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Developed by Peter Molyneux and a team of Microsoft engineers for the Xbox’s Kinect hands-free controller, Milo is more than a game – it’s a virtual friend … or child … whose personality is shaped by his interactions with you.

Last month, Molyneux demonstrated Milo – that demonstration was caught on the video below, courtesy of TED.org:

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Naif Al-Mutawa,a New York-based clinical psychologist has worked over the past decade to give Islamic youth positive superhero role models. In the video below first published on TED.com, he dissects the Biblical origins of Superman, Batman and Spider-man. He shows how universal truths gleaned from Christian and Jewish tradition led to the creation of the characters and mythos of the big-3 U.S. superheroes that appeal to many cultures globally.

Al-Mutawa used those same techniques to to create his own comic series. The 99, in which he bases a league of international superheroes upon the 99 virtues of Islam – and he says he’s tailored the stories to be universal positive truths regardless of the religious beliefs of the reader.

But the real goal is to reach out to Islamic youth and give them idols and powerful role models who are not terrorists or suicide bombers – and he’s working with a team of professionals that include former artists and writers on Iron Man and X-Men.

And, in October, there will be a crossover between D.C. Comics’ Justice League and The 99. Al-Mutawa explains in the video below:

For those reader who cannot play the above video, the full transcript is reprinted, with permission, below:

In October, 2010, the Justice League of America will be teaming up with The 99. Icons like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and their colleagues will be teaming up icons Jabbar, Noora, Jami and their colleagues. It’s a story of intercultural intersections. And what better group to have this conversation than those that grew out of fighting fascism in their respective histories and geographies. As fascism took over Europe in the 1930s, an unlikely reaction came out of North America. As Christian iconography got changed, and swastikas were created out of crucifixes, Batman and Superman were created by Jewish young men in the United States and Canada also going back to the Bible.

Consider this: like the prophets, all the superheroes are missing parents. Superman’s parents die on Krypton before the age of one. Bruce Wayne, who becomes Batman, loses his parents at the age of six in Gotham City. Spiderman is raised by his aunt and uncle. And all of them, just like the prophets who get their message from God through Gabriel, get their message from above. Peter Parker is in a library in Manhattan when the spider descents from above and gives him his message through a bite. Bruce Wayne is in his bedroom when a big bat flies over his head, and he sees it as an omen to become Batman. Superman is not only sent to Earth from the heavens, or Krypton, but he’s sent in a pod, much like Moses was on the Nile. (Laughter) And you hear the voice of his father, Jor-El, saying to Earth, “I have sent to you my only son.”

(Laughter)

(Applause)

These are clearly biblical archetypes, and the thinking behind that was to create positive, globally-resonating storylines that could be tied to the same things that other people were pulling mean messages out of. Because then the person that’s using religion for the wrong purpose, just becomes a bad man with a bad message. And it’s only by thinking positive things that the negative can be delinked. This is the kind of thinking that went into creating The 99. The 99 references the 99 attributes of Allah in the Koran, things like generosity and mercy and foresight and wisdom and dozens of others that no two people in the world would disagree about, it doesn’t matter what your religion is. Even if you’re an atheist, you don’t raise your kid telling him, you know, make sure you lie three times a day. Those are basic human values.

And so the backstory of The 99 takes place in 1258, which history tells us the Mongols invaded Bagdad and destroyed it. All the books from Bait al-Hikma library, the most famous library in its day, were thrown in the Tigris River, and the Tigris changes color with ink. It’s a story passed on generation after generation. I rewrote that story. And in my version, the librarians find out that this is going to happen — and here’s a side note: if you want a comic book to do well, make the librarians the hero. It always works well. (Laughter) (Applause) So the librarians find out and they get together a special solution, a chemical solution called King’s Water, that when mixed with 99 stones, would be able to save all that culture and history in the books. But the Mongols get there first. The books and the solution get thrown in the Tigris River. Some librarians escape, and over the course of days and weeks, they dip the stones into the Tigris and suck up that collective wisdom that we all think is lost to civilization.

Those stones have been smuggled as three prayer beads of 33 stones each through Arabia into Andalusia in Spain, where they’re safe for 200 years. But in 1492, two important things happen. The first is the fall of Granada, the last Muslim enclave in Europe. The second is Columbus finally gets funded to go to India, but he gets lost. (Laughter) So 33 of the stones are smuggled onto the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria and are spread in the New World. 33 go on the silk road to China, South Asia and Southeast Asia. And 33 are spread between Europe and the Middle East and Africa.

