Contact

Parents need to know that Contact is a 1999 movie speculating on the ramifications and wonder that could happen during humanity's first interaction with extraterrestrial life forms. There is some violence -- a Christian fundamentalist infiltrates NASA with explosives taped to his chest and destroys a spaceship on the verge of liftoff, taking his own life and the lives of many others. Some sci-fi peril, as a later spaceship rumbles and appears as if it could implode. In a flashback scene, a tween girl finds her father dead of heart failure at the foot of the stairs; in the aftermath of his funeral, she laments not getting to his heart medication in time. The lead character, played by Jodie Foster, is a brilliant astrophysicist who sticks to her convictions despite how many believe her ideas to be the product of an unhinged mind; she is also often patronized and rudely interrupted in many male-dominated meetings. Essentially, the characters themselves are embodiments of many of the dominant philosophies, beliefs, and ideologies followed by "billions and billions" of humans: rational thought, ethereal spirituality, rigid fundamentalism, myopic bureaucracy, etc. Occasional mild profanity, including "s--t" and "bitch."