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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: New [PG-13] King's Speech Prints
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Greg Anderson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 766
From: Ogden Valley, Utah
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 03-01-2011 11:51 AM
quote: Mike Blakesley
People who refuse to attend an R-rated movie "just because it's rated R" are really immature in my book.
On the other hand, it seems like everybody knows that the only reason this movie is rated R is that Spoiler Alert - Click to Toggle
a speech therapist discovers that a burst of obscenities is good therapy.
So if someone decides they just don’t want to experience that scene (which is not going to be a surprise anyway) then I would think it’s an informed and, therefore, mature decision.
For some reason, our culture has deemed the “f-bomb” to be the most obscene English word. Some people don’t want to hear it or read it no matter who’s using it nor the context. I remember “Mr. S” who lived down the road from us in Illinois when I was a kid. He seemed to tolerate (and use) every foul word in the book but, for whatever reason, he had no tolerance for the “f-bomb.” When he took some of us (who were under age 17) to see Alien his only complaint about the movie was that a woman used the f-bomb in it. Was Mr. S immature? If so, that's the only evidence I can think of.
And I, for one, think that if anything in this world deserves a little more respect than it’s getting that would be human sexuality. So if there are people who can’t stand the f-bomb, I hesitate to tell them they’re wrong.
As for the wisdom of re-releasing this movie to make a little more cash, I can only imagine that it will just be “a little” more cash. Unlike many other, recent Best Pictures, this one made respectable money. In recent years, the “post-Oscar Bump” at the box office hasn’t existed. People who decided to see this movie knew exactly what they were in for and those who didn’t probably avoided it because they think it’s a slow-paced drama without a lot of drawing power anyway. A new rating won’t change that.
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Greg Anderson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 766
From: Ogden Valley, Utah
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 03-01-2011 12:12 PM
quote: Scott Jentsch
One of these days, the industry is going to figure out that the rating system needs to be changed.
Who's fault is it, really? Culturally, we instinctively know the difference between a G-rated and an R-rated movie. The stuff in between gets a bit cloudy sometimes but, by and large, the rating system is informative. That’s why you can easily tell your friends a story and, in case there’s a question of the nature of the story, you can preface it by saying, “This is an R-rated story” or a PG story or something like that. Everybody knows what you mean.
Whenever anyone advocates throwing away the MPAA rating system and starting from scratch they often admit (but don't dwell on) the fact that the real problem is not what the MPAA is trying to do but what the theatres and newspapers do. If we say that Blue Valentine should never have been rated NC-17 then we’re really saying, “Yes, children of any age should be able to see this as long as their parents are cool with it.” (No, that’s absurd. We’re not saying that, are we?) If it's an adult movie then the NC-17 rating tells you so. NC-17 was invented specifically to distinguish real art from porn. But the newspapers and the theatre operators refuse to play along with that idea so, presto! People complain that the rating system doesn’t work. But what is the MPAA supposed to do? They can’t control the theatres or Blockbuster or the newspapers that reject the ads.
I firmly believe that if the video game industry adopted a rating system which had G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 just like the MPAA (they would have to pay a royalty but it would be worth it) then there would be no calls for video game censorship today. Why? Because everybody knows what those ratings mean and people generally trust them. And those ratings have kept government-backed censorship at bay (at least when it comes to movies) for over 40 years.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-01-2011 03:52 PM
quote: Greg Anderson
Whenever anyone advocates throwing away the MPAA rating system and starting from scratch they often admit (but don't dwell on) the fact that the real problem is not what the MPAA is trying to do but what the theatres and newspapers do.
I have no problem with how the MPAA handles the G, PG and PG-13 ratings. Sometimes the MPAA misses the mark on R-rated movies. I've seen plenty of R-rated movies only rated that way because of some profanity; sometimes there's very little of it as in the case of this year's Best Picture Oscar winner The King's Speech.
It's the mature and adults-only area where the MPAA's system really must be re-tooled.
quote: Greg Anderson
If it's an adult movie then the NC-17 rating tells you so. NC-17 was invented specifically to distinguish real art from porn.
Yes, that was the original intent of the NC-17 rating, but the MPAA made the switch from "X" to "NC-17" laughably pointless when they refused to draw a difference between porn and adults-only content that isn't porn.
The MPAA was also willing to put the NC-17 rating on hardcore porn features. If a porn studio submitted one of their videos for a MPAA rating it would get a NC-17, not an X. Jack Valenti said their organization wasn't willing to make an "artistic decision" on the difference between porn and mature adults-only content.
I think that's a bunch of hogwash because the difference isn't "artistic" or subjective at all; the difference is physical. In one movie a copule is acting like they're having sex. The act is simulated. In a porn movie there is no doubt about it, the two people are really having sex. They're not acting.
