Jane Horwitz
Family Filmgoer Columnist
Friday, September 5, 2008
12:30 PM
Can you take your 4-year-old to see "Wall-E"? Is "The Dark Knight" appropriate fare for a preteen?
Jane Horwitz, who writes the syndicated Family Filmgoer column, will answer these questions and more during a live discussion about movies on Friday, Sept. 5 at 12:30 p.m. ET.
Horwitz's Family Filmgoer column appears in newspapers around the country and has been featured in the Washington Post since 1993. She also writes about theater for the Post and regularly appears on WETA's "Around Town."
Read the transcript.
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Vienna, Va.: You asked it at the top of the page....what can my 4-year-old see this weekend, or in the next few weeks. The only movie she's ever been to is Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Jane Horwitz: The animated film "Fly Me To The Moon" (G) is about three young flies in Florida who stow away onto Apollo 11 and go to the moon and back.
It's not a great film, but it's got some laughs and entertaining visuals. It is in 3-d, however, and I'm not sure how a 4-year-old would feel about those plastic glasses you have to wear. You might try it out and if you can see your child isn't enjoying it, leave and get your money back or ask for a pass to use later.
if you can find a suburban theater still playing "Kung Fu Panda," that would be a great one, I think. It has martial arts fighting in it, but it's gorgeously animated and very very funny.
Jane Horwitz: I should also add that, as you know doubt know very well, all 4-year-olds are different. Seeing even animated martial arts on a really big screen, even in a funny film like "Kung Fu Panda," could scare a 4-year-old who still doesn't quite distinguish between make-believe and reality. But if you think your child is fine with that distinction and won't be scared to see pandas and tigers and praying mantises doing martial arts, the movie could be a hit with her/him.
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Annapolis, Md.: My 14-year-old wants to go see "The House Bunny." Is there any reason why she shouldn't?
Jane Horwitz: I just re-read my review and realized I didn't specify WHICH teens I thought it was OK for. I guess, to be safe, I should have suggested it was more for high-schoolers than middle-schoolers, but if your 14-year-old is reasonably sophisticated, I doubt the film would do any harm. It is pretty mild -- the sexual innuendo is gentle; there are no sex scenes, little swearing, drinking or smoking. But if you have objections to the very idea of a Playboy Bunny teaching college girls how to flirt and dress, you might find it troubling. What I liked about it was the fact that the college girls wind up teaching the Bunny how to use her brain, while she gives them some self-confidence. It does feature lots of girls dressed in skimpy summer clothes and has many references to Playboy Magazine, the Playboy Mansion (with Hugh Hefner in a cameo appearance). But we never see an actual centerfold or anything like that. It's a parental call, I think.
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Baltimore, Md.: What is your opinion on redband trailers (those previews for R-rated movies that contain R-rated content, as opposed to those approved for all audiences)? I think they make sense, so long as redband trailers are only shown before R rated movies -- I think they're much more effective marketing tools than watered down versions of the movie.
Jane Horwitz: You make a good point, but problems can arise doing that. More often than theaters like to admit, they inadvertantly play trailers for R-rated films on screens currently showing PG-13 or PG-rated movies, and they're seen by audiences they're not intended for.
Also, there can be quite a range of R-rated films. Some may get the rating only for strong language, while others have graphic violence and/or sexuality and nudity. So a mistake with an 'redband trailer' played on the wrong screen could really have some consequences.
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Bethesda, Md.: Transsiberian is certainly not a children's movie, definitely an R, but even for adults it has a scene that's just so gruesome it left me and my husband, a Marine combat veteran, badly shaken. Why the heck do they do that? Otherwise it's a good Hitchcockian film, lots of plot twists, good acting and beautiful cinematography, but that one scene means we really can't recommend it and are in fact telling friends not to go.
Jane Horwitz: I'm sorry to say I haven't seen "Transsiberian" yet, but from your brief description, I'm glad it's rated R. It's quite true that because the PG-13 rating has changed and coarsened so much in the last 10 years, allowing much more violence (people being run through, as in the "Lord of the Rings" films), and sexuality, that has allowed R-rated films to go even farther, and they have, as if suddenly able to fill a vacuum. Violence in particular, with the help of digital effects, has become ever more gruesome. It sounds like "Transsiberian" is a good thriller. I agree with you, that extremely violent moments can be so off putting, they can almost ruin the rest of a film for you.
