Not long ago, Wil Wheaton mentioned that he had watched This Film Is Not Yet Rated. Wil gave the movie “4.5 out of 5, and the official WWdN Happy Monkey of Goodness Seal of Approval.”
After watching the movie, I agree with Wil. The film, a documentary, deals with the MPAA and the manner in which they rate movies. Kirby Dick, the director, demonstrates in the film that the MPAA ratings board is deliberately arbitrary in the manner in which they assign ratings to movies.
For example, Dick interviews two people who used to be on the ratings board. These people confirmed that they received absolutely no training on how films should be rated. Additionally, they were given no guidelines to follow to help them determine what rating a film should recieve.
Additionally, the movie described the appeals process that filmmakers have to follow if they disagree with the rating received from the ratings board. Significantly, during the appeals process, the filmmaker is prohibited from referring to any other film as a basis for arguing that the film should receive a different rating.
Dick does an excellant job of juxtaposing film clips from R rated movies next to NC-17 rated movies and demonstrating that, despite the similarity in sexual acts, the ratings are different.
One of the great aspects of the movie was the multiple interviews with different directors. I was particularly fond of those of Kevin Smith, Matt Stone, Mary Harron,and Kimberly Peirce. I also thought that just about everything that John Waters said in the movie was funny.
The final portion of the movie is devoted to what happens when Dick submits the movie to the MPAA to have it rated. One of the great ironies here is that when Dick first submitted the movie it received an NC-17 rating. Once he changed the movie to add additional information about the movie itself and the ratings process, the movie was then different from what had been rated, therefore, the MPAA withdrew the rating.
A significant portion of the film was devoted to demonstrating the extremes that Dick had to go through to discover the identities of the members of the ratings board and the appeals board. The MPAA refuses to release this information, thus, Dick had to hire a private detective to discover the identities.
The result of this investigative work was the discovery that many of the raters do not fall within the demographics that the MPAA claims they fall within.
The extra features on the film are good as well. The commentary gives more backstory on the process of making the film and some of the obstacles the filmmakers encountered. Additionally, the deleted scenes include additional information on the bizarre nature of the ratings system as well as the fact that, despite multiple promises that the film would not be copied, the MPAA (who,with the RIAA, is one of the “leaders” in the anti-piracy campaign) made a copy of the movie and showed it to someone who the MPAA agreed would not be allowed to see it.
I really enjoyed this movie and highly recommend it.
1 response so far ↓
1 Chris // Mar 4, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Dude, until I read your review, I had forgotten I wanted to see this movie. I just watched it. The MPAA is full of $h!t. This film does a great job of exposing them for the lying, conceited suck-ups that they are. They lie to the American public about what they do and how they do it. They show favoritism to the major film studios and they have powerful, influential film industry personnel in on the system of rating films, not just the “average citizen” that they claim. Great flick.
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