Films For Families
To submit your
own review, please email us at webmgr@primarytimes.net.
Our reviews are listed in release date order, with the current ones at the top.
Everybody's Fine
Frank Goode (Academy Award-winner Robert De Niro) has spent his adult life working in a local wire factory earning every dollar he can to support  his family. Recently retired, he realises that over the years he has spent too little time with his four children and that it’s time to reconnect.
Franks' late wife was always his main point of contact with his kids but he decides that it’s now his responsibility to keep an eye on them. He is inspired to invite the whole extended family for a barbeque weekend. Preparations go well until one by one, such is modern life, they all have good reason to cancel. Despite a strict warning from his doctor, Frank takes matters into his own hands and packs a bag before setting out on a journey across the US with the intention of surprising each of his children and wallowing in their success and happiness.
Based on 'Stanno Tutti Bene' originally written and directed in the Italian language by Giusepee Tornatore in 1990, Everybody's Fine stars Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell. The film was written and directed by Kirk Jones (Waking Ned Devine, Nanny McPhee).
Everybody’s Fine is released in cinemas 26th February 2010
To see a trailer click on the link below:
Motherhood
From writer/director Katherine Dieckmann, the acclaimed filmmaker of DIGGERS and A GOOD BABY, comes MOTHERHOOD, starring Uma  Thurman and also starring Anthony Edwards and Minnie Driver. Shot entirely on location in New York’s West Village, this bittersweet comedy distills the dilemmas of the maternal state (marriage, work, self, and not necessarily in that order) into the trials and tribulations of one pivotal day. Equal parts Mrs. Dalloway and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” MOTHERHOOD forms a genre of one – no other movie has dedicated itself in quite this way to probing exactly what it takes to be a mother, with both wry humor and an acute sense of authenticity.
Eliza Welch (Thurman) is a former fiction writer-turned-mom-blogger with her own site, “The Bjorn Identity.” Putting her deeper creative ambitions on hold to raise her two children, Eliza lives and works in two rent-stabilised apartments in a walk-up tenement building smack in the middle of an otherwise upscale Greenwich Village. Eliza’s good-natured but absent-minded husband (Edwards) seems tuned out to his wife’s conflicts, not to mention basic domestic reality, while her best friend Sheila (Minnie Driver) understands this – and Eliza -- all too well.
MOTHERHOOD takes place in a single day that pushes to the tipping point Eliza’s fundamental fear she’s lost herself. Starting at dawn, her to-do list is daunting: prepare for and throw her daughter’s 6th birthday party, mind her toddler son, battle for a parking space during an epic alternate side parking showdown, navigate playground politics with overbearing moms, and mend a rift after posting her best friend’s confession on her blog. On top of it all, Eliza decides to enter a contest run by an upscale parenting magazine. All she has to do is write 500 words answering the deceptively simple question, “What Does Motherhood Mean to Me?”
In the process of trying by nightfall to put these thoughts into words that don’t “sound like bad ad copy,” Eliza rediscovers her own voice and realizes what is truly valuable in her life. At once hilarious and poignant, MOTHERHOOD looks at the challenges facing mothers everywhere with a keen eye to every slight to a nearly-middle-aged woman’s selfhood – from being called “M’am” by condescending twentysomethings to endlessly stooping to pick up toys and a spouse’s dropped socks.
MOTHERHOOD is a hymn to the joys and sorrows of raising children, and the necessity of not losing yourself in the process. Thurman’s Eliza is a unique creation, by turns endearing and hysterical, tender and aggrieved. She is ably abetted by Edwards’ subtly layered performance as her distracted spouse, and Driver’s earthy, bemused turn as her closest ally. With remarkably naturalistic performances from its child actors and a roster of colorfully only-in-New-York supporting players, MOTHERHOOD is at once powerfully heartfelt and scrupulously real.
Listen to a trailer of the film here
The Spy Next Door
Lionsgate and Relativity Media’s family action comedy THE SPY NEXT DOOR stars Jackie Chan as Bob Ho, an undercover CIA superspy who decides to give up his career in espionage to settle down with his next-door neighbour and girlfriend, Gillian (Amber Valletta). But Bob has one more mission to complete before Gillian agrees to marry him: winning over her three opinionated kids.
When Gillian suddenly has to leave town, Bob volunteers to babysit the children so he can earn their approval. But when one of the kids mistakenly downloads a top-secret formula from his computer, Bob’s archenemy, a  Russian terrorist, moves in for the attack, forcing Bob to juggle the roles of spy and prospective stepfather in the most challenging mission of his career!
