In the gray area for kid-friendly movies

STEVE SMITH

A few weeks ago, my mother gave me the gift of a subscription to the

Christian Science Monitor. Having read it almost daily since, I am

pleased to report that this is an excellent newspaper, one that I

highly recommend to you.

The reporting is crisp and clear, with as much of the elusive

“balance” that I’ve ever seen.

Don’t let the name fool you -- this is not a religious paper.

There is on occasion a column devoted to promoting Christian Science,

but it is clearly marked as such and except for that, there are no

other references.

The issues are brief; my daily copies are usually 12 pages, and

the overall page size is half of the daily newspapers you receive.

Last Saturday’s issue was the most important I’ve received. Larger

than usual, it contained an extensive year-end movie review section,

which will be invaluable to my wife and me during 2004.

Since we’ve sworn off television, our alternatives are reading or

watching movies; and we do watch a lot of movies, many of which have

to be screened before the kids can see them. After watching the

second “Lord of the Rings” movie, we determined that it was too

violent and had too many scary images for our 11-year-old son.

The year-end issue of the Monitor proved to be a bonanza. That

issue had their summary reviews of many movies from 2003, and while

the review board seems to have never met a documentary it didn’t

like, the recaps were generally right on the money.

But more valuable than their opinions was the straight ahead

family analysis of all the flicks. Each movie was rated according to

several kid-friendly categories, including violent scenes, sexual

scenes, profanity and scenes of drinking and drugs. So, if the reader

sees a PG-13 rating, for example, and wonders how that was

determined, this list will offer a good, detailed explanation,

including the specific number of violent, sexual or drug scenes, even

the number of four-letter words spoken in the movie and whether those

words were the mild type.

PG-13 seems to be the gray area for parents. PG-13 movies are

rated as such usually because there’s too much sex or sexual innuendo

or because there’s too much violence. But the PG-13 rating for

violence does not take into account the difference between “real”

violence and “make believe” violence. Real violence is regular people

doing violent things to each other. The make-believe stuff is from

fictional characters doing some outrageous things.

I’m one of those who believes that most kids can make the

distinction between the real and the make-believe violence, so I’m a

little easier on PG-13 movies for that reason. But I draw a line at

sexual content, which is never make believe.

We let our son watch, for example, “Pirates of the Caribbean,”

which was rated PG-13, because of the make-believe scenes, and even

though they were scary, he suffered no ill effects. A good scare at

the movies is OK for kids now and then.

One of the best movies I saw last year had a PG-13 rating but had

no violence, no sex and very little profanity. “The Whale Rider” is a

movie parents should consider allowing their kids to see,

particularly if those kids are girls older than 13. Also make a point

to see “Rabbit Proof Fence,” a tale of just how strong kids really

are.

This was not a bad year for family films. We didn’t get to the

theaters to see a lot of them, so I’ve made my presence known at some

of the local video rental stores. (Even with five days, I still can’t

seem to get them back in time.)

Last weekend, we saw two movies in two days. “Peter Pan” was a

disappointment; the Disney version still ranks as the best, by far.

But “Cheaper by the Dozen” was excellent despite its predictability.

It was fun and easy to laugh at, perhaps because there were so many

scenes to which parents could relate. One thing I did not like,

however, was the omnipresence of bags and boxes from a certain

furniture and housewares chain that no doubt paid big bucks for the

privilege.

Even though there are plenty of movies, old and new, that we can

watch as a family, I’m starting to get antsy about this trend toward

issuing collections of old TV shows because I don’t watch TV.

“Seinfeld,” “MASH” and others from my TV-watching days are out there,

and although I’ll have no trouble avoiding those particular shows, I

am about to be tested in a big way.

You see, I just found out that the entire run of “Green Acres” is

now on DVD.

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and a freelance writer.

Readers may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at

(949) 642-6086.