Xixax Film Forum

I have never really understood the MPAA. They give movies certain ratings thinking that they are protecting children from objectionable material. But they don't really think before they give it an official rating. It's almost as if they have their own rating scale and they just judge it by that, but there's more to it. I don't know why "Bowling for Columbine" got an R rating when it tells the truth about voilence in America yet other movies that love voilence and guns get PG-13 ratings. I don't know why "Y Tu Mama Tambien" got an NR (No one under 17 admitted) when it makes wonderful statements about relationships, sex and life. I'm not sure why a film like "Blue Car" got an R when it's more truthful than many PG-13 teenage movies. A film like "Can't Hardly Wait" gets a PG-13 even though it glorifies drinking, yet "Requiem for a Dream" that shows the horror of drugs gets an NR (No one under 17 admitted). Yes, they do give reasons of why they rate them, but they don't make any sense. They are blind when it comes to morals. Can anyone make sense of them?

Requiem had nudity also....

http://www.mpaa.org/movieratings/about/index.htm

Filmcritic, everything you say is absolutely correct.  However, the MPAA seems to rate films on content rather than context.  I have to wonder about the values that the MPAA members possess.  How the hell is Gosford Park rated R just because of a few swears?  That is a much better movie to take a 15 year old to than some PG-13 film like Anger Management.

except in the case of like Titanic, which has nudity and a bit of horrible violence, but in its historical context is deemed okay and gets a PG-13.

Quote from: Jack ValentiBy summer of 1966, the national scene was marked by insurrection on the campus, riots in the streets, rise in women's liberation, protest of the young, doubts about the institution of marriage, abandonment of old guiding slogans, and the crumbling of social traditions.

I like how he mentions women's liberation in correlation with rioting, protest, and the crumbling of tradition.

Valenti can suck my cock. the mpaa is bullshit, nobody should have to submit their films to it, but after turning 17, my strong stance on this issue has been considerably lessened.

Ebert is always giving it to the MPAA slyly in his reviews.  They're idiots basically, and Ebert always eloquently points that out.  Amelie is given an R when a PG-13 would have been just fine.  But teen-film-trash is always given PG-13 even though it shouldn't be seen by idiot high school students anyway.

Problem here is not so much the MPAA, though, as the puritanical attitudes of most theatres and managers of multiplexes.  No one is required to submit a film to the MPAA for rating.  But in order for most theatres to play it, it must have a rating.  This means a lot of things:[list=1]

• The film must receive an R or better to be accepted into multiplexes.  The NC-17 is seen as a kiss of death because of its equivalence to X.
  
• If a film receives an NC-17, Blockbuster won't carry VHS and DVD versions of it, hence hurting the film financially after distribution.
  
• This means that basically, the MPAA acts as a censor to films.  If they don't like its content, for whatever arbitrary reason, you must change it or face financial problems.
  
• Filmmakers, however, may self-apply the X rating to their films, but this is only for pornography really.  They may also release it Unrated with an adult material disclaimer, but still, this is not good enough for most multiplexes.  These films will most often be dedicated to art houses.
  [/list:o]Oftentimes, there really isn't a problem with content in films where cutting certain objectionable scenes will change the film.  A lot can be applied to achieve something of the same effect.  But it's not the exact same thing, which is the point.  Of note recently was Todd Solondz's film Storytelling in which a student and her professor had rough sex.  The MPAA objected to the rating, so Solondz, instead of cutting the scene, added a red rectangle over it to obscure what was going on.  Ebert applauded this in his review, stressing again, the MPAA's silliness; it's not as if no one knew what was going on behind the rectangle, and it's not as if the scene was pornographic in anyway, because genetaila wasn't invisible, and the netherregions were obscured in shadows anyway.
  
  It's my wish, my dream, that this country break away from these ideals of censorship.  That a new rating system be drafted, a new organization that rates films for acceptance by cinemas compete, to truly give people an idea of the content of films.  Ebert also said in one column of his that the best thing to this right now is screenit.com, but still, this doesn't stop the NC-17 versus R issue of censorship.  Foreign countries don't have this problem.  Amelie was okayed for children 11 and older, and one reader who wrote in to Ebert commented that if everyone in the world saw the film, we'd be closer to peace on earth than ever.  This shows just how distorted the people at the MPAA's grasp on reality is.

This new Jet Lag movie is also rated R.  I haven't seen it, but it looks innocuous, unless Jean Reno kills a bunch of people or something.

I also have the same problem with the Three Colors films by Kieslowski.  I only saw Blue and Red, but there isn't anything so strong (that I can remember) in those films that they should be rated R.  I thought the poo drinking scene in Austin Powers 2 was much more offensive, both to my sense of decency and to my intelligence.

MPAA = Mother Phuckers Association of America

The MPAA is still better than the PCA, but they still do suck.

my favorite new thing the MPAA has been doing for awhile now, is telling you exactly what makes the movie have that rating even at the beginning of the trailers you watch.  some great ones are like:

-pervasive vampire violence and gore

-graphic images relating to sexual violence including a strong rape scene

-extreme violence and graphic carnage, for shocking images

-extreme drug use

-grisly afterviews of horrific and bizarre killings

whenever a movie says something like RATED R for A SCENE OF VAMPIRE VIOLENCE or something, there is nothing funnier in the world than that to me.  its like, parents object to violence in principle, but are willing to make an exception if its vampires commiting the violence.  "Well, they are vampires, and it is in their nature, honey."  "Yeah, you're right.  Tommy, you can see Bloodbath 4, but just remember.  Vampires can kill people because they have to.  But you cant.  Okay?"  
by the way, what is EXTREME drug use? it sounds like a new sport at the winter olympics or something.  "And next up, Extreme Drug Use, after that Snowboarding."  "Whoa, these drugs are EXTREME!"

There was one movie, I forget which, that in its explanation was "partying."  Also, another one had an explanation of "karaoke."  I'm not kidding.

hey, hey, mpaa, how many movies did you censor today?

Quote from: filmcriticI don't know why "Y Tu Mama Tambien" got an NR (No one under 17 admitted) when it makes wonderful statements about relationships, sex and life.

The MPAA doesn't award a NR, that's why it called Not Rated. The filmmakers skipped the rating process (usually because it recieved a NC-17 rating from the MPAA), and decided it was better to get play at theaters that will accept a non-rated film that one marked with the sure death NC-17 one, although most theaters will still enforce the 'no one under 17' rule.

http://www.capalert.com/capmarstartpage.htm

Quote from: Jeremy Blackmanhttp://www.capalert.com/capmarstartpage.htm

will the fucking meteor get here allready

yeah, no offense to anyone religous here, but...is there anything worse than you?

Quote from: themodernage02yeah, no offense to anyone religous here, but...is there anything worse than you?

Talk about a shortcut to thinking...

capalert.com, christiananswers.com, and screenit.com have the freedom to review movies to filter out what they feel is objectionable to their kids.  They have as much freedom to do this as you guys have to bitch about it here.  Religious beliefs are just the framework.

I think they feel the same way you guys do about the MPAA, but in reverse.  They think it's less strict, so that's why they created these sites for parents.  

Self-censorship is much better than forced censorship.

Me, I'm in the middle.  The problem with the MPAA is, quite simply, it's puritanical about sex and language, but will let violence and toilet humor slide.  That's what's so fucking backwards about that organization.

Arguing their case against NC-17
An appeal over "The Cooler" illustrates why the industry's film ratings system is in dire need of an overhaul.
Source: Los Angeles Times

Wayne Kramer looked a little beleaguered as he ordered a plate of eggs for breakfast the other day. The 38-year-old director of "The Cooler" has a crushing weight on his shoulders: He's trying to figure out what he can say to a Motion Picture Assn. of America appeals board that will prevent it from tattooing his film with the deadly NC-17 rating.

With a cast that includes William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin and Maria Bello — who's also at breakfast — "The Cooler," a love story that unfolds in an aging Vegas casino, has been getting critical plaudits since its debut at the Sundance Film Festival. It's due for release nationwide in November from Lions Gate Films. But first it must survive the movie industry's version of a trial by fire. When Kramer submitted the film to the MPAA ratings board, it received an NC-17 (no one under 17 admitted), a rating that has become such a kiss of death that, since "Showgirls" in 1995, no studio has released an NC-17 film.

The rating board's inscrutable, often infuriating judgment calls about sexual content are legend. Last year, it gave an R rating to "Solaris" for showing George Clooney's bare bottom, a decision eventually overturned by the appeals board. After Roger Avary's "The Rules of Attraction" got an NC-17 last year, causing him to cut many of the film's sex scenes, the director fumed: "I would prefer outright censorship. It would be more fair than what I'm going through now."

Kramer, who grew up in South Africa during apartheid, is no stranger to censorship. As a teenage movie buff, he had illegal copies of "A Clockwork Orange," "The Exorcist," and "Body Double," all of which were banned by government censors. "A movie couldn't have sex, violence, bad language, politics or any kind of interracial romance," he says at breakfast, rehearsing a speech he would later deliver to the 15-person appeals board, made up of representatives from theater chains and the major studios. (A two-thirds majority is needed to overturn.)

"Someone told the police I had the movies and they raided my house — like it was a drug raid — and arrested me." The charges were later dropped, Kramer says, only because he'd befriended one of the vice cops. "He became my supplier and helped me get other films. It turned out he really loved movies!"

"The Cooler" received an NC-17 for one brief scene, a bedroom encounter between Macy and Bello that shows a glimpse of Bello's pubic hair and implies that Macy has been engaged in oral sex. It's a bitter pill for Kramer, who can think of dozens of movie scenes that are more objectionable. "American film is being horribly infantalized. If you want to see something adult, you have to stay home and watch HBO," he says. "It's OK to show semen in a Farrelly Brothers comedy, but when a movie tries to depict sexuality in a non-glamorous way, you're in trouble."

No one, not even maverick Lions Gate, will release an NC-17 film — and with good reason. Key theater chains might not book it; many TV and newspaper outlets would refuse to advertise it; and once it went to video, where the real profits are for most films, major chains such as Blockbuster wouldn't stock it. To assure any kind of wide release for his film, Kramer's only hope is to appeal the rating, which is why he, Bello and Lions Gate chief Tom Ortenberg are plotting strategy at a Sunset Strip eatery. As with almost everything involving the ratings board, the process is shrouded in secrecy. So when Lions Gate agreed to let me watch the filmmakers have their day in court, I jumped at the chance, accompanying the trio to the Sunset Screening Room down the block, where the appeals board watched the film.

After the appeals board sees a film, two of its supporters — in this case Kramer and Bello — are allowed to lobby in the hopes of overturning the original decision. When Revolution Studios' "Anger Management" got an R rating, director Peter Segal gave a passionate and obviously persuasive defense of his film, and the appeals board overturned the decision, giving the film a PG-13. When Disney's "The Hot Chick" got an R, star Rob Schneider wooed the appeals board, which overturned the ruling. Likewise with Miramax's "Diamonds," which had its R rating reduced to PG-13 in 1999 after the film's star, Kirk Douglas, made a personal appearance before the board.

Like other independents who are not members of the studio-bankrolled MPAA, Lions Gate hasn't fared as well. At breakfast, when Bello quizzes Ortenberg about what to say that would sway the board, Ortenberg laughed: "Don't ask me. We always lose." He cautions Bello and Kramer to avoid making comparisons with other movies, saying that it will only hurt their case.

"So what point should we emphasize?" Bello asks.

"To me," says Ortenberg, "we should stress that this is a love story between two real people." Kramer jumps in: "And you should say that, as a mother, you'd be happy to have your son, when he's 13 or 14, see this movie. You could say, 'I'm proud of the work I've done. People are going to walk out of this movie with a smile on their face, having seen a real love story.' "

Bello thinks it would be important for her to explain why she is seen naked in the film. "I get lots of scripts where you're just showing your [breasts] for the sake of showing your [breasts], which I just throw away. But this script felt real to me emotionally."

"The more intimacy you have on screen, the more you believe the story," Kramer says. "When I see someone having sex with their bra on, the first thing I think is, 'It's a movie.' " Ortenberg is in full agreement. "I don't know about you, but I've never had sex with anyone with a bra on. No matter what's going on, there always seems to be time to take the bra off."

