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Jane Horwitz's "Family Film Goer" has been offering meticulous, informed reviews of all the latest films since August of 1993. Her attention to ...

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"Burn After Reading" (R, 1 hr., 37 min.)

Five middle-aged people with granola for brains and the maturity of 13-year-olds get themselves into big trouble over very little in this tragicomedy by the always off-center Joel and Ethan Coen ("No Country for Old Men," R, 2007). Some might find the movie mean in its disdain for the clueless. Others (The Family Filmgoer included) will find it very funny. Rarely does such a convoluted plot keep all its strands so visible, yet so deliciously tangled.

Still, this film is best reserved for those 17 and older. Young people with a more sophisticated view will better tune into the film's stylized portrayal of stupidity and self-absorption, and its ironic take on how "real life" and the secret world of spies exist side-by-side yet don't quite understand each other. Also, "Burn After Reading" includes two scenes of strong violence, a briefly explicit sexual situation, much implied marital infidelity, a crude visual sex joke, strong profanity and drinking.

John Malkovich plays Ozzie, a pompous CIA analyst who loses his job, pitches a fit, then decides to compose a snarky memoir. His chilly doctor wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton), already having an affair with Harry (George Clooney), a Treasury Department officer, plans to divorce Ozzie, assuming Harry will leave his own wife and marry her. Across town, Linda (Frances McDormand), a health club employee, and her co-worker Chad (Brad Pitt), a dim, gum-chomping personal trainer, come into accidental possession of a DVD that contains Ozzie's unfinished memoir. Linda needs money for multiple plastic surgeries, which she thinks will help her stave off middle-age and find a man. So she and Chad try to blackmail Ozzie. This makes Ozzie get angry and drunk. Then Linda meets Harry via the Internet and they start an affair, thus putting all five characters on a collision course. J.K. Simmons is great as a laid-back CIA honcho who's completely flummoxed when he hears of these goings-on.

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Beyond the Ratings Game: Movie Reviews for various ages

-- BETTER FOR KIDS 8 AND OLDER:

"The Longshots" PG -- Humane, funny, inspiring and well acted, "The Longshots" is a treat. It's based in part on the story of a gifted girl quarterback, Jasmine Plummer, from small-town Illinois, who played in the Pop Warner youth football league. Wonderful Keke Palmer ("Akeelah and the Bee," PG, 2006) plays Jasmine, and Ice Cube is ideal as her cranky unemployed uncle. A former teen footballer, he notes that 11-year-old Jasmine has a mean throwing arm and begins to train her. The local coach (Matt Craven) puts her on the team. As Jasmine wins games, she, her uncle, and their struggling town start to walk taller. The script is marred by a few cliches, but even so, "The Longshots" feels fresh. It includes an adult drinking beer, rare mild profanity and mild sexual innuendo. A man appears to have a heart attack.

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-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:

"Babylon A.D." -- Somewhere in this incoherent mess is a futuristic thriller. It is based on a French novel, but has been lost in translation. Vin Diesel stars as a hardened mercenary in a war-ravaged but technologically advanced world. He lives in Russia, having lost his U.S. citizenship. A gangster (Gerard Depardieu) offers him big money to transport a young woman (Melanie Thierry) and her guardian (Michelle Yeoh) from a convent in Central Asia to New York. The girl is a spiritual prodigy for some new religion. Along the way, mysterious forces pursue them. There are impressive visuals and Diesel is fun to watch, but the film is a train wreck. It contains bone-cracking fights, shootouts, explosions, bombings, one semigraphic wound, some profanity, sexual innuendo, smoking, and the hanging carcass of a dog or wolf. Awfully grim for middle-schoolers.

"Disaster Movie" -- This cheesy spoof, aimed at teens who like to see popular films deconstructed for yuks, unfolds like a series of mediocre "Saturday Night Live" skits. Matt Lanter plays the hero, who dreams he's in "10,000 B.C." (PG-13, 2008), where he meets a saber-toothed Amy Winehouse (Nicole Parker). He awakes convinced the world is ending. Sendups of the horror flick "Cloverfield" (PG-13, 2008), "Alvin and the Chipmunks" (PG, 2007), "Sex and the City" (R, 2008) and many other films ensue. Crista Flanagan alone shines in a clever satire of the glib teen heroine of "Juno" (PG-13, 2007). The movie includes profanity, crass verbal jokes about abortion and child molestation, severed limbs, drinking, drug references, sexual innuendo, homophobic jokes, implied nudity, and toilet humor. Not for middle-schoolers.

