| Jane Horwitz "Bright Star" (PG, 1 hr., 59 min.)
The romantic poet John Keats is torn between his art and his heart in this lovely, passionate fact-based film by Australian director Jane Campion. (The title comes from a Keats sonnet: "Bright star! Would I were steadfast as thou art. ...") Teens, particularly high-schoolers, of a dreamy bent ought to find the story irresistible, though they could be put off at first by the Brit-Lit sound of educated Londoners, circa 1818.
Penniless, consumptive, and trying to write in a fever of inspiration, knowing he may not have a long life, Keats (Ben Whishaw) is falling inconveniently in love with his neighbor, Fanny Brawne. Fanny (Abbie Cornish) is a sweet but seemingly frivolous fashionista -- a gifted seamstress and dress designer, but decidedly unliterary.
Even so, she is entranced by the frail young man, though her kindly widowed mother (Kerry Fox) and devoted younger siblings Samuel (Thomas Sangster) and "Toots" (adorable Edie Martin) can't afford for Fanny to marry a pauper poet. Yet Keats' and Fanny's neighborly proximity fuels the romance, as does her kindness to Keats when his brother Tom (Olly Alexander) succumbs to tuberculosis, foreshadowing his own demise. As the love between Fanny and Keats grows serious -- it is always chaste, but there is kissing, cuddling on a bed and a clear sense of longing -- his crass, misogynist friend Charles Brown (Paul Schneider) insults Fanny and tries to get Keats to drop her. Brown is afraid she'll distract the poet from his work. While friends and family try to separate them, the couple do become engaged, and Keats writes deathless poems and love letters to Fanny before his death in Italy.
Although the narrative thread occasionally tangles and confuses the story (some scene changes are abrupt and unexplained), the film conjures an utterly convincing sense of time, place and character without a stilted "period film" feel. This is a love story with giant obstacles to happiness, and that's a timeless conceit that ought to entrance many teens.
There are scenes of people sick with tuberculosis who have (nongraphically) coughed up blood. There is an out-of-wedlock pregnancy -- a servant importuned by an upper-class man -- social drinking and brief smoking.
Beyond the Ratings Game: Movie Reviews for various ages
-- OK FOR MOST (BUT NOT ALL) KIDS 6 AND OLDER:
"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" PG -- Funny -- really funny -- and enormously clever in its use of 3-D, this animated comedy (loosely based on the 1978 children's book) will tickle kids 6 and older up through grandparents with dialogue and situations that are deliciously witty for all ages. A few things could scare the littlest ones: The protagonists and their town are threatened by a spaghetti tornado and an avalanche of leftovers, and there is a harrowing midair struggle with an out-of-control food-flinging machine. There is mild toilet humor and one character swells up after eating peanuts, but is quickly cured. In a little Atlantic Coast island town struggling to find a new industry now that sardines no longer sell, inventor Flint Lockwood (voice of Bill Hader) creates a machine that converts water into food. Only he can't control it. It shoots into the sky and rains cheeseburgers, then steaks, ice cream and more onto the town. The mayor senses a tourism bonanza. A perky TV weather reporter, Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), covers the story. Flint senses a kindred spirit in Sam, but then the pasta twister hits and they must stop his machine!
-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY, A PG FOR TEENS AND AN UNRATED DOCUMENTARY:
"Bright Star" PG (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) -- The romantic poet John Keats, penniless, consumptive, and in love with his London neighbor Fanny Brawne, is torn between his art and his heart in this lovely, passionate fact-based film by Australian director Jane Campion. (The title comes from a Keats sonnet: "Bright star! Would I were steadfast as thou art. ...".) High-schoolers of a dreamy bent ought to find the story irresistible, though they could be put off at first by the Brit-Lit sound of educated Londoners, circa 1818. Fanny (Abbie Cornish) is a sweet but flirtatious fashionista and gifted seamstress, but quite unliterary. Her widowed mother (Kerry Fox) and devoted younger siblings Samuel (Thomas Sangster) and "Toots" (Edie Martin) can't afford for her to marry a pauper poet. As the love between Fanny and Keats (Ben Whishaw) grows serious (it is always chaste, but there is kissing, cuddling and a clear sense of longing), his crass, misogynist friend Charles Brown (Paul Schneider) insults Fanny and tries to get Keats to drop her, afraid she'll distract the frail poet from his work. Yet Keats wrote poems and deathless love letters to her. While the narrative line is occasionally jumbled, the film has an utterly convincing sense of time and place without a stilted "period film" look. There are scenes of people sick with tuberculosis, having (nongraphically) coughed up blood. There is an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, social drinking and brief smoking.
