R RESTRICTED
Under 17 requires accompanying
Parent or Adult Guardian

Strong Language included
A scene of sexual dialogue
A scene with a actor smoking

Danny
 

That said, banning for placing a restriction on smoking in the movies is stupid! Just because some idiot sticks a toy car up his rectum and goes to see a doctor doesn't mean I am going to do it. Just because some dork drives his car off of a cliff doesn't mean I am going to drive my minivan off of a cliff. Just because I thought it was cool when Keanu Reeves shot like a thousand bullets in Matrix doesn't mean I am going to do the same. Just because some guy in a movie goes to bed with 5 high school babes doesn't mean I will. (Damn!) Just because some babe looks very sexy lighting up a cigarette in a movie doesn't mean I don't find cigarettes nasty and disgusting. After all, I don't have to kiss that woman in the movie. And by the way, I can't smell or breathe cigarette smoke that happens on film in a movie.

The concept of personal responsibility seems to have gone missing.

I still think smoking should be allowed in Bars that have no restaurants.

Someone goes to bed with someone else and an ad could pop-up and say, "To prevent pregnancy, use condoms." Two gay guys kiss and a pop-up could say "fight HIV, use condoms!" A kid starts to seduce a 15-year-old girl and the pop-up says "Remember kids it's statutory rape to have sex with an under-aged person." During the car chase the pop-up could say, "speed kills. Please keep it under the speed limit." During the atomic blast scene, "Write your congressman and encourage him to sign the anti-nuclear proliferation bill." And finally when Bogart gives Ingrid Bergman a cigarette it could say, "The United States Surgeon General has determined that cigarette smoking causes cancer." When a woman sips a drink, "The Surgeon General has determined that drinking causes birth defects."

Please, sit back and enjoy your film.

 

I am a confirmed Pipe smoker and always have felt it unjust that you can go into a pup and in the SMOKING AREA they don't permit pipe smoking
 

Putting smoking in the ratings reasons is absurd, though. Our local newspaper in West Palm Beach ran a small column in the weekend movie section called "Is it OK for Kids" or something. Here, they listed absolutely everything remotely questionable, including smoking, drinking, women being hurt, and car accidents that was in the movie. While it may be useful to some people who want to shield themselves (or their children) from the dreaded on-screen-second-hand-smoke, it should not be a condition that determines a film's rating.
"Uh oh! Jack asked to 'Bum a smoke' in Titanic! We have to give it an R!!"

What's next? Going back and adding ratings reasons for films that "Contain images of the World Trade Center" Wait! No! I don't want to give anyone any ideas.

Gordon -- I've often wondered about places that don't allow pipe or cigar smoking. My mom's friend smoked a pipe, and I found it to be a lot less irritating to be around than cigarettes.

=TMP=
 

Smoking in the ratings is completely absurd. I'm sure something this stupid will blow over in a few weeks........
 

But it serves no purpose to tag a movie with an R-rating or special warning just because cigarette smoking is involved. Also, do the proponents of this rule know what kind of effect it will have? I strongly doubt it.

Many people want to discourage teen smoking. Teenagers have more smoke belching out of their heads than the smoke stacks of a steel mill. Teens think smoking is cool, primarily because they are not supposed to do it. It is rebellious behavior. What will happen by plastering new "smoking warnings" on movies? More teens will smoke.

This is just like those Parental Advisory stickers on music CDs with foul language and lurid content. That's like the quality seal of approval for many teens. They're listening to the "tough" music then.

Hell, I remember when Tipper Gore was addressing a senate subcommittee on behalf of the PMRC. She held up the W.A.S.P. 12" album single "Animal: I F**k like a Beast". The cover art featured a blood-drenched fellow wearning a cod-piece equipped with a circular saw blade. My reaction to that (keep in mind I was like 16 at the time) was to run out and buy a copy.