And now it’s 2010, and there are 99 heroes from 99 different countries. Now it’s very easy to assume that those books, because they were from a library called al-Hikma were Muslim books, but that’s not the case because the caliph that built that library, his name was al-Ma’mun — he was Harun al-Rashid’s son. He had told his advisers, “Get me all the scholars to translate any book they can get their hands on to into Arabic, and I will pay them its weight in gold.” After a while, his advisers complained. They said, “Your Highness, the scholars are cheating. They’re writing in big handwriting to take more gold.” To which he said, “Let them be, because what they’re giving us is worth a lot more than what we’re paying them.” So the idea of an open architecture, an open knowledge, is not new to my neck of the desert.

The concept centers on something called the Noor stones. Noor is Arabic for light. So these 99 stones, a few kind of rules in the game: Number one, you don’t choose the stone; the stone chooses you. There’s a King Arthur element to the storyline, okay. Number two, all of The 99, when they first get their stone or their power, abuse it; they use it for self-interest. And there’s a very strong message in there that when you start abusing your stone you get taken advantage of by people who will exploit your powers, okay. Number three, the 99 stones all have within them a mechanism that self-updates.

Now there are two groups that exist within the Muslim world. Everybody believes the Koran is for all time and all place. Some believe that means that the original interpretation from a couple thousand years ago to what’s relevant today. I don’t belong there. Then there’s a group that believes the Koran is a living, breathing document. And I captured that idea within these stones that self-update. Now the main bad guy, Rughal, does not want these stones to update. So he’s trying to get them to stop updating. He can’t use the stones, but he can stop them. And by stopping them, he has more of a fascist agenda, where he gets some of The 99 to work for him. They’re all wearing cookie-cutter, same color uniforms. They’re not allowed to individually express who they are and what they are. And he controls them from the top down. Whereas when they work for the other side, eventually, when they find out this is the wrong person, they’ve been manipulated, they actually, each one has a different colorful kind of dress.

And the last point about the 99 Noor stones is this. So The 99 work in teams of three. Why three? A couple of reasons. Number one, we have a thing within Islam that you don’t leave a boy and a girl alone together, because the third person is temptation or the devil, right. That’s there in all cultures, right? But this is not about religion, it’s not about prosthelytizing. There’s this very strong social message that needs to get to kind of the deepest crevices of intolerance. And the only way to get there is to kind of play the game. And so this is the way I dealt with it. They work of teams of three, two boys and a girl, two girls and a boy, three boys, three girls, no problem. And the Swiss psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, also spoke about the importance of the number three in all cultures, so I figure I’m covered. Well … I got accused in a few blogs that I was actually sent by the Pope to preach the Trinity and Catholicism in the Middle East, so you — (Laughter) you believe who you want — I gave you my version of the story.

So here’s some of the characters that we have. Mujiba, from Malaysia, her main power is she’s able to answer any question. She’s the Trivial Pursuit queen, if you want. But when she first gets her power, she starts going on game shows and making money. We have Jabbar from Saudi who starts breaking things when he has the power. Now, Mumita was a fun one to name. Mumita is the destroyer. So the 99 attributes of Allah have the yin and the yang. There’s the powerful, the hegemonous, the strong. And there’s also the kind, the generous. I’m like, are all the girls going to be kind and merciful and the guys all strong. I’m like, you know what, I’ve met a few girls who were destroyers in my lifetime, so … (Laughter) We have Jami from Hungary, who first starts making weapons. He’s the technology wiz. Musawwira from Ghana, Hadya from Pakistan, Jaleel from Iran who uses fire. And this is one of my favorites, Batina from Yemen. El Batina is the hidden. So Batina is hidden, but she’s a superhero. I came home to my wife and I said, “I created a character after you.” My wife is a Saudi from Yemeni roots. And she said, “Show me.” So I showed this. She said, “That’s not me.” I said, “Look at the eyes. They’re your eyes.”

(Laughter)

So I promised my investors this would not be another made-in-fifth-world-country production. This was going to be Superman, or it wasn’t worth my time or their money. So from day one, the people involved in the project, bottom left is Fabian Nicieza, writer for X-Men and Power Rangers. Next to him Dan Panosian, one of the character creators for the modern-day X-Men. Top writer, Stuart Moore, a writer for Iron Man. Next to him is John McCrea, who was an inker for Spiderman. And we entered Western consciousness with a tagline: “Next Ramadan, the world will have new heroes” back in 2005.

