Oh, yeah, happy belated birthday.

We've been so pins-and-needles over tomorrow's election thing, we're totally late to the party for the 40th birthday of the MPAA's rating system. Oh, well--it's not like they bothered to show up for our 40th shindig.



Founded in 1968, largely as a way for industry to stave off government intervention in the movie business, the ratings were/are intended as a way to help parents decide which titles are appropriate for the precious youngsters, but have tended to be a bit, er, capricious over the years.

In a fitting birthday gift to the MPAA, Defamer has come up with a very special list of questionable rulings made over the years, "40 Reasons to Wish the MPAA Ratings System an Unhappy 40th Birthday."

Be sure to check out the rest, but just a few of the hits:

Boys Don't Cry: Threatened with an NC-17 for a lingering shot of a topless Chloe Sevigny experiencing an orgasm, but allowed to keep the climactic rape scene and gunshot to Brondon Teena's head.

and, of course...

Waiting For Guffman: A classic example of the "Fuck Rule"; a Christopher Guest mockumentary with no sex or violence but featuring the F-word used one too many times in an actor's audition using the scene from Raging Bull. Its R-rating was upheld on appeal. (You can use "fuck" in a non-sexual way up to four times in and retain a PG-13 — maybe.)

And in an interesting coincidence (or is it?!), Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which barely squeaked away from it's own NC-17 rating, opened on the MPAA's birthday to not-so-spectacular results. At work might have been a skittering away from the the film's title and subject matter by mainstream newspapers and venues... though several reports underlined the odd hypocrisy of limiting the sex-themed feature while glorifying such torture-porn fare as Saw V.

Then again, going back to Defamer, it could just be bad marketing on the part of the distributing Weinstein brothers. Shocking, indeed!

No soup for you, Zack and Miri!

In Kevin Smith's ongoing struggle with the MPAA to get his latest film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, out into the theaters and in front of an audience, comes news that the agency has rejected the original poster for the movie. Featuring the title characters, each fully clothed, you may also notice at the bottom edge of the poster the somewhat humorous suggestion that each is getting oral, er, attention from the other. Pretty innocuous--and banned by the MPAA!



Interestingly, as noted on CinemaBlend.com, the MPAA earlier approved very similar imagery for the Dane Cook-vehicle, Good Luck Chuck, for a poster that went even further--if you can call it that--featuring the actor more apparently in flagrante delitico.



One might chalk up the discrepancy to mere bureaucratic inconsistency. Or, perhaps something more insidious, as it brings to mind contentions made in the documentary, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, that the MPAA regularly applies far more rigorous standards when a depiction includes female sexual pleasure--and not just some guy boffing a pie.

Hypocrisy much? Meanwhile, first reports on the film, which just premiered in Toronto, can be found here!

"There aren't enough X's in the alphabet..."

In a recent interview with The Reeler, director William Friedkin discusses his back-and-forths with the MPAA to get an R rating for the original release of Cruising in 1980. Sadly, for anyone hoping for a bit more detail on what ended up on the cutting room floor - and what apparently still isn't being put back for the DVD release scheduled next month - Friedkin remains pretty mum:

What didn't make it didn't make it. I'm not about to circumvent the ratings board now and describe all the scenes that aren't in the movie. There's about a half-hour to 40 minutes. But I would have to say is was mostly just more of what was going on in the clubs, and they didn't change or advance the story in any major way.

You know. Just more of what was going on in the clubs. That kinda stuff.

Much less the buzz-kill, this week's episode of ReelerTV contains a clip of the film's memorable hanky scene, along with host S.T. VanAirsdale's revelation of which color he's flagging these days. Who knew?!

This just in...

Evan Shapiro of IFC, home to such bold programming as Indie Sex and This Film is Not Yet Rated, is - how shall we put it? - "...very interested in sex."

Perhaps even obsessed.

Pinch hitting for The Reeler, he explains:

What I am obsessed with are the myriad sexual hang-ups ingrained in American society and how they continue to affect and constrain our culture. I don't mean private penchants or fetishes practiced behind closed doors by everyday consenting citizens. I mean the sexual neuroses of those in positions of authority who constantly tell us that our own predilections are not "normal" or "acceptable." These hang-ups are both interesting and important, because they who possess them often seem hellbent on inflicting them on the rest of us. Fact is, America is far more obsessed with sex than I am. By exploring sexuality, and exposing society's sexual hang-ups, we've tried -- in our way -- to de-stigmatize sex in all its forms, and help treat America's collective phobia.

This refreshingly straight-forward, activist-minded stance obviously make its presence known in much of IFC's programming. And it carries through the rest of Shapiro's post, ranging from the production of the Indie Sex series to the relevance of R Kelly's Trapped in the Closest to challenging sexual stereotypes. (WTF? Just read it.)

Four nights of great sex?!

If that's the case, looks like we actually have a bit of catching up to do. Somehow in our July torpor we missed the announcement that the documentary series, Indie Sex, began airing this week on IFC.

