“The Monkey Kid.” Written and directed by Xiao-Yen Wang. In Chinese with English subtitles. Running time: 95 minutes. No rating. July 16, Railroad Square Cinema, Waterville.

1970 in China was no time to be a child. With Chairman Mao’s Little Red Books required reading in all schools, it was a period of indoctrination and brainwashing, a time, at the heart of the Cultural Revolution, when intellectuals were sent away from their children to “learn from the peasants” and be re-educated.

It was also a time for monkey business, unless, of coures, you were a child too young to fully grasp a political climate in absolute turmoil.

Xiao-Yen Wang’s excellent, award-winning, semi-autobiographical film “The Monkey Kid” is about this climate as seen through the eyes of Wang Shiwie (Fu Di), a 9-year-old girl determined to be a kid regardless of the historical changes whirling about her.

Sparked by Fu Di’s performance, “The Monkey Kid” is a simple, yet essential film about the indomitable human spirit, and a young girl’s courage to be herself in spite of a dictatorship gone mad. It should not be missed. Grade: A-

“American Pie.” Directed by Paul Weitz. Written by Adam Herz. Running time: 110 minutes. Rated R.

Who would have thought that “American Pie,” Paul Weitz’s raunchy, yet occassionally funny film about four teen-age boys trying to lose their virginity by prom night, would serve as the long overdue vindication Miss Manners deserves?

It’s true. Strip away the film’s selling points — the fart jokes and the rampant sex talk, the scene in which our hero, Jim (Jason Biggs), gets intimate with an apple pie, those awkward moments when hormones can’t help but put a damper on good taste — and essentially one’s left with a film whose core is underscored with an old-fashioned value system and lesson in manners for teen-age boys: Be polite to women, show them respect, listen with sincere interest — and score.

At least, that’s what the film’s telling us. It’s also telling us that to sell good morals, manners and values in today’s Hollywood, those qualities had better be couched in a film whose humor bubbles up from the stale waste of a plugged bathroom toilet. To Hollywood, Miss Manners might say, “Flush!” — and she’d be right. Grade: C+

Christopher Smith’s “The Week in Rewind” appears each Thursday in The Scene. Each Tuesday on WLBZ’s “News Center 5:30 Today” and “News Center Tonight” he appears in Cinema Center.