As it has done with many other films, the ratings board penalized "The Cooler" for a moment of frank sexuality but ignored the film's scenes of brutal violence, including a sequence in which Baldwin, playing an old-school casino operator, takes a tire iron to a guy he catches cheating at the craps table.

As Kramer puts it: "People get shot in the head and bashed to a bloody pulp in movies all the time, but we get an NC-17 for a glimpse of pubic hair. Why is that, do you think?"

Why, indeed. The question of why the MPAA would take offense at a tender love scene while serenely approving a sequence involving a brutal beating is one of the enduring mysteries of Hollywood. The identities of the parents who rate movies for the MPAA-affiliated Classification and Ratings Administration are so closely guarded that I doubt even U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft could figure out who they are. The MPAA also refuses to defend its rulings, saying it won't discuss the reasons for a specific rating decision.

After the screening, several members of the appeals board fraternized with the filmmakers. One exhibitor slyly told Ortenberg that he was especially looking forward to the director's cut of the movie on DVD, while ratings board chief Joan Graves complimented Bello, telling her she looked much younger in person than on screen.

When I spoke to Graves, who was on hand to make the rating board's pro-NC-17 case, she disputed the widely held belief that NC-17 has become fatally stigmatized.

Although everyone else in Hollywood views "Showgirls" as an unmitigated disaster, having cost $45 million but only making $20 million in its theatrical release, Graves told me: " 'Showgirls' had a very big opening weekend and it was well advertised. The rating would still work if people used it. You should ask the studios and theater owners why they have problems with it."

I tried to get an answer from Mary Ann Grasso, executive director of the National Assn. of Theater Owners and an appeals board member. But she wouldn't take my calls. Grasso voted to uphold the rating, but she told Ortenberg at the screening that his film was so good that he should go out with an NC-17, assuring him that most theater owners would play the picture. Ortenberg responded coolly: "I'd like to have that in writing."

As he later explained: "I'm not willing to be a guinea pig and put Lions Gate's dollars at risk for a rating that's so stigmatized."

Not long after Kramer and Bello made their pitch, a somber-looking woman holding a clipboard delivered the bad news: The vote was 9-6 to uphold the NC-17. Kramer tried to hide his displeasure, but he's not much of a poker player. After days of soul searching, he agreed late last week to trim the offending few seconds of film. But he remains unbowed.

"I can see myself coming before this board for the rest of my life. They've made a mortal enemy of me."

I can't say I blame him. The ratings system is in dire need of an overhaul. Kramer said he was surprised by how few powerful directors have used their clout to oppose the board's arbitrary judgments.

With the exception of a brief flurry of activity when the Directors Guild of America proposed a new 'adult' rating, most filmmakers have meekly accepted the current system of self-censorship, except when their own movies were on trial.

Why couldn't the DGA lobby have some respected directors represented on the appeals board? Then Kramer could say he'd had a truly American experience — being judged by a jury of his peers.

Quote from: filmcriticI have never really understood the MPAA. They give movies certain ratings thinking that they are protecting children from objectionable material. But they don't really think before they give it an official rating. It's almost as if they have their own rating scale and they just judge it by that, but there's more to it. I don't know why "Bowling for Columbine" got an R rating when it tells the truth about voilence in America yet other movies that love voilence and guns get PG-13 ratings. I don't know why "Y Tu Mama Tambien" got an NR (No one under 17 admitted) when it makes wonderful statements about relationships, sex and life. I'm not sure why a film like "Blue Car" got an R when it's more truthful than many PG-13 teenage movies. A film like "Can't Hardly Wait" gets a PG-13 even though it glorifies drinking, yet "Requiem for a Dream" that shows the horror of drugs gets an NR (No one under 17 admitted). Yes, they do give reasons of why they rate them, but they don't make any sense. They are blind when it comes to morals. Can anyone make sense of them?

Darren Aronofsky talks about the MPAA quite a bit on his commentary track for Requiem. It is pretty funny that a bit of nudity can get you an R rating, but as long as you don't show blood, you can shoot as many people as you want and still get a PG-13.

Quote from: MacGuffinArguing their case against NC-17
An appeal over "The Cooler" illustrates why the industry's film ratings system is in dire need of an overhaul.
Source: Los Angeles Times

Christ, ignorance of their sorts is depressing.  I'm glad the article takes the stance of just not understanding how their whole system works.  I kinda wish some filmmakers bought the bullet and turned in an NC17 movie, so that way we have an untainted document of what they wanted.  But isn't that what DVD (re)releases are for?

So I assume they've gotten the R rating after trimming her pubes (score!), do they have a release date?

aw

Quote from: jokerspathdo they have a release date?

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Release Date: November 21st, 2003 (LA/NY); expands to other cities at later dates

Release Date Note: (5/7/03) Originally scheduled for September 19th, 2003, this film has been bumped back two more months to a platform release starting on November 21st, suggesting that Lions Gate might have Oscar hopes for it.

MPAA Rating Note: (6/17/03) "Variety" reports today that this movie was handed an NC-17 by the MPAA recently, due to an extremely revealing scene of nudity involving William H. Macy. The trade reports that Lions Gate is still trying to figure out if they want to edit the film down to get an R rating, or just release it as it is (possibly as "Unrated").

i think more filmmakers should go public about the whole nc-17 issue. if i got the kiss of death, id want the film released unrated or proudly wearing its nc-17 rating on the poster. and if nobody wants to release it uncensored, id complain "fuck all you people who want to censor my film and fuck everyone else who helps them get away with it. because of that, NOBODY gets to see my film. fuck off" and in the case of a studio absolutely wanting a r-rated version, i would simply put "CENSORED BY THE MPAA" over the "questionable" material. if not, then just "CENSORED." solondz did a good thing in storytelling.

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

Unless you are independantly wealthy, you're gonna need some sort of outside financing to make your movies.  You have to play by the rules to allow your investors to get their money back.

all i need to make a movie is 10$ and a camera. cut the investors out of the process.

Quote from: cecil b. dementedall i need to make a movie is 10$ and a camera. cut the investors out of the process.

You should do it. ;)

i am. and i will again and again and again

Quote from: cecil b. dementedall i need to make a movie is 10$ and a camera. cut the investors out of the process.

incidentally, that's also all u need for a failure.

Quote from: P

Quote from: cecil b. dementedall i need to make a movie is 10$ and a camera. cut the investors out of the process.

incidentally, that's also all u need for a failure.

well yes, but you can fail with any amount of money and any size crew. at least with 10$, if the movie is garbage, theres no harm done. and nobody needs to know about it.

As far as ratings are concerned, I can understand why some movies would get the R rating. For example, "Gangs of New York", "The Exorcist", "Eyes Wide Shut", "In the Bedroom" and so on are all movies that are understandably for adults only (besides most kids won't be interested anyway). But films like "The Last Temptation of Christ" (which was a film that everyone should have seen and not just adults), "Blue Car", "Schindler's List" and many others were very important movies that teens should see just as much as adults.

The MPAA also stops filmmakers from making the movies they want. Kubrick couldn't make "Clockwork Orange" and "Eyes Wide Shut" the way he wanted because they were going to give them X or NC-17 ratings. Anderson had troubled with them on "Boogie Nights". Many other filmmakers have ran into trouble with the MPAA. There is a difference between stopping children from seeing the movies and stopping the filmmakers from making them.

Quote from: filmcriticAs far as ratings are concerned, I can understand why some movies would get the R rating. For example, "Gangs of New York", "The Exorcist", "Eyes Wide Shut", "In the Bedroom" and so on are all movies that are understandably for adults only (besides most kids won't be interested anyway). But films like "The Last Temptation of Christ" (which was a film that everyone should have seen and not just adults), "Blue Car", "Schindler's List" and many others were very important movies that teens should see just as much as adults.

But the R rating doesn't stop kids from seeing these films, only from seeing them alone. They must be accompianed by a parent of guardian. It's up to the parents to moderate what their kids watch and decide if that film is for their kids. I remember NBC showed "Schindler's List" on TV in it's entirety because they too felt it was important enough for all ages to witness. But it was preceeded with Parental Suggestions. R rating is the same thing.

Quote from: filmcriticThe MPAA also stops filmmakers from making the movies they want. Kubrick couldn't make "Clockwork Orange" and "Eyes Wide Shut" the way he wanted because they were going to give them X or NC-17 ratings. Anderson had troubled with them on "Boogie Nights". Many other filmmakers have ran into trouble with the MPAA. There is a difference between stopping children from seeing the movies and stopping the filmmakers from making them.

Actually, the MPAA doesn't stop the filmmakers from making the movies they want. That would be censorship. It's more the theaters fault. Filmmakers can make any movie they want. It's only the MPAA's job to assign it a rating, and not to tell the filmmakers what and how much to cut. But the majority of theaters will not show an NC-17 rated film. So, unless you want to have your movie shown in a wide release of theaters, or try to get bigger box office by making certain edits to get a PG-13, you can release the most sexually explict, overly violent movie you want. Or you can just go Unrated and take your chances.

Yes, that's true. I just meant that they do put filmmakers in the position of taking out certain things in the movie for it to get the R rating and be released everywhere. Directors do not want the film to get an NC-17 because it's the kiss of death. And there are certain movies that shouldn't have gotten the ratings they did. Most parents won't allow their kids to see the R rated movies simply because they are rated R regardless of the reasons. But teens should see these certain movies with or without an adult. They are still important.

Quote from: filmcritic...And there are certain movies that shouldn't have gotten the ratings they did. Most parents won't allow their kids to see the R rated movies simply because they are rated R regardless of the reasons. But teens should see these certain movies with or without an adult. They are still important.

That's (usually) the intention of websites like screenit.com.  They allow parents to see reports of violence, sex, cursing, etc.  that are in the movie.  It's more of a factual analysis than an opinionated one.  If the parents think the content is ok, then they should allow thier kids to see it.

Yeah, there are those parents that are extremely overprotective parents that will only allow G rated movies in the house, but I think you know as well as I do that it's causing more harm than good.

Yeah, I've heard of that website before. It's suppose to be very detailed.

Parents don't want to actually take the time to research whether a movie is appropriate for their child, so they blindly trust some ratings system.  If it says it isn't appropriate for children under 17 to see it alone, their kid can't see it, no matter whether it has just one f-word over the limit or tons of violence.  Gosford Park doesn't have the same content as Pulp Fiction, yet both have the same label.

There's something I don't understand here, maybe someone can help me. "In the Company of Men" is rated R for language and emotional abuse. What do they mean by "emotional abuse"? From what I could gather from the film, there was nothing emotionally abusive enough to get the R rating.

Quote from: filmcriticThere's something I don't understand here, maybe someone can help me. "In the Company of Men" is rated R for language and emotional abuse. What do they mean by "emotional abuse"? From what I could gather from the film, there was nothing emotionally abusive enough to get the R rating.

my understanding is that just because sumthing is rated R, and there are things listed, it doesn't mean everything that is listed is up to an R level. for example they might hav a 30second nipple shot, which is very mild nudity and they will be saying CUNT CUNT CUNT CUNT CUNT all throughout the movie, that would be R for language and nudity.

so u see, filmcritic, the emotional abuse was against women and deaf ppl, it might not be extreme like stabbing every audience's heart, but it's still there.. along with language. the problem ur dumb censors hav, which makes ours less dumb, is that u don't hav anything between R and pg-13. we hav G, PG, M, MA, and R which is equivalent to ur NC-17.  our M takes care of all the bullshit that isn't bad enuff for ur R but a little too much for kiddies.

explaining is fun.

Well, perhaps the MPAA should just list the things that are the most extreme or the worst things in the movie, stick with that, and forget the rest. For example, if a film shows a woman's nipple and has lots of language, then it should be rated R for language.

Did anyone see that they were showing South Park:Bigger, Longer, and Uncut in its entirety on Comedy Central? If it is possible to do this, why are there any decency standards on TV? At this point are they just self- imposed by the networks and advertisers? I think it's great...I would guess that in another 10 years, maybe less, there will be no limits as to what can be shown on network tv.

Yes, that might be the case. "Schindler's List" was uncut on TV a couple of years ago. Movies on USA are becoming uncut as time goes on.

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Hitler Wore Khakis, hahaha.  Someone I knew in high school had this on her binder.

