ShareThisA guide to movies from a family perspective:
"The Day the Earth Stood Still"
-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: 10- or 11-year-olds and up.
-- What you should know: This is a remake of the 1951 sci-fi movie about an alien visitor who comes to Earth, setting off a global panic and bearing a timely message for the planet's inhabitants. This time, the alien is played by Keanu Reeves and the cast also includes Jennifer Connelly, Jaden Smith, Jon Hamm and Kathy Bates.
-- Language: Minimal, a mild four-letter word or two.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: None.
-- Violence/scary situations: Lots, with people who are mourned, shot or killed (and occasionally brought back to life), destruction and the stopping of time, as the title promises.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Nothing notable.
"Australia"
-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: Tweens and above.
-- What you should know: Baz Luhrmann directs Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in a sweeping, old-fashioned movie set in Australia in the late 1930s and early '40s.
-- Language: One crisply delivered f-word and a few stronger versions of "darn" and "heck."
-- Sexual situations and nudity: The most explicit and yet PG-13 scene involves a couple who start kissing, begin to undress each other and end up in bed before the camera cuts away.
-- Violence/scary situations: Men are killed by spears, a woman drowns, a man is trampled during a cattle drive and a prolonged attack by the Japanese leaves a city in fiery ruins and imperils children exiled on an island.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Rum is a favorite, and drinks are tossed back in rowdy bars and served at society functions.
"Four Christmases"
-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: Teens and above.
-- What you should know: Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn play an unmarried couple whose vacation plans are short-circuited and end up visiting their families instead.
-- Language: About a dozen mild expletives or vulgarities.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: A couple is shown leaving a bar bathroom after a romantic interlude, kisses are exchanged, a grandmother talks about "pleasuring" her partner, a man describes his much-older girlfriend as a "very sexual being" and a woman says her husband "knows I slept with the entire water-polo team just like I know he experimented with men." Also, a home pregnancy test is the focus of a game of keep-away.
-- Violence/scary situations: Childish men punch, jump on and otherwise physically abuse their brother. An attempt to install a satellite dish ends badly, with a fall from the roof and destruction inside. A baby's head is accidentally banged against a cabinet, and children and an adult are tossed around in a backyard inflatable playroom.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Adults consume a variety of alcoholic drinks, although mainly beer and wine.
"Bolt"
-- Rated: PG.
-- Suitable for: Preschoolers and up who can sit through a 96-minute movie.
-- What you should know: This is an animated movie about a dog who appears on a TV show and thinks he really possesses superpowers. He learns otherwise when he accidentally is shipped to New York. In addition to the dog, it features an animated cat, pigeons and scene-stealing hamster.
-- Language: Nothing notable.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: None.
-- Violence/scary situations: The movie opens with an intense chase scene that turns out to be part of the TV show. Later, however, there are a couple of scenes involving either vehicles that blow up or, especially, a fire that traps Bolt's beloved owner, with the voice of Miley Cyrus. It ends happily, though.
-- Drug or alcohol use: None.
"Twilight"
-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: Teens, especially those familiar with the Stephenie Meyer novel of the same name, and older.
-- What you should know: This is based on the first of four Meyer books about the romance between a vampire and a human girl. It stars Kristen Stewart and instant heartthrob Robert Pattinson.
-- Language: Nothing notable.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: The lead characters engage in some brief but passionate kissing. They cannot go further across the vampire-human divide, although it's evident they want to, as they kiss on her bed. A mother, upon hearing about a boy in her daughter's life, asks if she's being "safe."
-- Violence/scary situations: We see humans fleeing from evil vampires or about to be killed. A teen is followed, lured into a trap, bitten and injured in other ways. Although only the beginning of the scene is shown in a fuzzy background, a vampire is about to be killed by being ripped apart and burned.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Adults drink or clutch beer cans, but no teen drinking.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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