Ramona and Beezus
You have kids. You watch what you watch.
Expected it to be torture. It wasn't. Yeah it was predictable. Yeah, at times it was corny. But as an "it's okay to be you" tale which is a pretty important message for kids aged 8 - 14 it wasn't really that bad.
It walked some well-trod ground that tons of kids movies (including the unwatchable Marmaduke) have trod over the years: Quirky kid searching for identity, dad loses job, family in peril, miraculously tidy "all is well" ending. But unlike far too many of its contemporaries it didn't stray into schmoozy teen angst romance, it didn't artificially try to turn on the waterworks, and it didn't sink into sappiness. It struck a good balance between goofiness and pathos. It gave all the characters a little bit to do.
Yes, the timeline was a little odd. Dad loses job and two days later the bank might take the house? Yet work on an additional room (and the furnishing of it and another) continues unabated? But that really didn't detract.
Selena Gomez has a good screen presence away from the cookie-cutter Disney one-liner smartass role they pigeonhole all of their "stars" into. The scene where she gets Ramona to come sleep with her when both are scared and concerned over the future of their families rings true and is very sweet. If she picks her roles with care, she is one of the few Disney-philes who could break away and be something away from the Mouse. Spare me Ashley Tisdale and the loathsome Zack and Cody twins, please.
I've suffered through a ton of schmaltzy, syrupy, sappy "kids" movies. This just wasn't that bad. Not worth watching without a kid (and there are some kid movies that are -- Lion King, for instance) but a decent little film for a dad and daughter to watch together.