Quote from: Pthe problem ur dumb censors hav, which makes ours less dumb, is that u don't hav anything between R and pg-13. we hav G, PG, M, MA, and R which is equivalent to ur NC-17.  our M takes care of all the bullshit that isn't bad enuff for ur R but a little too much for kiddies.

explaining is fun.

yes, but at least our dumb censor system doesn't ban movies entirely.

Quote from: imdbMovie Raided in Australia


A screening of director Larry Clark's controversial film Ken Park, which contains graphic sexual scenes involving teen characters, was raided in Sydney, Australia Thursday night, where the film has been officially banned by the country's Office of Film and Literature Censorship. The screening, attended by about 500 persons including David Stratton, Australia's premier film critic, had been arranged by a group called Free Cinema. In a radio interview, Stratton said today (Friday): "I think what [the screening] was all about was raising consciousness of the fact that in Australia in the year 2003 we are still banning films that are being screened everywhere else in the world, including New Zealand." Of Ken Park, Stratton remarked: "It is an explicit film, it is a confronting film, but I think it's a film that certainly deserves to be seen by an adult audience." Meanwhile, James Hewison, director of the Melbourne International Film Festival, said today that he intends to continue to lobby the government for permission to show the film at this year's festival set to open on July 23.

yeah, i know, that sucks. but no biggie, by the time sum of those obscure movies are released here i can buy the DVD from overseas.

Quote from: cinemanarchistDid anyone see that they were showing South Park:Bigger, Longer, and Uncut in its entirety on Comedy Central?

SHEILA BROSLOFSKI: Just remember what the MPAA says -- Deplorably graphic violence is okay, just as long as we dont use any naughty words!

I love this movie, its one giant slam against the MPAA and american censorship. after trey parkers movie Orgazmo got an NC-17, he made it his mission to bash the MPAA as much as possible.

When im making movies, i swear, im gonna do everything in my power to challenge the authority of the MPAA and change things. Cause lets face it: The MPAA are a bunch of ass-ramming uncle-fuckers. The only reason Tom Green got an 'R' for freddy got fingered was cause that was Jack Valenti's high horse he was jerking off.

The infamous scene in Storytelling is not that bad in its original form.  It is a wide shot, with no close ups of genitalia or anything.  Don't know why it was even an issue for the MPAA.

R-Rating Sought in Some Smoking Films  

LOS ANGELES - If Nicolas Cage lights a cigarette in a movie, Hollywood's ratings board should respond as if he used a profanity, according to authors of a new study that criticizes glamorous images of smoking in movies rated for children under 17.

Nearly 80 percent of movies rated PG-13 feature some form of tobacco use, while 50 percent of G and PG rated films depict smoking, said Stanton Glantz, co-author of the study, which examined 775 U.S. movies over the past five years.

"No one is saying there should never be any smoking in the movies," Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said Tuesday at a press conference at Hollywood High School. "What we're simply asking for is that smoking be treated by Hollywood as seriously as it treats offensive language."

He'd like to see more PG-13 movies that feature smoking - like "Matchstick Men," "Seabiscuit" and the Oscar-winning "Chicago" - get slapped with an R rating.

Since R-rated films typically earn less money because they are not open to most teenagers, Glantz said he hoped such a policy would discourage filmmakers from depicting unnecessary smoking, such as the nicotine-addicted worm aliens in "Men in Black."

The proposal includes an exception for historical figures who actually smoked as part of their public life, Glantz added. "For example, if they wanted to make a movie about Winston Churchill, they could show him with a cigar without triggering an R-rating, but the number of movies where that actually happens is very small."

The study was funded by the charitable foundation The Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund and the National Cancer Institute.

Glantz singled out The Walt Disney Co. for smoking in the PG-rated "Holes" and G-rated "102 Dalmatians," Time Warner for its PG "Secondhand Lions" and "What a Girl Wants" and Sony Pictures Entertainment for its PG "Master of Disguise."

The Motion Picture Association of America, which rates films, did not immediately return calls for comment on the study or the ratings proposal.

Well, I guess that means that Alice in Wonderland is going to get an R-rating now...

This is stupid.  Like fat-people-suing-McDonald's-for-making-them-fat stupid.

Quote from: hacksparrowWell, I guess that means that Alice in Wonderland is going to get an R-rating now...

I agree completely.  

I have always been under the impression that movies are an art form.  Characters are depictions of feeling and emotion.  We censor so much as it is anyways.  In REAL life people laugh, they cry, they fuck, they fight, they rejoice...  Are movie moguls trying to somehow censor us into believing that humanity is different than it actually is?  Come on now, where is the art and honesty in that?  Personally, I don't see the point in censoring something you can go to the neighbourhood Starbucks to see.

Quote from: ThrindlePersonally, I don't see the point in censoring something you can go to the neighbourhood Starbucks to see.

Which makes me wonder how long it'll be before they ban coffee drinking in movies too.  Caffeine is bad for kids too.

And the problem with this is that they're not censoring anything.  They're just changing the acceptability of it.  Of course, this is NOT going to keep kids from smoking.

But the studios would stand to lose money in product placement if they have to take out smoking to maintain a PG-13 rating.  So maybe artistic expression will win... even if it's for the wrong reasons.   :?

Valenti to Retire From Film Association

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Jack Valenti, who oversaw the creation of Hollywood's movie-ratings system in the 1960s, said Tuesday he will step down as head of the Motion Picture Association of America, possibly within three months.

Valenti, 82, has hinted at retirement over the last two years. He made it official at ShoWest, an annual convention of theater owners. May will mark Valenti's 38th anniversary in the job.

"I look at this with mixed emotions, because when you've done something so long, it's difficult to tear yourself away from it,'' Valenti told reporters before announcing retirement plans to theater owners in an address to open the convention. "But also, in any job, you want to leave before people ask you to leave.''

Valenti, who received a standing ovation from a crowd of about 1,200 theater owners, said he hopes to give up the job in two to three months if a successor can be found that quickly.

MPAA has hired media recruiter Spencer Stuart to hunt for a new leader for the trade group, which represents Hollywood's top seven studios - Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Sony, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and MGM.

The job had been offered to U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican, but he declined last January.

A former advertising and political consultant, Valenti was a speechwriter and congressional liaison for President Johnson before becoming head of the MPAA in 1966. The group implemented the ratings system two years later to replace a hodgepodge of government boards that censored movie content.

Critics have harped on the ratings system for decades, with some saying the ratings board is too loose on violence and overly prudish on sexuality.

But the system has stood largely unchanged from the G, PG, R and X ratings it began with. In the 1980s, a PG-13 category was added for movies inappropriate for preteens to attend on their own, while the NC-17 designation replaced the X rating for adult movies in the early 1990s.

Last year, the MPAA's annual poll of about 2,600 movie-goers found that 76 percent of parents with children younger than 13 found the ratings system useful, Valenti said.

"Jack Valenti has been a consummate leader of this industry for 38 years,'' said John Fithian, who heads the National Association of Theatre Owners. "And we're not sure what we're going to do without him.''

As home-video and digital technology has advanced, Valenti has become involved in studio efforts to fight film piracy, which he said costs the industry about $3.5 billion a year as bootleggers duplicate movies on video tape and DVD or make them available on the Internet.

One anti-piracy attempt backfired last year, as Valenti took the lead on a studio-backed plan to ban so-called "awards screeners,'' video copies of new movies sent to Academy Awards voters and those who pick other Hollywood honors so they can watch the films in their homes.

Those screener copies had been a source of counterfeit videotapes, DVDs and Internet downloads, Valenti said.

Small film outfits and independent producers objected, saying awards screeners allowed their movies to compete for Oscars with big-studio films that have huge marketing budgets.

Opponents sued, and the ban on awards screeners was lifted by a federal judge. Valenti said Tuesday that in the future, it will be up to individual studios and film distributors to decide if they want to send screener copies of their awards contenders.

Valenti said he will maintain an "umbilical relationship'' with the MPAA and Hollywood, though he was not certain what that role would be.

"I've been blessed with some genetic energy, so I'm not going to fade away,'' Valenti said.

*uncorks the champag-ne*  Thanks for the great news, Mac!

Well, Hamas just replaced their spiritual leader with an extremist... I wonder what MPAA will do.

$10 says it's Michael Powell.

Quote from: Jeremy BlackmanWell, Hamas just replaced their spiritual leader with an extremist... I wonder what MPAA will do.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usc.edu%2Fwebcast%2Fevents%2Fcommencement%2F2000%2Fimages%2Feisner.jpg&hash=cff2c8fe3050f3d85e85c330b904b060ddb7de25)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

How about Bill Clinton?

wow. you people have no love for the Valenti.

You think the rating system is bad today? Think about the code that existed many years ago. If it wasn't for the MPAA, the government would have seen fit to regulate the "filth" coming from the cinema, just imagine what the controlling government would do.

Oh... oh wait... the FCC and our main man Michael Powell seemed to see it as their duty to regulate the radio industry and infringe on their right of free speech on the grounds of indecency (ie. Stern).... while public airwaves are not the same as a theatrical release, just think how the government would screw the pooch.

Valenti has been a major supporter of the right for filmmakers to say what they want over his 38 years, and I think he has done well for the film industry. The MPAA serves as a protection for the film industry, self censorship, which overtime, I hope alters its standards.
BUT THAT WON'T HAPPEN UNTIL SOCIETY HERE IN AMERICA DECIDES TO MATURE.

Quote from: Stefen$10 says it's Michael Powell.

$20 says it is Emeric Pressburger.

The MPAA is better than the government rating films, but it is not without its problems.  Can anyone really say that The Dreamers has worse content than Passion of the Christ? Unless The Dreamers features two gruesome crucifixions or something.

Illinois Theaters Issuing "R-Cards"

An Illinois-based theater chain, GKC Theatres, has begun issuing special "R-Cards" to teenagers, which allows them to see R-rated movies, ABC News reported Tuesday. In order to receive one of the cards, an adult guardian must come to the box office, fill out a form in which they say they approve of the teenager's attending an R-rated film, and pay a $2 fee. But outgoing MPAA President Jack Valenti has expressed opposition to the cards, saying: "I think it distorts and ruptures the intent of this voluntary film ratings system. All R-rated films are not alike."

Quote from: Jack Valenti said not "All R-rated films are not alike."

Well, duh.  What a jackass.  That he would perpetuate this insipid system for so long and then come right out and debunk its fidelity -- though he probably didn't realize that that's exactly what he's doing when he said this.  Not that anyone else will notice either.  The R-card is obviously a stupid idea, but so is the MPAA rating system.  Lousy lazy parents.

Quote from: Chest RockwellIn order to receive one of the cards, an adult guardian must come to the box office, fill out a form in which they say they approve of the teenager's attending an R-rated film, and pay a $2 fee.

$2 fee? That's disgraceful. Forcing people to get these lame cards is bad enough, but charging them for it, too? Wow . . .

Who says they're forcing anyone to get these cards anyway?  They're not.  It's a service.  It's a stupid service, yes, but there will always be stupid/lazy parents who will pay for it, thinking it's a good idea.  Should bring in a nice chunk of change considering the effort involved to actually get this thing going.

Quote from: DonamatopoeiaShould bring in a nice chunk of change considering the effort involved to actually get this thing going.

You say that like it's a good thing.

No I don't.

Quote from: DonamatopoeiaNo I don't.

Fair enough

Does it amount to an all-access pass?
One theater chain lets parents sign off on R-rated films so teens can go unaccompanied. Source: Associated Press

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Still weeks shy of her 16th birthday, Sydni Norris caught the R-rated war epic "Troy" on the big screen last month while her parents stayed home.

The Bloomington teenager's way around the rating system's age limit was a parent-approved pass card that has started a debate over convenience versus parental responsibility and raised fears that the government might jump in to settle the dispute.

Supporters say parents can sign off on movies for their children without the time and expense of chaperoning them with the new R-card, which Springfield-based GKC Theatres began rolling out last fall in parts of its 22-city chain in Illinois and three other Midwest states. The card only works for the R rating, which requires children under 17 to be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.

"I like it because now we don't have to wait until they come out on video," said Norris, a high school junior whose parents had to accompany her and sign for the $2 photo ID.

Critics argue that the cards amount to parents handing to their kids the delicate decision about what movies are appropriate, a shift they say violates the intent of the motion picture industry's voluntary rating system.

"All R-rated films are not alike. It is the parents' responsibility to make specific judgments about R films — and wrong to give a blanket endorsement to all," said Jack Valenti, president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, which issues movie ratings.

