Who's in It: Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, Derek Jacobi, Imelda Staunton, Angela Lansbury
The Basics: It's a middle-class parenting-anxiety exploitation movie in which they eat a live baby! OK, lie — they just pretend to eat the baby. And the exploitation thing is a lie, too. It's really just a slightly darker Mary Poppins for smart kids and their parents.
What's the Deal? Don't go see this if you think you're going to learn how to make your brats behave. This nanny has a magic stick — not at all like 50 Cent's; more like Joe Don Baker's in Walking Tall — that she simply bangs on the floor. Then sparks shoot out of it and the kids behave. It would be great merchandising to sell those sticks. You could totally fool gullible 4-year-olds with it.
Why Your Kids Will Still Like It Even Though It's About Learning to Behave: There are still plenty of scenes of kids doing anarchy, including the whole let's-put-the-baby-in-a-roasting-pan-with-turnips scene. It could only have that and still be completely entertaining, but this one ups the ante with pigs in bonnets and makeup, a donkey wearing a flowery hat who then does a little dance, crazy ladies with big boobs that take up the whole screen, people saying funny words like "poo" and "bum," and a really good food fight. Nobody hates a food fight.
Why You'll Like It Even Thought It's Technically a Kids' Movie: Because it's smart and funny, the production design is like an acid trip for 6-year-olds and Emma Thompson is so expressive she spends most of the movie communicating via little grunts that sound like suppressed belches. There's also a food fight.
Love Actually Cast Reunion: There are no degrees of separation between Firth and Thompson and kid actor Thomas Sangster, all of whom were in that girly Christmas movie together.