vulpine

Fantastic Mr. Fox (Fox)

Droll stop-motion animated adventure, in which the titular vulpine creature, now a respectable newspaper columnist with a wife and son, tries to recapture his wild past as a chicken thief, but his renewed raiding, abetted by his daring nephew, enrages a trio of mean-spirited farmers whose escalating countermeasures endanger the community. A touch of menace and a fleeting joke about Mrs. Fox's youthful indiscretions aside, director and co-writer Wes Anderson's clever, lovingly crafted adaptation of Roald Dahl's 1970 children's book offers sophisticated family entertainment, with abundant fun for youngsters and a few insights into the tensions and paradoxes of human nature for adults. (A-I, PG)


Pirate Radio (Focus)

Energetic but sexually freewheeling ensemble comedy, set in mid-1960s Britain, in which a rebellious teen is sent by his mother to live on an oil tanker that has been converted into an offshore radio station where a team of eccentric disc jockeys broadcast the rock 'n' roll music that the BBC will not. This fact-based, potentially buoyant celebration of music and camaraderie is torpedoed by its implicit acceptance of all manner of bedroom shenanigans. Benign view of casual, group and gay sex and of drug and condom use, brief rear nudity, a pornographic image, some irreverent and sexual humor, a couple of profanities and at least 20 uses of the F-word. (O, R)

2012 (Columbia)

In a special-effects disaster movie to end all fiasco flicks, director Roland Emmerich tests the limits of the technically plausible and morally palatable, while asking moviegoers to take heart as the scenario affords a few the chance to exhibit altruism, even as their exploits are interspersed with disturbing apocalyptic imagery, including the destruction of St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel. Considerable crude and crass language, much profanity, a rough gesture and a few instances of sexual innuendo. (A-III, PG-13)

USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classifications: A-I --- general patronage; A-II --- adults and adolescents; A-III --- adults; L --- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling.

$Boopathi$, November 21, 2009