‘THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY’
Rating: PG-13 for “extended sequences of intense fantasy action violence, and frightening images.
What it’s about: An unassuming hobbit is added to a company of dwarfs as they march off to recover a treasure from a dragon.
The kid attractor factor: Dwarfs, wizards, dragons and goblins. And a hobbit, in over his head.
Good lessons/ bad lessons: “True courage is not knowing when to take a life, but when to spare one."
Violence: Archery and swordplay, with beheadings and dismemberments.
Language: Quite clean.
Sex: None at all.
Drugs: Wine is consumed, along with lots of pipe-weed.
Parents’ advisory: More graphically violent than “The Lord of the Rings," probably too intense for the very young — OK for 10 and older.
‘HYDE PARK ON HUDSON’
Rating: R for brief sexuality.
What it’s about: President Franklin Roosevelt entertains the King and Queen of England at his mother’s estate while carrying on an affair with a distant cousin.
The kid attractor factor: “Kings Speech"-era history, played for laughs.
Good lessons/ bad lessons: Great figures of history have their unseemly human side.
Violence: None.
Language: Reasonably clean.
Sex: Glimpsed nudity, implied intimacy.
Drugs: Alcohol and cigarettes are consumed in copious quantities.
Parents’ advisory: A history lesson that teens will get more out of than younger children, suitable for 13-and-older.
