“Post Grad” (PG-13, 1 hour, 29 minutes)

A smart, motivated college grad named Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel, who played “Lena” in “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” PG, 2005, and Rory on TV’s “Gilmore Girls”) discovers it’s not so easy to get a great job the day after you get your diploma. She’s forced to move back with her oddball family—Carol Burnett as her cranky grandma, Michael Keaton as her boyish, on-the-lookout-for-money- making-schemes dad, Jane Lynch as her understanding mom, and Bobby Coleman as her eccentric kid brother. Her childhood pal Adam (charming Zach Gilford), who, of course, is in love with her, tires of waiting for Ryden to second that emotion. Ryden’s handsome Brazilian next-door neighbor (Rodrigo Santoro) offers a brief romantic fling which further alienates Adam.

There are a couple of steamy but nonexplicit sexual situations, wine and beer-drinking, midrange profanity, crude humor, jokes about death, gratuitous Latino stereotypes, and a gag about Dad accidentally running over a cat that some will find unfunny. It is more for high schoolers who like their humor and their characterizations just slightly off-center.

Beyond the ratings game

OK for most (but not all) kids 6 and older:

“Ponyo”

G—

This stunning, wildly imaginative fable by the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki (“Howl’s Moving Castle,” PG, 2005; “Spirited Away,” PG, 2002) has English dialogue voiced by American actors and offers rare delights for most kids 6 and older. Miyazaki tells a complex story, though, and the film’s 5-year-old hero faces dangers that could scare some kids under

8. Based loosely on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid,” it begins with a goldfish who swims away from her father (voice of Liam Neeson), an undersea wizard. She washes up near a seaside town and is rescued by a 5- year-old boy named Sosuke (Frankie Jonas, the Jonas Brothers’ 8- year-old sib). He puts her in a pail of water, names her Ponyo, feeds her, and is shocked when she starts to talk (voice of Noah Cyrus, Miley Cyrus’ 9-year-old sis). Terrified that Ponyo will turn human, Fujimoto sends an army of fish to snatch her. (Their eyes in the waves are truly creepy.) There are scary storms, but it all passes like a great watery dream. One angry phrase, “Bug off!” is used, and Sosuke’s mom appears to grab a can of beer.

OK for kids 8 and older:

“Shorts”PG—“ Shorts” offers raucous, chaotic fun for kids 8 and older, though inspiration and energy wane in the last act. Comicbookish special effects show rampaging crocodiles, swooping pterodactyls, and, for grossness, a giant booger with an eyeball in it. There’s bullying, but for comic effect, not mental anguish. Director Robert Rodriguez lets kids take the lead, as in his “Spy Kids” trilogy (all PGs). Some scenes could worry kids under

8. One kid is swallowed by a croc, then vomited back up, and the bullies pelt Toe with rocks. The film ends on a kinder note and reminds us to be careful what we wish for.