Parents’ Guide to Movies

Published 4:00 am Friday, January 15, 2010

‘The Lovely Bones’

Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material involving disturbing violent content and images, and some language.

What it’s about: A murdered teen narrates the tale of her death and her family’s life after it.

The kid attractor factor: It’s about kids, and it’s by fantasy director Peter Jackson (“King Kong” and “Lord of the Rings”).

Good lessons/bad lessons: “You’re not supposed to look back. You’re supposed to go forward.”

Violence: A girl is lured on camera, and murdered off camera.

Language: Some profanity.

Sex: Young romance, and the crime itself has a sexual nature.

Drugs: Alcohol and cigarettes.

Parents’ advisory: Entirely too creepy and intense for very young children, and kids younger than 12 might be bored by this after-life thriller and fairytale.

‘The Spy Next Door’

Rating: PG for sequences of action violence and some mild rude humor.

What it’s about: Jackie Chan is a spy who babysits the neighbor kids while defending the world from an arch villain.

The kid attractor factor: Martial arts fights and gags, spyware, smart-mouthed kids.

Good lessons/bad lessons: “Family isn’t whose blood you carry. It’s who you love and who loves you.”

Violence: Gunplay, comic martial arts brawls.

Language: No profanity.

Sex: Jackie Chan does a little smooching.

Drugs: None.

Parents’ advisory: Jackie Chan is always kid-safe, unless Chris Tucker is in the movie with him.

‘Youth in Revolt’

Rating: R for sexual content, language and drug use.

What it’s about: Wimpy teen grows an alter ego to try and make time with a girl.

The kid attractor factor: Michael Cera, playing both a pushover and a ladies’ man.

Good lessons/bad lessons: If you have to change who you are to win somebody over, she or he isn’t worth it.

Violence: Slapstick stuff, vandalism.

Language: Some profanity, more than a little.

Sex: Well, that’s the goal.

Drugs: Yes.

Parents’ advisory: Pretty far out there to qualify as “good clean fun,” but decent messages make this sometimes off-color romp suitable for anybody 15 and older.

‘Leap Year’

Rating: PG for sensuality and language.

What it’s about: A go-getter businesswoman travels to Ireland to use a loophole in “the rules” to propose to her boyfriend on Feb. 29.

The kid attractor factor: Amy Adams and Matthew Goode.

Good lessons/bad lessons: If the guy hasn’t proposed (to Amy Adams, no less) in four years, he’s got issues.

Violence: A fistfight.

Language: Pretty mild, and the wee cursing is mostly done with an Irish accent.

Sex: Not really.

Drugs: A number of scenes are set in bars.

Parents’ advisory: A bit timid and chaste for a romantic comedy, but certainly family-friendly.

‘Avatar’

Rating: PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking.

What it’s about: A disabled Marine is given an alien body to go live among them to help convince them to leave their land, and comes to take their side against the developers who want to bulldoze their forest.

The kid attractor factor: Aliens, dazzling critter-covered alien world and the best motion-capture animation ever.

Good lessons/bad lessons: Developers and their mercenaries bad, indigenous people good.

Violence: Quite a bit, as there’s a war and a lot of hunting-killing that goes on before that war.

Language: A lot of profanity.

Sex: Alien mating, discrete toplessness, loincloths.

Drugs: Cigarettes.

Parents’ advisory: A dazzling spectacle with a plot any ’tween will recognize. It’s too violent and too long for the very young, but a fairly mild PG-13. OK for 10 and older.

The Family Movie Guide should be used along with the Motion Picture Association of America rating system for selecting movies suitable for children. Only films rated G, PG or PG-13 are included in this weekly listing, along with occasional R-rated films that may have entertainment value or educational value for older children with parental guidance.