If there’s an aspiring grad student looking for a sociology paper topic, a compare and contrast approach to the original “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” released in 2002, and 2021’s “Spirit Untamed,” with references to the “Spirit Riding Free” series on Netflix. The original film was hand-drawn and the new version, like the series, is computer-animated. But the gap between the two feature films allows for distinctive evidence of changes in culture as well as technology.

The original film centered on the title character a wild horse captured by cowboys but searching for freedom. He was voiced by Matt Damon. This film, like the Netflix series, is more of a spin-off than a sequel, with another wild horse named Spirit, but the only talking characters are the humans.

In the mid-1800s, a little girl named Lucky (Fortuna to her Spanish-speaking mother, Milagro Navarro, lovingly voiced by Eiza González) is sent to live in the big city with her stern grandfather, a politician who insists that family comes first. Her mother has been killed in an accident performing on horseback, and her grief-stricken father is not able to care for her.

Ten years later, the animal-loving Lucky (voiced by Isabela Merced) manages to disrupt her grandfather’s important political appearance, and so she and her Aunt Cora (Julianne Moore) are packed off to the west, where Lucky’s father Jim (Jake Gyllenhaal) is helping to get the railroad built. Lucky and her father have not seen each other in a decade, but they awkwardly begin to get to know one another until he discovers she has been riding, and forbids her to go anywhere near a horse. The memories of the loss of Lucky’s mother are still too painful.

But Lucky has found Spirit, like the one in the original film a wild horse captured by cowboys and scheduled to be “broken.” Lucky patiently allows Spirit to feel comfortable with her. And nothing Jim says can keep her away from Spirit. She feels they understand each other.

When Lucky learns that Spirit’s family (his herd) is about to be captured and sold by wicked outlaws, she decides to rescue them, with the help of her new friends Pru (Marsai Martin of “Black-ish”) and Abigail (McKenna Grace). To get there in time will require riding their horses over a treacherous trail. But “Prescotts never give up” and Lucky is brave.

This is the best part of the film, as the girls navigate all kinds of danger with courage, loyalty, and good humor. “I rode a horse!” Lucky crows. “Around here we call that holding on for dear life,” one of her friends responds dryly. Co-writer/co-director Elaine Bogan has a perceptive understanding of the vital importance of the P-A-L (the girls’ initials) friendship. While parents will want to remind their children that no one should leave home without letting family know where they’re going and “never give up” does not mean taking unreasonable risks, this is a heartwarming story of human and equine courage and loyalty and a tribute to the wild spirit in both species that seeks adventure and rights wrongs.

Parents should know that this movie includes peril, cruel treatment of animals, very risky behavior by young girls, and the off-screen said death of a parent.

Family discussion: When is it brave to be careful? What adventures do you have with your friends?

If you like this, try: The earlier Spirit film and the Netflix series, and live action films like “The Black Stallion” and “National Velvet”

Happy June! Lots of great stuff coming our way this summer and I think you will agree with me that IT’S ABOUT TIME! And best of all, as I say every year, some movie no one is paying attention to now will bring us unexpected joy.

Sequels and remakes

F9 — I used to joke about how the “Fast and Furious” movie titles were getting shorter every time and some day it would just be “F” and what do you know, here we are.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife — The saga continues with Jason Reitman, son of Ivan Reitman, who wrote and directed the original, taking over for his dad. A new cast of character find their connection to the original crew, who reprise their roles.

Black Widow — Scarlett Johansson’s Avengers character gets the movie the fans have waited for.

Space Jam: A New Legacy: Basketball and cartoon characters return. This looks better than the original!

Suicide Squad 2 — This one seems to look better than the original, too, I hope?

Action and Adventure and Thrills

Jungle Cruise: Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt star in this Disneyland ride-inspired adventure that looks like a cross between “Jumanji” and the original “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

Free Guy: Feel like I’ve been waiting forever for this Ryan Reynolds action fantasy about a video game character. (Reynolds is also appearing this summer in an action-comedy sequel, “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard.”

The Green Knight — One of the most enduring legends of Western culture is brought to life starring Dev Patel.

Reminiscence — Hugh Jackman stars in a movie about a service that makes it possible for you to relive your memories. What could go wrong?

The Tomorrow War — Time travelers from the future arrive to gather today’s people to help them fight a war with an alien.

The Misfits — Pierce Brosnan plays a thief recruited by a group of young crooks to pull off a heist.

