Family Film: A look at new movies, including '17 Again'

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A guide to movies from a family perspective:

"17 Again"

-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: Ideally, tweens and older moviegoers. Some mature material may go over the heads of younger patrons.
-- What you should know: Matthew Perry plays a 37-year-old dad, on the verge of divorce and just passed over for a promotion, who magically becomes 17 again -- and this time, his character is played by dreamboat Zac Efron.
-- Language: Generally mild.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: A character gives up a possible college scholarship after learning his girlfriend is pregnant. A class lesson about sexuality includes distribution of condoms, a couple make out, a refusal to have sex prompts a breakup and adults are shown in bed after a night together. Also, a pharmaceutical sales meeting makes mention of a prolonged erection.
-- Violence/scary situations: Bullying, fisticuffs, a jump from a bridge and face-slapping.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Adults drink wine, and when the 17-year-old reaches for a beer, he's told he is not allowed to indulge. A teen party gets raucous, but there's no obvious drinking.

"The Haunting in Connecticut"

-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: Mature teens and up.
-- What you should know: Star Virginia Madsen was adamant in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette interview that nobody under 13 should see the movie. It's based on a true story, although dramatic license has been taken, about a family living in a haunted house and coping with a teen-age son with cancer.
-- Language: A couple of uses of "Jesus" and a few four-letter words.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: None.
-- Violence/scary situations: Lots of both, starting with the son's prognosis and including almost nonstop frightening occurrences in the house, which once was a funeral home and site of seances involving the expulsion of ectoplasm. Children and adults are in danger, corpses are shown (sometimes being mutilated), a character appears badly burned and a dangerous fire rages.
-- Drug or alcohol use: The father of the family drowns his sorrows in booze and goes on a rampage.

"Monsters vs. Aliens"

-- Rated: PG.
-- Suitable for: Preschoolers or anyone who can sit attentively through a 90-minute movie.
-- What you should know: If seen in 3-D, moviegoers must wear special glasses. Story is animated and uses 1950s creature features such as "The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman," "The Blob" and "The Fly" as inspiration for this comic adventure about mutants fighting off aliens.
-- Language: Nothing notable.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: None.
-- Violence/scary situations: A fair amount, including the transformation of a bride-to-be into a giant. Weapons are fired, the Golden Gate Bridge collapses and the planet endangered, although the storytelling style keeps it fun and not too scary.
-- Drug or alcohol use: None, although a joke is made about mixing an "Atomic Gin Fizz."

"Knowing"

-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: Mature high-school students and older moviegoers.
-- What you should know: This is a violent, frightening thriller about a university professor (Nicolas Cage) who realizes that seemingly random numbers, scribbled by a girl 50 years earlier and locked in a time capsule, actually are a code to disasters past, present and to come.
-- Language: A half-dozen mild expletives.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: None.
-- Violence/scary situations: Many, many, many, including a horrific airplane crash, deadly underground subway crash, references to other catastrophes, kidnapping of children, talk about parents who died and frantic discussions about the end of the world and the destructive, fiery aftermath.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Cage's character is seen drinking and overindulging in wine and whiskey.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit Pittsburgh Post-Gazette