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Boston, Mass.: My fairly sensitive 7-year-old has been asking me to buy Nim's Island on DVD. She's sensitive to violence, and also to embarrassment (no pre-teen sitcoms for us!). What are your thoughts?
Jane Horwitz: My recollection is that the biggest problem with Nim's Island is the disjointed quality of the narrative, which follows three major characters in three different locations. But I think kids adapt to that kind of thing more easily than adults!
The film does have some scary moments, but I wouldn't call them "violent."
Nim nearly falls off the side of a volcano at one point, and her dad, a marine biologist, is out in his small boat and gets caught in a squall and nearly lost at sea. So there are moments that could give your 7-year-old some anxiety, but if he/she sticks with it, everything comes out OK.
If the lost-at-sea sequence bothers your child, you could explain how movie makers shoot such scenes in giant "tanks," that are really big swimming pools set up for filming with lights, waterproof cameras, etc.
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Jane Horwitz: I'm really interested in how many people have taken their kids to see "The Longshots" with Ice Cube and the terrific young actress Keke Palmer (from "Akila and the Bee."
It's such a nice film, about a real-life teen girl from a small Illinois town who was a quarterback with the Pop Warner youth football league.
The film fictionalizes some of her story, but it's really well acted and despite a few cliches, nicely written. It takes a non-political but populist look at small towns suffering from economic depression and how it affects the people, but in a way that's totally accessible to kids 8 and older.
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Boston, Mass.: Given what's been in the news lately... What did you think of "Juno," when it came out? For what age groups would you recommend it, and with what caveats, if any?
Jane Horwitz: That's so tricky. I loved "Juno," but I'm the last person in the world to want to encourage "children to have children."
I think it's a movie for high-school kids, but iffy for middle-schoolers, depending on how parents think younger teens will handle it and view the choices Juno makes.
Part of it is that the character is written to be brilliant and precocious about everything except her emotions. That's interesting. I remember a college drama teacher once telling me that today's teens and college students are very savvy and hip and glib, but very unwlling to share their real feelings. It took her weeks to get past that in trying to teach them the process of acting. In a way, "Juno" deals with that, but I'm not sure younger teens will quite tap into that. So I'd say high-schoolers.
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Capitol Hill: Thinking about seeing Eagle Eye this weekend. Any thoughts?
Jane Horwitz: Have not seen it. Don't see it listed. Where is it playing?
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Ashburn, Va.: First of all, thank you so much for your reviews -- I really rely on them to help make decisions about which movies are appropriate for my children.
I have an 8-year-old boy and wanted to get your thoughts on movies that would be best to take him to. I was considering Clone Wars and have read your review, but am not sure about that one. Any advice would be appreciated!!
washingtonpost.com: STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS The ossification of "Star Wars" continues with this animated sub-chapter of George Lucas's cynically plundered saga that unfolds with all the entertainment value of watching somebody else play a video game. Lucas fulfills his lifelong dream of completely dehumanizing his space opera, replacing it with a digitally animated style that is somewhere between cartoons, Christmas specials and panoramic paintings on the side of a van. One thing is definitely intact from the most recent prequel episodes: From the first frame, all but the learned geeks in the audience won't know what the heck is going on. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are in the midst of the legendary and pointless Clone Wars, the battles of which seem to transpire on either Planet Marriott Airport or Planet Phallic Symbol. Zap! Pow! What's? Boom! Happening? I'd go on explaining the plot but you'd think I was high. In a summer of stoner movies, "Clone Wars" fits right in. (PG, 98 minutes) Space violence, momentary smoking, mind-numbing levels of "Star Wars." Area theaters.
Jane Horwitz: Thanks for the kind words. The review you copied here is not mine, but I said something of the same thing -- that it's "antiseptic" and a "pale imitation" of the live-action films. Mostly, I was bored out of my skull at "Clone Wars."
There is violence, but it's computer-animated and the injured parties are all 'droids of one kind and another.
The kidnapped baby son of Jabba the Hutt gets sick and looks kind of pathetic and endangered for a bit, but gets better.
The kids around your son's age who were at the screening I attended seemed quite engrossed in the movie. For me, it was a watch-checker.
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Jane Horwitz: Did anyone take their teens to see "Swing Vote" before it disappeared from theaters? I thought, in an election season, it was a terrific little comedy and managed pretty neatly not to take sides.