Old — M. Knight Shamalyn is back to scare us with the story of a beach that accelerates aging.

Music!

In the Heights — Before “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the music for this Tony Award-winning musical about the residents of a Latin-American community.

Respect — Aretha Franklin told Jennifer Hudson that someday she would play the Queen of Soul in a biopic, and here it is.

Summer of Soul — Dazzling recovered footage from the “Black Woodstock,”featuring B.B. King, Stevie Wonder and more, brought to us from Questlove.

The Beatles: Get Back — “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson is behind this documentary made from more than 50 hours of extra footage from “Let it Be”

For the Family

Wish Dragon — A teenager who longs to be reunited with his best friend meets a dragon that grants wishes.

Luca — Pixar’s latest is set in sunny Italy, the story of boys who become sea creatures when they are wet. Or are they sea creatures who become boys when they are dry?

Peter Rabbit 2 — I didn’t think much of the first one. Another sequel I hope is better.

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania — Episode four in the series about the lovable monsters has humans turning into monsters and monsters turning into — horrors! — humans!

Festival Favorite:

CODA — It stands for children of deaf adults, and this story of a hearing daughter of deaf parents won big at Sundance.

Gladys Knight, Vince Gill, the Four Tops, Alan Jackson, and Sara Bareilles join Gary Sinese and Joe Mantegna for the annual Memorial Day Concert at the Capitol Building. It will honor all of our heroes, Sunday, May 30, 2021, from 8:00 to 9:30 p.m. E.T.

To honor our veterans this weekend, John Holway’s oral history ebook, Bloody Ground: Black Rifles in Korea, is available at no cost all weekend.

Korea is “the forgotten war.” But to those who fought in it, it was the “unforgettable war.” If the names of all those killed were put on a wall, it would be larger than the Vietnam Wall. And Korea lasted only three years, Vietnam about ten. The agony of the winter of 1950-51 is an epic to compare with Valley Forge and the Bulge. Holway writes:

Korea was also our last segregated war. This is the story of the black 24th Infantry Regiment, told in the words of the men themselves. Like all black troops since the Civil War, they were reviled by whites and their own commander for “bugging out” – running before the enemy. The charge can still be read in the Army’s own official histories. Yet the 24th left more blood on the field than their white comrades – if they did bug out, they must have been running the wrong way.

It’s a good thing we weren’t with Custer,” one black GI muttered – “they’d have blamed the whole thing on us.”

The 24th won the first battle of the war, won its division’s first Medal of Honor, and guarded the shortest and most vulnerable road to Pusan. If the port had fallen, the war would have been lost, leaving a red dagger pointed at Japan. It did not fall.

That winter, after the Chinese attacked, the entire American army bugged out in perhaps the worst military disaster in American history. “That,” said another black veteran, “was when I learned that whites could run as fast as blacks.”

This is the story of those unsung heroes, who helped turn the Communist tide for the first time. The men bring that forgotten war and their own unsung bravery to life in their own sometimes funny, often heart-breaking, and always exciting words.

Memorial Day is more than the beginning of summer; it is a day to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice. I hope you can take some time over the weekend to think of those we have lost. Some movies to pay your respects:

The Outpost was on my top ten list for 2020, a movie that was sadly overlooked because it came out in the early weeks of the pandemic shutdown. It is based on the book by Jake Tapper. There are war stories that are about strategy and courage and triumph over evil that let us channel the heroism of the characters on screen. And then there are war stories that are all of that but also engage in the most visceral terms with questions of purpose and meaning that touch us all. “The Outpost” is that rare film in the second category, an intimate, immersive drama from director Rod Lurie, a West Point graduate and Army veteran who knows this world inside out and brings us from the outside in.

Gardens of Stone James Caan and James Earl Jones star in a film about the 1st Battalion 3d Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) at Fort Myer, Virginia, the U.S. Army’s Honor Guard. They conduct the funerals of fallen soldiers and guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. Francis Ford Coppola directed this touching, elegiac story.

Taking Chance An officer (Kevin Bacon) escorts the body of a young Marine killed in Iraq. Each stop along the way is meaningful.

Mr. Roberts is a WWII story about a Navy cargo ship, based on the experiences of author Thomas Heggen. Henry Fonda stars in the title role or an executive officer who tries to protect the men from a tyrannical captain. Broadway, and the outstanding cast includes William Powell, James Cagney, and Oscar-winner Jack Lemmon.

And; Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Midway, Flags of Our Fathers, Act of Valor