ShareThisA guide to movies from a family perspective:"Vantage Point"-- Rated: PG-13.-- Suitable for: Teens and older.-- What you should know: An assassination attempt on the president of the United States is seen from eight different vantage points, as the audience learns a little more with each view. Cast includes William Hurt as the president and Dennis Quaid and Matthew Fox as Secret Service agents.-- Language: One f-word, plus other milder curses.-- Sexual situations and nudity: None.-- Violence/scary situations: Lots of both, played over and over. Shots are fired at the president. Explosions leave onlookers dead or injured. People are kidnapped, shot and wounded or killed. Car chases are high-speed, extended and reckless. Many people, including a little girl, are in jeopardy.-- Drug or alcohol use: None."Grace Is Gone"-- Rated: PG-13.-- Suitable for: Tweens and older.-- What you should know: John Cusack plays the father of two girls, ages 12 and 8, who learns his soldier wife has died fighting in Iraq. He must find a way to tell their daughters.-- Language: One or two f-words and a half-dozen milder curses.-- Sexual situations and nudity: A joke is made about married couples and phone sex.-- Violence/scary situations: One of the girls briefly watches a TV report about a Baghdad bomb blast. The father is shown numb and dazed after he is informed his wife was killed. When the girls eventually learn about their mother, they sob in a heartbreaking way.-- Drug or alcohol use: Nothing notable although there is underage cigarette smoking."The Spiderwick Chronicles"-- Rated: PG.-- Suitable for: Artist Tony DiTerlizzi, co-creator of the source books, suggests ages 8 or 9 and up. He recommends leaving it to the parents' discretion for children younger than that.-- What you should know: The books of the same name have been turned into a movie starring Freddie Highmore as twins Jared and Simon Grace and Sarah Bolger as their older sister, Mallory. When their parents split, they move with their mother to a secluded old estate where they encounter creatures such as goblins, brownies and a dangerous shape-shifting ogre.-- Language: Nothing notable.-- Sexual situations and nudity: None.-- Violence/scary situations: An ogre is scary-looking and, sometimes, -sounding. A child is kidnapped and others are chased, attacked or threatened. One of the twins is angry about being uprooted and his parents' separation.--Drug or alcohol use: None.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.shns.com.)
New films from a family perspective
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