GKC, the nation's 15th-largest theater chain, is the only theater network in the nation offering the card, said John Fithian, president of the National Assn. of Theatre Owners.

Some opponents fear that leaving movie choices to teens could taint the ratings system, voluntarily enforced by theaters since 1968. They say that could open the door to government regulation that would stifle creativity and experimentation in filmmaking.

"If parents lose faith in the system, the first thing they'll ask is 'What are our recourses?' Then, we could start hearing from every politician that wants to make a name for himself in the name of family values," said Dann Gire, president of the Chicago Film Critics Assn.

GKC has issued about 700 R-cards — most in central Illinois — and plans to offer them throughout the chain by the end of the year, said James Whitman, the company's director of operations and marketing.

Whitman said he came up with the idea after parents complained that they wanted to let their kids see R-rated movies but didn't want to sit through the films themselves. He said GKC encourages parents to give the cards to kids only after approving a movie.

"From what I can tell, the people who have them like them, and the parents are trying to use them responsibly. We're not being inundated with kids whose parents are giving them access to everything that comes on the screen," Whitman said.

The motion picture and theater owners associations are pressing GKC to abandon the program, but some parents think the cards are a good idea.

Joyce Needham, of Peoria, said she discusses every movie "before and after" her 16-year-old grandson uses his R-card. With or without a card, she said, kids will find a way to get what they want.

"I just think communication is the answer and trusting the child," Needham said. "If you can discuss what's going on in this world, you're better off than letting them find a way to do it on their own."

Quote from: MacGuffin
"I like it because now we don't have to wait until they come out on video," said Norris, a high school junior whose parents had to accompany her and sign for the $2 photo ID.

Hasn't she heard of "sneaking in"?

FROM http://www.capalert.com/capmarstartpage.htm# COMES A MOST REVEALING PIECE OF INFORMATION ON THE RELIGIOUS STATE OF OUR NATION

QuoteSexual Immorality:

self-touching

What?! Since when was it sexually immoral to touch yourself? I'm confused. I always thought it was something natural and ordinary, like scratching an itch!

a lot of things that are natural and ordinary are not condoned by religion

Piracy King
The MPAA crowns a new movie boss.
Source: Entertainment Weekly

He may not be Spider-Man, but Dan Glickman, who will swing his way into the office of president and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America on Sept. 1, faces the superheroic task of succeeding the retiring Jack Valenti, Hollywood's main webslinger in Washington for the past 38 years. "The symbol of America is the movie industry," says Glickman, the 59-year-old former Kansas congressman and Clinton-era secretary of agriculture. "You go anywhere in the world, even places that are hostile to us, and you can make friends by referring to movies or actors. So you want to keep it strong."

Yep, Glickman talks like a politician - the MPAA's seven member studios are counting on his D.C. connections and reputation as a bipartisan dealmaker to clamp down on the piracy of blockbusters starring the likes of Spidey and Shrek. "The piracy issues are not ideological at all," notes the Democrat, adding, "It's daunting, because it's going to be easier and easier to copy things just through technology." Also vital is making nice with an independent-film industry stung by last Oscar season's movie screener debacle, and possibly rejiggering a movie ratings system many complain is archaic.

Besides all that, Glickman already knows a little about Hollywood. His son, Johnathan, has produced such films as Grosse Point Blank and Rush Hour. "I'm familiar with at least his end of the business, as a dad would listen to his son," he says, before admitting, "I love the Rush Hour movies." And his experience in government has prepared him for touchy times. "When I was in the Department of Agriculture I was the most assaulted member of the Cabinet," he says. "They threw genetically modified foods at me, I had nude protesters, I had all sorts of things." In other words, Hollywood is a natural fit.

F-bombs catch a break
MPAA lets 'Palace' push profanity limits

--

While the decency wars continue to rage in Washington, the MPAA has okayed the most profane PG-13 pic ever.

Palm Pictures won its appeal Thursday of the original R rating given to Iraq war documentary "Gunner Palace." Pic is the Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein-helmed docu following U.S. soldiers living in a bombed-out palace formerly owned by Saddam Hussein's son Uday.

"Palace" was picked up by Palm last year at the Toronto Film Festival via the Submarine and Cinetic MediaCinetic Media sales banners.

"Palace" contains no gory footage, but the documentary does contain numerous instances of soldiers cursing, including the words "fuck," "shit" and "asshole."

Officially pic will be released rated PG-13 "on appeal for strong language throughout, violent situations and some drug references."

Palm argued that teens considering enlisting should be able to get an honest sense of what war zones are like, violence, profanity and all.

Last summer, the producers and distribs of "Fahrenheit 9/11" made a nearly identical but unsuccessful case to appeal their R rating.

One witness to the "Palace" proceedings said that the appeal session was an intense one, with some board members actually tearing up over the decision.

"In these times, language has become a volatile political issue," said Palm marketing toppertopper Andy Robbins in a statement. "We are pleased that the MPAA chose to view the language of the American troops in the context of their situation. They are at war."

Most incidents in which the expletives are used occur in combat situations or in scenes in which the soldiers are shown blowing off steam by freestyle rapping. The words do not appear in the docu's interviews.

While violence, sexuality or drug use alone can land films an R rating, they are usually difficult to quantify, while the use of profanity is easy to count.

In the case of "Fahrenheit 9/11," four uses of the word "motherfucker" (in a heavy metal song sung by a soldier) were said to be the main sticking point for the appeals board of the Classification and Ratings Administration, the branch of the Motion Picture Assn. of America which assigns film ratings.

The ratings system does not follow a precedent system -- Cara rules expressly forbid distribs from referencing other films in their appeals -- but the "Palace" decision is likely to create informal pressure for raters to be more lenient on language in other films.

Though the ratings guidelines allow for wide discretion, sources familiar with the ratings process say the number of profanities used often determines ratings.

For instance, one "fuck" will automatically get you a PG-13. Two will usually get you an R, though some films with two F-words have sometimes gone out PG-13. Three or more, as with "Palace," has always been an R.

The appeals board voted 9 to 3 to reverse its original decision. Last year, 12 films appealed their ratings and three were overturned, including "Hotel Rwanda," which had originally been rated R for violence.

The actual ratings guidelines use quantity but provide the board huge loopholes: "More one such expletive must lead the rating board to issue a film an R rating, as must even one of these words used in a sexual context. These films can be rated less severely, however, if by a special vote the rating board feels a lesser rating would more responsibly reflect the opinion of parents."

While the rating board is comprised of parents, the appeals board is drawn from the entertainment industry.

Nine Months had quite a few fucks in there.

Study says Hollywood's movie rating system flawed

CHICAGO (Reuters) - You think that PG rating means the film at the local multiplex is appropriate viewing for your 10-year-old? Think again.

A study released on Monday shows that one in five films rated PG, or "parental guidance suggested" -- with some material that may not be suitable for children -- actually have more violent actions than the average for those listed as PG-13, or inappropriate for children under 13.

It also found that one in 10 PG films had more violent acts than the average for those in the study that were rated R, or "Restricted" -- meaning any viewer under 17 should be accompanied by an adult.

"The most striking finding was that more than one quarter of the violence in each of the three rating categories was of lethal magnitude," said the report from the School of Film, Television and Digital Media at the University of California, Los Angeles, on a review of 100 top-grossing films.

The Motion Picture Association of America rating system provides secondary information on violence, nudity and language, but it is often in the background in advertising. Thus parents who rely on the age-based categories are using what Theresa Webb, one of the report's authors, called "the weakest of all the indicators" to make viewing decisions.

However, even the secondary content listings for nudity and the like "are not completely reliable. Many films that were rated primarily for language were in fact just as violent as films that were rated for violence," the study said.

The association said its movie ratings were designed as an "advance cautionary warning" and suggested parents consult reviews, friends and other sources in deciding which movies they want their children to see.

The findings were published in the May issue of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The authors suggested the industry needs to provide more consistent information on violent content and add a "quantitative component" to the ratings -- to better describe how much violence is involved.

The system "should determine the frequency and seriousness of the violent acts, the frequency and types of problematic language use, the frequency and graphicness of sexual representations," the report said.

Such descriptives could lead to numerical values that would make the ratings more precise and consistent, as opposed to such current "vague qualifying terms" as "some," "strong," "mild," "moderate," "brief" and so on, it added.

The report also said content descriptions should be made "clear and legible on all print advertisements and on all film, video, and DVD trailers."

The study reviewed the 100 top-grossing films of 1994, including "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective," "Dumb and Dumber," "Four Weddings and a Funeral," and "Pulp Fiction."

Webb said there have been no structural changes in the rating system since 1994 and "We feel it is still a representative sample and indicative of what's going on."

Couldn't seem to find this mentioned anywhere here.  It's relatively old news (late January).

Sundance: MPAA doc pirated by the MPAA?

Quote from: Karina LongworthIn an irony of a kind not seen since yesterday, when I fell asleep in a screening of a film called Who Needs Sleep?, filmmaker Kirby Dick has accused the MPAA of illegally copying This Film is Not Yet Rated, his documentary about the ratings board which premieres here at Sundance tomorrow night. Dick's lawyer has contacted the MPAA demanding that they return all copies of the film in their posession, and explain who authorized the reproductions, and why. The MPAA in turn admits that they made the copies, but insist that their doing so doesn't qualify as illegal piracy. "We made a copy of Kirby's movie because it had implications for our employees," MPAA VP Kori Bernards told the LA Times, before essentially accusing Dick of stalking MPAA workers. "We were concerned about the raters and their families." Dick showed the Times a copy of an email exchange he had with the Board, in which he told the MPAA he would only submit a copy of his film to be rated if they promised not to copy or distribute it. In turn, a board rep told Kirk that "the confidentiality of your film ... is our first priority. Please feel assure (sic) that your film is in good hands."

In other Dick news, IFC confirmed today that they've sold the UK broadcast rights to the doc to the BBC.

http://www.cinematical.com/2006/01/24/sundance-mpaa-doc-pirated-by-the-mpaa/

See also: this (http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/) and this (http://www.latimes.com/business/custom/piracy/la-et-mpaa25jan25,1,899409.story?ctrack=1&cset=true), links I got from here (http://www.wehateyouandyourhorrendoustasteineverything.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1100).

Yeah, that showed at SXSW... I didn't see it because this whole thing came up at an otherwise interesting panel discussion about piracy and intellectual rights. 
I wouldn't normally defend the MPAA, but this guy really did push the limits with bugging these people and when they decided to keep a copy of his movie for their lawyers, he decided to turn it into an ongoing publicity stunt for his film.  He even showed up at this panel I was at and sidetracked a great discussion between the MPAA and a couple fimmakers just so he could tell his story in front of everyone and promote his movie.  The woman who was there repsresenting the MPAA seemed very tired of this sort of thing happening everywhere and was far more professional responding to him than he was... after he got his movie's named dropped enough times, the conversation became fun again and I could hate the MPAA in peace.

I'll probably see this doc just for curiosity's sake, but I didn't see it at the festival because I thought the stunt was pretty lame.

MPAA, NATO reform ratings system
Process more clear for parents, filmmakers
Source: Variety

Looking to reform and demystify the ratings system, the MPAA and National Assn. of Theater Owners are planning a series of changes, including a new admonishment to parents that certain R-rated movies aren't suitable for younger kids, period.

Another key change: For the first time, a filmmaker will be able to cite another movie when waging an appeal.

Along with specific rule revisions, the campaign to make the ratings process more user-friendly and transparent for parents and filmmakers includes an extensive outreach and education program.

Campaign officially kicks off Monday at the Sundance Film Fest when MPAA topper Dan Glickman and Joan Graves, chair of the Classification & Rating Administration, will meet with indie filmmakers, producers and specialty arm execs to go over the alterations. (CARA is operated by the MPAA, which reps the major studios, and NATO.)

A year ago at Sundance, Kirby Dick made noise with his docu "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," which took direct aim at the Motion Picture Assn. of America's ratings system for being shrouded in secrecy and, hence, lacking accountability.

At the time, Glickman had already been meeting with and gathering input from various stakeholders in the ratings system -- including filmmakers, guilds, parents' groups and Washington lawmakers -- but Dick's film had an impact.

"The documentary made it clear that we probably haven't done as much as we can to explain how it all works," Glickman told Daily Variety, adding that the voluntary ratings system--devised and implemented by Jack Valenti, his predecessor -- is a "gem," even if it needs some polishing.

