From http://www.filmratings.com/filmRatings_Cara/

G

PG

PG-13

R

NC-17

THE MOTION PICTURE CONTAINS NOTHING THAT WOULD OFFEND PARENTS FOR VIEWING BY THEIR CHILDREN. PARENTS ARE URGED TO USE "PARENTAL GUIDANCE", AS THE MOTION PICTURE MAY CONTAIN SOME MATERIAL PARENTS MIGHT NOT LIKE FOR THEIR YOUNGER CHILDREN TO VIEW. PARENTS ARE URGED TO BE CAUTIOUS. SOME MATERIAL MAY BE INAPPROPRIATE FOR PRE-TEENAGERS. CONTAINS SOME ADULT MATERIAL. PARENTS ARE URGED TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MOTION PICTURE BEFORE TAKING THEIR YOUNGER CHILDREN WITH THEM. GENERALLY, IT IS NOT APPROPRIATE FOR PARENTS TO BRING THEIR YOUNG CHILDREN WITH THEM TO R-RATED MOTION PICTURES. PATENTLY ADULT. CHILDREN ARE NOT ADMITTED.


Friday, April 23, 2010

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

2012 (Ed)




Dr. Adrian Helmsley, part of a worldwide geophysical team investigating the effect on the earth of radiation from unprecedented solar storms, learns that the earth's core is heating up. He warns U.S. President Thomas Wilson that the crust of the earth is becoming unstable and that without proper preparations for saving a fraction of the world's population, the entire race is doomed. Meanwhile, writer Jackson Curtis stumbles on the same information. While the world's leaders race to build "arks" to escape the impending cataclysm, Curtis struggles to find a way to save his family. Meanwhile, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes of unprecedented strength wreak havoc around the world. Written by Jim Beaver

Well what can I say about 2012…going into this movie I thought, “Okay Roland Emmerich is doing this movie so it’s gonna have some lame Hollywood global warming aspect to the show. Well that didn’t come out in the movie so I was happy about that. The acting was okay at best and I even found that the CG was lackluster at times. My daughter was watching it with me and she said a few times, “That looks really fake!” There were parts of the movie that were pretty cool…the “Escape from Los Angeles” scene was kind of fun to watch but still had a cheesy factor of about 7.5 out of 10. I mean how many times are they going to fly in between a building that is about to fall on their plane and they just BARELY make it out alive. I kept thinking, “Just pull back on the gear and fly straight up you idiot to avoid all the falling objects!!”

The acting was mediocre and probably the worst acting in the movie was by Danny Glover who played President Thomas Wilson. Every time the guy was on screen it was like pulling my thumbnails back it was so painful. Surprisingly the most annoying character was also one of my favorite characters and that was Charlie Frost (played by Woody Harrelson) who plays the radio personality that knows what’s going on and tries to warn as many people as will listen to him, and when the time comes for him to meet his doom he does so with joy and happiness.

John Cusack pretty much acted like he acts in EVERY role he plays, whether it’s an action movie or a romantic comedy. He does a good job but I’ve seen his acting before in every other show.

The plot was pretty basic for me and didn’t keep me excited to watch the movie. In fact it took me about 4 days to get through the entire movie cuz it didn’t grab my attention.


The ClearPlay Experience
I actually thought that ClearPlay did a pretty good job of taking out the language and excessive violence in the movie. There wasn’t many “skips” in the show which made the movie flow well. Most of the stuff it took out was language. I never felt as if I was missing out on some plot point so that’s always a bonus.


Rating of whether I would see the movie again:
1 = Definitely not!
2 = Probably not.
3 = Maybe.
4 = Probably.
5 = Absolutely!

Would I see the movie again? 2
Would I buy the movie? 1


(2012 is rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action, some scary images, and language)

Monday, April 19, 2010

Didn't know "that" was in there....

While at the barber this weekend they had (George Clooney's) Ocean's 11 playing. I had seen this for the first time last month on my ClearPlay and was more than happy to sit and watch Ocean's while waiting for my turn in the barber chair.

