FOR KIDS 6 AND OLDER:

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS - 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, right up to grandparents with dialogue and situations that are unfailingly witty for all ages. A few things could scare the littlest ones: The protagonists and their island town are threatened by a spaghetti tornado and an avalanche of leftovers.

PONYO - This stunning fable offers delights for most kids 6 and older. One angry phrase, “Bug off!,” is used, and a boy’s mom appears to grab a can of beer to drink.

FOR KIDS 8 AND OLDER:

SHORTS – Offers much chaotic fun for kids 8 and older. There’s bullying, but done for comic effect, not mental anguish. Some elements could unsettle kids under 8. The film ends on a note of niceness.

PG-13s:

LOVE HAPPENS - Stars Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart deserve better than this sentimental, incoherent mess of a movie. Teens who like a good romantic tearjerker may enjoy it, anyway. In addition to drinking and smoking a hookah (with no drugs implied) at a coffeehouse, there is semi-crude comic sexual innuendo, midrange profanity, a joke about baking a dead husband’s ashes into cookies, and the re-enactment of a fatal car accident.

TYLER PERRY’S I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF - This latest comedy-laced morality tale from Tyler Perry feels even more formulaic than its (all PG-13) predecessors. There is grief at a parent’s death, and a recurring theme about teen girls being molested. Not for middle-schoolers.

9 - Shane Acker’s post-apocalyptic fable is geared to adults. It’s OK for most teens, but might bore them. There are intense and scary giant machines that attack the film’s little puppet-like protagonists, and tear them apart or zap them. The film’s mood is fear-laden and dark.

ALL ABOUT STEVE - One semi-explicit, though comical, sexual situation that’s not for middle-schoolers. There is other understated innuendo, occasional crude language, midrange profanity and gratuitous ethnic and racial stereotyping.

MY ONE AND ONLY - The film has affecting moments, but feels tedious and long. OK for high-schoolers, but unlikely to intrigue many of them, it contains midrange profanity, drinking, smoking, subtle gay themes, and a scene in which a woman is arrested for “soliciting” in a hotel bar.

Rs:

JENNIFER’S BODY - Jennifer (Megan Fox) 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. The movie is too grossly violent and sexually explicit to recommend for under-17s.

SORORITY ROW – Perhaps it’s a sign of our ill-mannered times that a slasher film about the murder of sorority girls elicits no sympathy for them whatsoever. A crass and heartless entertainment, the film contains strong profanity, crude sexual language, toplessness, semiexplicit sexual situations, drinking and drug references. So not for under-17s.

THE FINAL DESTINATION - We know the “freak accidents” to come, then see them unfold in blood-and-guts detail. There are many impalements, strong profanity and one graphic sexual situation with semi-nudity. The huge popularity of death fests like this must give one pause. Not for under-17s.

GAMER – Not for under-17s, it earns its R with strongly implied, sometimes quite explicit, sexual situations involving virtual-reality prostitution (with sensationalized female toplessness and near-nudity). There is graphic, bloody violence and strong profanity.

- Jane Horwitz,

The Washington Post