To that end, the public soon will have access to information previously unavailable. That includes:


For the first time, CARA will post the ratings rules on the MPAA Web site, describing the standards for each rating. The ratings and appeal processes also will be described in detail, along with a link to paperwork needed to submit a film for a rating.

Most members of the ratings board will remain anonymous, although CARA will describe the demographic make-up of the board, which is composed of parents. The names of the three senior raters have always been public; now, they will be posted online.
In terms of rule revisions, the planned changes include:


A filmmaker who appeals a rating can reference similar scenes in other movies, although the appeals board still will focus heavily on context.

CARA will formalize its rule that a member of the ratings board doesn't stay on the board after his or her children are grown.

CARA also will formalize its educational training system for raters.

When the CARA rules are implemented later this year, the MPAA and NATO will designate additional members to the appeals board who don't come from the MPAA or NATO fold. (Indie filmmakers might be one possibility.)

NATO and MPAA will occasionally be able to designate additional observers from different backgrounds to the appeals board.
Glickman, Graves and NATO prexy John Fithian said CARA also will increase its efforts to educate parents, including circulating a poster and video that will advertise a new Red Carpet Ratings Service, a weekly email alert that gives the parents the ratings for new releases.

In terms of the new explanation stating that a particular picture might not be appropriate for younger children, MPAA and NATO often receive numerous complaints from parent orgs about adults who take younger kids to movies with a hard R-rating.

The new explanation is designed to give parents, as well as theater staff, additional info. Anyone under 17 would still be allowed into any R-rated movie if they were accompanied by an adult.

"We are the frontline when it comes to enforcing the ratings system," Fithian said.

CARA hasn't come up with the precise language for the admonishment, which would be included in the rating definition.

After Sundance, Glickman, Graves and Fithian will hold a series of roundtables with a number of other interested groups to talk about the changes and what they mean for the ratings system, culminating with a briefing at ShoWest, when theater owners will be briefed by Fithian.

The ratings system can't ever be completely defined, since there will always be a subjective factor to decisions made by the ratings board, but Graves believes the changes will help make the process less opaque.

Here's another article from the AP on the changes:

Changes planned to film-ratings system By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer

PARK CITY, Utah - Hollywood's movie-ratings system, which critics call a secretive process that leaves filmmakers in the dark, will implement changes to make it more open and understandable to parents and filmmakers, its overseers said.

Dan Glickman, who heads the Motion Picture Association of America that manages the ratings system, plans to meet with filmmakers Monday at the Sundance Film Festival to discuss the plans.

The most substantive change for directors would be in the appeals process, allowing filmmakers to cite similar objectionable scenes in past movies when trying to overturn what they think is an overly harsh rating that restricts the ages of movie-goers.

The ratings system and its appeals process were harshly criticized in director Kirby Dick's documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," which premiered at Sundance last year.

Dick's film said the ratings system was stacked in favor of big studios represented by the MPAA and against independent filmmakers such as those who attend Sundance. His documentary also accused movie raters of conducting an anonymous process in which filmmakers and the public do not know who rates the movies or what standards are used to judge the films.

Arriving in Utah on Saturday, Glickman said the changes to the system were not prompted by Dick's documentary. Glickman said the revisions had been in the works since 2004, when he took over the MPAA from Jack Valenti, who founded the ratings-system in the late 1960s.

"The system works very well. What's clear to us is we need to do a better job of explaining the system, of making sure people know it's transparent, it's not secret, it's open and it's accessible," Glickman said.

At Monday's meeting at Sundance, Glickman will be accompanied by Joan Graves, who heads the MPAA's Classification and Ratings Administration that uses panels of raters to decide if movies should get an NC-17, R, PG-13, PG or G rating.

Among other changes the MPAA plans:

• Posting the names of its three senior raters on the association's Web site. Other raters will remain anonymous, but details on their background, families and where they come from will be posted online.

• Enforcing a policy to ensure that raters have school-age children, which the association's overseers said was important so raters could give parents proper perspective on what might be inappropriate for kids.

• Putting information online about the association's standards for rating movies, along with forms and instructions to filmmakers for submitting movies for rating.

• Providing clearer definitions of movie ratings and sterner warnings to parents about films that might contain material inappropriate for younger children.

Dick said he was glad the association now would allow filmmakers to cite similar scenes from other films in the appeals process, but that other changes were cosmetic and would have little or no effect on making the ratings system more open.

"I don't think this is a decent first step," said Dick, whose "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" comes out on DVD on Tuesday. "A decent first step would be to create transparency around the whole system. Make known the names of all the raters and the people on the appeals board. They say the ratings system is for the public. Well, if it's for the public, the names should be public."

Glickman said he expects the changes to be implemented by March, when he and officials of the National Association of Theatre Owners hold an annual meeting with cinema operators at the ShoWest convention in Las Vegas.

The ratings system will remain under review, particularly as digital technology changes how consumers view movies, Glickman said. As they have for the past four decades, changes will be implemented as needed, he said.

"Like the U.S. Constitution — and I'm not saying we're the U.S. Constitution, of course — the basic framework, the basic document has lasted for over 200 years. It's been changed periodically but the fundamentals have remained," Glickman said. "I personally see no need for what I call revolutionary change."

MPAA wants NC-17 back
Glickman urges indies to embrace rating
Source: Variety

PARK CITY, Utah -- MPAA chairman-CEO Dan Glickman met with indie filmmakers and studio specialty execs Monday at Sundance, declaring he wants the movie biz to embrace the NC-17 rating and thereby provide a place for edgier fare.

He also delivered a gift during the closed-door sesh: The Classification & Ratings Administration has appointed a liaison to help filmmakers with questions about the ratings process.

Indie filmmakers have long felt frustrated by the ratings process, which has been shrouded in mystery. Glickman is trying to relieve some of that angst, saying the credibility of the ratings system is vital to the entire movie biz.

The morning meeting in Park City at the Lodges at Deer Valley officially kicked off Glickman's campaign to make the ratings system more transparent and user-friendly (Daily Variety, Jan. 17).

Ratings had already come up at Sundance, even before Glickman's roundtable with the indie community.

On Sunday, the Weinstein Co. and Lionsgate pacted to pick up "Teeth," a dark comedy about a girl who has teeth in her vagina. Harvey Weinstein said he doesn't want to cut the movie to ensure an R rating. Lionsgate can release an unrated movie since it's not a member studio of the MPAA.

Accompanying Glickman to Park City was Joan Graves, chair of the Classification & Ratings Administration. The National Assn. of Theater Owners (which administers the ratings board with the MPAA) also is a partner in the campaign.

In Park City, some attending the roundtable offered the idea of taking the stigma out of the NC-17 rating, which itself was created to take the stigma out of the X rating. But the NC-17 rating never caught on.

Studio marketing departments quickly encountered trouble when trying to place media buys, since various outlets think an NC-17 film is the same as an X-rated film. Also, exhibs have been reluctant to devote screens to NC-17 films.

Briefing reporters after the session, Glickman and Graves said they readily agreed something must be done.

"We are going to talk about this with the Directors Guild of America and NATO," Glickman said. "It's one of our ratings, and I'd like to see it used more."

Graves said parents are particularly concerned about the new generation of horror pics playing on the bigscreen, such as the "Saw" and "Hostel" franchises.

Glickman stressed the rating system itself is not being changed. The reforms being made are designed to make the process more public.

In the coming weeks, Glickman, Graves and NATO prexy John Fithian will meet with various stakeholders in the ratings process to talk about the proposed changes and to get input about other possible reforms.

For the first time, CARA plans to post the ratings rules, which describe the ratings and appeals process, and the standards for each.

In another first, CARA will allow a filmmaker to reference a scene from another movie during the appeals process, although the board still will put heavy emphasis on context.

There also will be a new ratings descriptor saying certain R-rated movies aren't appropriate for younger children.

Fithian will brief theater owners on these and other changes at ShoWest in March

The question is: where did the MPAA get this new openness from?

I remember years ago Roger Ebert was on a crusade to convice everyone that the film studios were dominated by the idea that a movie could only become a hit if children were allowed to also go see it. I remember his assumption seemed correct. R rated movies were being released, but they were never topping the box office. Any film that was a targeted money maker (like an action film) was doing all it could to acquire a PG-13 rating. That meant drowning the movies in innuendos and big explosions without grotesque killing. The only exceptions were movies of a certain credibility, like a Die Hard entry.

Now I notice that it is almost normal to see an R rated film make a lot of money. There seem to be bigger budgeted projects that are getting rated R with an easy acceptance. Good. It may make for riskier films to get widely released. I live in the outskirts of the country and a few years ago my only salvation was that I had a university nearby so my piece of shit film theater would get films like The Dreamers and other good stuff. Then they were bought out by a franchise and I've had to put up with seeing shit ever since. Since I'll be living in the sticks for a little while longer I'm hoping the effect of this trickles down to me. And please, sooner rather than later.

MPAA tries to remove NC-17 stigma
Glickman takes a hard look at ratings
Source: Variety

In the past three months, MPAA chairman-CEO Dan Glickman has been working to fine-tune the movie-ratings system. But this week at ShoWest, he will face his biggest hurdle yet: trying to make NC-17 respectable.

The awkwardly named rating, which originated in 1990, has become synonymous with tainted goods. Distributors and exhibitors blame each other for the fact that the category is virtually nonexistent for Hollywood product.

Parents have been pressuring Glickman and his cohorts at the Motion Picture Assn. of America, along with National Assn. of Theater Owners John Fithian, to find a solution to the dilemma. Naysayers claim that the R rating is too broad, encompassing everything from a few swear words or brief flashes of nudity to repeated scenes of stomach-churning mutilation and disembowelments.

The biggest complaint is that, with parental permission, children and teens are allowed to see R's, and parents think the definition of R is too wide-ranging to guide them.

The goal is to find a category for some films that are now informally called "hard R's" -- i.e., content so graphic that no one under the age of 17 should be allowed to see it at all in theaters. The new generation of horror pics, namely, the "Saw" and "Hostel" franchises, are pushing the limits of the "hard R" category.

While most sides agree that there is a need for a change, the big debate is whether to create a category or to revive -- and make respectable -- a rating that's been around since Universal's 1990 "Henry & June." Because of the realities of the marketplace, one idea that has been floated is to create a disclaimer for R-rated pics, saying it isn't appropriate for children, period. And there's been talk in the past of creating a rating between PG-13 and R.

Glickman, along with Fithian and Classification & Ratings Administration topper Joan Graves, will raise the subject of NC-17 when briefing exhibs at ShoWest this week on overall changes being proposed to the ratings system that are designed to make the system more transparent.

Also, the trio are expected to talk about somehow incorporating smoking into the ratings sytem. Watchdog groups have long complained that movies romanticize smoking.

When Jack Valenti debuted the ratings system in 1968, there was an X category, but it eventually became hijacked by the porn business.

Before porn took over, the X category yielded several Hollywood hits, including United Artists' 1969 best pic winner, "Midnight Cowboy."

But the major studios have released only 19 films rated NC-17. The highest grossing was MGM's 1995 "Showgirls," which took in $20 million at the domestic box office after costing well over $40 million.

As one studio exec puts it, "There really needs to be a good, commercial movie that can break through the tide. The problem is, most of the NC-17 films have been niche or arthouse. It's unclear whether the problem is the rating or the movie."

Glickman, Fithian and Graves face a tough task in trying to persuade a skittish film business to embrace NC-17. If hard R horror pics were rated NC-17, they would lose a large chunk of the teen audience.

"The ship has sailed on this one," says one top studio exec.

Studios say some exhibitors won't book NC-17 films, and some daily newspapers refuse to carry ads for such pics. (An unrated film, in contrast, is considered on a case-by-case basis.)

Exhibs deny a policy against NC-17, pointing to a NATO survey in which a majority of exhibs said they would give screen space to such a film, depending on the pic, of course.

Blockbuster, too, refuses to carry DVDs rated NC-17.

Studio execs doubt exhibs would really book NC-17 films, despite what they said in the NATO survey, and they aren't exactly rushing to test the waters. Studios consider the R rating restrictive enough, with its marketing limitations (e.g., no TV ads before 9 p.m.) and a proviso that kids aren't allowed in without an adult.

