 |
| Related Items |
|
|
| Past Columns |
|
|
|
|
|
Teens Might Like 'Rising'
By Jane Horwitz
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, January 30, 1998
|
|
 |
| |
|
|
|
Beyond the
Ratings Game
Okay for 6 and Up
"Spice World" (PG). Female pop group has a fun, silly time in London. Girls 6-12 will like. Rare cuss words; male dancers display nearly bare behinds; group's manager drinks; mild toilet humor; mild sexual innuendo.
"Mouse Hunt" (PG). Bumbling brothers vs. mouse in clever farce. Spooky tone may scare tots–old man on deathbed; mouse barely escapes nail gun; cat falls to off-camera death; toilet humor; crude language. Not for rodent-phobics.
"Flubber" (PG). Robin Williams in likable remake of 1961 comedy. Under-6's may get bored in last third. Slapstick violence, high-tech flatulence joke, rare risque humor.
Better for 8 and Up
"Star Kid" (PG). Likable sci-fi fantasy about lonely kid befriended by alien robot. Buglike aliens, fight scenes might scare younger kids, themes of loss upset them. Rare crude language, toilet humor.
More for Teens
"Titanic" (PG-13). Touching, impressive epic. Youngest may find too sad. Rare profanity; implied that two characters make love,; woman poses topless; scurrying rats.
"As Good as It Gets" (R). Jack Nicholson as a hilarious lout. Racial, homophobic slurs, some strong profanity; briefly brutal attack; steamy kissing.
"Tomorrow Never Dies" (PG-13). Fast-moving Bond sequel. Non-gory gunplay, martial arts fights; muted love scenes; crude jokes, sexual innuendo, profanity; drinking.
"Kundun" (PG-13). Fascinating bio of Dalai Lama of Tibet. Insights into Buddhism, Tibetan culture. Brief, non-goric battle scenes; implication that corpses arm is cut off as funeral offering.
R's and Art Films
"Deceiver." Cagey murder suspect bamboozles cops with mind games in clever if contrived mystery. Implied mutilation of victim's body; violent near-rape; sexual situations; profanity. High-schoolers.
"Oscar and Lucinda" (at Cineplex Odeon Janus). Gorgeous, romantic, spiritual 19th century tale based on Peter Carey novel of tortured preacher adn free-willed woman, both compulsive gamblers in Australia. White men shown raping Aborigine; explicit sex scene; rare graphic violence. High-schoolers.
"Good Will Hunting." Troubled math whiz grows up in first-rate dramatic comedy. Strong profanity; sexual innuendo; mild sexual situation; fistfight. Smoking, drinking. High-schoolers.
"Fallen." Cop Denzel Washington vs. killer demonic spirit in provocative but slow thriller--menace instead of gore. Gas-chamber execution; shootings; profanity. Teens.
"Hard Rain." Morgan Freeman holds up armored truck during flood, Christian Slater tries to stop him in silly, mild thriller. Loud mayhem; profanity; threat of rape. Teens.
"Half-Baked." Pot-smoking slackers sell grass to raise bail for a pal in subversive-but-dumb comedy that minimizes consequences. Mucho marijuana smoking; verbal, visual sexual innuendo; profanity; semi-nudity. Mature, less impressionable high-schoolers.
"Phantoms." Mysterious evil presence kills townsfolk in underwhelming thriller. Tentacled monsters skewer people, rarely graphically; veiny corpses, severed hands, heads; occasional profanity, sexual innuendo. High-schoolers.
"The Boxer." Former IRA fighter gets out of prison determined to live in peace in first-rate drama. Bombings, shootings scary, not bloody; bruising boxing scenes; profanity; cigarettes, beer. Teens.
– Jane Horwitz
|
Deep Rising" (R)
Giant ravenous sea monsters eat almost everyone on board a luxury cruise ship. People are sucked into the monster's toothy, tentacled appendages (all computer-generated), their skeletons and blood splattered back out. A boarding party of saboteurs-for-hire happens upon the carnage and, led by Treat Williams, faces the monsters down. The script also features profanity, mild sexual innuendo, deafening gunfire, an ax in the head and a lovely vomiting scene. Teen audiences who like adrenaline rushes and screen gore may get a kick out of the action and occasionally pithy dialogue in "Deep Rising" as long as they don't analyze it or compare it with other, better films.
Great Expectations" (R)
Romance-minded high-school audiences may well glom onto the glorified soap opera that Charles Dickens's 1861 novel has become in this great-looking but hollow update. If teens haven't read the book or seen the 1946 David Lean film, they should, because this tortuous love story has all the depth of a fashion layout. They'll note the difference. The rating encompasses a couple of steamy but not overly graphic sexual situations between the unwed central characters. They also drink, smoke and swear, and there is brief violence. Dickens's hero, Pip, is now called Finn (played as an adult by Ethan Hawke), an orphan raised by a fisherman on Florida's Gulf Coast. From childhood, he's loved a snippy rich girl, Estella (played as an adult by Gwyneth Paltrow), whose bitter maiden aunt (Anne Bancroft as the daffy doyenne based on Dickens's Miss Havisham) has trained her to break men's hearts. The grown-up, still-lovelorn Finn finds success as an artist (though not a good one) in New York, where he finds Estella again, chic and unhappy. Robert De Niro adds grit as the escaped convict who terrifies Finn as a boy and befriends him years later.
"The Apostle" (R)
High-schoolers who appreciate gritty drama and soul-deep character studies may get caught up in writer-director-star Robert Duvall's story of a sinful but sincere preacher's road to redemption. "The Apostle" contains strong language, mild sexual innuendo, drinking and a moment of violence. The preacher reacts violently when his unhappy wife (Farrah Fawcett) leaves him and forces him out of the church they founded. On the run from the law and tortured by guilt, he opens a new church in a poor, rural African American community. A sincere portrayal of faith and interracial harmony, "The Apostle" requires a serious audience.
"Zero Effect" (R)
Salty language and an understated sexual situation earn the rating in this otherwise inoffensive and smartly deconstructionist detective flick. Its offbeat edginess will appeal to many teens. Daryl Zero (Bill Pullman), reclusive weirdo and crackerjack private detective, deals with clients only through his middleman, Steve Arlo (Ben Stiller), because relationships freak him out. But this new case, finding a lost key to a safe deposit box for a millionaire (Ryan O'Neal) who's being blackmailed, throws Zero a prime number in the form of a cute paramedic (Kim Dickens). Romance, mystery and murder all unfold in witty, revealing dialogue and muted flashbacks-refreshing and subtle fare for discriminating teens.
|