Now I went to Dubai, to an Arab Thought Foundation Conference, and I was waiting by the coffee for the right journalist. Didn’t have a product, but had energy. And I found somebody from the New York Times. And I cornered him, and I pitched him. And I think I scared him — (Laughter) because he basically promised me — we had no product — but he said, “We’ll give you a paragraph in the arts section if you’ll just go away.” (Laughter) So I said, “Great.” So I called him up a few weeks afterward. I said, “Hi, Hesa.” And he said, “Hi.” I said, “Happy New Year.” He said, “Thank you. We had a baby.” I said, “Congratulations.” Like I care, right. “So when’s the article coming out?” He said, “Naif, Islam and cartoon? That’s not timely. You know, maybe next week, next month, next year, but, you know, it’ll come out.” So a few days after that, what happens? What happens is the world erupts in the Danish cartoon controversy. I became timely. (Laughter) So flurry of phone calls and emails from the New York Times. Next thing you knew, there’s a full page covering us positively, January 22nd, 2006, which changed our lives forever. Because anybody Googling Islam and cartoon or Islam and comic, guess what they got; they got me.

And The 99 were like superheroes kind of flying out of what was happening around the world. And that led to all kinds of things, from being in curricula in universities and schools to — one of my favorite pictures I have from South Asia, it was a couple of men with long beards and a lot of girls wearing the hijab — it looked like a school. The good news is they’re all holding copies of The 99 smiling, and they found me to sign the picture. The bad news is they were all photocopies, so we didn’t make a dime in revenue. (Laughter) We’ve been able to license The 99 comic books into eight languages so far, Chinese, Indonesian, Hindi, Urdu, Turkish. Opened a theme park through a license in Kuwait a year and a half ago called The 99 Village Theme Park, 300,000 sq. ft., 20 rides, all with our characters. A couple back-to-school licenses in Spain and Turkey.

But the biggest thing we’ve done to date, which is just amazing, is we’ve done a 26-episode animated series, which is done for global audiences, in fact, we already we’re already going to be in the U.S. and Turkey, we know. It’s 3D CGI, which is going to be very high-quality, written in Hollywood by the writers behind “Ben 10″ and “Spiderman” and “Star Wars: Clone Wars.” In this clip I’m about to show you, which has never been seen in the public before, there is a struggle. Two of the characters, Jabbar, the one with the muscles, and Noora, the one that can use light, are actually wearing the cookie-cutter fascist gray uniform because they’re being manipulated. They don’t know, okay. And they’re trying to get another member of The 99 to join them. So there’s a struggle within the team. So if we can get the lights …

["The 99"]

Jabbar: Dana, I can’t see where to grab hold. I need more light.

What’s happening?

Dana: There’s too much darkness.

Dr. Razem: There must be something we can do.

Man: I won’t send any more commandos in until I know it’s safe.

Rughal: It’s time to go, Miklos.

Miklos: Must download file contents. I can’t forget auntie.

Jabbar: I can’t do this without you.

Dana: But I can’t help.

Jabbar: You can, even if you don’t believe in yourself right now. I believe in you. You are Noora the Light.

Dana: No. I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve anything.

Jabbar: Then what about the rest of us? Don’t we deserve to be saved? Don’t I? Now, tell me which way to go.

Dana: That way.

Alarm: Threat imminent.

Jabbar: Aaaahhh!

Miklos: Stay away from me.

Jabbar: We’re here to help you.

Rughal: Don’t listen to them.

Dana: Miklos, that man is not your friend.

Miklos: No. He gave me access, And you want to reboot the [unclear]. No more [unclear].

["The 99"]

Thank you.

(Applause)

So “The 99″ is technology; it’s entertainment; it’s design. But that’s only half the story. As the father of five sons, I worry about who they’re going to be using as role models. I worry because all around me, even within my extended family, I see religion being manipulated. As a psychologist, I worry for the world in general, but worry about the perception of how people see themselves in my part of the world. Now, I’m a clinical psychologist. I’m licensed in New York State. I trained at Bellevue Hospital survivors of political torture program. And I heard one too many stories of people growing up to idolize their leadership, only to end up being tortured by their heroes. And torture’s a terrible enough thing as it is, but when it’s done by you hero, that just breaks you in so many ways. I left Bellevue, went to business school and started this.

