My wife and I are looking for a clean, age-appropriate movie for a bunch of 10-yr old girls for a sleepover party. We’re looking for something non-animated and light-hearted. Ideally, it should be laught out-loud funny! We’ve come up with this short list, but we don’t have time to screen them all for language and content which appeals to “tween” girls. (In other words, a G-rating vs. PG-13 or up.)
The list is:
Mall Cop*
Kindergarten Cop
Daddy Day Care
Dr. Doolittle (Eddie Murphy version)
Beethoven
Dennis the Menace
Freaky Friday (the latest version)
*My daughter heard this was funny. I bet it’s stupid, but as long as it’s clean…
As you can see, except for the first movie choice, we’ve seen all these but can’t recall if there are scenes or language inappropriate for pre-teens. We don’t have time to pre-screen all of these. Off the top of my head, Freaky Friday is mostlikely safest while I’m sure I run the risk of Eddie Murphy pushing the envelope.
…Or, does the SD have their own favorites that meet this criteria?
Almost any Pixar film would probably qualify. My SO’s 7 year old daughter’s favorite movie we’ve gotten her lately is “Beverly Hills Chihuahua”. She and 2 of her friends watched it twice during her last sleepover.
Mall Cop sucked. I was really disappointed. It was not touted as a kids flick. I wouldn’t go that route for 10 year old girls. You don’t want to train them in the sucky films.
My kid loved “Savannah Smiles” when he was a little dude. I can’t remember if there was anything that some parents might find objectionable, but you can look it up on IMDB to see what the think.
If you’re looking for squeaky-clean, check the Dove site. They’re big on family rated films. http://www.dove.org/
I’m not big on most forms of movie censorship, but they’ll have the skinny on all the movies that will fit your requirements.
I always enjoy checking the movie reviews from the cap alert site, for their “Christian Analysis of American Culture”; we played Cap Alert bingo with their review of Sin cityand South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut(randomised the incidents of Wanton Violence/Crime, Impudence/Hate, Sex/Homosexuality, Drugs/Alcohol and Offences to God, first to get a straight row yelled Bingo!)
But they also have a review of mallcop, maybe these help……
oh and the Princess bride for my recommendation
Beethoven is a good movie but I remember being scared shitless of the evil doctor who was trying to kidnap Beethoven to do laboratory experiments on him. People think of this as a really light hearted movie but that dimension of it is honestly kind of disturbing for a kid. That doctor is just SO sinister and evil, and he has this plan to use Beethoven for “heavy weapons testing” or something else really horrible-sounding. I swear I’m not making this up; many people probably remember only the silly parts from that film and don’t recall this underlying plot device, but it was there.
Why this evil doctor would single out a Saint Bernard that was owned by a family and obviously someone’s beloved pet, for his cruel experiments, rather than just use one of the many lab animals which are set aside specifically for that purpose, is beyond me. I guess that’s why he’s an evil doctor.
Are teenage-girl dramas right out?
I’m thinking of movies like Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Mean Girls or Clueless.
Those are the sorts of movies I remember watching in sleepovers when I was around that age. They may be rated higher than what you’re looking for though (PG, PG-13 and PG-13).
If I were going to pick from your list, I’d go for Freaky Friday.
I haven’t seen Confessions, but I would avoid Mean Girls and Clueless as they’ve both got some sexual themes and language probably not appropriate for this age group.
My kids always liked the movie Carpool.
Mom is sick, Dad has to take his own kids, plus three others to school. They get carjacked by Tom Arnold (who is not as annoying as you’d think), and hijinks ensue.
Nothing overtly scary, no sex, lots of silliness, and a nice happy ending.
What’s Dennis the Menace doing on this list? It is VILE, it truly sucks, full of slapsticky violence and a shabby criminal named Switchblade Sam. Ugh ugh ugh! NO!..Dr. Doolittle (Eddie Murphy) - fart humour to the extreme and a small animal runs up fatso’s pant leg and jumps around in his crotch while girlfriend stares at the jumping with sheer enchantment on her face! (other than that-hilarious! but I don’t think it’ll hold the interest of young girls.)…I’m not in the right demographic for teen-queen cheerleader/geek faceoffs, but I’d be cautious about anything with bullying bitches, “hot” guys and “hot” girls for 10 year olds. Give the 10 year olds another year or two before they strap on big styrofoam bras and vie with each other for “hotness”…
A lot of the movies mentioned, they’ve probably already seen, don’t you think? I’d get “Enchanted”, “Ever After”, “The Princess Diaries” anyway.
They’re still young. “Babe”? “Homeward Bound”? (the more recent one). Horse movies? There are a lot of them. Musicals? “High School Musical”?
Bringing Up Baby. A classic that never gets old. And they can laugh at the funny clothes, cars and accents.
Whale Rider and Bend It Like Beckham. Whale Rider has one shot of the girl’s uncle smoking pot, but that’s about the worst of it. Beckham has the girls legally clubbing and drinking, but not getting drunk. There’s a kiss. One girl’s mother thinks the girl is gay. But the story of a girl setting out against the odds and her family’s expectation to play competitive soccer is a good one for any kid, in my opinion.
Princess Protection Program (they’ll love it, even if they saw it three times on premiere weekend on the Disney Channel-- it’s good)
Sleepover (I don’t recall anything too objectionable-- except the fact that they sneek out during a sleepover to do a scavenger hunt all around town, that is)
Aquamarine (cute mermaid movie)
Moondance Alexander (not great, but a wholesome movie – it has Sasha Cohen in a small role if the girls are figure skating fans at all)
Coraline’s coming out in about a week, if you can wait that long. Fun movie, beautiful artistry. There’s even a 3D version on the two-disc set, though you’d need to get or make some extra pairs of glasses for a larger audience.
Failing that, just get the 1920 silent film Der Golem. Little kids love Weimar expressionism.