Rate not so Great?

Sorry for the late post. Insomnia and cable lead to nothing but trouble for posting.

Also have to admit an oversight when it comes to Hal Ashby, I forgot to include one of his best's works, Coming Home, with Jon Voight, Bruce Dern and Jane Fonda. Winner of 3 Oscars for Best Actress, Best Actor (Voight) and Best Writing. Coming Home came out in 1978, just 4 years after the fall of Saigon. It tells the story of Sally Hyde (Jane Fonda), her husband Bob (Bruce Dern) has gone to the Vietnam War. She goes to work as nurse in a veterans hospital where Violet, her friend, works too. In hospital she meets an old high school friend, Luke Martin (Jon Voight). Like Bob, Luke had gone to Nam but he came back paraplegic. Love between Luke and Sally grow and she has a sexual awakening. After the suicide of Violet's Brother (another veteran) Luke has only one obsession: do anything to stop the sending of young guys to war. Sally finds herself with with choices to make. Coming Home is a poignant story of the situations out of one's control and the choices that life gives. Defintely a movie that should not be forgotten on a list.

Now for the post:


Another movie to recommend is "This Film is Not Yet Rated" a documentary on the MPAA ratings board. Definitely one to watch. Why? Because it documents the history and talks to numerous directors and actors about the censorship of their movies before they could be released. Including directors, Kevin Smith, Matt Stone, John Waters, Darren Aronosfsky, Maria Bello, Atom Egoyan. Director, Kirby Dick hires a lesbian family of private investigators to find out the names of the MPAA ratings board and see if the raters are actually parents of children 5-17 like the MPAA tells American parents they are.

What is interesting is Dick shows how the ratings board gives mores R and NC-17's for sexual content over violence which is in directly opposite in Europe, and how more gay themed movies and movies with not more explicit acts but non "traditional" pairs or acts get more NC-17 ratings, while killing sprees and violence toward women get R ratings. The most interesting thing is that the ratings board in completely secret. What other secret organization in the US has such an influence over the culture with such decisions? Only the CIA. MPAA says it is to protect those members from being influenced. Even the Supreme Court is publicly known and their decisions should be even more important the state of the nation. Something to think about.

And what does this have to do with OMG? It makes you wonder what MPAA told Ang to do with scenes in Brokeback. And if that influenced him not make any cuts for Lust, Caution.

And now with Informers. What you see of Austin in a threesome is what the MPAA approved for an R rating, but knowing the content of the novel and the setting in the 80's, you know that what was shot was even more explicit and it makes you wonder ended up on the cutting room floor to get an R.



The Informers opens at the Verzaubert Queer Film Festival (March 18-25 )in Berlin and then tours Frankfurt, Cologne and Munich through April. It opens in the U.S. on April 24th. I wonder what the difference in reception will be between Europe and the U.S. and wondering how much of an impact the rating system has shaped the audience.