ShareThisA guide to movies from a family perspective:
BEDTIME STORIES
Rated: PG.
Suitable for: School-age children and up.
What you should know: Adam Sandler is a hotel handyman who tells his young niece and nephew fanciful bedtime stories that start to come true and are the comedy's highlight.
Language: Mild.
Sexual situations and nudity: Clean, just some kisses exchanged.
Violence/scary situations: Children unwittingly go into a building about to be leveled but it all turns out OK. Other scary scenes are played for laughs.
Drug or alcohol use: Champagne and wine are served at adult functions.
MARLEY & ME
Rated: PG.
Suitable for: School-age children and up.
What you should know: This is a movie version of the best-selling book about a couple who adopt a rambunctious, badly behaved dog. He becomes an integral part of their family, which grows to include three children.
Language: In keeping with the PG rating, about a half-dozen mild expletives.
Sexual situations and nudity: A married couple kiss, shed some clothes and canoodle in a pool, and squeaky bedsprings are a source of humor. There is talk about "fixing" Marley.
Violence/scary situations: A pregnancy does not come to term, and scenes in which Marley grows old and infirm are tearful.
Drug or alcohol use: A joke is made about "bong hits" and adults drink beer, champagne, wine and other alcohol.
THE SPIRIT
Rated: PG-13.
Suitable for: Middle school and older.
What you should know: A back-from-the-dead cop returns as The Spirit (Gabriel Macht) to protect Central City from the villainous Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson) in Frank Miller's darkly noir, highly stylized version of the 1940s comic by Will Eisner.
Language: Crude and rude at times, but nothing hard-core.
Sexual situations and nudity: The Spirit is irresistible to women, but there's nothing more than flirtations, innuendo and a kiss. Several women are scantily clad, and a nude Eva Mendes is seen briefly from behind.
Violence/scary situations: The violence is pervasive but comic-bookish, although there's a high body count and the immortal Spirit takes a clobbering but keeps on crime fighting. The Octopus' henchman clones are the subjects of ghoulish experiments who are treated like slaves and meet grizzly ends. In an apparent torture scene, characters are dressed as Nazis.
Drug or alcohol use: Nothing along traditional lines.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Rated: PG-13.
Suitable for: Tweens and above.
What you should know: Brad Pitt plays the title character, a man who ages backward.
Language: One use of the f-word, some profanity and vulgarities.
Sexual situations and nudity: There is talk about male potency, men visit a brothel, an elderly man's naked behind is shown and a couple undress and kiss before the camera cuts away. They swim naked and make use of a new mattress, in a discreet way.
Violence/scary situations: Benjamin's mother is shown amid bloody sheets, and a doctor predicts she will die. Her husband abandons their baby on the steps of a retirement home. Brief war violence shows ships in distress, men who are shot and die, and corpses floating in the water. An elderly woman is waiting to die in the hospital, other deaths are reported or anticipated but not shown.
Drug or alcohol use: Adults drink, sometimes to excess.
DOUBT
Rated: PG-13.
Suitable for: Teens and up.
What you should know: Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman star in a movie version of the acclaimed play about a nun who suspects a priest of improper behavior with an altar boy in the early 1960s.
Language: Nothing notable.
Sexual situations and nudity: Nothing is ever seen but the subject of molestation is at the center of the story.
Violence/scary situations: A woman makes reference to her husband beating their child.
Drug or alcohol use: Priests are seen drinking with dinner and a boy sneaks altar wine.
VALKYRIE
Rated: PG-13.
Suitable for: Teens and above.
What you should know: Tom Cruise plays a real-life German officer named Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, who was part of a plot to kill Adolf Hitler.
Language: One use of the f-word and a handful of milder words.
Sexual situations and nudity: None.
Violence/scary situations: Von Stauffenberg loses an eye, a hand and several fingers in a wartime blast. Other explosions carry a deadly price, and men are shown being executed.
Drug or alcohol use: Adults are shown with alcoholic drinks.
E-mail Barbara Vancheri at bvancheri(at)post-gazette.com
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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