Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific documentary on the film ratings secret society, February 2, 2007
This expose of the Hollywood ratings system provides insight into how censoring yourself may prevent government intervention but can also contribute to a system that seems arbitrary and unfair to those film directors that don't make major studio films. Kirby's film "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" amusingly takes a look at the history of Hollywood policing itself and how it does it today. He also asks a number of hard questions about the standards that the MPAA employees and why the organization must operate with as much secrecy as the CIA.
Interviewing people such as actress Maria Bello ("The Cooler", the TV show "ER" and "A History of Violence"), cult film director John Waters ("Polyester")and others working outside the studio system as independent directors and producers, what's reflected is a system that is badly flawed, very subjective and does a disservice to viewers. What he discovered are people that have no qualifications beyond their opinions, have established a rudimentary system to "judge" films that has become meaningless in terms of what it truly tells the consumer, quibble over the sexual positions or even head movement in sex scenes and use their personal morality to make Hollywood's product seem acceptable.
We get a number of deleted scenes including a whole section on how the MPAA and Hollywood use lobbyists to stifle new technology that they deem a threat to their material. One expert discusses how copyright law has been impacted by the studios. Disney evidently protects their copyrights (even material that they have taken from the public domain such as the stories of Hans Christian Anderson's "The Little Mermaid" or classic fairy tales like "Beauty and the Beast" making public domain material somehow their own)vigorously often having a negative impact. Interestingly in the section on film piracy (and in the Q&A section in the extras)Kirby points out that the MPAA has a division devoted to this problem but has no problem with pirating product themselves (they copied Kirby's early version of the film without his consent violating his rights to the material).
Certainly we must have a stanard to help parents and adult viewers decide what they want to watch in theaters. Ironically, the ratings system has become more of a marketing tool (think of all those "Unrated" special editions that sell out)than a system designed to look out for the public's welfare.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Film. Long overdue. What are the larger issues?, September 16, 2006
It's great that someone has finally waded into sausage factory that is the ratings system. Awesome, gleeful muckraking. Good investigative reporting. Nice surprise at the number of directors who agreed to appear in the film.
The film raises several interesting questions.
If this is a bad system, what should replace it? A more transparent MPAA process? A government ratings board? No ratings at all?
The film pointed out several times that for the MPAA violence is okay, but sex isn't - but why is this? Does it have something to do with how well violent films do worldwide?
How does the diminishing importance of domestic theatrical release and big box retail chains like Walmart change things? Does the MPAA rating matter as much when people are getting their movies from Amazon and Netflix, and when international sales are bringing in a bigger percentage of the take?
Overall, a fantastic film.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Funny, But Imperfect Look At An Imperfect System, September 13, 2006
****
In American-made films, violence is more acceptable than sex. Films depicting someone mowing down a line of men with bullets could receive a PG-13 as long as no blood is shown, but a film depicting a couple having sex in a frank and realistic way will most certainly receive an R, or depending on how graphic the depiction, an NC-17. These ratings are determined and administered by the Ratings Board of the Motion Picture Academy of America, a lobby group funded by the major film studios. The Ratings Board was created in the late 60s by Jack Valenti to stave off further government involvement in the content of films, to counter criticism and censorship and to provide filmmakers with more freedom. The idea was that you could include anything you want in your film, but the ratings would provide a guideline for parents and others about what the film contained, and help them decide whether they wanted to see it or not.
In Europe, the emphasis is reversed. Films with violence receive harsher ratings than films depicting sex, making it more difficult for children and teenagers to see it.
This is just one of the ideas pursued by director Kirby Dick is his new documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated".
When a filmmaker completes a film, they submit it to the Ratings Board and a secret panel of people watch the film and discuss the rating it should receive. Initially, this system was set-up to guarantee filmmakers artistic freedom. If a film was too adult, it would receive an NC-17 and provide a clear sign to people that the film was only suitable for adults. In reality, studios will not release an NC-17 film and insist the filmmaker make cuts to receive an R rating. Why won't they release an NC-17 film? Newspapers and television stations will not run ads for these films, multiplexes won't carry them, so it makes it impossible to make the kind of money they need to make to pay their overhead. A filmmaker can still release an NC-17 film, but they are relegated to independent studios and movie theaters, ensuring the film will have to generate a lot more word of mouth for a much smaller audience.
Worse, many cities and even some states don't have a lot of independent theaters and Wal-Mart and Blockbuster won't carry these films. How can the audience see it? They can't.
Therefore, a lot of pressure is placed on filmmakers to deliver films with a certain rating, many directors have a rating stipulated in their contract. How does this do anything but create censorship?
All of this might be a useful system, but the Ratings Board has proven to be less than consistent. Dick conducts a series of interviews with filmmakers who have been affected by an NC-17 rating. Matt Stone, part of the tam who created "South Park", talks about when he and Trey Parker created "Orgazmo" as an independent film. They received an NC-17 rating. When they tried to find out what they had to cut to receive an R, they were told the Board doesn't provide that type of information, it would be censorship. Then, when they made the "South Park" movie, they received an NC-17 rating and extensive notes about what was found offensive, providing them with a road map to an `R' rating.
Dick sets out to uncover who the secret members of this board are. He hires a private investigator, Cheryl Howell, and they stake out the headquarters of the MPAA. Stationed outside the garage, they write down license numbers of cars as they leave for lunch, do some investigation, and soon uncover the names of the people who are on the board. Using a series of archival interviews with Jack Valenti, Dick sets out to determine if the members are, as Valenti frequently states, just normal parents, trying to help other parents makes an informed decision.
And here we come to the major problem with "Not Yet Rated". Everything in the film is so heavily slanted to support the argument of the filmmaker, that it becomes one sided. Okay, okay, so Michael Moore's and Morgan Spurlock's films are not exactly unbiased, but they do try to present at least a partial opposing viewpoint. In Spurlock's recent television series of documentaries "30 Days", we all know he is very liberal, yet he presents interviews with people with different viewpoints, listening to them, giving them some thought, before continuing on his path and presenting the arguments he wants to present. There is nothing wrong with a documentary having a point of view. But in "Not Yet Rated", any opposing views are presented after we learn what they are talking about. Basically, Dick is catching them in lies, and making us laugh at it. It works, and I completely agree with the message he is presenting, but it would be nice to have seen something, anything that presented a viable counter message.
As he talks to filmmakers about their troubles with the MPAA, he gleefully presents the uncut footage the filmmakers are discussing. Director Wayne Kramer and actress Maria Bello talk about a scene cut from "The Cooler". John Waters talks about his film "A Dirty Shame". Atom Egoyan talks about "Where The Truth Lies". Kevin Smith talks about a scene in "Jersey Girl", showing Liv Tyler and Ben Affleck talking about sex. Director Kimberly Peirce talks about her film "Boys Don't Cry" and the objections of the Ratings Board.
"Not Yet Rated" is perhaps most effective when it compares similar clips of films that received different ratings. In one sequence, Dick shows clips of violent films rated more favorably than scenes depicting sexual encounters. In another, he explores how similar sexual acts between a man and a woman, depicted in similar ways, are rated more favorably than the same situations between same sex partners.
Towards the end of the film, Dick submits an early cut of the film to the Ratings Board. Not surprisingly, he receives an NC-17. He then documents as much of the appeals process as possible given no cameras were allowed into the actual hearing.
"This Film Is Not Yet Rated" does a very good job of walking the viewer through this Byzantine, strange process employed by the MPAA. He also does an excellent job of pointing out the various eccentricities of this system which frequently frustrates and maddens many in the filmmaking community.
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