Martial arts superstar Jackie Chan is joined by an talented supporting cast featuring Amber Valletta (PREMONITION, TRANSPORTER 2, HITCH), Madeline Carroll (SWING VOTE), Will Shadley ("Dirty Sexy Money"), Alina Foley, Magnus Scheving (LAZYTOWN), with Billy Ray Cyrus ("Hannah Montana") and George Lopez (BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA, SWING VOTE , "George Lopez"). THE SPY NEXT DOOR is directed by Brian Levant (ARE WE THERE YET?, SNOW DOGS, THE FLINTSTONES) from a screenplay by Jonathan Bernstein & James Greer and Gregory Poirier and story by Jonathan Bernstein & James Greer. The film is produced by Robert Simonds. Lionsgate and Relativity Media Present A Relativity Media and Robert Simonds Company Production; of The Spy Next Door, a film by Brian Levant.
In cinemas 19th March 2010
To see a trailer click on the link below:
The Blind Side
Teenager Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) is surviving on his own,  virtually homeless, when he is spotted on the street by Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock). Learning that the young man is one of her daughter’s classmates, Leigh Anne insists that Michael—wearing shorts and a t-shirt in the dead of winter—come out of the cold. Without a moment’s hesitation, she invites him to stay at the Tuohy home for the night. What starts out as a gesture of kindness turns into something more as Michael becomes part of the Tuohy family despite the differences in their backgrounds.
Living in his new environment, the teen faces a completely different set of challenges to overcome. And as the family helps Michael fulfill his potential, both on and off the football field, Michael’s presence in the Tuohys’ lives leads them to some insightful self-discoveries of their own.
THE BLIND SIDE IS RELEASED IN CINEMAS NATIONWIDE MARCH 12
The official web sitewww.warnerbros.co.uk/theblindside
Behave or beware! The magical and mysterious Nanny McPhee is back with a Big Bang! 
Witness the Oscar® winning screenwriter Emma Thompson return to her ‘warts and all’ role as the mischievous nanny, bent on bringing order to a chaotic household. With a star studded cast including the legendary Dame Maggie Smith, Ralph Fiennes, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Rhys Ifans, Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang comes to the big screen on 26 March, 2010. For flying pigs and more magical spells take a peek at our brand new pre-Halloween trailer and EPK.
In Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, Oscar®-winning actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson returns to the role of the magical nanny who appears when she’s needed the most and wanted the least in the next chapter of the hilarious and heartwarming fable that has enchanted children around the world. In the latest installment, Nanny McPhee appears at the door of a harried young mother, Mrs. Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who is trying to run the family farm while her husband is away at war. But once she’s arrived, Nanny McPhee discovers that Mrs. Green’s children are fighting a war of their own against two spoiled city cousins who have just moved in and refuse to leave. Relying on everything from a flying motorcycle and a statue that comes to life to a tree-climbing piglet and a baby elephant who turns up in the oddest places, Nanny McPhee uses her magic to teach her mischievous charges five new lessons.
To see a trailer click on the link below:
StreetDance 3D
It’s time to dust off those old legwarmers and leotards as JAM and Vertigo  Films are delighted to announce that we are commencing the online publicity for the UK’s first 3D street dance movie STREETDANCE 3D, which hits cinemas May 2010.
While training for the UK Streetdance Championships, a streetdance crew are forced to work with Royal ballet dancers in return for rehearsal space. With no common ground and with passions riding high, they realise they need to find a way to join forces to win.
STREETDANCE 3D features the cream of UK dance talent, including show-stopping performances from Britain’s Got Talent dance sensations Flawless, Diversity and George Sampson, as well as from Matthew Bourne protégé Richard Winsor and breakthrough Brit actress Nicholas Burley (Donkey Punch, Love & Hate).
Watch the trailer here
A-Team - July 2010
THE A-TEAM follows the exciting and daring exploits of Hannibal Smith and his colorful team of former Special Forces soldiers who were set up for a crime they did not commit. Going “rogue,” they utilize their unique talents – and eccentricities – to try and clear their names and find the true culprit.
For more information visit:
www.fox.co.uk
Certificate tbc
To see a trailer click on the link below:
Marmaduke
Marmaduke, the world’s most lovable Great Dane, leaps from comic  strip fame (appearing in 600 newspapers in over 20 countries) to big screen stardom. In this family comedy event, the super-sized,
ultra-awkward lap dog is living the good life with the Winslow family, including beleaguered dad Phil, Phil’s wife Debbie, their three children, and feline pal Carlos.
But when Phil uproots the clan from Kansas to California, Marmaduke finds his life turned upside-down. He must navigate the volatile Mutts vs. Pedigrees turf wars, woo the purebred of his dreams, and overcome a fall from grace from his new four-legged friends and his much put-upon family.
UK Release: August 2010
Certificate tbc
To see a trailer click on the link below:
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