One of the things that I refer to when I — about the important of this message is that I gave a lecture at the medical school at Kuwait University — where I lecture on the biological basis of behavior — and I gave the students two articles, one from the New York Times and one from New York magazine. And I took away the name of the writer — everything was gone except the facts. And the first one was about a group called The Party of God, who wanted to ban Valentine’s Day. Red was made illegal. Any boys and girls caught flirting would get married off immediately, okay. The second one was about a woman complaining because three minivans with six bearded men pulled up and started interrogating her on the spot for talking to a man who wasn’t related to her.

And I asked the students in Kuwait where they thought these incidents took place. The first one, they said Saudi Arabia. There was no debate. The second one, they were actually split between Saudi and Afghanistan. What blew their mind was the first one took place in India, it was the party of a Hindu God. The second one took place in upstate New York. It was an Orthodox Jewish community. But what breaks my heart and what’s alarming is that in those two interviews the people around, who were interviewed as well, refer to that behavior as Talibanization. In other words, good Hindus and good Jews don’t act this way. This is Islam’s influence on Hinduism and Judaism. But what do the students in Kuwait say? They said it’s us. And this is dangerous. It’s dangerous when a group self-identifies itself as extreme.

This is one of my sons Reyan, who’s a Scooby Doo addict. You can tell by the glasses there. He actually called me a meddling kid the other day. (Laughter) But I borrow a lesson that I learned from him. Last summer when we were in our home in New York, he was out in the yard playing in his playhouse. And I was in my office working, and he came in, “Baba, I want you to come with me. I want my toy.” “Yes, Rehan, just go away.” He left his Scooby Doo in his house. I said, “Go away. I’m working. I’m busy.” And what Reyan did then is he sat there, he tapped his foot on the floor, at three and a half, and he looked at me and he said, “Baba, I want you to come with me to my office in my house. I have work to do.” (Laughter) (Applause) Reyan reframed the situation and brought himself down to my level.

(Laughter)

And with The 99, that is what we aim to do. You know I think that there’s a big parallel between bending the crucifix out of shape and creating swastikas. And when I see pictures like this of parents or uncles who think it’s cute to have a little child holding a Koran and having a suicide bomber belt around them to protest something, the hope is by linking enough positive things to the Koran, that one day we can move this child from being proud in the way they’re proud there, to that. And I think — I think The 99 can and will achieve its mission.

As an undergrad at Tufts University, we were giving away free falafel one day and, you know, it was Middle East Day or something. And people came up and picked up the culturally resonant image of the falafel, ate it and, you know, talked and left. And no two people could disagree about what the word free was and what the word falafel was, behind us, “free falafel.” You know. (Laughter) Or so we thought, until a woman came rushing across the campus and dropped her bag on the floor, pointed up to the sign and said, “Who’s falafel?” (Laughter) True story. (Laughter) She was actually coming out of an Amnesty International meeting.

(Laughter)

Just today, D.C. Comics announced the cover of our upcoming crossover. On that cover you see Batman, Superman and a fully-clothed Wonder Woman with our Saudi member of The 99, our Emirati member and our Libyan member. On April 26, 2010, President Barack Obama said that of all the initiatives since his now famous Cairo speech — in which he reached out to the Muslim world — the most innovative was that The 99 reach back out to the Justice League of America. We live in a world in which the most culturally innocuous symbols like the falafel, can misunderstood because of baggage, and where religion can be twisted and purposely made where it’s not supposed to be by others. In a world like that, they’ll always be a job for Superman and The 99.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)

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And it’s due in just a few short hours. *cries*

I like writing, I’m fairly good at it, but I’m sick, again (though nothing like last time), and that just makes it harder. Plus, when I tried to get started early on this I had the worst time focusing and reading. Talk about inopportune writer’s block. Oy.

Yesterday I finally managed to write paragraphs! Huzzah! I was listening to the Halo and Halo 2 soundtracks at the time, and it was like BOOM, I could write. Why ruin a good thing? So that’s all I’ve been listening to while writing this stuff over and over in the background. I tried listening to something else, but nothing was working out so I went back to Halo. And no, silence doesn’t work either. The only time Halo became an issue was when I had to do some extensive reading and, after fumbling around a bit trying to find appropriate reading music, I switched it to Dirk Freymuth’s Celtic Music for Stress Relief (I am suddenly seeing the ironic pun in that). Then I was able to concentrate on reading. Yeah, I know, I’m weird, but we all knew that already didn’t we?

Okay, back to work for me; but hey, I’ve got Halo backing me up yo.

(Quick FYI: Halo is a science fiction first person shooter game. Apparently it’s a good game. Either way the music is freakin’ awesome and totally worth owning.)

