Halloween is over. Thanksgiving is right around the corner. And this weekend Hollywood offers a movie lineup designed to give people something to be thankful for.

In Role Models Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott, star as Danny and Wheeler, two salesmen who sell energy drinks to little kids. It isn’t long before these two end up in legal trouble, and land themselves in a big brother program called Sturdy Wings. The two are thrown over and over again into funny and embarrassing situations with the kids in their “care.” Role Models is Rated R for crude and sexual content, strong language and nudity. The movie provides viewers with a hilarious ending, where we get to see if Danny and Wheeler can truly inspire children as role models.

Soul Men stars Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac as two soul music legends who reunite at the Apollo Theater 20 years after the breakup of their band to honor their recently deceased band leader. A rough and rowdy comedy, the film stresses the value of friends and family – alive and well or dead and gone –  even ones you particularly can’t stand. Jackson and Mac create their own original content in the form of  music and dance as well as comic performance.  Soul Men is Rated R for pervasive language, and sexual content including nudity.

For more kid-friendly fun this weekend, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, rated PG, is loaded with laughs. Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Melman the Giraffe, and Gloria the Hippo are back in this sequel that finds the New York City Zoo animals  still stranded in Madagascar, but not for much longer. After they find a plane, fix it up, they escape, only to crash land and become stranded in Africa. These zoo-raised animals find themselves among wild creatures of their own kind who are not timid! Get ready for an action-packed adventure, and be grateful you’re not stranded in Africa.

A scary movie left over from the Halloween weekend is Repo! the Genetic Opera, starring Sarah Brightman, Anthony Head, Paris Hilton, Bill Moseley and Paul Sorvino. The movie is set in the year 2056. The world is not the same; an epidemic of organ failures has erupted across the planet, surgery addicts are hooked on painkillers, and murder is sanctioned by law. Amongst the hell on earth, a young lady (Brightman) searches for the cure to her own disease and glimpses of her family history, but instead she finds herself sucked into the world of GeneCo, a biotech company, offering a little more than organ transplants. Those who miss their payments on their new organs are to be hunted down and massacred by the Repo Man! A chilling watch tale, Repo! the Genetic Opera is rated R, for violence and gore, language, some drug and sexual content. Just be grateful that this movie is fiction!

—Christina Mennella