The studios' bread and butter comes from films rated PG-13, which in 2006 accounted for roughly 50% of box office receipts.

The ShoWest talks are a continuation of discussions that began in January. At Sundance, Glickman and Graves told independent filmmakers that directors would have more freedom to pursue edgier arthouse fare if the system were more viable.

Case in point: Buyers at Sundance were intrigued by "Teeth," about a girl with a toothy vagina, but steered clear because of the ratings implications. Harvey Weinstein partnered with Lionsgate in buying distrib rights, since Lionsgate isn't a member of the MPAA and can release unrated pics.

Indies have long claimed the MPAA has double standards, allowing major studios to get away with stuff an indie cannot. (Their other complaint is that the MPAA is tougher on sex than on violence.) But indies have one advantage over filmmakers at the majors: If a film gets an NC-17 rating, an indie (as a non-signatory to the MPAA) has the option of releasing the pic unrated.

"Many movies have tried to reinstate a level of validity to the NC-17 rating, but it's complicated," says one specialty distribution executive. "The rating does have a chilling effect on the marketplace."

The ultimate fear is that watchdog groups and Washington lawmakers could try to exert political pressure on the industry -- precisely the reason Valenti started the system in the 1960s.

And, of course, there is always the worry that the ratings system will somehow make its way into the 2008 election campaigns.

"It's better to self-regulate ourselves than for the government to do it for us," says another studio exec. "God knows, that would be worse. It is very important to have standards. It protects the system. It's good that Dan (Glickman) is trying to open a dialogue."

ShoWest dispatch: More on ratings reform
Source: BoxOffice.com

A hot-button issue for the industry over the past year or so has been motion picture ratings. On the heels of the release of This Film Is Not Yet Rated, but actually in the works before the documentary saw the light of a projector, the Classification and Ratings Administration (CARA) has overhauled the system. John Fithian, president and CEO of the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), used the occasion of his industry address at ShoWest 2007 to call out the studios on various issues related to the issue.

First, he said, "we ask that all movies be rated." Expressing gratitude to Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) members who are committed to releasing only rated movies in theaters, Fithian called on non-members to also use the system. "No real benefit can be gained by releasing unrated pictures," he said, "as theater operators generally treat unrated pictures as they would movies rated NC-17, by not allowing anyone under 18 to view those pictures."

Fithian also called for the revitalization of NC-17. Countering the myths that exhibitors won't play movies with the adult rating or that newspapers won't run ads for them, he pointed out that NC-17 movies make an average of $3.9 million at the box office, while unrated films make less than half that. NC-17 should not be treated as a negative judgment of a film but rather "an integral part of the rating system that contemplates entertainment for both children and adults," he said. "Serious filmmakers need to take NC-17 seriously."

Finally, the NATO topper called on the studios to abandon the release of unrated DVDs, or at least the marketing campaigns that promote "unrated and uncensored" content. "That cheap shot at the rating system undermines everything we strive to accomplish in partnership with America's parents," he said.

At a press conference following his address, Fithian likened such promotional tactics to saying, "Kids, don't go see the rated movie in cinemas. You'll get the real stuff here." "It's bad for the rating system, and it's bad for the cinema business," he said.

"I hope that there is an understanding of the importance of supporting the integrity of the rating system," Fithian added. "Because if we lose the integrity of the rating system and the government steps in, we have got much bigger problems."

"We are working to keep the government censors at bay," echoed Dan Glickman, chairman and CEO of the MPAA, in his convention address. "Whether the threat comes from Congress, the states, religious or other organizations, the specter of censorship always lurks at the fringes of the movie drapes."

Later in the week at a panel discussion on the topic, Mary Ann Anderson, VP and executive director of NATO (and co-ShoWester of the Year) reviewed the history of the rating system, and Joan Graves, senior VP and chairman of CARA, provided an overview on how the system works. Explaining the new changes were Kendrick Macdowell, VP, general counsel and director of government affairs for NATO, and Greg Goeckner, executive VP and general counsel for the MPAA.

The changes, Macdowell assured, "are not anything that is going to require you as exhibitors to change what you're doing." However, enhancements such as the communication of information to parents could provide exhibitors additional tools to enforce the system.

"Sometimes it gets a little odd that things are not common sense," Macdowell said. "You wouldn't think of bringing your three-year-old to Saw III.... [But] the current system doesn't have a way to tell parents you absolutely cannot do that."

Some exhibitors are already experimenting with policies that keep young children out of adult movies, and now added to the description of the R rating is the suggestion, "Generally, it is not appropriate for parents to bring their young children in to R-rated motion pictures."

MPAA Adds Smoking As Film-Rating Factor
By DAVID GERMAIN
AP Movie Writer

May 10, 2007, 9:56 PM EDT

LOS ANGELES -- Smoking will be a bigger factor in determining film ratings, the Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday, but critics said the move does not go far enough to discourage teens from taking up the habit.

MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman said his group's ratings board, which previously had considered underage smoking in assigning film ratings, now will take into account smoking by adults, as well.

That adds smoking to a list of such factors as sex, violence and language in determining the MPAA's G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 ratings.

Film raters will consider the pervasiveness of tobacco use, whether it glamorizes smoking and the context in which smoking appears, as in movies set in the past when smoking was more common.

Some critics of Hollywood's depictions of tobacco in films have urged that movies that show smoking be assigned an R rating, which would restrict those younger than 17 from seeing them.

"I'm glad it's finally an issue they're taking up, but what they're proposing does not go far enough and is not going to make a difference," said Kori Titus, spokeswoman for Breathe California, which opposes film images of tobacco use that might encourage young people to start smoking.

Glickman said a mandatory R rating for smoking would not "further the specific goal of providing information to parents on this issue."

Smoking in movies with a G, PG or PG-13 rating has been on the decline, and the "percentage of films that included even a fleeting glimpse of smoking" declined from 60 percent to 52 percent between July 2004 and July 2006," Glickman said.

Of those films, three-fourths received an R rating for other reasons, he said.

"That means there's not a great amount of films in the unrestricted category as it stands," said Joan Graves, who heads the ratings board. "We're not saying we're ignoring the issue. We're trying the best way possible according to what we've learned from parents to give them information about what's in a film."

Titus said smoking in films had declined in recent years but remains more prevalent than MPAA figures indicate.

Descriptions on sex, violence and language that accompany movie ratings now will include such phrases as "glamorized smoking" or "pervasive smoking," Glickman said.

If rated today, a film such as 2005's "Good Night, and Good Luck," about chain-smoking newsman Edward R. Murrow, would have carried a "pervasive smoking" tag but probably would have retained its PG rating because of its historical context in the 1950s, Graves said.

Titus said film raters should be as tough on smoking as they are on bad language to minimize the effects of on-screen smoking on children, including her own 5-year-old daughter.

"I don't want her using that language, but last time I checked, she's probably not going to die from that," Titus said. "If she starts smoking from these images she sees in movies, chances are she's probably going to die early from that."

While Titus' group wants tougher ratings restrictions, the MPAA released statements of support for its plan from John Seffrin, chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society, U.S. Sen. Joe Biden and filmmaker Rob Reiner, among others.

"By placing smoking on a par with considerations of violence and sex, the rating board has acknowledged the public-health dangers to children associated with glamorized images of a toxic and lethal addiction to tobacco," Barry Bloom, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, said in a statement.

Quote from: sparrowhoff on May 11, 2007, 06:33:21 AM
MPAA Adds Smoking As Film-Rating Factor

related thread: Coolest cigarette smoking in a movie (http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=3060.0), with Pedro the Alpaca providing proof why the rating may be necessary.. if useless.

Rated R for strong sexuality, language, brutal violence and graphic smoking.


That doesn't seem right.

it's pervasive and/or glamorized.

and it's all your fault. you and fergie.

It's smokealicious.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fgraphics8.nytimes.com%2Fimages%2F2007%2F06%2F13%2Farts%2F13yell600a.jpg&hash=1099c705d24730403330925fb4b84f1c35215e38)

Attention, Web Surfers: The Following Film Trailer May Be Racy or Graphic
Source: New York Times
 
LOS ANGELES, June 12 — Hollywood has been circulating movie trailers on the Web for years, but only now is the film industry retrofitting its rating system to give the studios a chance to showcase their racier material online.

No matter what the rating of the film, nearly all the trailers shown in theaters — and on the Web — have come with a so-called green band, or tag, saying they are approved for all audiences by the Motion Picture Association of America. For movies rated PG-13 or stronger, that often meant watering down the violence, sex, language and overall intensity of a trailer.

But in April a teaser trailer for Rob Zombie's "Halloween" remake, set for release on Aug. 31, became the first to display a new yellow tag signaling that it was "approved only for age-appropriate Internet users" — defined by the Motion Picture Association as visitors to sites either frequented mainly by grown-ups or accessible only between 9 p.m. and 4 a.m.

And two raunchy comedies — "Knocked Up" and this August's "Superbad" — are among a spate of recent films with R-rated, "red-tag" Internet trailers, which require viewers to pass an age-verification test, in which viewers 17 and older have to match their names, birthdays and ZIP codes against public records on file.

Together the yellow (for films rated PG-13 and above) and red (R or NC-17) tags amount to a colorful, albeit easily circumvented, attempt to adjust to a fast-changing advertising landscape where Internet audiences can do as much to build or hurt word of mouth as those watching the coming attractions with popcorn in hand.

"We want to protect children," said Marilyn Gordon, head of the association's advertising administration. "That is our job. We also want to be able to allow our distributors more flexibility in their marketing materials."

The spike in red-tag trailers on the Web is a function of the surge in R-rated sex romps following the success of "Wedding Crashers" two summers ago, and the blessing the association gave in March to two companies offering age-verification services, which tap into public-records databases.

R-rated trailers have been permitted for decades, of course, but they all but disappeared from theaters in 2000, when the Federal Trade Commission blasted Hollywood for aiming violent and risqué content at children.

Many theater chains still refuse to run them, lest mistakes in the projection booth offend moviegoers. As a result, major studios like Warner Brothers won't even make red-tag trailers. Universal Pictures, for one, last ran an R-rated trailer in cinemas in 1999 for "American Pie."

Still, studio marketing executives acknowledge that they have been pushing the envelope on theatrical trailers — slipping stronger material into previews given green tags — for quite some time, and with the association's help. They say the association has routinely worked to ensure that such trailers only run ahead of features with appropriately matched content.

A case of that envelope-pushing came in early April, when the Dimension label of the Weinstein Company worked out a deal to advertise "Halloween" as a green-tag teaser trailer ahead of "Grindhouse," the retro exploitation thriller.

But when that trailer wound up on Yahoo, the film industry association insisted it be pulled. The "Halloween" trailer includes plenty of bare skin, slashing blades and women in peril — hardly worthy of a green tag in the context of a Web portal open to young children. Three days later the same trailer was back on the Web, though not on Yahoo and this time with a yellow tag.

Adam Fogelson, president of marketing at Universal, who pressed the association to adopt the new yellow tag, said he hoped it would be extended to theaters eventually. "There's got to be something, if we're being intellectually honest, between a trailer that's appropriate for 'Bambi' and a trailer that would be appropriate to go up with 'Hostel II,' " he said.

At Sony, Dwight Caines, an executive vice president for digital marketing, said yellow tags at least provided a way to show "some of the edgier PG-13 content we could never show before."

A draft of the association's guidelines reveals the middle ground it has staked out for yellow tags. Permitted, to name a few, are "some scenes of gunfire"; "some sexuality, some nudity, some less graphic sexual slang"; "some blood, wounds"; and "some limited depictions of minors using illegal drugs."

Strictly off limits are "excessive scenes of violence or guns/weapons involving minors"; "graphic sexual scenes, including depictions of rape"; "stronger profanity"; and "excessive blood."

That gunfire, slang and blood come at a price. For the studios' movie sites, association guidelines limit access to yellow-tag trailers to the hours of 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. For third-party sites, the threshold is that at least 80 percent of users must be 18 and older, according to Nielsen's Web demographic reports.

Not everyone is thrilled with the tweaks so far. Sanjeev Lamba, executive vice president of marketing at Dimension Films, praised the association for "stepping in to regulate the Internet," but said the yellow tag for "Halloween" was doing little but "restricting my ability to reach an audience."

"I can't get it out in the major portals, and that's where the major traffic is," he said.

James Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, which reviews entertainment products for parents, said the yellow-tag Web trailers represented a significant step, for the movie studios and for families. "Trailers have a huge impact," he said. "The crux of it will be, how good are the safeguards?"

The association says it has asked software companies to improve the restrictions, but so far they are hardly foolproof. Beating the time-of-day limits requires adjusting a computer's internal clock and time zone. The Nielsen ratings still won't keep a youngster from Googling his or her way to a trailer on a site mainly frequented by grown-ups.

Even the R-rated, red-tag trailer for "Superbad" doesn't pose much of a challenge, given that it requires users only to type in an adult's name, zip code and birthdate to gain access. "It's really an honor system today," Mr. Caines of Sony said. Just as under-age moviegoers are expected not to switch auditoriums to R-rated films, he said, "the consumer's agreeing that they're being truthful in the process."

That said, it took only a quick Web search to gain unfettered access to the R-rated "Superbad" and "Knocked Up" trailers at slashfilm.com, owned by Peter Sciretta of San Francisco, who said he was often sent studio-quality copies of trailers from people using Gmail accounts.

Twenty minutes later Mr. Sciretta called back. Sony, alerted by the association, had just asked him to remove the R-rated "Superbad" trailer. "We've been the top result on Google for months," he said, "till the moment that you asked them about it."

High hopes, low notes for film world's NC-17 rating
The designation had a promising start as a way to distinguish adult-only content, but 22 years later confusion reigns over rules and few have embraced it.
By Steven Zeitchik, Los Angeles Times

In the late '80s a thunderbolt of inspiration struck Jack Valenti, longtime chief of the Motion Picture Assn. of America: What if his organization got rid of the X rating, besmirched by years of misappropriation by hard-core exploitation films, and replaced it with a new marker that was both trademarked and respectable?

Thus was born the NC-17. Formally instituted in 1990, the restrictive rating aimed to signal moviegoers that a film included adult-oriented — but not necessarily pornographic — content and made those movies off-limits to anyone under 18.

Valenti had high hopes that the NC-17 — he called it "unstigmatized" — would usher in an era of mainstream acceptance for films with serious adult themes. But after some initial acceptance by directors, distributors, exhibitors and audiences, the rating fell deeply out of favor with filmmakers and moviegoers alike.

Now, even as basic cable is constantly pushing into ever-more steamy and violent territory and a wide variety of pornography is easily available on the Web, movie theaters are practically devoid of formally adults-only films. The number of movies released with the NC-17 rating has plummeted; those that do go out with that stamp do little business at the box office.

The reasons are clear: Some theater chains, including Cinemark, the nation's third-largest circuit, won't play them. A number of media outlets, particularly newspapers and television stations in more conservative states, won't accept advertising for them. Wal-Mart and other retailers won't sell copies on DVD.

Now at 22 years old — the same age as the X was when it was retired — the NC-17 is seen inside Hollywood and beyond as ineffective and broken. But no one can agree on how to fix it.

"There's no question there's a stigma," said Joan Graves, the head of the MPAA's ratings board. "If you have any ideas on how to break it, I'd love to hear them," she said, giving a small, not-entirely-happy laugh.

At issue is more than just what grade an industry trade group should assign to a particular movie, and more than questions of revenue and profit. At its core, the debate over NC-17 is a matter of what material society considers mainstream, who gets to make those determinations and what standards they use in doing so.

Out of favor

The NC-17's fall has been dramatic. Last year, just three such films arrived in theaters, and the highest-grossing, Fox Searchlight's sex-addiction drama "Shame," didn't even sell $4 million worth of tickets.

That's a far cry from the NC-17's promising beginnings in 1990, when more than a dozen films were released with the rating. Two of the first were serious art films: "Henry and June," about the romance between Henry Miller and Anais Nin, and "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover." They grossed $21 million and $14 million, respectively, in today's dollars.

The advent of the NC-17 coincided with an ambitious moment in American cinema — young auteurs such as Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee were coming into their own, making movies that were adult in theme but artistic in style. It was possible to imagine these directors making films for adult audiences that would solidify the NC-17 as a rating just as acceptable as an R.

(After all, in its early days, the X generated some sizable hits — 1969's "Midnight Cowboy," which won best picture, took in $45 million, or $281 million in today's dollars; 1973's "Last Tango in Paris" made $36 million, or $225 million today).

But the NC-17 soon faltered. As signatories to the MPAA, the six major studios must release their films with ratings, and they began to get nervous about the commercial limitations of the NC-17. Potential mainstream NC-17 releases such as Paramount's Sharon Stone thriller "Sliver" (1993) were edited to land an R rating (which means children under 17 can be admitted, if accompanied by a parent or guardian).

A year later, Oliver Stone was given an NC-17 for "Natural Born Killers," as was Quentin Tarantino for "Pulp Fiction." Both re-cut their films so that they would end up with an R. (Both cinema history and the history of the NC-17 may well have unfolded very differently had "Pulp Fiction" gone out with an NC-17.)

The movies that did come out with an NC-17 — most notably Paul Verhoeven's über-campfest "Showgirls" (1995) — were so sufficiently silly and skin-filled that they only confirmed the perception that it was not a rating to be taken seriously.

Around 2004, there was a brief renaissance of NC-17 films. Lionsgate chose to release a French horror film called "High Tension" as NC-17 instead of unrated and Fox Searchlight took out Bernardo Bertolucci's art house drama "The Dreamers" as NC-17.

But that proved short-lived. Tom Bernard, the Sony Pictures Classics executive who was in charge of releasing Pedro Almodovar's "Bad Education" that year, said he was surprised by the opposition from media outlets and theater owners when he sought to bring out the movie as an NC-17. "The rating certainly hurt the box office," he said.

Smaller distributors who are not MPAA members have the option of releasing films given NC-17 ratings without any rating at all. (Among such films to have gone that route are Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream," Todd Solondz's "Happiness" and the Martin Lawrence concert film "You So Crazy." In 1995, Disney-owned Miramax set up an independent releasing entity for Larry Clark's "Kids" after it received an NC-17.) Increasingly, many filmmakers are choosing this course or are cutting their films to receive an R.

One recent film that stuck by its NC-17 was "Killer Joe," a revenge drama starring Matthew McConaughey and Emile Hirsch. The movie, directed by "The Exorcist" helmer William Friedkin, received the NC-17 primarily because of one graphic scene of violence tinged with an unconventional sexual act. Although McConaughey told The Times that he thought the film should wear the rating as a "badge of honor," the movie has had minimal commercial traction.

Director Jennifer Lynch, whose upcoming action thriller "Chained" was handed an NC-17 this year, grudgingly decided to cut her film so she could get an R. "I think it's clear by now that the NC-17 is not accomplishing what the MPAA hoped it would when they moved away from the X," she said. "If you know blue as blue, you'll always know it that way, whether you call it orange or any other color."

Confusion reigns

If theater chains and audiences have failed to embrace NC-17 films, it may be in part because there's no clear, specific set of rules about what type of violence, sex or language prompts the MPAA to award the rating. Though many moviegoers know, for instance, that multiple uses of the F-word can turn an otherwise PG-13 movie into an R film, the boundary between R and NC-17 is much less distinct.

The MPAA says NC-17 ratings can be based on "violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse or any other element that most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children." The group says an NC-17 "does not mean 'obscene' or 'pornographic' in the common or legal meaning of those words, and should not be construed as a negative judgment in any sense. The rating simply signals that the content is appropriate only for an adult audience."

But many adults won't go to an NC-17 movie, convinced that they're going to watch smut.

Neither the public nor filmmakers are privy to how MPAA raters arrive at their decisions, and when a film is given an NC-17, the MPAA provides only a limited description.

In 2011, for instance, "Shame" got the marker for "some explicit sexual content" while another movie, "A Serbian Film," was given the rating for "extreme aberrant and sexual content including explicit dialogue." But descriptions of R-rated films can sound similar: A movie called "Arena," for instance, was described as having "strong brutal and bloody violence throughout, graphic nudity and language."

In 2001, the MPAA gave Solondz's "Storytelling" an NC-17 for a graphic sex scene. As it turned out, Solondz had a clause in his contract that allowed him to release the movie with the scene intact, providing a large red box was placed over the anatomy to allow the revised film to receive an R. Moviegoers were then given an unusual object lesson in the content that can prompt raters to jump a movie from an R to an NC-17.

In 2010, more confusion came when the Weinstein Co. and director Derek Cianfrance found themselves facing an NC-17 with their romantic drama "Blue Valentine," for an oral sex scene that featured no nudity.

They were eventually able to persuade an appeals board that the movie should be rated R. But the incident prompted head-scratching, particularly since an oral sex scene of about equal duration in that year's "Black Swan" received an R. Cianfrance called the NC-17 "a form of censorship" and said he was "confused and baffled" by what he saw as a double standard.

Debating a fix

Even some critics of the NC-17 acknowledge that the ratings group has been at the mercy of changes outside its control, such as cautious theater owners and media outlets.

"I don't think it's the MPAA's fault that the NC-17 has become what it is," said Ethan Noble, a consultant who aids filmmakers and distributors in their dealings with the MPAA. "But it is its responsibility that this is continuing. The MPAA needs to find another path."

Bernard of Sony Pictures Classics and others have suggested a new adult rating that specifically excludes exploitative pornographic content. Asked about this possibility, Graves replied with a familiar MPAA refrain: The group does not want to get into the business of adjudicating art. To split an NC-17 rating into a more serious rating versus a pornographic one, she said, is to wander into the choppy waters of aesthetic judgment.

(Graves said there has been no serious consideration of splitting the NC-17, though there has been discussion about dividing the territory now encompassed by the R rating — that is, creating two ratings that distinguish between "harder" and "softer" versions of the R. The R rating, after all, has become a catch-all, encompassing movies as wildly diverse as the über-violent "Saw," the racy comedies of Judd Apatow and the gentle drama of "The King's Speech.")

And then there's another, perhaps more fundamental question: whether any rating that bars filmgoers outright is a good idea. After all, the MPAA's own mantra is that it simply wants to guide parents, not legislate social policy.

"I suppose ratings will always be imperfect," Solondz said. "But when it comes to children, parents should be determining what's appropriate. I don't like the idea that if you're under 18 you're de facto not allowed to see a film."

The NC-17 seems to face a Catch-22: To produce more hits, the NC-17 needs to be on more movies. But few distributors want to release a movie with an NC-17 until there are established hits.

"Theoretically there's no reason the most restrictive rating should carry a scarlet letter," said John Fithian, president of the National Assn. of Theatre Owners. "But ... we have yet to have a big, serious commercial movie released as an NC-17."

Filmmakers and their advisers, however, say they'd be more willing to use it if they didn't feel theater owners had a resistance to playing it. "I've worked with hundreds of clients and have never counseled anyone to take an NC-17," Noble said. "It's simply not worth the risk."

Graves said that though she thinks the media is partly to blame — "Why do they always refer to it as 'slapping with an NC-17?'" she asked — she acknowledged that there were, at the least, failures of communication on the MPAA's part. "We need to be educational about it more than anything else," she said.

Others aren't convinced that would work. "We need a new system," Bernard said. "But I think it will be a long while before there's any will to do something about it."

I think the larger problem is the R rating. It's basically a soft NC-17, except that kids are allowed in (with an adult). So you're basically saying "this film has sex, violence and other bad stuff but your kids can watch it if you say it's okay." Most people probably see an R-rated film, and then assume there is a huge leap between what that portrays and what an NC-17 portrays. Why not just abolish the R-rating, and classify the films which would have previously been classified as that as NC-17 instead? It lessens the taboo factor of a film being classified NC-17, and it makes the theater-going experience a lot more pleasurable for adults who don't want to be sitting next to someone's kid while there's an orgy or something on screen.

In the UK (at least while I was growing up) the ratings were U, PG, 15, 18. If you weren't 15, you couldn't go into a film rated 15. If you weren't 18, you couldn't go into a film rated 18. Just simply the fucking ratings and make it clear cut what's what.

As for Cinemark not showing NC-17 films right now, I can get that to an extent. They're in business to make money, so if they know a film isn't going to bring in much money, that's fair enough. For stores like WalMart not to sell those movies on DVD is bullshit though - but is that even relevant anymore?