1: Heath Ledger IS the Joker.
2: Aaron Eckhart IS Harvey Dent
3: Maggie Gyllenhaal IS Rachel Dawes (she should have been in the first one)
4: Gary Oldman IS Gordon
5: Christian Bale IS the Dark Knight, of course.
6: Morgan Freeman and Michael Cain were still AWESOME as Lucius Fox and Alfred.
7: The plot is not quite what you think it is.
8: The dialog was engaging.
9: The overall effects supported the themes and plot of the movie.

With all that said, this movie is NOT for kids. Seriously. Do NOT take your child to this movie. The Joker IS CREEPY and SCARY. This is no run of the mill Joker. He makes you laugh and yet you feel AWFUL for laughing. It’s full of violence (duh) but the type is not just explosions, though there are plenty of those, but it’s psychological as well. There are also some disturbing scenes. There’s very little sexual innuendo and not much profanity though.

<strong>*SPOILER ALERT!* If you do not want spoilers then do not read this section! Skip to the end. You have been WARNED.</strong>

My favorite scenes are following:

The Joker’s pencil trick. That was horrifyingly awesome.

The Joker sitting down next to Harvey Dent dressed up as a nurse.

The Joker attempting to blow up the hospital but his remote didn’t work immediately. He smacks it a few times and then jumps when it finally works.

Bruce Wayne absconding with the entire ballet cast as a cover for a mission.

The black inmate tossing the trigger to the bomb out the window.

Gordon faking his own death to protect his family from the Joker.

Harvey Dent’s change from the White Knight of Gotham to the Two Face. It was utterly believable and well done, and unexpected. I figured they were setting us up for the next movie, but nope.

Batman’s personal sacrifice to save the face of Gotham’s hope. He was the one who murdered the cops, and Harvey Dent was simply murdered by the Joker after the hospital incident. Dent was the hero Gotham needed while Batman is the hero Gotham deserved.

Other awesome things, the Joker’s broken speech and his lip licking tick. His motivation is to have fun. He’s intelligent, and plays mind games. He tells Batman that they need each other. . .

I love how you never find out how the Joker got his scars. It’s a different story each time he explains them.

<strong>*END* of spoilers. You may now read without concern!</strong>

Seriously, if you love Batman, see this movie. If you only moderately like Batman see this movie. If you want to see why this movie has been in the number one slot all month, see this movie. I want to see it again, in theatres, because it deserves that kind of love and attention. This movie will become a part of our DVD collection, which is saying something since we are rather picky about what movies we choose to pay up money for.

So, Kenlon is a fabulous Game Master, and I’m not just saying that because he’s my husband. I’ve been in games where the GM, well, those games weren’t so fun. This Exalted game has been running for two and a half years. He started the game soon after our separation every other weekend but when I started visiting him it changed to every weekend by popular demand from his players. Before I joined the game I helped with the concept of one of the non player characters, a Lunar Exalted (there are different types of exalted) who are bonded to the Solar Exalted.

After helping him refine her character concept and finding a name for her I was asked to draw a portrait of Gentle Claw. She was a fighter (as all Lunars are) but she was compassionate and kind as well. Then, things did not go so well when she came into contact with the Solars, especially with the Solar she is bonded to. It ended with her running away. Then the Solars forgot about her. They didn’t look for her or do anything to help her return to them. And now, she has changed (and if I tell you what I do know about this change the GM will “kill” me as the group doesn’t know what I know. Kenlon only told me because I was not in the game and no plans were being made for me to be in the game at the time.). I was asked to draw her portrait again but with the changes in place. So I did.

First is Gentle Claw as she should be. The second is Gentle Claw as she now is. Click on each image to see the full sized image.

Before and After

I have a small light table. I used it to trace the basic features of Gentle Claw and then started to make subtle line changes. She is gaunt looking, much thinner, so her whole face is drawn in, her eyes hollower, hence the dark circles. Her small smile is gone – lips turned down instead, her eyes are narrowed instead of more open, her eyebrows are lowered, no longer up, changing her expression from an open warm one to harsh and cold. Of course she now has boy short hair, and new dark tattoos (all Lunars have tattoos but they’re silver not dark and hers didn’t come up on her shoulders and face, so these are different).

After making all these changes I was still able to see Gentle Claw as she is supposed to be. When I turned off the light table I gasped in shock. I couldn’t believe it. The difference was astonishing. All I had done was change a few lines by mere millimeters and now she looks horrifyingly different.

