survives a shoot-out. Montages of minstrel images from real old movies and racist toys and collectibles are devastating.

The movie draws from earlier films like “Network,” “Putney Swope,” and “The Producers” (in which an intentionally terrible show — a musical about Hitler — becomes a huge success). It raises dozens of important questions about the roles that both blacks and whites play in perpetuating racist stereotypes. Lee suggests that the current UPN and WB sitcoms featuring black characters may be the modern-day equivalent of a minstrel show.

In this movie, militant protesters take names like “Big Black Africa” and decide that they are oppressed by the “C” in “black” — but are willing to compromise their values to be on television. A street performer desperate to make a living is told that he will have to perform in blackface and all he says is, “Hey, we’re going to need a little more money for this.” When one of the minstrel show stars tries to perform as himself instead of the caricature, the audience hates it. As soon as another performer appears behind that reassuring, almost anonymous blackface, they applaud.

The movie is uneven. Dialogue has never been Lee’s strong point. But each scene has depth, integrity, intelligence — and anger — that is a welcome antidote to the usual formulaic Hollywood product. It is a profound and stimulating movie. I walked out of the theater with a thousand ideas and reactions. I heard the black woman walking out ahead of me say to her friend, “That is the best movie I ever saw.” It made me want to call every black person I know to ask them what they thought. Maybe that’s the point.

Parents should know that the movie has strong language and violence. Characters are shot and killed. There is some social drinking and one character abuses alcohol. There are sexual references and the movie makes some telling points about sexist assumptions about a woman’s use of sex to advance her career.

Families who see this movie will find a lot to talk about, including this country’s history of racism and the difficulty of bridging the gulf it has created.

Families who enjoy this movie should see some of Lee’s other films, including “Do the Right Thing” and “School Daze.” They may also like “Putney Swope,” “Network,” and “The Man in the Glass Booth.”

In the grand tradition of Butch and Sundance and Hope and Crosby, we have Terry (Billy Bob Thornton) and Joe (Bruce Willis), two charming rascals in love with the same woman. They don’t want to hurt anyone; they just want to rob enough banks to let them retire to paradise (a resort in Mexico) and live lives of “tuxedos and margaritas.”

The story is told in flashback, starting with a stakeout at a bank robbery that appears to have gone very wrong, and then going back in time to the duo’s impulsive jailbreak and the start of their career as the “sleepover bandits.” Instead of charging into a bank with guns blazing, they spend the night before the robbery with the bank manager, and walk into the bank before opening time the next morning. As happens only in movies, they become loveable folk heroes, and people actually enjoy being robbed by them.

A would-be stuntman mesmerized by a beautiful hitchhiker (Troy Garrity) and an unhappy runaway wife (Cate Blanchett, sensational in auburn hair and teal high-fashion attire) join the gang. Then there are some more robberies and some getaways and some funny disguises (my favorite is the Neal Young sideburns) and something about a romantic triangle. But the movie is really about the conversations and throwaway repartee, deftly directed by Barry Levinson (“Diner”) and impeccably delivered by the cast. Thornton is terrific as the guy who always thinks he is the smartest person in the room (and usually is), but who has “issues” with everything from germs to antique furniture to the hair of former Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Blanchett is magnificent, especially dancing in the kitchen as she whips up a gourmet meal. Azura Skye has a nice small part as a teenager who told her parents she would be staying with a friend when they were out of town.

This is really a movie for grown-ups, not because the language or violence or sexuality is any more intense than any other PG-13, but because it is just not something most kids will appreciate. Parents should know that it does have some strong language (including a crude reference to a gynecological problem), some violence, and sexual references and situations, including teen sex and adultery.

Families who see this movie should talk about whether it is true that no one is hurt when money is stolen from a bank and whether robbers become folk heroes in real life and what the film-makers do to get audiences to root for the “bad guys.” Why is it so easy for us to be on the side of characters in movies that we would want arrested in real life? At one point, Terry says to Kate (Blanchett’s character), “I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you’re bored.” Later Kate says, “I think it’s better to feel too much than to feel too little.” How did she get into a situation where she felt too little, and how did that change?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kidand Bull Durham (Special Edition)(mature material) and a made-for-cable movie based on an Alice Tyler book, Earthly Possessions, starring Susan Sarandon.