"No Impact Man" Unrated, but some profanity (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) -- Socially conscious teens as well as teens who like reality shows about families will be pulled into this cinema verite documentary. It tracks the yearlong project (in 2006) of Manhattan-based writer Colin Beavan, his wife Michelle Conlin (a writer at Business Week), and their 2-year-old daughter. For his own idealistic reasons -- and also for a planned book and blog -- Colin persuades Michelle that they should alter their lifestyle to make as tiny a carbon footprint as possible. That means buying only organic food grown near the city, quitting caffeine, meat and fish, eschewing cars and subways, turning off the power and using candles, and keeping a worm-filled composting box. (They use a solar panel to power cell phones and computers, and borrow ice from a neighbor.) Colin comes off as nice, but a tad passive-aggressive, so one identifies with Michelle, a confessed consumer of clothes and caffeine, who struggles to change. The marital-environmental tug-of-war fuels the film. There is strong profanity, a reference to birth control and a dispute over having a second child.
"Love Happens" -- Stars Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart deserve better than this soggy mess of a film. The narrative goes off in a dozen different directions, all of them cliched. Teens who like a good romantic tearjerker, however, may be moved by it. Eckhart plays Burke, a self-help guru who has made his name with a best-seller about handling grief, even though he has never dealt with the loss of his own wife. He drinks juice in public and vodka in private. At a weeklong book tour and seminar in Seattle (where his wife is buried), Burke (literally) bumps into Eloise (Aniston), who supplies the hotel with flowers from her shop. Their hesitant courtship alternates with the seminar, where Burke tries to help Walter (John Carroll Lynch), who has lost a son. In addition to drinking and smoking a hookah (no drugs implied) at a coffeehouse, there is semi-crude comic sexual innuendo, midrange profanity, a joke about a dead husband's ashes and flashbacks of a fatal car accident.
"Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself" -- This latest humor-laced morality tale from Tyler Perry feels even more formulaic than its (all PG-13) predecessors. Its emotional punches land with a predictable thud. April (Taraji P. Henson -- "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," PG-13, 2008) sings in a club, drinks, and has a good-for-nothing married boyfriend, Andy (Brian J. White). When April's teenage niece Jennifer (Hope Olaide Wilson) and younger nephews (Kwesi Boakye and Frederick Siglar) try to rob that battle-ax Madea's (Tyler Perry in drag) house because they're hungry, Madea takes them to her. They've been living with their grandmother (April's mother), who has disappeared. April grudgingly takes them in. Sandino (Adam Rodriguez), a handsome handyman from a nearby church, has an instant rapport with the kids, but Andy is trouble. The film shows his threats and attempted rape of Jennifer (not graphic). There is grief at a parent's death, and a recurring theme about teen girls being molested. Not for middle-schoolers.
"9" -- Dazzling computer animation and art direction wedded to an intriguing idea don't save "9" from its own humorless sermonizing, which makes it seem long at 79 minutes. Filmmaker Shane Acker's post-apocalyptic tale is geared to adults. It's OK for most teens, but might bore them. There are huge machines that attack the little puppet-like heroes and the mood is fear-laden and dark. "Our world is ending, but life must go on," a voice intones at the start. It belongs to a scientist. The war machines he invented have killed off humanity. As his final act, he built tiny, burlapy electrically sparked creatures imbued with thought and conscience. Creature No. 9 (voice of Elijah Wood) awakens and goes exploring in the ruined city. He finds more beings like himself, led by the dictatorial No. 1 (Christopher Plummer). In trying to rescue No. 2 (Martin Landau) from a mechanical "beast," poor No. 9 accidentally restarts the horrific old war machinery. The creatures must use their wits to stop the machines.