When I showed the final version to my husband he said, “That’s horrifying.” Which, he confirmed, meant that I did my job right. I felt so bad. This will hopefully help the group to visualize the difference and lead them to question their current assumptions.

Art is an amazing thing isn’t it? Just a few subtle line changes can so drastically change the look of a face. Let alone changing the hair and adding tattoos. A face so nice and kind looking can so easily be changed to something so cold and hard, all because of the placement of the lines were subtly altered. I have never experienced this sort of thing before as an amateur artist. I suddenly feel I have a greater appreciation for the work artists put in to achieve a particular feeling or mood in their work.

Fanzines were mimeographed magazines that were circulated by mail among science fiction fans in the days before the internet. They still are, for all I know, although now they’re generated by computer printers. I first learned about them in a 1950s issue of Amazing Stories and eagerly sent away 10 or 20 cents to Buck and Juanita Coulson in Indiana, whose Yandro was one of the best and longest-running of them all. Overnight, I was a fan, although not yet a BNF (big name fan). It was a thrill for me to have a LOC (letter of comment) published on such issues as the demise of BEMs (bug-eyed monsters), and soon I was publishing my own fanzine, named Stymie. ((Roger Ebert’s journal, “Fanzines beget blogs,” May 4, 2008.))

For any fan with an interest in film, I highly recommend subscribing to Ebert’s blog. He uses his insights in the the world of movies and helps a reader decipher how to approach reading film reviews – and how to pick critics to avoid – and better yet – those that you can trust.

His blog is located here: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/

Curious about this I looked up Origa. Apparently she is a Japanese woman of Russian descent. She has worked with Yokko Kanno in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Gundam (both of which are sci fi anime).

I have 3.9 hours worth of Origa in my iTunes, how did I not know this? I suppose it was something my husband purchased at some point and never got around to telling me about it. It’s all labelled as pop, but it’s not like american annoying pop. This is subtle.

Here is a wikipedia article on her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/>Origa She has a nice voice. Her music is not overly complex but is rich in its simplicity.

On youtube you can listen to “Rise” from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bOhI-P6de4

However, after listening to a few songs, thus far Aurora is my favorite, and if you are a Final Fantasy X (a sci fi/fantasy mix RPG for the PS2) fan, you’ll like the video as well. It was suprisingly good. Spot on. I want a hi-rez version of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi_5JH49gsg

The song, “Yoru no Melody”, the one that caught my attention in the first place, is not on youtube or on playlist.com though a few of her other songs are, including the two mentioned above. This is too bad because “Yoru no Melody” really does have a nice melody. It caught my attention while I was in the middle of doing some cleaning and I’ve listened to quite a few times already. Though, admittedly not nearly as much as I have with “Aurora.”

It is called www.kids-in-mind.com

They have three categories to rate a movie, each category having a 0 to 10 scale, 10 being the worst (or the most) and 0 being the safest (or the least). The categories are Sex/Nudity, Violence/Gore,  and Profanity. The categories are always listed in that order. There is also a detailed listing of why the movies receive the ratings they do in each category.  In addition to that they include a section on instances of Substance Use, Discussion Topics, and the Message of the movie. What is a big plus for lots of folk is that this site is NOT affiliated with any sort of religious group and nor does it knock down movies with higher ratings. It simply gives you the facts. More details on how they do this is listed here: www.kids-in-mind.com/help/ratings.htm

Hancock received the following ratings:  Sex & Nudity 2, Violence & Gore 6, Profanity 5  (2.6.5 – I will now simply list the numbers in each rating category as I assume you are paying attention.)

The Incredible Hulk received  2.6.4

Iron Man received  4.7.4   I shall note that all three of these movies have a PG-13 rating. Yet the levels of sex violence and profanity are rather different.

WALL-E received 1.2.1 I must note that WALL-E is the most kid friendly summer movie this year. The fantasy story of Kung Fu Panda is close at a 1.3.1 (which is rated PG) and non-SFF Kit Kitteridge: An American Girl at a 1.3.1 (which is rated G).

Hm, those last two movies have the same ratings but according to the MPAA rating system one is rated PG, and the other G.  What’s the difference?  Why the different MPAA ratings? I personally do not know, however, these differences and inconsistencies between content and ratings further explains why I personally do not bother with ratings anymore but the content. This is why I find kids-in-mind.com to be a useful tool in gaging what sort of movies I want to see and especially what movies I want my five year old daughter to see.

Happy Movie Hunting!