Family Film: New movies, including 'The Time Traveler's Wife'

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A guide to movies from a family perspective:

"The Time Traveler's Wife"

-- Rated: PG-13.

-- Suitable for: Mature teens and older.

-- What you should know: Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana star in an adaptation of the Audrey Niffenegger book about a woman and a man who involuntarily travels through time.

-- Language: A couple of uses of profanity and under a dozen mild expletives.

-- Sexual situations and nudity: When Bana's character travels through time, he sheds his clothes, which means we see his naked backside several times. The leads exchange passionate kisses and are shown in bed after their first night together.

-- Violence/scary situations: A car accident proves fiery and fatal, a woman suffers several miscarriages and beloved characters are accidentally injured and die.

-- Alcohol and drug use: Adults drink wine or whiskey or other alcoholic drinks.

"Bandslam"

-- Rated: PG.

-- Suitable for: Mature tweens and older.

-- What you should know: Student musicians bond and struggle while preparing to compete in a high-school rock competition.

-- Language: Mild; no major cursing.

-- Sexual situations and nudity: Kisses are shared between high-school students. In one scene, a girl instructs a boy how to kiss and locks lips with him for "educational purposes."

-- Violence/scary situations: A student is verbally and physically bullied; one character mourns over the (unseen) death of a family member.

-- Alcohol and drug use: None.

"Julie & Julia"

-- Rated: PG-13.

-- Suitable for: Mature tweens and older.

-- What you should know: This is the story of Julia Child and blogger Julie Powell, who cooked her way through "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," co-authored by Child. The movie toggles between Powell in 2002-03 and Child in the late 1940s and '50s, before she became a household name, author and TV star.

-- Language: One f-word and at least a half-dozen milder four-letter curses and one racy remark Child uses while cooking.

-- Sexual situations and nudity: Married couples kiss and are shown about to go to bed or just after.

-- Violence/scary situations: Powell works near Ground Zero and fields a few distressing calls on 9/11, and a couple's inability to have children moves the woman to tears.

-- Drug or alcohol use: Much alcohol is consumed with meals and at parties, all by adults.

"500 Days of Summer"

-- Rated: PG-13

-- Suitable for: Mature high-school students and older

-- What you should know: "500 Days of Summer" follows Tom, a hopeless romantic, and Summer, a free-spirited commitment-phobe, as they fall in and out of love during the year-and-a-half duration of their relationship.

-- Language: Tom and his lowbrow friends curse a couple times, using the f-word or a reference to female genitalia. They also use several pejorative terms to describe the women in their lives, though it is clear that those words are only an angry reaction to the pain of unrequited love. There are a couple of tasteless jokes about homosexuality.

-- Sexual situations and nudity: A few depictions of the moments leading up to sex. In one short, humorous scene, Tom and Summer watch a porn video together and attempt to copy the actors, though they never show anyone actually engaging in sex. Almost every character cracks a joke or two involving sexual innuendo.

-- Violence/scary situations: Tom engages in a quick bar fight that consists of a couple of punches to the face.

-- Drug or alcohol use: Many parts of the movie involve situations where characters drink wine, beer or hard liquor, especially as a post-breakup coping mechanism. There are two scenes where a character gets completely wasted in a karaoke bar.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)

Must credit Pittsburgh Post-Gazette