What is there to object to?
Several things. There's Shrek farting in the mud hole, there's magic (this particular family is very conservatively religious), there are mythical creatures, there's torture (of the gingerbread man). Sure, it seems silly to me, but I don't want to argue with another parent about it, especially when they've been nice enough to let their kid come to my kids' birthday party.
I read Gulag I when I was about 12 or 13. I was just starting high school when I read III - gave me nightmares, but I don't think nightmares are necessarily bad things to have on occasion.
I waffle on the violence, depending on the movie. I liked The Quick and The Dead, for example, and The Man who Shot Liberty Valence, but I generally hate westerns. I liked Bridge on the River Kwai, and Stalag 17, and Starship Troopers (can't say it had very good acting), but generally hate war movies. Apocolypse Now was disturbing, but I had no trouble with the blood bath in the opening scene of Blade. It just depends.
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