Little did I know that I was about to be exposed to content that ClearPlay had taken out, a scene with a Las Vegas stripper show. I was in shock, mentally going through why I didn't remember that as part of the movie I saw last month and almost in the same instant it dawned on me that ClearPlay skipped it, which made me even the more happy that I have the ClearPlay, because I definitely didn't want to see that in my movie.


Some reading this specific post might say "As an adult, why would you care if that is in a movie you are watching without your kids?" Simple, I don't care to see sex and other types of similar content in movies. There are adults that do care about what they see in a movie.

Chuck

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

SUNSHINE (2007) (Chuck)





From http://bestbuy.partner.commonsensemedia.org/partner/bestbuy/356729?h=488

Synopsis
It's 2057, and, as narrator Capa (Cillian Murphy) puts it, "Our sun is dying." In order save the earth, Capa and seven other astronauts board the spaceship Icarus II on a mission involving a stellar bomb. After a 16 month journey, they enter the "dead zone" (no more communication with earth) and discover the first Icarus, lost seven years earlier: Should they check it out, recover the ship's bomb, or just pass it by? The decisions they make are shaped by errors in calculations and guesses at their own futures. Arguments increase as options dwindle. Engineer Mace (Chris Evans) gets into psychical altercations with Capa; biologist Corazon (Michelle Yeoh) guards her greenhouse, and comm officer Harvey (Troy Garity) blames others for what goes wrong. As Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada) tries to keep the crew on track, the pilot Cassie (Rose Byrne) complains of the occasional "excess of manliness." Yet they need to work together if they want to survive.

Parents need to know
Parents need to know that this film isn't for kids; in addition to some brief, very violent scenes, it features extended discussions of intellectual and philosophical issues. Violence includes shots showing the effects of intense sunlight on human flesh (burned, bubbly, and scarred), a couple of vigorous fistfights between crewmembers, the very affecting death of a crewmember who is accidentally loosed in space (he freezes, face in close-up, and his face and then his shatter); a suicide victim appears so his slashed wrists are visible and blood is everywhere (crewmembers display upset); bodies in previous ship appear huddled together and burned to ash; final chase/fight is extended and violent; final explosions are fiery, loud, and devastating (also rather poetic). There are repeated uses of "f--k," with some other profanity.




The ClearPlay Experience
The first 60 minutes of this 90 minute space voyage, the movie was very cleverly done and had very little skipping. Lots of profanity however is scattered throughout the movie - and was 100% muted or skipped by ClearPlay.

However, for the final 30 minutes I kept wishing they'd just get it over with and finally reach the sun and roll the credits. This clever thriller all of the sudden makes an unexpected turn and changes the movie into a slasher.

Because the director made the last 30 minutes a slasher, ClearPlay did an excellent job of keeping the violence to a minimum, however due to the excessive amount of violence it made those last minutes a little hard to follow, due to the large amounts of skipped content. It also has poor cinematography choices with blurred and distorted images which make it had to not only follow, because of skipped content, but I couldn't make out half of what I was looking at.

SUNSHINE (Rated R) - with ClearPlay filtering set on the highest filter settings - has a common sense rating of PG-13. With or without a ClearPlay parents shoud screen this - especially the last 30 minutes - before allowing younger viewers to watch SUNSHINE.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

How to Train Your Dragon (Ed)

(3.5 out of 4 stars)

“I’ll pack my undies!” How To Train Your Dragon is the story of a young boy, Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel), who lives in a village that is frequently being attacked by dragons. Hiccup’s father, Stoick (Gerard Butler), is the leader of the village and head dragon killer. Hiccup wishes to prove to his father that he can kill a dragon too but, unlike his father, he doesn’t have the skills to do so. When he thinks he’s shot down one of the most difficult and threatening dragons to kill he goes in search of the injured dragon.