If people want to discourage smoking, particularly among teens, they have to find ways to embarrass the living shit out of teens who smoke. Insult them. Ridicule them. Make them feel like they have been accused of not bathing in a week or brushing their teeth at all in the last year. Tell them they stink like shit. If teenagers can't score any cool points for smoking they might not do it. But just telling them "no, you can't smoke" is going to make them want to do it even more.

I really got in trouble with a women's lib group one time when one asked me if I know where the fire trucks were going. Without thinking, my response was "They are responding to a call of two newly-weds" ....Jeeze, I thought I was going to get slapped.

I was always wondering why one of my Division Officers in the navy said to me, "Chief, you got a lot of class."

Once a girl and I were up in the mountains gettin it on, and then we heard rustling in the trees. We thought we had teenagers on our hands, but it was a pack of ceyotes.

WE LIT UP and scared the hell out of them. We already were scared to death as it were. We eached puffed four cigs each, two in each hand, wildly as we make screaming noises all the way up to the car while they stayed about 50 feet from us for the most part. We got the hell out of there.

No smokes and we would have bit the perverbial dust.

She was the smoker, I had quit years earlier. But those four nail coffins tastes sooooo sweeeet!!!

As a two time cancer scare survivor, I quit smoking, not wanting to risk getting lung cancer on the top of it all. When my white blood cells had over multiplied to the point that they KNEW it was cancer, I was scared, but not scared enough. When they found that tumor in my brain, I was scared but not scared enough.

NOW CEYOTES!!! THAT'S SCARY!!!

I do like the smell of some pipe tobacco's and some cigars, but cigs are a whole different story. For some strange reason I just get this wiers allergic reaction to the smoke.

Dave
 

Passive smoking (i.e. inhaling the smoke from someone else's fag), however, has been shown to cause serious health problems. For that reason I am in favour of a more anti-smoking approach generally. In someone's home and with the consent of everyone present, I have no problem with smoking. But I would very much like to see it banned in all public places.

Most pubs and bars in this country don't even have a no smoking area. Socially I find this a problem because most of my friends and relatives are smokers. I get a sore throat very quickly in a smoky atomosphere and my eyes start stinging, amongst other things. If smoking were outlawed in public places I wouldn't have to put myself in an embarrasing social position by asking if we could go in a smoke-free zone; it would just be accepted that smoking was not allowed. There are gradual moves in that direction - about the one good thing that Virgin Trains have ever done is to ban smoking in all the carriages (if only they'd do the same thing with mobile 'phones!). But far more is needed, IMHO.

As for films, however, this is censorship going too far. As Ian points out, if you start flashing up health warnings about smoking, then other pressure groups will jump on the bandwagon and eventually every feature film will be peppered with them.
 

quote:

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"There is one aspect to smoking that puts it in a different category to other self-inflicted health problems, and that is that you inflict it on other people as well."

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Taking this into a new direction (since I'm feeling a little lonely because Will and Tim didn't reply to my post in the Kodak thread), here in the US we are requird by law to wear seatbelts when we drive. What is your stance on that? If I want to get in my car and drive X number of miles and protect myself as best as possible by wearing a seatbelt, then I should be allowed to right? But what if I DON'T want to wear the seatbelt and just assume to get banged up and possibly dead by not wearing it? Shouldn't that be my choice?

I fully agree that I should not be allowed to operate a car when intoxicated or drive faster than the posted speed limit, for those examples could cause harm to others, but what about the seatbelt? If I don't put it on, I am only potentially harming myself.

So much for a free country.

I have a scoliosis in my back and find that wearing seat belts aggrevates it and causes me a back ache. I found this out totally by accident after I stopped for petrol once and quite simply forgot to put my belt back on afterwards. Two hours of driving later, I had no back ache and wondered why. I then realised that I hadn't been wearing the belt. So what is more dangerous - driving with a hurting back, which is distracting, or wearing the seat belt?

I suppose one argument in favour of them is that if you do have an accident, you're likely to be less seriously injured wearing a belt than if not. Therefore, the cost of treating you, and thus the cost to the taxpayer, is reduced. But in the US (where, if I understand the situation correctly, medical care is provided by private insurance rather than by the state and paid for by direct taxation, which is the case here), even that argument doesn't really apply.
 

