ShareThisA guide to movies from a family perspective:
"Fanboys"
-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: Sci-fi fans who can laugh at themselves and enjoy crude, sometimes homophobic humor.
-- What you should know: Four friends travel from Ohio to San Francisco in 1998 to break into George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch to see "Star Wars: Episode I" before it's released in theaters. One member of their group is dying of cancer.
-- Language: The movie contains some profanity. Middle fingers are extended.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: The "Star Wars" geeks try to get women to remove their tops without success, but the guys do moon their enemies.
-- Violence/scary situations: "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" fans rumble, but it's played for laughs.
-- Alcohol and drug use: The geeks get high and imagine an Ewok among them. They also visit a house party, gay bar and casino where alcohol is served.
"Confessions of a Shopaholic"
-- Rated: PG.
-- Suitable for: Tweens and above.
-- What you should know: Based on a pair of Sophie Kinsella novels, this movie stars Isla Fisher as a writer up to her eyeballs in debt but advising magazine readers about finance.
-- Language: Mild, maybe one use of a stronger version of darn.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: Kisses are exchanged.
-- Violence/scary situations: Played for laughs.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Adults knock back champagne and frothy alcoholic drinks.
"Push"
-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: 15-year-olds and up.
-- What you should know: Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning are caught in a world of psychic espionage where people can see the future, move objects with their minds or plant ideas in others' heads.
-- Language: Some profanity and expletives, including what sounds like a single f-word.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: Kissing, mainly behind closed doors, and a scene where a husband learns his wife has been unfaithful.
-- Violence/scary situations: Nearly nonstop, with references to Nazi experiments along with people being shot at or killing themselves at the behest of others, being injected with experimental drugs, falling to their deaths and slugging it out with fists.
-- Drug or alcohol use: To sharpen her powers, Fanning's 13-year-old character gets drunk. Adults are shown drinking.
"The Pink Panther 2"
-- Rated: PG.
-- Suitable for: 9- or 10-year-olds and up.
-- What you should know: This is a sequel to the 2006 film with Steve Martin in the title role. Here he joins a dream team of investigators tracking a master thief.
-- Language: Generally clean.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: Some hugs and flirtations, all mild, and a lecture about how it is inappropriate to stare at a woman's cleavage and buttocks.
-- Violence/scary situations: Guns are fired but most of the violence is played for laughs, with pratfalls, karate face-offs, accidental fires, head-banging, reckless car driving and the like.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Adults drink wine and champagne.
"Coraline"
-- Rated: PG.
-- Suitable for: Children, especially those familiar with the Neil Gaiman book, age 8 and up.
-- What you should know: This animated movie is about an 11-year-old who discovers a secret passageway in her new apartment that leads to a world where her "other" mother and father live. It seems perfect until the other parents reveal their true selves and want to replace Coraline's eyes with buttons.
-- Language: Nothing notable.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: An elderly actress appears in pasties and bikini bottom -- until she unzips her lumpy body and steps out as a younger, thinner version of herself.
-- Violence/scary situations: A fair amount as Coraline and others are in danger, a boy loses his ability to talk, we see the spirits of children who disappeared and the "other" parents show their real colors as they shift shapes and demand that Coraline obey.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Nothing, other than some circus rats that appear to be drunk.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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