Oscar night looms at the end of the week, but we can’t say it’s a great year to involve your younger children in the most honored movies.
I love the idea of taking teenagers and tweens to as many of the best-picture nominees as possible, to show them the heights of our film culture and make it easier to fill in their Oscar party ballots. But this year’s crop is a thicket of R-rated tricks for wary families, so you’ll have to choose carefully.
“Slumdog Millionaire” is a shoo-in for best-picture winner, though I can’t recommend it for any but your hardiest 17-year-olds. The visceral scenes of shocking poverty and human abuse in Mumbai’s slums have turned off many adults.
“Milk” is a wonderful melding of the human with the political, and my 16-year-old daughter loved it. Be prepared, though, for open displays of sexuality, as well as the language and drug culture of the early 1970s.
“Frost/Nixon” is a terrific education about the politics of the 1970s, whose effects linger to this day; teenagers might find it a bit dull, and there is consistent profanity and brief nudity. “The Reader” is a sexual romp thinly disguised as literature and not suited for teenagers. The only film truly safe for most ages is not worth seeing: “Benjamin Button” is a three-hour time-waster that will likely bore your kids as much as it stultifies you and your partner.
Where does that leave us? See “Wall-E” again! Or if you’re a parent whose kids saw it without you, rent the DVD and sit down with them this time. It should have been nominated for best picture anyway, and it is by far the most satisfying, nuanced and entertaining Oscar nominee for families with all ages.
And if you’re still hungry for Oscar after that, raid the pantry full of documentaries, always available at Netflix or Blockbuster. We’ve mentioned that the poetry of “Man on Wire” and Werner Herzog’s “Encounters at the End of the World” offers more bizarre and mesmerizing pleasures.
