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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

As much as I don't really like what Cleanflicks is doing, I don't believe that it should be illegal. It sounds like they are making an attempt to make clear that their versions of the films are altered and that they aren't illegally pirating anything (since everly "clean" copy requires the purchase of a legitimate copy). It sounds like they are doing the equivalent of selling a book with pages removed, which is perfectly legal in the US.
 

The Onion couldn't come up with a better story!

Regarding the missing pages in a book, at least you can tell that it's not there since the pages are numbered. In a movie, I doubt they're replacing the footage with "Scene Missing" cards.

 

Perhaps it is because permission has not been given?

Personally the idea of living in Johnny Dangerously's life fargin sargs. The iceholes. The fargin cork sargers.
 

But a bit of software to play a DVD on a computer in a selective order I would think would be in compliance.

One TV report had the guy demonstrating it and concluding with a remark to the effect that he hadn't changed the story so why are the filmmakers upset. Um...like some two-bit weasel in a video store ought to pass judgement on what is or is not important to the story. One imagines Schindler's List with the holocaust edited out!
 

Does it change the story? Does it change the directors vision? Answer, yes. When editing without permission, you create a new product, not authorized by the copyright holder. This is not the same movie, it is now a totally different movie.

If the movie is too harsh for you to watch in its original form, then why the hell would you want to watch it edited? You wont see what all the fuss is about because you wont be watching the same movie.

I have seen a demonstration between the original and the clean version. It is horrifying. Saving Private Ryan becomes 20 minutes shorter, and has no blood, or direct acts of violence. Hey, this is a war movie.

Would you believe that they also edited "The Princess Diaries"? Yep, not sure for what, but they did.

It is unfortunate, but this editing craze is religeously driven, and backed heavily by mormon interest. I am appauled because as a mormon, I feel that my fellow man is trying to tell me what to do. This is not the mission of this particular church, but so many people in it, think that they must save the world from themselves.

Our original founder, Joe Smith, had stated publicly that our value system was driven by the desire to aquire all things of beauty and culture. How fortunate that we no longer live to that standard, but instead try to create our own version of what everyone else has.

Either live in the world, or shut up and sit down.

Dave

Dave

I'm amazed to hear that there are "edited" versions of SPR. For those who don't want to see violence: DON'T WATCH WAR MOVIES!

"I really wanted to see Steven Spielberg's masterpiece, 'Saving Private Ryan' but I didn't really much care for all those people being killed in the battlefield..." -- Shut the H-E-double-hockey-sticks up!!!

=TMP=

Bob
The Old Showman
 

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It seems today's writers grew up in an amoral atmosphere and are not aware that not everyone in the world behaves in that manner and apparently don't know either that you really CAN write a good story without including profanity and sex.

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Have you ever read Catcher in the Rye, Bob? That's littered with graphic language and it was published in 1951. Or how about Chaucer's Canterbury Tales which was written in the late fourteenth century? Better yet, look at some of the implyed sexual situations in ancient Greek mythology. Today's writers grew up in an amoral atmosphere? Give me a break.

So, are you saying they CAN'T make a good movie without using vulgar language and sexual exploitation? And what useful literary purpose do you feel those serve?

Bob
The Old Showman
 

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion
 

I wonder what the "Clean-Flick" version of Freddy Got Fingered would look like.
I probably still wouldnt want to see it.

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Find me online
AOL: Dexter Caldwell
yahoo!: dexter_caldwell

"It is the opinion of the entire staff the Dexter is criminally insane."

On the subject of using cuss words for shock, I remember a lame movie called "Medicine Man" starring Sean Connery. In the trailer, he shouts the line "I've found the cure for the plague of the 20th century and blah blah blah etc..." In the actual movie he shouts "I've found the f*ck*ng cure for the plague of the 20th century blah blah blah etc..." I felt that the addition of the cuss word was just stupid. There are times to use it, and times when it is just out of place and dumb.

Then again, sometimes those bad words are just put there to make a point or for humor. Remember how many unnecessary times the word "nigger" was used in Pulp Fiction? White people don't talk like that, but that's part of what made it funny and I don't know of any black people who were offended by it. They knew just as much as I did that it was intended for humorous purposes.