Eventually he finds the dragon but realizes that he can’t kill the beast and lets it go free. He finds out that the dragon, which he later gives the nickname “Toothless”, can’t fly due to an injured tail. He ultimately befriends “Toothless” and uses his building skills to make a fake wing tail, along with a saddle and harness for him to ride his new found friend.

Back at home, many of the leaders decide they need to go in search for the dragon’s nest to fight them on their turf so that their village can be done with the dragons once and for all. While Stoick and other men are gone, Hiccup is reluctantly put into Warrior School where young villagers can learn to fight dragons. None of the other teens in the program like Hiccup and think he is a loser and that he’s going to get himself killed due to his lack of fighting skills. Fortunately Hiccup uses the knowledge he obtains from spending time with Toothless and other dragons to tame the dragons the kids are tested to fight. When the men return from their failed journey, Stoick learns that his son is the talk of the village.

Hiccup realizes that the dragons are not much different from his own people. They have families and want to live a free life. He finds out that the dragons themselves are terrorized by a much more ominous creature and that if the dragons don’t pay homage to this creature, the dragon colony will be in danger themselves.

How To Train Your Dragon is filled with everything you would want in an animated feature. There is humor for kids and adults, amazing animation, great action scenes and a good message for all of us to learn from. “Dragon” is one of those films that your kids will want to see more than once and most likely you will want to go back and see it with them as well without any hesitation. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie as did my kids. In fact, they are still quoting lines from the movie. I was only able to see this movie in 2D but I think if I would’ve seen it in 3D I would’ve given it 3.75 stars out of 4.

For the most part the film is pretty kid friendly. "All hell is going to break loose!” is the one and only swear word in the entire movie. There are a few other things that kids may not pick up if they’re not paying close attention. For example, one scene has Stoick give Hiccup a Viking helmet that was made out of his late wife’s breast plate. Hiccup replies, “Thanks for the breast hat.”

All in all it’s pretty family friendly, but make sure you don’t bring the really young ones or even kids that might be a little on the sensitive side due to the intense fight scenes and a few scenes where things jump out at you (especially in 3D). There were a few parts in 2D where I found myself startled a bit.

Rating of whether I would see the movie again:
1 = Definitely not!
2 = Probably not.
3 = Maybe.
4 = Probably.
5 = Absolutely!

Would I see the movie again in the theaters? 5
Will I rent it on DVD and watch it at home? 5 (If I don’t end up buying it)
Would I buy the movie? 5

(How To Train Your Dragon is rated PG for sequences of intense action, some scary images, and brief mild language)

DISTRICT 9 (By Chuck)

(3/4 stars)


http://bestbuy.partner.commonsensemedia.org/partner/bestbuy/703378?h=488
Synopsis

Set in an alternate present, DISTRICT 9 takes place in South Africa, where, 20 years ago, an alien ship came to rest in the skies above Johannesburg -- with more than a million workers and near-slaves aboard. Now, after two decades of uneasy co-existence, the local government is moving the alien "Prawns" from their ramshackle slums in District 9 to a new camp 200 kilometers away. But as part of the forced relocation, a government bureaucrat discovers that District 9 has secrets of its own.


Parents need to know

Parents need to know that this gritty, buzzworthy sci-fi epic filmed in South Africa (and produced by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson) is full of extremely realistic, bloody violence, including severed limbs, lots of bodies, piles of high-tech weapons, and even torture. The movie's aliens aren't cute or appealing in any way -- they're scary-looking, insectoid creations with complex biologies and lives. Expect constant strong language (especially "f--k"), as well as some drinking, smoking, and discussion of sex.


The ClearPlay Experience
Overall, I enjoyed the movie. Not as much as some of the critics, that have touted it as mind-blowing. As described above, it's a violent, profanity-filled movie. Yes, there is lots of violence, but the language is everywhere in this movie. And ClearPlay did an excellent job on making sure I didn't have the profane language shoved down my throat.

