The other day, I sat down and watched a documentary. Can you believe it? This documentary came highly reccomended and is about the MPAA, or Motion Picture Association of America, which is the group that decides whether a movie is G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17. The process had always been a bit of a mystery to me, and their shennanigans were always laughable (ex. anatomically incorrect puppet nudity), but apparently, I wasn't the only one.
The movie starts off by interviewing several famous directors, getting their take on the whole process of trying to get a movie out of the depths of NC-17 status, which is like a death sentence for a film. The experiences sounded terrible, and rediculous and just plain silly. Finally, the director asks who these people are, so they can be interviewed, only to find out no one knows their name. After hiring a weird P.I., the film slowly finds out who these raters are by following them, digging through the trash and all kinds of other, bizarre ways. Meanwhile, the film is trying to get a handle on exactly what their system of rating is, only to find out there is none, and there is not much consistency from one film to the next.
After the documentary completely fleshes out the names of the rating board, things get murkier as the film actually submits the film to be rated, only to get the dreaded NC-17 rating, with no description. Apparently, the appeal process is shrouded in even more mystery, as everyone refuses to give names, and acts like a secret society, with church figures and all. After continued dirt diggin, the director finds the name of the appeals board as well, and shows the complete one sided-ness of the board and the stupidity behind their alleged fair-ratings.
I personally don't have a problem with the idea of rating movies, but the cloak and dagger B.S. is just silly. I say, the company polls 100 of the top critics of a movie from a prescreening, and takes 25 randomly from the pile and uses the average for a rating. That rating should be challengable, and would allow for a filmmaker to better understand what is taboo, and what is ok.
So, overall, I learned a lot about the crookedness of the MPAA, but I don't hate them, I just think they need to get their stuff together a bit better. Maybe after the names are made public, an overhall can be made.
2 comments:
Also, do you think this was a one-sided propaganda type documentary? We all know how Michael Moore plays the "documentary game".
-M
(Feeling devil's advocate-ish today.)
I like the Devil's Advocacy thing, Bell!
I agree, Michael Moore is very one sided, and while all documentaries are biased, this documentary really does only talk about some of the missteps of the MPAA. While it is unbalanced, they don't really go into it as a documentary about the MPAA as much as a documentary about how R Rated films are generally watered down.
I will say, however, you can learn a lot about a filmmaker in a documentary, and this one is clearly no exception! Does that actually anwser the question? I dunno! lol
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