Fortunately, it's cable, so last night's missed episode will be back around shortly (and again and again). But we'll be watching closely to see if any of the footage the crew shot at last year's CineKink kick-off gala with the fabulous Wet Spots made it past network censors and into the final production.

And, if we're not lying somewhere on the cutting-room floor, would we be more likely considered the "Taboos" type - episode #2, airing tonight! - or a bit more an "Extremes" sort of girl?

Tune in and find out...

SxSWing

There's nothing like a 25-hour trip home through frigid conditions to blur recent memories of a week spent knocking about spring-like Texas, especially when those recollections might have already been made hazy by a week of tequila and BBQ.

After a few days of sleep, however, it's all starting to come back to us. We arrived in Austin to learn that our panel, Sex Scenes Stay Hard, was being touted as a "must-do" in the local media. It took us several days to tackle our resultant stage fright, but by the time we finally faced a room packed with attendees eagerly anticipating tidbits of uproariously naughty wisdom, our nerves had been reduced to a minor frog lodged at the back of our throat.

We were definitely comforted that the panel also featured other actual experts on the topic of shooting sex scenes - directors Bryan Poyser, Joe Swanberg and John Cameron Mitchell (who coyly avoided any acknowledgement of completely coopting our intended career trajectory), along with producer Lisa Thrasher of POWER UP. You can see a few video excerpts here, but generally the discussion touched upon the frequent conflict between sex and narrative, the importance of making cast comfortable and ensuring a connection between them, and the hypocrisy of a society that seemingly doesn't question the depiction of violence, no matter how extreme, yet goes into a tizzy fit over the presence of a mere bare breast. As time flew by, the topics of ratings, obscenity laws and 2257 requirements were probably given shorter shrift than they deserve, but we're just happy we somehow managed to work the word "cunninlingus" into the conversation, since now that we know how to pronounce it, we just can't seem to say it often enough.

Other excitements at SXSW included meeting up with several in the flesh representatives from the CineKinkster blogroll. We probably spent more time in Austin with the lovely, cupcake-wielding Rachel Kramer Bussel than we've ever pulled off in NYC, after she appeared on one of the (strangely?) most controversial panels of the interactive conference, Do You Blog on the First Date? We had the pleasure of finally meeting both Violet Blue and Cory Silverberg, who were speaking on Sex and Computational Technology. (Teledildonics? Now there's another great word!) And we encountered the delightful Seska Lee, in town for Pay Up! Should Publishers Choose the Porn Path?, whose Seska 4 Lovers was previously unknown to us, but whom we eventually recognized from an episode of HBO's porn-related something-or-whichever.

And movies? There were marathon days of great screenings, including a few on the CineKink scouting roster: Zoo, a beautifully shot if perhaps overly tasteful retelling of one man's death from having sex with a horse, and Pretty in the Face, a tender narrative about porn, sex toys and opening up to one's own sexuality. But for our money, the kinkiest of them all by far was Helvetica, a documentary look at the twisted world of compulsive typography fetishists.

Many thanks to the ever-gracious Matt Dentler - how does he manage to be in so many places at the same time? - and Jarod Neece for the wonderful time and for SXSW's sex-positive inclusivity. We're already looking forward to coming back again next year. (Please?!?)

Um. Wow.

On our way out of the multiplex the other day, we noticed the rather demure posters for This Film is Not Yet Rated and a banner instructing us to visit IFC.com to see the posters "they wouldn't let us show you!" Later, in one of our regular moments of online procrastination, we actually remembered to do so.





We're not sure, but we assume that the "they" preventing you from seeing these posters in a theater lobby is the MPAA, the motion picture industry's trade association. And, using this instance as just an example, that might not be an entirely bad thing. While we're as down on censorship as anyone, we're not so keen on floating out of some dreamy rom-com to be smacked in the eye with a blazing image of seared flesh. (We should probably come clean with the revelation that branding is one of our own personal squick points.) (Come to think of it, both in the physical and in the marketing sense.)

But once we've left the town square and plopped down our $10.50 to see a particular film of our own adult-minded choosing, the determination of which images confront us should be left to the creativity of the filmmaker. And the process of classifying what is considered "adult" needs to be made transparent, so that filmmakers and audiences alike know where the line falls, as well as the how and the who behind that determination.

And that's where This Film is Not Yet Rated comes in. Directed by Kirby Dick--who holds a permanent place in our heart for the sensitive and engaging Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist--the documentary delves into the whimsically arbitrary MPAA rating system and the power it wields over what we're ultimately allowed to see on the big screen. Featuring the candid anecdotes of such directors as John Waters, Kevin Smith, Matt Stone, Kimberly Pierce and Mary Harron, the film is particularly compelling in its look at the discrepancies in the MPAA's treatment of sex vs. violence and in an apparent aversion to homosexuality and the depiction of female sexual pleasure.

Opening in NYC and Los Angeles tomorrow, This Film is Not Yet Rated rolls out in several cities in the next weeks. Definitely make the effort to see it.