Unfortunately ClearPlay only works as good as the movie allows it to. As far as the violence is concerned, the first half is full of so much skipped content that it's almost distracting and made some things hard to follow. The skipping of violent content, and the like, didn't remove the overall message of the movie, in that we - as (short-sited) humans - tend to oppress things we don't understand or do not make an effort to understand.
The violent content alluded to in the above description is almost entirely absent with ClearPlay's "shields at maximum." I didn't at any time witness any thing gory, bloody or otherwise nauseatingly violent. Violence was eluded to, you could tell what type of content was being lead up to, but then the disturbing, violent, or gross content was skipped.

District 9 (Rated R) - set on the highest filter settings - has a common sense rating of PG-13, but parents should still be very cautious in letting the kids watch this one, due to the mature themes of oppression, segregation and torture-like experimentation. Before taking time to watch District 9 with your teenager, it would be a good opportunity to set up the movie by discussing and educating your teen(s) on racial inequality and oppression, so that District 9 can illustrate the reality of oppression, torture and experimentation content that exists outside the common family life, most of us enjoy.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Clash of the Titans, review (By Ed)

(2.75 out of 4 stars)

Can’t we all just get along? Clash of the Titans is the story of Perseus, a Demigod, who is caught in the middle of a war between the gods; Zeus (Liam Neeson), Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and Poseidon (Danny Hudsen).

Sam Worthington plays Perseus, the unknowing son of Zeus, who is raised by a fisherman named Spyros (Pete Posthlewaite) and his family. The gods are finding that they are losing their power because the mortals aren’t praying to them anymore. So Hades makes a pact with Zeus to let him go down and bring pain and suffering on them so that, in turn, they will be humbled and begin to pray to the gods again. Hades ends up releasing his wrath upon the mortals of Earth and ends up killing Perseus’ family (intentionally or not is a good question to ask). Perseus swears revenge upon the gods for this destruction. “Everyone I loved was killed by the gods!”

Perseus is taken to the city of Argos where the king and queen vow to never pray to the gods again. Hades shows up and announces that the only way to save the city of Argos from destruction and eventually from the underworld monster, the Kraken, is to sacrifice the daughter of the king and queen of Argos.

Perseus bands together with his own “fellowship” to go to the underworld and attempt to destroy Hades. Along the way this “band of brothers” battle each other along with large scorpions, Medusa and eventually the Kraken itself. But don’t get too excited, it seems like it took the Kraken longer to come out of the water than it did to battle him. The scorpion scene and the scene in Medusa’s lair were played out well though. I found those scenes to have a good combination of action and suspense.

I went into this movie with pretty low expectations and found the movie to be better than expected. The acting in the movie is hit and miss. Sam Worthington gives his typical average performance that we’ve seen in a few other movies he’s been in (Terminator Salvation and Avatar). In fact in one point in the movie he is ‘rallying the troops’ and it reminded me of the scene in Avatar where he was pleading with the people of Pandora to stand up and fight for their liberties and freedoms. Ralph Fiennes character of Hades seemed VERY similar to his popular role of Harry Potter’s ‘Voldemort’. Liam Neeson did a good job as Zeus but his glowing and blurry countenance got kind of annoying after awhile.

Probably the biggest disappointment in the movie was the 3D effects. The movie was not filmed originally for 3D but the studio added the 3D afterwards and it’s fairly obvious. There were times where it seemed blurry even with the 3D glasses on. Some of the battle sequences were hard to follow because of the lackluster 3D effects. I would suggest anyone who sees this movie to see it in 2D and save themselves the extra few dollars. In fact I would’ve given this movie 3 out of 4 stars if I would’ve seen it in 2D.

Rating of whether I would see the movie again:

1 = Definitely not!
2 = Probably not.
3 = Maybe.
4 = Probably.
5 = Absolutely!

Would I see the movie again in the theaters? 2
Will I rent it on DVD and watch it at home? 4
Would I buy the movie? 2

(Clash of the Titans is rated PG-13 for fantasy action violence, some frightening images, brief language and brief sensuality.)