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Jane Horwitz: To the person who asked about "Eagle Eye," my info, which could be old, has it opening Sept. 26.
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Betheda, Md.: There seems to be a bit of a lull movie-wise, especially this weekend. So I'm thinking ahead: What's coming this fall that I could potentially take young kids (under the age of 10) to see?
Jane Horwitz: Yes, we're in the lull period at the end of summer and the start of school, with no big holiday coming up for a while now...
Regarding your question, gee, the first thing I see on my list isn't until Oct. 3 -- "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" from Disney, rated PG. In the meantime, try "The Longshots" and if you haven't seen them already and you can find them still playing somewhere, "Wall¿E" and "Kung Fu Panda."
For sure, as you near Thanksgiving, there'll be more possibilities.
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Washington, D.C.: Why no big movies this weekend? Nothing seems to be previewed and I hear they didn't make the new Nicolas Cage movie screenable for the press, that true?
Jane Horwitz: You're right. This is the post-Labor Day wasteland. Kids are back in school. Some theaters even start canceling weekday matinees.
This is the time period when studios release films they judge to be turkeys, just to give them a week or two in theatrical release before they go to video or foreign distribution where only action matters and awful dialogue doesn't.
Next Friday, Sept. 12, the new Coen Brothers film, "Burn After Reading" opens, which has had mixed "buzz," but a dynamite cast, and the new De Niro/ Pacino film, "Righteous Kill" opens then, too. I think those two are having advance critics' screenings, at least. This week, they screened a new film adaptation of the 1930s Clare Boothe Luce play "The Women," which features Bette Midler, but I couldn't go, and I have not heard good rumblings, but you never know. I'll have to wait till it opens, too.
On Sept. 19, the new Samuel L. Jackson film , "Lakeview Terrace" opens. It's a neighbor-from-hell thriller, and I've seen it already. Not bad.
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Lakeview Terrace: Jane,
I already saw "Lakeview Terrace" too, only strangely it starred Ray Liotta instead of Samuel L.
Jane Horwitz: Sure you don't mean "Unlawful Entry" from 1992?
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Alexandria, Va.: Can you elaborate on what the buzz is about The Women? We've heard so much about the cast, etc. I hope it's not true. But what have you heard?
Jane Horwitz: I've only talked to one or two colleagues who attended the screening this week. They were not impressed. But since I haven't seen it, I probaly shouldn't be spreading other people's opinions, in case it turns out I don't agree with them!
It's a very text-heavy, talky play, and updating it to the present with actresses who aren't all stage-trained, could be part of the problem. But we'll see...
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Jane Horwitz: regarding the question about all the Pixar-style computer animation having a sameness to it, I agree. There's a hard-edge to the visual style, though they keep making leaps and bounds in terms of technology. But it's only so interesting to us laypersons how accurately they can depict animal fur, hair by hair.
I think the recent Disney animated film "Lilo & Stitch" had a great painterly look to it. And if you check out (at your video store or with NetFlix) some of the great Japanese animated "anime" films such as "Princess Mononoke" (PG-13, 1996) you'll be dumbfounded by the beauty of it, even if they do make use of computers. Those films, especially by Hayao Miyazaki, are great, but not always for younger kids.
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Vienna, Va.: Our family loved "Longshot" which we saw based on your recommendation. We were already big Keke Palmer fans from "Akeelah and the Bee." My 8-year-old daughter didn't want to come but enjoyed it thoroughly, as did my non-sports-oriented 13-year-old son. We were surprised at the subtlety and fluency of Ice Cube's acting. There was a lot of humor used nicely.
Jane Horwitz: So happy you liked Longshot!
I wish it were doing better at the box office.
Tell your friends before it disappears.
Ice Cube is becoming quite a good actor, and it helps that he's surrounded by really seasoned performers in this one. I think he was also a producer on this, as he's doing quite often now.
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Capitol Hill: Sorry, Eagle Eye opens September 26, 2008. Looks like we will have to wait. Everybody Wants to Be Italian is opening in selected theaters. Got an A rating by users on Yahoo!.
Jane Horwitz: Alas, I'm not caught up on either one at this point.
"Everybody Wants to Be Italian" seems to be opening in 97 theaters somewhere this weekend, but not here as far as I can tell. Hopefully, it'll be here soon.
I'm also looking forward to Spike Lee's "The Miracle of St. Anna," on Sept. 26.
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