Family Filmgoer: Movie Reviews With Kids in Mind
Bright Star (PG, 119 minutes)
The romantic poet John Keats is torn between his art and his heart in this lovely, passionate film by director Jane Campion. Teens, particularly high-schoolers, of a dreamy bent ought to find the story irresistible, though they could be put off at first by the Brit-lit sound of educated Londoners, circa 1818.
Penniless, consumptive and trying to write in a fever of inspiration, knowing he may not have a long life, Keats (Ben Whishaw) is falling inconveniently in love with his neighbor, Fanny Brawne. Brawne (Abbie Cornish) is a sweet but seemingly frivolous fashionista: a gifted dress designer but decidedly unliterary.
Even so, she is entranced by the frail young man, though her widowed mother (Kerry Fox) and devoted younger siblings, Samuel (Thomas Sangster) and "Toots" (adorable Edie Martin), can't afford for Brawne to marry a pauper poet. Yet the pair's neighborly proximity fuels the romance. As the love between Brawne and Keats grows serious -- it is always chaste, but there is kissing, cuddling on a bed and a clear sense of longing -- his friend Charles Brown tries to get Keats to drop her, as he's afraid she'll distract the poet from his work. The couple become engaged, and Keats writes poems and love letters to Brawne before his death in Italy.
While the narrative thread occasionally tangles and confuses the story, the film conjures an utterly convincing sense of time, place and character without a stilted "period film" feel. This is a love story with giant obstacles to happiness, and that's a timeless conceit that ought to entrance many teens.
There are scenes of people sick with tuberculosis who have (nongraphically) coughed up blood. There is an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, social drinking and brief smoking.
Also Playing
6 and Older
"Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" (PG). Funny -- really funny -- and enormously clever in its use of 3-D, this animated comedy will tickle kids 6 and older, as well as grown-ups, with dialogue and situations that are deliciously witty. A few things could scare the littlest ones: The protagonists and their town are threatened by a spaghetti tornado and an avalanche of leftovers, and there is a harrowing midair struggle with an out-of-control food-flinging machine. There is mild toilet humor, and one character swells up after eating peanuts but is quickly cured. In a little island town struggling to find a new industry now that sardines no longer sell, inventor Flint Lockwood (voice of Bill Hader) creates a machine that converts water into food. Only he can't control it. It shoots into the sky and rains cheeseburgers, steaks, ice cream and more onto the town. A perky TV weather reporter, Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), covers the story. Flint senses a kindred spirit in Sam, but then the pasta tornado hits and they must stop his machine.
Unrated
"No Impact Man." Socially conscious teens and teens who like reality shows about families will be pulled into this documentary. It tracks the year-long project of Manhattan-based writer Colin Beavan, his wife, Michelle Conlin (a writer at BusinessWeek), and their 2-year-old daughter. For his own idealistic reasons (and for a blog and planned book), Beavan persuades Conlin to alter their lifestyle to make as tiny a carbon footprint as possible. That means buying only organic food grown near the city; quitting caffeine, meat and fish; eschewing cars and subways; turning off the power and using candles; and keeping a worm-filled composting box. Beavan comes off as nice but a tad passive-aggressive, so one identifies with Conlin, who struggles to change. The marital-environmental tug-of-war fuels the film. There is strong profanity, a reference to birth control and a dispute over having a second child.
PG-13
"Love Happens." Stars Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart deserve better than this soggy mess of a film. The narrative goes off in a dozen directions, all of them cliched. Teens who like a good romantic tear-jerker, however, may be moved by it. Eckhart plays Burke, who has made his name with a bestseller about handling grief, even though he has never dealt with the loss of his own wife. At a week-long book tour and seminar in Seattle (where his wife is buried), Burke bumps into Eloise (Aniston), who supplies the hotel with flowers from her shop. Their hesitant courtship alternates with the seminar, where Burke tries to help a man (John Carroll Lynch) who has lost a son. In addition to drinking and smoking a hookah (no drugs implied) at a coffeehouse, there is semi-crude comic sexual innuendo, midrange profanity, a joke about a dead husband's ashes and flashbacks to a fatal car accident.
