The Secret Life of Bees doesn’t come to us from Oprah Winfrey’s media conglomerate, but it would be easy to mistake it for one of her moral-instruction products. Gina Prince-Bythewood’s movie is amply provided with personal character challenges, inspirational ideas, lessons on recent American history and social problems, and melodramatic story lines. Oprah can’t be held responsible for this one, but it does have the Hollywood-royalty imprimatur of Jada Pinkett Smith and her husband Will Smith, who served as producers.

Hey, did you know that George Bush is still the president? You might be forgiven for thinking otherwise, given the mainstream media’s relentless focus these days on the upcoming election. And up against that, this week brings to movie theaters Oliver Stone’s W., the kind of biopic that tends not to get made until at least a few years after the subject is out of office and the historical dust has started to settle.