Q&A: Nell Minow, The Movie Mom

Most of us know Nell Minow as the "Movie Mom" from her call-in segments on WGN AM 720's Nick Digilio's radio show. More than just a movie maven, she is the eldest daughter of Newton Minow, FCC Chairman under John F. Kennedy, and has had an accomplished legal career in her own right. She is Editor and Co-founder of the Corporate Library in addition to keeping a movie review blog, which she started as a personal web page in 1995 before the word "blog" had even entered the lexicon.

A Glencoe native, she lives in Washington, D.C. with husband and high school sweetheart David Apatoff. Nell has fond memories of growing up in the area, from the Vernon Avenue playground that her parents and neighbors petitioned the Village to build in the 1950s, to story hour at the Glencoe library where her next-door neighbor was head librarian. Nell and David met at New Trier East and attended law school together at the University of Chicago.

KH: How did you become the Movie Mom?

NM: All my life I've had a love of movies. I took a film history class at New Trier and wrote movie reviews for the student newspaper. When my children were young, I'd go to the video store and there'd always be parents with confused looks on their faces at the check-out counter, asking things like, "Is 'The Nutty Professor' appropriate for a six-year-old?" A niche evolved out of that.

KH: What are your criteria for the 'lowest recommended age' in your reviews?

NM: First, I look at whether it's a good movie. If it's not a good movie, it doesn't matter whether it's inoffensive; it's not worth 90 minutes of your child's life. My general rule of thumb is that if a movie can be shown in broadcast TV prime time, I rate it as appropriate for children in middle school and older. I don't recommend any movie for children under the age of five unless the film is directly targeted to that group. After raising two kids, I've learned that children can be wildly divergent in their viewing capacities. It's a matter of knowing your own children and what they can handle.

KH: How do you arrive at your overall rating?

NM: I look at how successful the movie is in addressing its intended audience. To give a recent example, "Alpha and Omega" [the latest animated film from Lionsgate Entertainment] seems confused about its target audience. On the one hand, there's a lot of crude bathroom humor that's obviously geared toward younger kids. But a major part of the plot is about who is going to mate with who, which is a more mature subject.

KH: I enjoy your lively discussions with Nick Digilio on his show. How did you get started with him?

NM: I got a phone call one day from his producer, and we just clicked. Nick is one of my favorite people. We agree about 90 percent of the time, but even when we don't agree we still have fun talking.