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***1/2 Stuart Saves His Family (1995, Directed by Harold Ramis) -- Movies based on Saturday Night Live comedy sketches are not exactly known for their ability to amuse or entertain. Stuart Saves His Family is a pleasing exception to the dreadful rule.

This film stars Al Franken as Stuart Smalley -- the self-help guru who is enrolled in more 12-step programs than Drew Barrymore. His "personal crisis" begins when his cable access show, Daily Affirmations With Stuart Smalley, is cancelled by his nemesis Roz Weinstock, who Stuart declares a "grandiose, shame-based, over-eater, sick in her own disease." Quickly thereafter, Stuart's aunt Paula dies, and he is compelled to go home to his dysfunctional clan, complete with alcoholic brother and father, co-dependent mother, and overeating sister. (As Stuart tells his journal, "As I am sucked inexorably toward home, I am choosing this time to come to terms with some of my `family of origin' issues. As they say in Al-Anon: Trace it. Face it. And Erase it.")

This movie relies on a witty string of intellectual jokes about self-help and interpersonal dynamics. (Though Stuart, always sporting an atrocious sweater and ridiculous grin, has an appearance that begs for laughter before the lines leave his mouth.) While his family never ceases to amuse, the film also features some heavier scenes that truly address some of the problems that are so frequently joked about in the movie. As the film's poster suggests, "You laugh because it's not your family; you'll cry because it is."

His pal-cum-Al-Anon-sponsor Julia (Laura San Giacomo) does delightful job playing Stuart's esteem booster. Vincent D'Onofrio, who recently played an alien in Men In Black, is simply hilarious as Stuart's underachieving brother Donny, who -- in a loving show of support -- xeroxes Stuart's journal and passes out pages to implicated family members at inopportune moments. Julia Sweeney also provides a satisfying cameo as a receptionist who has less self-esteem than a street-grate.

Though the film is no Citizen Kane, it's not The Coneheads, either. The jokes require careful attention to detail, but the focused viewer is rewarded generously. No car-crashes or explosions (unless you count the Fourth of July celebration during which Stuart declares emotional independence from his family), just a lot of well-written spoofs of group hugs and positive thinking. The acting is good enough, the writing is smart enough, and gosh darn it... well, you know the rest.

-- Elizabeth Lemond

*** The Stratton Story (1949, directed by Sam Wood) -- "You have to decide; it's either his leg or his life," the doctor tells the distraught wife. "But, Doctor, you don't understand," she cries. "He's a baseball player. His legs are his life!"

That pretty much sums up The Stratton Story, the true account of Monty Stratton, a professional baseball pitcher who shoots his right leg off one day in a hunting accident and tries to overcome the handicap. Stratton is played by Jimmy Stewart, and they couldn't have cast a better country-bumpkin of a pitcher, with his lanky frame and endearing "aw-shucks" shyness. Most of the film focuses on his rags-to-riches journey from his early days with the Wagner Wildcats in Texas (where he earns three bucks a game) to seasons of glory with the Chicago White Sox. Along the way, Stratton picks up a perky wife, Ethel from Omaha (June Allison), and a shrewd but good-hearted coach/manager (Frank Morgan, better known as the Wizard himself in The Wizard of Oz). It's rough going at first, and Stratton gets shipped back to the minor leagues for a year or so before finally making it big with the Sox. But he manages to buy a fine car, rebuild his mother's ramshackle farmhouse back in Texas, even have himself a Junior.

Then he stumbles over a shotgun while hunting rabbits, and everything turns black. Stratton becomes a recluse, sulks in his chair, refuses to wear his artificial leg, even taunts the baby when he first learns to walk: "What's the big deal? He's got two legs, hasn't he?" Slowly, however, Ethel pulls him out of it, first by getting him to pitch baseballs into a bucket set up against the barn, and Stratton even surprises them all by persuading the Western All-Stars to let him pitch again in an exhibition game. By the ninth inning, he's learned that -- win or lose, two legs or no legs -- it is indeed a wonderful life. Not exactly a surprise ending, but what did you expect from a Jimmy Stewart movie? -- Michael Finger