Take "Good Will Hunting" for example. When I saw this in the theater, I thought Affleck and Damon were overdoing it. Then I realized that this is probably the way characters like that from that area of Boston speak. 144 "Fuck"s later, and they get Best Screenplay... THAT'S art...

=TMP=
 

There are some white people who talk like that, although Ill admit that Ive only known a few, and they may not have used it as much as they did in Pilp Fiction.
I think Spike Lee was the only one who got offended by that if i remember correctly.

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Find me online
AOL: Dexter Caldwell
yahoo!: dexter_caldwell

"It is the opinion of the entire staff the Dexter is criminally insane."
 

Believe me this is no hoax. I live down the street from a Clean Flicks store, and an Albertsons store that rents clean flicks. This is real. It is an affront.

Trust that this is real.

Dave
 

I am glad that you cleared that up. Me, I am just a small town mormon who don't know nuttin!

Dave
 

All the creative types are scared to death as to what would happen if the public actually had a choice. For instance, what would have happen if they would have released (on video) two versions of Titanic? The original version and an edited PG version. What would have happen if said PG version had outsold the PG-13 version? Hollywood is afraid of the slippery slope that such an event might cause. Many Hollywood types are already upset that the studios are forcing them to tone things down to get a more public friendly PG-13 rating on a lot of films (How dare the studios actually want to make a profit). What would they do when it is finally realized that the public wants more movies that they can take their families too or even feel comfortable dropping their kids off at a megaplex? Who cares if the majority of the public stays away from theaters and theater chains go bankrupt? So long as they can continue making pictures that they want to make. This is why you can go to Best Buy and buy the original cut, the director's cut, the special edition cut, the Key Grip's cut, but you will never see the clean airline public friendly version.
 

The airline version is just that -- a version for the airlines. That should be the only place you can see that. Same for the TV edition...it should be seen only on TV (if at all).

If I make a movie and I agree that a couple of "soft" versions will be made for specific applications, it shouldn't automatically be presumed that other versions are going to be okay, too. Especially if the editing was not supervised by me or one of my agents.

Frankly, if I make an R rated film then I'm already accepting the fact that some people (possibly a lot of people) won't patronize it. I must not want their money that badly. Screw 'em. Rent something else.
 

I just want to reiterate, this is not my persional belief. I am just presenting a valid legal position. The legal world dosn't always exist in the same plain as the real world as I am sure that everyone here has read court decisions that have defied any sense of logic and common sense.

Now as far as what I really think. I don't know if I really have a position on this. I can see both sides of the issue and I could make a case for both sides. I have always been a property rights advocate so I guess it would depend on who really owns the movie that is on that video tape or DVD once it is purchased by the consumer. And that is another legal argument for another day.
 

As I stated before, the law, as currently written and interpreted, allows you pretty much do what ever the hell you want to the music and videos as long as you are not making copies to sell or that it could be proven that the violated party, in this case the film companies are losing revenue because of your actions. As I see it this is the only legal argument that the studios can use and as long as the videos are purchased before they are edited this argument will not hold up. The only real recourse is to change the laws or make new ones.

To offer a more cartoony analogy, let's say I'm an anti porn crusader, but I sell porn movies with all the naughty content removed. I would still be providing the pornographers money to make their living and make more of their product. The Clean Flicks people are dummies, plain and simple. If you think a movie or TV show is going to be offensive (and the warnings will say) then don't waste your time watching and paying money to rent it. You'll get more of the same stuff, edited or not and things would never change.

The conversation regarding sex, violence and profanity in movies is interesting. I don't agree with Robert Allen's opinion that such things never added anything of dramatic substance to a movie. But I would agree there is a great deal of gratuitous violence and profanity in movies today. There's not really all that much in sexual content with many of today's mainstream releases. But the blood does flow rivers in many films.