Very long article by Empire (http://www.empireonline.com/features/sex-and-censorship-bbfc):

Sex And Censorship: A Day In The Life Of The BBFC
The British Board Of Film Classification opens its doors to Empire

Empire is on the hunt for porn.  Sat in an office on the executive floor of the BBFC building, we scroll nonchalantly through a list of increasingly filthy titles in an effort to track down one in particular. Our smut-seeking sidekick in this endeavour is BBFC assistant director, David Austin, who with a sigh of exasperation picks up the phone to a colleague down the corridor. "Murray, I'm looking for a clip called It's Just Wrong. Any ideas?" As we try to stifle a bout of puerile sniggering in favour of professional detachment, Murray from down the corridor offers some helpful pointers. "Right, I can see Buttman Goes To Montreal...", Austin matter-of-facts into the handset. "No... wait, there it is." A mouse hovers over the S drive, there's a click and we find ourselves watching a porno with one of Britain's most senior film classifiers.

A less bashful Empire started our day as a fly on the British Board Of Film Classification's wall one floor down. The austere body's small band of examiners is located on the second floor of 3 Soho Square, scrutinising the newest blockbusters, discussing the issues of the moment and, when needs must, grimacing through Buttman's other global adventures. We've been afforded an access-all-areas tour of the building that's housed the British Board Of Film Classification since a Luftwaffe bomb rated its previous West End HQ 'U' for uninhabitable. Not only that, but we've had the chance to spend some time with the people responsible for deciding what we can and can't watch on a daily basis. In short, we're here to watch the watchers.

Our preconceptions of the BBFC's offices — that it will be a Brazil-meets-Hudsucker bureaucracy of paperwork, probably transported around the building via tubes — are subverted straight away. Sure, there are filing cupboards for viewed discs and the odd discreet pile of paperwork, but the first impression is of a workplace of professional film fans rather than the British film industry's gatekeeper. The walls are lined with posters for Roman Holiday, Amarcord and other classics. There are Game Of Thrones box sets and an Argo DVD waiting for some after-hours downtime, and at no point does a faceless apparatchik thrust a 27B/6 form in our face.

The examiner we're riding shotgun with Caroline (her name has been changed because collective anonymity is everything here) does at least have a spreadsheet open. Her office walls are decorated with posters for Chinatown and Breathless, and there's a telly and Blu-ray player facing her desk. She's typical of BBFC examiners in arriving here via another career: a past life in TV production and acquisition that offered the kind of life experience prized in these parts. Among her colleagues are former media lawyers, an ex-policeman, a video-game developer, even a part-time film director who "disappears occasionally" to work on his own projects. Austin, their boss, is a former diplomat who served in conflict resolution at the sharp end of the Balkans conflict. It's a job, you'd argue, that makes him perfectly suited to stand between, say, The Human Centipede and a furious Daily Mail.

After chatting about her favourite film, Vertigo, Caroline kicks off her day's viewing with a pre-release copy of arthouse drama Hors Satan. At first glance, it seems to be an existential French piece featuring a man, a woman and a beach. There's no immediate sign of Satan. The film was rated 15 in cinemas for "strong sex, language and a brief gory image", but as she explains, there's a chance that additional material would shunt it into a different bracket on DVD. If so, it'll be spotted and logged in a spreadsheet. We're guessing that a gore-splashed Beelzebub building a giant sandpenis would do the trick, but after 25 minutes of sandy wanderings we're disappointed to encounter nothing of the sort.

Once Satan has been Hors'ed, there's a Shallow Hal DVD menu to be scoured and a One Hour Photo 'making-of' to watch. An examiner's day typically kicks off at 9am and involves exactly 340 minutes of viewing, an oddly precise timeframe that allows for report writing and recommendations filing. While the BBFC isn't a profit-making body, costs have to be covered and distributors are charged according to the length of their film. Classifying a two-hour theatrical feature will cost you £1128, while a 180-minute opus will set you back £1632. If you've made the next Berlin Alexanderplatz, you might want to talk to your bank manager.

For that outlay, distributors can be sure their release will be seen in its intended format. In the basement there's a 30-seat 3D screening room for theatrical releases, where pairs of examiners sit under the watchful gaze of Alan, the BBFC's long-serving projectionist. An IMAX release means a lonely vigil at the South Bank or Science Museum — "It's creepy," shudders Caroline of the near-solitary 70mm experience — while DVD and Blu-ray releases are viewed at desks. Like most movie watchers, BBFCers are partial to a snack — or at least they were until someone took the vending machine away, possibly for health reasons. "Everyone puts on about a stone in their first year," laughs Caroline. Out of hours, there are occasional beers at The Nellie Dean around the corner and a Friday night social in the in-house cinema. Stoker and Hansel & Gretel both screened recently.

It's a serious and often solitary profession, though. The examiners' guiding principle is that every movie should be seen by the widest possible audience and the BBFC ethos is that 'Every film starts at U'. While A Serbian Film and company don't stay there for very long, 18 ratings are never dished out for the sake of it. The BBFC publishes a glossy pamphlet of guidelines — these, along with detailed case-studies, can also be found online — breaking down the differences between ratings. Filmmakers wanting a 12A/12s (12A is for theatrical releases, 12 for DVDs) rather than a 15 will find major pointers here. "Nudity is allowed," runs the 12A guideline, "but in a sexual context [it] must be brief and discreet". In a 15, by minor contrast, "nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but without strong detail". With so much overlap and room for nuance — exactly how blurry should a nipple be? — it's easy to see why the individual judgment of examiners becomes so important, albeit with guidelines to work to and senior examiners to oversee recommendations.

A big intangible, and one not easily legislated for in the guidelines, is the issue of how a film makes its audience "feel". You may not see John Harrison crushing craniums with his bare hands in Star Trek Into Darkness, but you sure as heck feel it. By that token, the film that attracted the widest ire in recent years was The Dark Knight in 2008. The BBFC's widest-possible-audience edict guided it to a 12A rating, much to the chagrin of the 264 people whose angry missives barged through the Soho Square letterbox. Newspapers at the time were full of outraged op-eds and letters. One letter published had a 43 year-old complaining that when he'd taken his nine year-old son to see it, he'd "had his hands over his face a lot of the time because he was scared".

The BBFC would point out the 'A' part in '12A' leaves responsibility with the parent, although The Dark Knight, pencil scene and all, was contentious enough to prompt a public consultation. Only 69 per cent of people polled felt it received the right rating; a figure well below the normal 90 per cent mark. Still, despite that vanishing HB, Christopher Nolan's blockbuster adhered to all the criteria for a 12A, so if there is a problem, maybe it's with the guidelines. Maybe a lack of 'injury detail' and canny editing aren't enough to protect young minds? Last year, the 12A-rated Woman In Black drew more than 100 complaints, even after the BBFC insisted that certain shots be darkened, a rotting face and a hanging removed from the final cut and audio cues toned down.

These are the kind of subjects that get chewed over every Wednesday morning at the weekly examiners meeting. Over coffee, opinions are exchanged and issues tackled to ensure a unified approach, preferably without spoiling the movies in question for the people who haven't seen them.

Leaving Caroline to Robin Williams  and that One Hour Photo extra, Empire heads upstairs to discuss these issues with David Austin. He's the man responsible for overseeing the BBFC's day-to-day decision-making, and the best person to tackle recent BBFC controversies. The organisation rated 850 movies last year, including Ken Loach's The Angels' Share, a C-bomb-dropping, comedy/drama set in Scotland that caused a major rift between filmmakers and classifiers. "We were allowed seven 'cunts' but only two of them could be aggressive 'cunts'," Loach grumbled at Cannes last year. "Yes, we were criticised by Ken Loach," recalls Austin with some understatement ("tortured, middle-class and obsessed with language" is how the director summed it up), "and he eventually cut out uses of the word to get a 15".

So if seven C-words are acceptable, why not ten? Why any? "Our guidelines are always based on what the public tells us," explains Austin, "and in our last research the public told us that frequency [of swearing] was important to them. Many people really hate that word but the general attitude is that they know it exists, they know their kids hear it, and while they don't like it, there may be circumstances when it's OK at 15." If the C-bomb controversy gives the BBFC a chance to explain its remit, Austin bridles slightly at Loach's inference. "We're not just reflecting southern, middle-class, white attitudes", he explains. "We do this research all over the UK and we can see the differences."

The BBFC conducts regularly surveys to keep in tune with public sensibilities, and as attitudes shift, it tries to shift with them. "There's less concern with consensual sex between adults than 20 years ago", explains Austin, "but more with depictions of self-harm, suicide, racism and other discrimination". Regular liaison with The Samaritans and Self Harm UK, among other charities, also helps formulate guidelines in areas like copycat behaviour. Recently, an episode of House Of Cards, in which Kevin Spacey's character explicitly details a suicide technique, scored an 18 rating in line with concerns from The Samaritans. Gathering dust on the shelf behind Austin's desk is a row of unrated DVDs that includes a 'fitness' film demonstrating the best techniques for knifing someone, and a rip-off Pussycat Dolls exercise video that features a whole lot more bumping and grinding than is really acceptable for a tween audience. Currently exempt from classification, these are legally supplied to children, although government scrutiny could soon see them fall under the BBFC's keen eye.

Austin, like most here, is a self-professed film geek. Even a decade of Adam Sandler movies and low-budget porn hasn't changed that. During Empire's hour with him, he corrects us on Peeping Tom's release date, shares with us his wife's hair-raising response to a home viewing of [•REC] ("She woke up in the middle of the night and started wrenching a wrought-iron mirror off the wall!"), and enthuses about Apocalypse Now. There's a poster for Coppola's Vietnamasterpiece on his office wall, alongside promos for The Great Escape and the original Cape Fear, an auspicious case study for the organisation. "Gregory Peck sent a telegram saying that he preferred the BBFC-cut version to the US one," says Austin. "He really liked the cuts we made." There are hundreds of letters and telegrams from directors, producers and distributors squirreled away in the BBFC archives although most, he admits, aren't as flattering.

All of which brings us back to the porno  that's currently staring us in the face. No-one will be writing in about It's Just Wrong because it will never be released, and now that Austin has loaded it up, it's clear that it hasn't been squirreled away on the BBFC server for artistic reasons. This is one of the clips kept on file to demonstrate problem areas — in this case, performers being deliberately dressed to look underage — that makes you understand why the BBFC offers anonymous counselling to its staff.

Gathering dust on the shelf is a rip-off Pussycat Dolls exercise video that features a whole lot more bumping and grinding than is really acceptable for a tween audience.

It's safe to say that classifying pornography — or 'sex works' as they're known here — isn't exactly relished around these parts. "Luckily there isn't as much these days", explains Austin, alluding to the explosion in online porn that has undercut the DVD market. When he joined the austere body ten years ago there was "masses" of the stuff to either ban or pin 'R18' ratings to, and while the internet has lessened the load, there are still a thousand or so a year to wade through. Regular collaborations with the police keep policies aligned with changes to the law, but there are other considerations too. "Our research told us that people often watch porn with a view to copying it," he explains. "Sometimes you see penetration with power tools, and we won't pass that. You really don't want to be in A&E that evening." Obviously when you're scouring "sex works" for breaches in the Obscene Publications or Criminal Justice & Immigration Act, a little gallows humour goes a long way. Memories of rating a porno with a plotline borrowed from Vertigo also prompt a chuckle.

With Empire's time almost up, we're curious to know if there are any red flags on the BBFC's horizon. Explicit Palme-winning drama Blue Is The Warmest Colour is heading their way, as is Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac. The Danish provocateur is releasing hardcore and softcore versions of the film, a prospect that will surely raise the BBFC's collective blood pressure? Of course, we'd forgotten that a Monday morning one-to-one with Willem Dafoe's scrotum is all in a day's work here. Austin gently bats the enquiry away, he's a von Trier fan, you see. "We always like his films," he explains mildly. The BBFC counselor is always there in case the Dane pulls out any seismic shocks — it's unlikely, granted, but more genital lopping may push the whole organisation over the edge — but we're not expecting the battle-hardened Austin to be involved in too many copycat incidents. "The only thing I've copied is from The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon knocks on Penny's door three times," he laughs. "I do that with my daughter."

Quote from: Sleepless on June 07, 2013, 12:04:30 PM
Very long article

you have obviously never read anything posted by wilderesque.

this is a seriously short article.

Haha! Well, long for the average movie rag article. Wilderesque posts fucking epics.