"9." Dazzling computer animation and art direction wedded to an intriguing idea don't save "9" from its humorless sermonizing, which makes it seem long at 81 minutes. Filmmaker Shane Acker's post-apocalyptic tale is geared to adults. It's okay for most teens but might bore them. There are huge machines that attack the little puppet-like heroes, and the mood is fear-laden and dark. "Our world is ending, but life must go on," a scientist intones at the start. The war machines he invented have killed off humanity. As his final act, he built tiny creatures imbued with thought and conscience. Creature No. 9 (voice of Elijah Wood) awakens and goes exploring in the ruined city. He finds more beings like himself, led by the dictatorial No. 1 (Christopher Plummer). In trying to rescue No. 2 (Martin Landau) from a mechanical "beast," poor No. 9 accidentally restarts the horrific old war machinery. The creatures must use their wits to stop the machines.
R
"The Informant!" Discerning high-schoolers could find rich amusement in this fact-based story of an industrial whistle-blower. Director Steven Soderbergh has taken Kurt Eichenwald's book and spun a deliciously deadpan American fable around Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon). A biochemist and executive at agri-business behemoth Archer Daniels Midland, Whitacre goes to the FBI in 1992 and tells them the company has been price-fixing. But the more he works with Special Agents Shepard (Scott Bakula) and Herndon (Joel McHale), the more they learn he is an unreliable witness. The poker-faced acting by everyone except Damon -- he's playing a self-dramatizing narcissist -- makes the growing revelations even more fun, though it also becomes clear that Whitacre has issues. This is a quiet film full of layers and laughs. A mild R, rated for strong, non-sexual profanity.
"Jennifer's Body." Jennifer (Megan Fox) is a promiscuous high-school cheerleader. After she's ill-used by several guys in a rock band (rape is implied), she becomes a demon and gets her revenge by killing high-school boys. Despite the graphic horror plot, "Jennifer's Body" (written by Diablo Cody, who penned the PG-13-rated "Juno," 2007) is a sharp satire of high-school social angst with a beating heart amid the blood and sarcasm. The movie is too grossly violent and sexually explicit to recommend for kids younger than 17. Besides gory violence, the film has explicit sexual situations, strong profanity, crude sexual slang and brief drug use.
Source: Washington Post
« Back to Entertainment News
Related News
-
'A Christmas Carol' is no early gift Sep 24, 2009 @ 10:51 PM
Disney's A Christmas Carol (PG, 96 minutes). It's hard to know what age group this dour, ultra-spooky animated adaptation of Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" will appeal to. A showcase for actor Jim Carrey and advances in a particular type of computer animation, it seems too frightening and humorless for kids younger than 10. Director/screenwriter Robert Zemeckis uses the same technology that he used in "The Polar Express" (PG, 2004). This time he's added 3-D and dizzying 360-degree perspectives in some action sequences.
-
Carrey's Scrooge rings in Hollywood holiday spirit Sep 24, 2009 @ 10:51 PM
LOS ANGELES — Hollywood loves money. So does Ebenezer Scrooge. So what better way to launch the holiday season than putting the old money-grubber at the head of the line to separate movie-goers from their cash?
-
CORRECTED: "Wild Things" movie gets author Sendak's blessing Sep 24, 2009 @ 10:51 PM
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Turning a classic children's book into a Hollywood movie takes courage.
-
"Wild Things" movie gets author Sendak's blessing Sep 24, 2009 @ 10:51 PM
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Turning a classic children's book into a Hollywood movie takes courage.
-
A Hollywood ending: How LeBron James helped Kris Belman survive ... Sep 24, 2009 @ 10:51 PM
"More Thana Game" is a soul-stirring documentary about a close-knit group of Akron, Ohio, grade school kids who grow up to be the greatest high school basketball team of their generation. Itdoesn't hurtthat one of the kids is LeBron James, who was such a prodigy that he went straight from high school to NBA stardom. The moviedepicts James, who evenin fifth grade looked like a man among boys,in all his youthful glory. But its best momentscapture the close relationship that James and his teammates have with their coach, Dru Joyce, who emerges not only as an inspirationalrole model for the boys but a role model forsports dadseverywhere.
