Candy Kirby "George Clooney: The Other White Meat"
The Guardian is a fan of Mark Strong, supporting man
THR They're making Heathers into a musical? What rhymes with "F*** me gently with a chainsaw"?
Pop Elegantarium "Girl Power". So cute
The Film Doctor About the red herring opening act in Psycho. Basically, I can read about that movie every day of the week
Showbiz Cafe has a bunch of scenes from Almodóvar's Broken Embraces. I personally don't watch anything but trailers from a movie -- I like to keep the experience for the theater and in proper context -- but I realize I'm in the minority in online non-spoiler viewing habits)
Carla Gugino picks five favorite films. Barring Casino she has extremely good taste. I just expressed my love for her and now I must multiply
The Big Picture wonders, in the wake of Last House on the Left if the MPAA is ever going to be disgusted enough by rape to give a movie the NC-17 that they'll slap you with instantly if a woman actually enjoys consensual sex onscreen? See also: This Film is Not Yet Rated. No really, see it. My answer is not until American culture learns to love women more than they love violence against them and that seems a long way off... (sigh)
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14 comments:
Or I'll get viscous with my acrylic claws?
Well technically NC-17 is a rating meant specifically for sexual content, no? I'm not looking it up but I know that was why it was created and think it's part of the rating's very definition.
Not that I don't think there ought to be an equivalent for violence, because I agree that not everybody needs to be watching the rape scene in Last House (although I've not seen the remake yet, the one in the original made me sick... but really a rape scene SHOULD make you sick, no? That's it doing it's job).
And that piece does unfairly manipulate Roger Ebert's point of view; he gave the remake a 2.5 star review, and gave the original a good review too; even while he does express disgust towards the violence, for once he acknowledges it is appropriately calibrated here.
But the vague assertion of the piece I don't disagree with - some of the assholes going to this movie this weekend are going to be expecting another Saw, and any commentary it might have that's carried over from the original (which I think is an important film, even though I can't bring myself to watch it anymore) will be lost on them in favor of some rah-rah vigilante bullshit.
Thanks for the shout-out, Nathanael R!
Casino is a masterpiece
JA. No, it's not. The definition is
"NC-17 - No One 17 and Under Admitted
May contain very strong sexual or offensive language, strong explicit nudity, very strong gore or disturbing violence, or graphic drug abuse."
The only violent film I ever remember getting an NC-17 was Natural Born Killers but it got an R after a few edits. I just don't understand how all these gorey movies never have to worry about NC-17? Basically the rule is there to say if you are under 17 you can't see this film... even if your parent wants to take you.
I don't understand why parents are not even allowed the choice to show their children consensual sex but are permitted to show them graphic rape?
YES YES YES - more NC-17 ratings for violence and far less for consensual sex! It is a shameful and disgusting reflection on our society that this sort of shit gets by the censors!
On another note - that CloFu is a total joke, right? I mean, who would want to eat George Clooney's sweat? Now if it were the young James Cagney...
I knew I should've looked it up! Still, I agree that the MPAA is a piece-of-garbage institution that has their priorities ass-backwards. Not that their priorities are all that different from a vast swathe of the general public, though. It's like the father I saw coming out at the end of a screening of Watchmen with his two five-year olds beside him. Really? Really, fella? Silk Spectre's broken nose didn't make you have second thoughts about keeping those kids in there?
Anyway, my point is, this world is fucked; buy real estate on the moon ASAP. ;-)
JA ... we agree on this. I didn't want to come off like 'VIOLENCE IS BAD IN MOVIES!' cuz that's reductive. but the ratings should reflect the amount and nature of the violence just the way that they reflect the amount and nature of the sex (sometimes at least)... somehow the Watchmen got away with showing a penis several times without an NC-17 but that must have been because it was CGI and not Crudup's actual penis right?
Warning: at least one of the clips of Broken Embraces contains spoilers.
I think it was the sixth, but I stopped watching.
I am also a fan of Mark Strong, ever since I saw him in Emma with Kate Benkensale. I think he's an underused actor. He came to Brooklyn a few years ago with Emily Watson to do Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya. He was the love interest in Twelfth Night and was very convincing.
I'm not even sure if it's worth being theoretically outraged by this. I don't deal with the MPAA (Canadian). I'm not gonna watch this film (what's the point, though I'm sad that one of my favourite actors - Garrett Dillahunt - is in it). The points made are salient (that violence against women is more okay to watch than explicit sexual fulfillment), but they're being made over and over again by and for the same group of people and the MPAA etc don't seem to be taking notice. The audience doesn't seem to care. There's not even a discussion going on because it's not as if the ideas are even questionable. It's too frustrating to really think about.
I find this discussion between rape and consensual sex fascinating. It is also illuminating to view the hypocrisy of the R rating for Last House in relation to other films that are deemed R for laughable reasons. For example, by this definition Once is as offensive as Last House by virtue of a few curse words. What does it say about American values when cursing and smoking are deemed as objectionable as prolonged instances of graphic violence?
"somehow the Watchmen got away with showing a penis several times without an NC-17 but that must have been because it was CGI and not Crudup's actual penis right?"
Actually penis's don't get a movie NC-17'd. (I know this from following the ordeal of 'Young Adam' trying to get a below NC-17 rating. There's a lot of graphic sex in that movie and obviously a penis, but it only took the removal of one scene to make it an R: an oral sex scene.)
I'm pretty sure the system for rating movies is actually quite technical and robotic. But that's the real problem with it - it doesn't rely on human judgment so much as on checklists and stopwatches.
My understanding of how the ratings are handed out is that it's never been "objective" in any way (ie, this many seconds of genital sex gets you this rating, etc etc) but that the ratings are handed out by a group of "parents" or moviegoers, presumably with the idea that such people can best judge what would be appropriate for children to see. Please someone correct me, because the way ratings are handed out still make no sense if that is the case. (Parents are ok with their children seeing graphic violence? Really?)
I'd forgotten that "Once" was R-rated in the US and that really makes NO sense whatsoever. (Love that movie, but a few mild verbal expletives here and there do not an R movie make.)
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