A couple weeks ago a film buff family member of mine told me about two smart phone-related apps that he uses to determine if and how he will watch certain movies with his 10-year-old daughter.

The two film parenting guides are the IMDB parenting guide and the Kids in Mind website and app. Both guides intentionally discuss movie content based on such categories as sex/nudity, violence/gore and profanity and neither attempts to make value judgments about whether movies should or shouldn’t be seen.

IMDB App
Most cinema lovers know that one of the best online resources to learn about the film industry is imdb.com and imdbpro.com.  The IMDB smartphone app is a virtual clone of its website but unless you pay close attention, you probably wouldn’t know that the app features an option to read the “Parenting Guide” version for virtually all films.

The IMDB app is based on the extensive archives of IMBD.com is also quite impressive because its reviews go back decades.  We randomly found records for movies from the ‘50s.

Kids in Mind App
The Kids in Mind app is produced by Critics, Inc., a private company that owns critics.com and mediascreen.com and that has been publishing family movie insights since 1992. Like IMBD, the app’s content is largely mirrored on its parent website and the smartphone app comes in both a free (with annoying pop up ads) and paid version (minus the ads).

The Kids in Mind app has very well-written and detailed writing that is practically indistinguishable from the style used by the folks of IMDB but what we most liked about it is that the app uses a color-coded rating system for movies that makes it visually easier to determine what objectionable material to pay closer attention to.

The main ...