I was a smoker for over 54 years. Now in my third year of no smoking. I will never smoke again but I do miss it.
 

I personally do advocate seat belt usage and expect all passengers in my car to wear them, but I would rather that this remain a personal choice and not one dictated by political whims.
 

There is the argument that the belt keeps you "in the driver's seat" where if you get smacked by another car, if you weren't wearing a belt you might get "tossed" out of your seat and be unable to control your car.

There's also the proven fact that you're more likely to survive a wreck if you are belted in, vs. getting thrown out. On the other hand, I've known people who survived BECAUSE they got thrown out.

In my own life I have found that once you are used to putting the belt on, it eventually becomes a habit and you start feeling incomplete if you don't have it on.

Back on topic, I think the idea of labeling movies containing smoking is stupid. What's next....this movie contains images of fattening foods? This movie contains images of driving recklessly? This movie contains images of people backtalking their parents? This movie contains scenes of ACTUAL REALISTIC HUMAN BEHAVIOR???
 

Make a comparison with driving and the airlines. If the captain of the airship says "fasten your seatbelts", you better do just that without any "lip"!

Seatbelt laws are a necessary infringement on our personal freedoms for the following reason:

Seatbelts reduce injury and death in traffic accidents. This reduction saves the taxpayer money. The saving of money drives the law to require you to buckle-up. I'll defend to my death your right to kill yourself; I just don't want to pay for it.

 

By nature I am a libertarian and don't want government sticking its nose in anyone's business, and that would apply to folks choosing to smoke (cigarettes or anything else); my big problem is when their activity ruins my meal and makes my life miserable. I say, let them smoke all they want -- I just want them to do it with a big plastic bag over their heads. It's their smoke; only they should have to breath it.

Point is, yes watching cool James Dean drag on a cancer stick was a powerful image for a young kid, and when it comes to teenagers, putting up warning labels will do about as much good as the Surgeon General's warnings on the packs. Bobby is right, all you have to do is tell a kid his breath smells like a sewer while he's talking to you after he's just finished a smoke and it will make more of a lasting impression on him than his watching a hundred anti-smoking tv spots. Doing the anti-smoking campaigns is not a bad thing and it has been shown statistically that they are effective (I still rotate three anti-smoking PSAs in our attraction reel along with a number of other PSAs), but getting down and personal with teens about how uncool it looks, how it makes them look like idiots, how it makes their skin grey and how it makes them stink is a lot more powerful.

And not to beat the horse, but what is this warning going to do? Presumably the parent will say, no you can't go to that film because I don;t want you watching people smoking? I don't see this happening.

 

I have smoked for many years, but started in a strange way. My friends and I would frequent a pool hall in Aurora, CO. Once we got there, I would win every game... until all the smoke in the air would make me woozie and dizzy. Since I really enjoy pool/billiards (and still do), I thought I was smart in trying to compensate by starting smoke. I only did it when I played pool, then it eventually became a social thing. Most of my friends smoked, and then it became an every day thing. I still smoke, but I don't try to encourage anyone to. I used to be very anti-smoking, but it is really up to the person because it is their choice. WHAT AM I RAMBLING ABOUT?!?!?

Okay, onto the subject of smoking in the ratings. RETARDED!!! Before, using any type of swear word would make a movie require an R rating. Now you can hear those words on PG rated films. People try so hard to protect our children, but once those children grow up they will experience lots of things without any knowledge of consequences. My family would never curse around me, but once I heard of such words I was very curious. Same goes with sex, drugs and alcohol. The only drugs I try to maintain is nicotine, caffeine (at high volumes ) and alcohol. But I wouldn't really know much about those things until I left the protective shield of my parents. Sure, my dad smoked and drank but I was told that it was bad for me. Here I am at the age of 30 and I still don't tell my parents that I smoke and drink. But I am sure they already know.

RAMBLE... RAMBLE...

I hate when I do that.