Blue Valentine isn't a movie for kids. But it is definitely not porn either.
What's really funny is Blue Valentine will probably be more successful on home video and cable than it was in theaters. And a lot of people under age 17 will see it on DVD or cable.
Premium cable TV channels routinely show content the MPAA would slam as NC-17 rated if the same footage were found in a movie. Shows like Cathouse on HBO show full frontal nudity of men and women. IMHO, the Starz TV series Spartacus has taken graphic violence to levels I have never seen in any Hollywood movie. I have seen movies rated NC-17 play uncut on channels like HBO.
quote: Steve Guttag
Perhaps, there would be a benefit to subdividing the OVER-18 movies. Have an R-18 rating (no one under 18 admitted) for the "Art Movies" that have adult content. But also have an X-18 rating for what many would consider "porn" at some degree.
I think this is what most people thought the NC-17 rating was going to do, be a rating for non-porn adults only movies and then let the porn industry keep using the X. It didn't work out that way.
So, we've seen another 20+ years pass with an arguably screwed up ratings system. Maybe the MPAA will give it another shot.
quote: Greg Anderson
I firmly believe that if the video game industry adopted a rating system which had G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 just like the MPAA (they would have to pay a royalty but it would be worth it) then there would be no calls for video game censorship today. Why? Because everybody knows what those ratings mean and people generally trust them.
The ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) ratings system is a better system of rating video games than merely applying the MPAA ratings system. The ESRB ratings have more levels for more age groups and are more specific. The ESRB ratings are also very simple. It would take a customer to be pretty idiotic or have serious reading comprehension problems not to understand the ESRB ratings.
The ESRB is a video game industry controlled ratings body. But then the MPAA is funded and controlled by the major studios in Hollywood, which makes the MPAA every bit as prone to conflict of interest as one might suspect of the ESRB. Another point against the MPAA: that ratings board has a history of giving preferential treatment to major studio releases and being much harder on features from independents.
The plain truth is countless numbers of parents are very lazy at controlling what their kids watch on TV or what kinds of games they're playing. It's very common to see parents buying M-rated (Mature 17+) video games for middle school aged kids. I don't know what video games are A-rated (Adults Only 18+), but I wouldn't put it past some parents to let their kids play those games too. So many parents don't care what the kid is doing so long as he's doing it in another room away from them so they can watch TV or do whatever in peace in quiet. The kid could be playing some gory, violent video game and then watching Blue Valentine recorded on the DVR from cable TV.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 03-03-2011 12:23 PM
The ratings system doesn't work, because there is a disconnect between the people that make the movies, that distribute the movies, and that exhibit and advertise the movies.
Case in point: Die Hard 4 (Live Free or Die Hard).
Muting/changing some swear words reduced it from R to PG-13. The change was done after the fact and it was obvious. Nothing changed about the intent of these scenes or the dialogue. Everyone knows what was really said, so the impact of the scene and its dialogue was unchanged.
Case in point #2: Blue Valentine
I haven't seen it, so I'm going on what I've read. Those accounts have stated that while the scenes in question were extreme, they were not pornographic. Were they extreme enough to earn the NC-17 rating? It sounds as though the rating might have been justified, but once again, I don't know from first-hand experience.
The problem comes in with how the other side of the industry handles NC-17 films. Newspapers won't advertise them, theaters won't play them. NC-17 is the new X, so all they did was change the name.
The challenge is to deliver the information necessary for people to make informed decisions about what they want to see and what they want their kids to see. The ratings system is far too generalized for that to be completely effective, because PG-13 encompasses a whole lot more than many people think it does.
Personally, I think that a system that identifies core areas of content and the severity of that content could work. Such core areas might include:
- Language
- Sensuality
- Violence
- ??
Not only should the monikers be there, but some degree of the severity of each area as well.
The TV ratings system does this to a certain degree.
The descriptions provided by the MPAA help with this, but it's the ratings that theaters respond to. Would it be any better if Blue Valentine were rated "MA" with a sub-rating of "S+" for "adult sexual situations"? I don't know, but I think it delivers more information at a glance, because it's easy to know that the MA rating is because of sexual content. Maybe some parents don't mind if little Jimmy sees someone's head being blown off in a bloody rain, but they don't want him to see how babies are made? ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
To return to the thread at hand, I'm all for offering choice. If a theater would like to offer a version of "The King's Speech" for those with delicate dialogue sensibilities, that's fine. Make a note in your special showtimes, like is done with Open Caption and Sensory Sensitivity shows.
It sounds like the R-rated version is being pulled in favor of the PG-13 version, which is just wrong.
On the flip side, then give me the ability to see the version of Die Hard 4 without the obviously butchered dialogue.
Even on the Blu-ray release, where the option is as simple as a menu choice, the studio didn't do it. What the **** is with that?
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