"The House Bunny" -- Mothers of teenage girls may cringe at this saga of a Playboy Bunny who transforms a group of frumpy sorority sisters into campus dollies. Yet "The House Bunny" is too funny, good-natured, evenhanded and smart to feel regressive. While iffy for middle-schoolers, it's OK for high-schoolers. Anna Faris creates a great comic character as Shelley, a Bunny pushed out of the Playboy Mansion by a rival. She shows the shy, socially inept girls how to dress sexily, flirt and get popular. In return, they give her book-learning. The movie contains a lot of sexual innuendo, bawdy phrases, discussion of the need to lose one's virginity, a comic nearly-nude scene, rare profanity, toilet humor, brief drinking by an adult, and many skimpy outfits. One of the girls is pregnant and single.

"Traitor" -- Don Cheadle plays an intriguingly opaque character in this flawed but still gripping thriller, which might engage high-schoolers. He portrays an American with Middle Eastern roots who may be a terrorist, a double-agent, or a rogue operator. He engineers bombings. The movie tells a purposely disjointed narrative that doles out information in bits -- paralleling how intelligence-gathering paints an incomplete picture. Guy Pearce is the stalwart FBI agent on his trail. The explosions (some are suicide attacks) and shootouts are too intense for middle-schoolers, though fairly nongraphic in terms of blood. There is some profanity and smoking.

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-- R's:

"Burn After Reading" (NEW) -- Five middle-aged people with granola for brains and the maturity of 13-year-olds get themselves into big trouble over nothing in this tragicomedy by the always off-center Joel and Ethan Coen. Some might find the movie cold in its disdain for the clueless. Others (The Family Filmgoer included) will delight in this cleverly tangled yarn and find it very funny. John Malkovich plays Ozzie, a pompous CIA analyst who loses his job, pitches a fit, then starts to compose his memoirs. His chilly doctor wife Katie (Tilda Swinton), already having an affair with Harry (George Clooney), a Treasury Department officer, plans to divorce Ozzie. Across town, health club employee Linda (Frances McDormand) and her gum-chewing co-worker Chad (Brad Pitt) come into possession of a DVD of Ozzie's memoir. Linda wants money for midlife plastic surgery, so she and Chad try to blackmail Ozzie, who gets really mad. Then Linda meets the promiscuous Harry via the Internet and they start an affair, which puts all five characters on a collision course. The film includes two scenes of strong violence, a briefly explicit sexual situation, much implied marital infidelity, a crude visual sex joke, strong profanity, and drinking. It is best reserved for those 17 and older.

"Bangkok Dangerous" (NEW) -- Nicolas Cage, with weird hair and eyeliner, plays a loner hit man in this remake of the 1999 Thai film of the same title (also rated R), again co-directed by the Pang Brothers. With minimalist dialogue and sharp action sequences, the movie holds our interest, but its heavily noirish style risks self-parody. The hit man tells us in an early voice-over that he prides himself on having no personal life. Uh-oh. In Bangkok to do some hits for a local mob boss, he hires a 20-something pickpocket (Shahkrit Yamnarm) to do errands and lets himself grow fond of the guy. Next, he falls in love with a deaf cashier (Charlie Young) at a pharmacy. This lowering of defenses brings trouble. Most of the shootings, fights, and chases are relatively bloodless, but there are two instances of very graphic violence. The film also has a brief, explicit sexual situation with nudity, murders committed by drug overdose, and profanity.

"Tropic Thunder" -- This bull's-eye spoof of Hollywood, directed and co-written by star Ben Stiller, is wildly funny, but not for under-17s without a parental OK. The dialogue is profane and sexually crude. The film-within-a-film shows grossly bloody fake war wounds. The politically incorrect jokes slam African-Americans, Southeast Asians, Jews, gays and people with cognitive disabilities -- sending up how they're stereotyped in movies. A film company is shooting a war saga in Vietnam, co-starring a fading action hero (Stiller), a comic with a drug habit (Jack Black), and a white Method actor (Robert Downey Jr.) playing an African-American. The director (Steve Coogan) decides to shoot deeper in the jungle for realism, but the armed thugs they encounter are too real.

(c) 2008, Washington Post Writers Group.

This news arrived on: 09/11/2008

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