A movie about war and the horrors of it, like "Saving Private Ryan" must show the blood, guts, oil, dirt, shit and filthy swearing that makes up the real reality of war. My father is a retired Marine who served in Vietnam and Beirut. He would consider any new "honest" war movie without the salty language and blood to just be total Walt Disney phoney baloney. My father (Charles Henderson) has written non-fiction books like "Marine Sniper" that describe the brutal detail of that world. And none of it is gratuitous.

To address profanity and its use in movies, that is really a tricky subject that few screenwriters really understand. I don't like it when a movie goes overboard with F-words and such. It is a good thing to use salty language to paint certain types of characters in certain types of environments. However, the writer has to keep in mind the effect it has on the audience. If there is too much swearing in a movie, then its impact just falls very very dull after awhile. It will eventually have a very negative impact against the quality of dialog in a script. Writing a movie is ALL about audience manipulation. You want to be honest about how you do it, so it doesn't come off as a cheap schtick. And too much profanity just turns into that: schtick.

One can look at great movies of the past, like "Double Indemnity" and find no curse words, but still hear some of the best written, most snappy dialog ever put into a script.

I would try to write as clean as I could and only enter in those curse words at a time where one would be warranted. In real life, if I walked into my house and found it ransacked or found a dead body in my living room, I might be very likely to speak out a few colorful metaphors. And even though many people have potty mouths in casual conversation, in a movie I wouldn't have the potty mouth stuff going on unless it was absolutely warranted.

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Fair use laws...It is not illegal for you to make a copy of a video or even a DVD to video as long as it is for your own home use.

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Albertsons food stores, with 46 stores in Utah carrying the clean flicks, have pulled them from the shelves, pending a new lawsuit filed monday, by the film studios, the directors guild, Speilberg, Redford, and others et al.

This is going to get messy. I hope that even if they don't win, they drain these damn fools of every penny they have.

The owners of Clean Flicks, say they have the financial backing of several millionaires, so they have cash to burn on this.

Why would anyone burn cash to go out of business? It's called stupidity, or religeon, take your pick.

I am not a religeous person, but I am spiritual. I think whatever god we may have, would not approve of what clean flicks is doing. It is theft, pure and simple. even if the studios get money for it, they are not getting the money they would otherwise be entitles, because clean flicks, and others, are making an unauthorized profit from these sales. They have no liscense to sell or market them. Just to go to media play and buy them is not good enough, because under law, the media play copies are for public sale, not for resale use.

As a former video buyer, we had to pay much more for rental copies than for sale copies. There was the lisencing issue. With edited versions created after market, there is no lisence issued to market, and therefore is illegal.

THERE ARE too many reasons why its wrong. It's art. Pure and simple.

A few years ago here in Utah, we got to hold onto Michealangelo's David for a while, but mormon protesters claimed it was pornography and wanted it covered up. I say mormon protesters, because they were mormon. I am one too. In church, we were told not to visit the statue, because it was an abomination.

I went, because it is art. It is history.

I loved saving private ryan. It is art. It is so realistic. To edit to make it pallatable? Do we edit real war now? Do we make it so blood doesn't spill? So daddy's don't die?

Now that Albertson's pulled the videos, I now shop there again. If they ever carry them again, I leave again.

Dave
 

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Now that Albertson's pulled the videos, I now shop there again. If they ever carry them again, I leave again.

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Did you tell them this?
 

Dave
 

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Didn't Speilberg edit guns out of a certain re-release?

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Since Spielberg made the original release, he reserves the right to decide on how the re-release is cut, for better or worse. Clean Flicks didn't make the movies they are editing, and they didn't discuss the editing with the filmmakers or owners of the "property".

I can change my mind, but you can't change my mind for me.

I can understand some of the arguments for taking out the guns, but there are valid opposing arguments. I think they should have just left the film alone and the politically correct people should have pulled their bunched panties out of their ass.
 

Not ANOTHER new photo...already!!??

Who do you have to know around here to get presto-change-o photos? Was this a quietly-added feature?

The photo rotation feature is available to "Premium Members" who pay the membership fee of $1456.99 a year. Premium Members receive changing forum pictures that load randomly, a free bottle of Filmguard, and a "Thanks for da ca$h" e-mail written personally for you by Brad Miller himself. So far only 3 members have signed up.