FamilyFilmgoer
Watching With Kids in Mind
"Nanny McPhee" is quite simply a treat -- funny, tender, marvelously acted and a pleasure to watch. Never mind that the dialogue includes a few obscure Britishisms and sophisticated comic references that will fly over the heads of 6- to 10-year-olds, or that a few stretches of conversation among adult characters could make those same kids fidget. It represents such a lovely change from Hollywood-made family fare, the Family Filmgoer recommends it enthusiastically for most kids 6 and older. They will like it because its children engage in wildly creative mayhem and very little scariness. Parents will note, though, that the movie bristles with do-not-try-this-at-home stunts. It opens with a hysterical, soon-to-be-ex-nanny screaming, "They've eaten the baby!" but it's only the kids munching on cooked chicken legs dressed in baby clothes while the real baby giggles on a bed of veggies in a cold casserole. The kids bash the cook (Imelda Staunton) on the head, tie her down and trash her kitchen. They make up rude names for themselves on meeting Nanny McPhee. Gross-out gags include toilet humor, a worm sandwich, a fuzzy spider and gloppy medicine. The film contains mild, farcical sexual innuendo, a muted incest joke younger kids will miss and a cockney oath.
Set around 1900, this fable about an overwhelmed widower (Colin Firth) with seven out-of-control children and the magical nanny (Emma Thompson) who sets them all right deals straightforwardly with several big ideas: losing a parent, taking responsibility for one's actions, learning forgiveness and deflating snobbery. Thompson also wrote the droll screenplay, adapted from the "Nurse Matilda" books by Christianna Brand. Nanny McPhee's face is a sight -- warts, unibrow, bulbous nose, a snaggle tooth -- yet she is mild. Only when she bangs her walking stick on the floor does magic happen.
ALSO PLAYING
6 and Older
"Hoodwinked" (PG). Cleverly conceived animated update of "Little Red Riding Hood" boasts snappy dialogue but rough, unlovely computer animation; still, it is funny, and jokes little kids miss will tickle older companions while they enjoy the cartoony mayhem; a suave frog detective (voice of David Ogden Stiers) investigates reports of a "disturbance" at Granny's (Glenn Close) house, questioning Granny, her granddaughter, Red (Anne Hathaway), the Wolf (Patrick Warburton) and a Woodsman (James Belushi). Little ones might be scared to see Red roller-coastering down a mountain barely escaping an avalanche, or streaking downhill in a cable car, or the Wolf threatening her, or the Woodsman (James Belushi) bursting through Granny's window.
10 and Older
"Roving Mars" (G). Fascinating 40-minute Imax film traces launches (in 2003) and landings on Mars of NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the photos and geological analyses they've been sending back to Earth; film blends rovers' actual digital panoramic and close-up photos from Mars with computer-generated models to create vivid landscapes and a sense of the rovers moving in them. Kids younger than 10 may squirm during more scientific discussion in latter half.
"Glory Road" (PG). Earnest, safe, still affecting film tells story of historic Texas Western basketball team, which won the NCAA championship in 1966 and how coach Don Haskins (Josh Lucas) did it by integrating the El Paso school's team, ignoring racist grumbling among school officials, alumni; Derek Luke as a key team member. Occasional racist slurs, including the n-word, in dialogue and visually in hate mail, graffiti; upsetting scene shows African American athlete beaten up; mild drug reference; muffled barnyard epithet; rare mild profanity; muted sexual innuendo; drinking.
PG-13s
"Annapolis." Slick, utterly derivative, dumbed-down fable of up-by-the-bootstraps triumph; James Franco as moody, hardheaded shipyard welder who, to his surprise, gets accepted by U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis; he spends his freshman "plebe" year defying one officer (Tyrese Gibson), falling for another (Jordana Brewster), boxing his way out of low self-esteem, proving to his dad (Brian Goodman) and roommates (Roger Fan, Wilmer Calderon, Vicellous Shannon) he's not a quitter; only he never studies. Boxing scenes intense -- no bad injuries; one character's off-camera suicide attempt; profanity; subtle ethnic slurs; drinking; joke about woman being a prostitute when she is not. Teenagers.