"All About Steve" -- This laborious attempt at offbeat character comedy begins rather well, but quickly goes south. Its portrayal of star Sandra Bullock and other adults behaving badly is unlikely to appeal to teens. The movie has a semiexplicit sexual situation that's truly not for middle-schoolers and Bullock's character thanks a truck driver who gives her a lift for "not raping me." There is other more muted sexual innuendo, midrange profanity and gratuitous ethnic and racial stereotyping. There are exploitative cable TV-style stories about deaf children falling into a mine, a hostage situation and storms, but no one is badly hurt. Bullock plays an eccentric crossword puzzle designer who lives with her parents, wears red patent leather boots, talks compulsively, and becomes obsessed with dishy cable news cameraman Steve (Bradley Cooper) after their brief blind date. Steve's boneheaded colleague (Thomas Haden Church) urges her to stalk him.
-- R's:
"The Informant!" (NEW) -- Discerning high-schoolers could find rich amusement in this tragicomic (mostly comic), fact-based story of an industrial whistle-blower. Director Steven Soderbergh has taken Kurt Eichenwald's book and spun a deliciously deadpan American fable around Mark Whitacre (a beefy, mustachioed Matt Damon). A biochemist and executive at agribusiness behemoth Archer Daniels Midland, Whitacre goes to the FBI in 1992 and tells them ADM has been price fixing. But the more he works with Special Agents Shepard (Scott Bakula) and Herndon (Joel McHale), the more they learn he is an unreliable witness and up to his own shenanigans. The poker-faced acting by everyone except Damon -- he's playing a self-dramatizing narcissist -- makes the growing revelations even more fun, though it also becomes clear that Whitacre has issues. (His occasional voice-overs hint at someone unfocused and detached from reality.) This is a quiet film full of layers and laughs. A mild R, rated for strong, nonsexual profanity.
"Jennifer's Body" -- Jennifer (Megan Fox of the PG-13-rated "Transformer" films) is a tough-talking, promiscuous high-school cheerleader. After she's ill-used by several guys in a rock band (rape is implied, but it proves more complicated than that), she becomes a vampire and gets her revenge by killing high-school boys, eating their innards and drinking their blood. Despite the graphic horror plot, "Jennifer's Body" (written by Diablo Cody, who penned the PG-13-rated "Juno," 2007) is a sharp satire of high-school social angst with a beating heart amid the blood and sarcasm. The movie is too grossly violent and sexually explicit to recommend for under-17s. Its real star is Amanda Seyfried as Jennifer's worshipful best friend and our narrator, Needy, who tells the tale in flashback from psychiatric detention. Besides gory violence, the film has explicit sexual situations (including the now-famous Jennifer-Needy kiss), strong profanity, crude sexual slang and brief drug use.
"Sorority Row" -- It must be a sign of our ill-mannered times that a slasher film about the murder of sorority girls elicits no sympathy for them whatsoever. In this crass and heartless entertainment, the girls are depicted as snarky, mean, looks-obsessed, promiscuous and shallower than a puddle. The film contains strong profanity, crude sexual language, toplessness, semiexplicit sexual situations, drinking and drug references. A mean-spirited prank leads to the unintended death of a sorority sister. They drop her body down a mine shaft and pledge secrecy. The sorority leader Jessica (Leah Pipes) is ambitious and amoral. The sort-of heroine, Cassidy (Briana Evigan), feels guilty, but does nothing. The shrinking violet, Ellie (Rumer Willis), just screams and cowers. On graduation weekend, a slasher starts killing the Theta Pi girls and anyone who gets in the way. So not for under-17s.
(c) 2009, Washington Post Writers Group.
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