Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008)

This teen girl empowerment movie was cute enough that Jack didn't hate it, and it helped pass the time when we recently had a 10 hour layover in the Lima, Peru airport (it was also the only netflix DVD with us that had closed captions--a necessity in a bustling place when the laptop volume at 10 still wasn't enough). I had put it in my queue because I remembered it won something, and also because of Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass, and he will be playing teenage John Lennon in the upcoming Nowhere Boy). Angus is a huge, funny-looking cat, thongs are the underwear, and snogging is British for making out. I didn't realize until tonight that director/writer/producer Gurinder Chadha is also responsible for Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and What's Cooking, both of which I enjoyed thoroughly. Young Georgia Groome was the award-winner, playing a character named Georgia. Her posse includes Eleanor Tomlinson (a small part in The Illusionist (2006), as the young Sophie to Johnson's young Eisenheim, as well as Fiona in Alice in Wonderland), and Georgia's nemesis is played by Kimberley Nixon, who was Hilda in Easy Virtue. This is PG-13, and perfectly fine for any pre-teens.