"The New World." Legendary filmmaker Terrence Malick's at times stunning, but overlong paean to an end of paradise, a collision of cultures -- about painful 1607 founding of Jamestown colony in Virginia, ill-fated romance between John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Native American princess Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher). Skirmishes between settlers and Indians show occasional impalings, point-blank shootings, but little blood; Smith is nearly hanged, another time beaten by his own men; settlers nearly starve, with verbal reference to cannibalism; muted sexual innuendo. Too violent for preteens; may bore teenagers.
"End of the Spear." Earnest, plodding, sermonizing tale (based on a 1956 incident and its aftermath) dramatizes power of faith in Amazon jungle after violent tribe murders five male missionaries; the murdered men's wives and children still befriend the tribe and teach them the Gospel. Briefly harrowing violence shows lethal fights among tribesmen, attack on the missionaries, men run through with bloodied spears in a stylized, not graphic way; dead bodies shown afterward; nongraphic portrayal of a child drowning, children sick with polio; subtitles when Indians speak. Too intense at times for preteens.
"Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World." Comedian-filmmaker Albert Brooks's priceless spoof of American cluelessness in the world, as a screen version of himself, asked by the State Department to travel to a corner of the Muslim world -- India (which is only partly Muslim) and possibly Pakistan -- to find out what makes Muslims laugh; he tries his stand-up routines on stunned audiences and also nearly sparks an India-Pakistan border incident. Occasional profanity; hints of anti-Semitism; mild sexual innuendo; Brooks smokes hashish with group of Pakistani comics. High schoolers more likely to get the jokes.
"Last Holiday." Immensely likable, low-key comedy remake of 1950 Alec Guinness film stars Queen Latifah as a shy cookware demonstrator at a New Orleans store who can't flaunt her skills as a gourmet chef or flirt with the guy (LL Cool J) she likes; news that she has only weeks to live makes her cash in her savings and head to a posh European resort with a famous chef (Gerard Depardieu), where she aims to let loose and live, live, live. Profanity; occasionally steamy sexual innuendo; mildly implied sexual situation; remark about "sleeping around"; rude joke about a derriere; drinking, smoking. Iffy for preteens.
Rs
"Underworld: Evolution." Utterly incomprehensible (except to cultish fans), dark, damp, vampire-werewolf revenge flick, sequel to "Underworld" (R, 2003); Kate Beckinsale as vampire warrior Selene, determined to do no harm to humans, fight the violent werewolf race, learn the true cause of the thousand-year war between vampires and werewolves and the source of all their immortality. Much gory (though dimly lit, stylized) impalement, beheading, shooting, head-cracking among vampires and the alternately reptilian, furry, humanoid werewolves; vampirish blood-sucking; explicit sexual situation with non-frontal nudity; profanity. Horror fans 17 and older.
"Bubble." Genuinely gripping experimental drama, shot in high-definition video with nonprofessional actors by director Steven Soderbergh (to be released simultaneously in art house cinemas, in video stores and on cable); blue-collar cinema verite saga unfolds in Ohio-West Virginia border town, focusing on three co-workers in a doll factory (played by real-life locals Debbie Doebereiner, Dustin James Ashley and Misty Dawn Wilkins) and a tragic triangle that develops among them; acting feels amateurish at first, but grows compelling in its plainness. Profanity; marijuana; drinking, smoking; brief, implied violence. High school cinema buffs.
Rs
"Underworld: Evolution." Utterly incomprehensible (except to cultish fans), dark, damp, vampire-werewolf revenge flick, sequel to "Underworld" (R, 2003); Kate Beckinsale as vampire warrior Selene, determined to do no harm to humans, fight the violent werewolf race, learn the true cause of the thousand-year war between vampires and werewolves and the source of all their immortality. Much gory (though dimly lit, stylized) impalement, beheading, shooting, head-cracking among vampires and the alternately reptilian, furry, humanoid werewolves; vampirish blood-sucking; explicit sexual situation with non-frontal nudity; profanity. Horror fans 17 and older.
"Bubble." Genuinely gripping experimental drama, shot in high-definition video with nonprofessional actors by director Steven Soderbergh (to be released simultaneously in art house cinemas, in video stores and on cable); blue-collar cinema verite saga unfolds in Ohio-West Virginia border town, focusing on three co-workers in a doll factory (played by real-life locals Debbie Doebereiner, Dustin James Ashley and Misty Dawn Wilkins) and a tragic triangle that develops among them; acting feels amateurish at first, but grows compelling in its plainness. Profanity; marijuana; drinking, smoking; brief, implied violence. High school cinema buffs.