In the future, a race of 9-foot-tall, dreadlocked aliens called Psychlos takes over the earth following a nine-minute battle. A thousand year later, the few remaining humans are hunter-gatherers and the evil Psychlos maintain earth as an outpost for mining. Terl (John Travolta), furious at not being allowed to return to the home planet, decides to use humans to mine gold for him to keep. But one of the humans, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper), encourages the others to revolt.

There. Now you know everything you need to know about the movie and I’ve saved you the trouble of trying to sit through it. You might think it can’t be that bad because science fiction movies often have cheeseball dialogue and cardboard performances and as long as the special effects and explosions are good, it does not really matter. You would be wrong. This movie was made due to the ceaseless efforts of its star, John Travolta, and it is the most horrible example of vanity filmmaking since Isaac from “The Love Boat” cast himself as “Othello.”

The movie could be used as an exam for film school students on what not to do.

Acting: John Travolta’s performance as the bad guy in this movie is reminiscent not of his brilliant work in movies like “Get Shorty,” “Face/Off” and “Pulp Fiction” but of his character in “Welcome Back Kotter,” Vinnie Barbarino, trying to act tough. His attempts to sound imperious and sarcastic lack any sense of presence or dignity, and then, to make it worse, he follows them with an attempt at a contemptuous laugh that sounds a cross between Faye Dunaway railing about the wire hangers in “Mommy Dearest” and Dr. Evil in “Austin Powers.” Poor Forrest Whitaker does his best with an idiotic role as Terl’s sidekick and whipping boy. Some other actor struggles underneath the worst make-up job since Dan Ackroyd in “Nothing But Trouble.”

Design and effects: The humans look like a hair band on a bad day. The Psychlos look like a hair band on a really bad day. The sets are dark, dank, and uninspired. The explosions are boring. And it is all much too loud.

Dialogue: At some points, we hear the Psychlos’ dialogue as garbled mush resembling the way the clay people used to talk in the old “Flash Gordon” serials. Unfortunately, at times we hear it in English. “Couldn’t you forget to file the report, as a friend?” “As a friend I could forget to file the report, but fortunately, I’m not your friend.” “While you were still learning to spell your name, I was being trained in how to conquer galaxies!” “Never engage in a criminal activity unless you have a patsy to pin everything on.” And my personal favorite: “Jonnie, I know you don’t believe in fate, but I’ve always known this was your destiny.”

Plot: The plot is not very interesting and completely illogical. Even if we assume that the Psychlos really wanted minerals from the earth, if they were so advanced that they could annihilate the human population in nine minutes, how could it take them more than a thousand years to extract it? Jonnie has to figure out a way to produce gold for Terl while he and his men are really secretly using flight simulators somehow still functioning after a thousand years. This is to enable them to learn to fly fighter jets, also somehow still functioning after a thousand years, kind of like the scene in “Sleeper” when Woody Allen starts up a Volkswagen Bug that had been abandoned for hundreds of years, except not intentionally funny. The audience dissolved in laughter at Jonnie’s solution – just get the gold from Fort Knox, which conveniently had been overlooked during the Psychlo’s thousand-year domination of the planet, and was still intact but ready to be emptied out. Somehow a group of humans who are illiterate and have not even discovered the wheel manage to master thousands of years of literal rocket science in a couple of days, transport over to the Psychlos’ planet and blow it all up with one well-placed bomb. Not since that girl learned how to be a ballerina without leaving the house in “Flowers in the Attic” or Rock Hudson went to medical school really really fast so he could invent an operation to cure Jane Wyman’s blindness in “The Magnificent Obsession” has there been such an example of speed learning.

Halfway through the movie, my son leaned over to whisper, “It’s the movie Ed Wood wanted to make but never had the money for.” He is right – this movie has Wood’s genuine fervor overriding genuine ineptitude.

Parents should know that the movie has a lot of sci-fi violence, with lots of explosions, characters in peril and some gory dismemberment. There are a couple of mild expletives and some mild sexual references. Women are treated as sex objects or taken as hostages.

Families who see the movie should talk about the importance of learning and history (Jonnie is inspired by the Declaration of Independence), and they should contrast the way that the Psychlos use “leverage” (blackmail) to manipulate each other with the teamwork and loyalty shown by the humans. They might also want to compare this movie to some sci-fi classics, like the “Star Wars” movies. Or, they might just want to skip this one and watch those instead.