MPAA
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The NC-17 Rating Needs to Be Abolished (We Should Know, We Made an NC-17 Movie.)
We are the writers and executive producers of Lucky Bastard, which Robert directed, a “found footage” thriller about a porn shoot gone horribly wrong. While not featuring actual sex, Lucky Bastard has nudity, strong language, sexual situations and disturbing violence. Concerned about our film’s intense content, we submitted it for an MPAA rating. We accepted “NC-17 for explicit sexual content” because, in all honesty, it is the correct rating. Nonetheless, the NC-17 rating is fundamentally flawed and needs to be abolished. NC-17 is a charade, for all intents and purposes dying on the vine. It is a deterrent to ensure […]
by Lukas Kendall and Robert Nathan on Jan 29, 2014 -
WHAT’S HAPPENING, MR. JONES?
In Bob Dylan’s 1965 song “Ballad of a Thin Man,” he famously observes: “Something is happening here/But you don’t know what it is/Do you, Mr. Jones?” Well, something is sure happening to the U.S. movie entertainment business and nobody seems to know what it is. Most disturbing, the MPAA reports box office ticket sales have been declining for the last decade and a leading market research firm, Digital Entertainment Group, reported DVD sales continue to shrink. Making matters more trying, there has been no comparable increase in web streaming revenues to make up the difference. Adding to this bleak picture, […]
by David Rosen on Aug 14, 2012 -
Movie Business Shrinking
A curious occurrence took place in the wake of the Aurora, CO, mass killing on the opening night screening of the latest Batman release, The Dark Knight Rises. Revenue from opening weekend ticket sales was $211.8 million, slightly less than the $222.2 million for The Dark Knight. This was the highest box office gross for a conventional 2D movie for 2012. While the large turnout for the movie can be linked to a response to the shootings as much as the appeal of the movie, the numbers hide a darker truth. The movie business is shrinking. Ticket sales and DVD […]
by David Rosen on Jul 30, 2012 -
PERSONAL DEMOCRACY
The Internet is transforming social life and the political landscape. The growing pallet of digital media content-production technologies and social networking distribution sites, like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, is redefining the meaning of “democracy” and an individual’s ability to participate in the political process. The annual Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) is a geek and political-wonk fest, a 21st century Woodstock – without the drugs, rain and rock ‘n’ roll – and this year’s gathering was no exception. This is a momentous election year, with a day of reckoning coming in November. The nation is living through what Nobel Prize-winning economist […]
by David Rosen on Jun 14, 2012 -
THE NEW HOLLYWOOD
In April, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sent letters of inquiry to four Hollywood’s studios — Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Sony Pictures — informing them that it was investigating their business practices in China. According to Reuters, while neither the SEC, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) nor the individual movie companies would formally discuss the matter, it is assumed that at issue is possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that makes it illegal to make improper payments to foreign officials for business purposes. Such payments are not uncommon in China. Stay […]
by David Rosen on May 10, 2012 -
MEDIA CURRENT: THE IP WARS
After the Thanksgiving recess, Congress is expected to vote on two bills that will influence the future of online Intellectual Property (IP). The Senate bill (S. 968) is dubbed the “PROTECT IP Act” (PIPA) which stands for the “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act”; it was adopted by the Judiciary Committee in May. The House bill (H.R.3261) is the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and is currently being deliberated. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the music industry and a handful of digital rights holders, including games companies Sony and Nintendo, are […]
by David Rosen on Nov 28, 2011 -
“BLUE VALENTINE” NC-17 RATING OVERTURNED
Mike Fleming is reporting at Deadline that the MPAA has overturned the NC-17 rating originally given to Derek Cianfrane‘s Blue Valentine. The film will be given an R rating. The appeals board was unanimous in its decision. Blue Valentine chronicles the budding relationship of a couple, played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, and its eventual collapse. The MPAA originally gave the film an NC-17 rating for a scene they deemed too sexual in nature. The ruling sent shock waves through the movie industry and led to the film’s distributor, The Weinstein Company, filing an appeal which included, Fleming says, […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Dec 8, 2010 -
“BLUE VALENTINE” GETS NC-17
In news that just makes you scratch your head, according the Mike Fleming at Deadline, the MPAA ratings board has given Derek Cianfrance‘s Sundance gem (and Oscar hopeful) Blue Valentine an NC-17 rating. Starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as a married couple who are on the verge of a divorce, Fleming says the rating was given due to the scene where Gosling and Williams’ characters spend the night in an adult fantasy suite. “They get drunk and their problems intensify when he wants to have sex and she doesn’t, but will to get him off her back. It is […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Oct 8, 2010 -
WEINSTEINS TO FIGHT “TILLMAN” RATING
Over at Deadline Hollywood, Nikki Finke reports on The Weinstein Company’s announcement today that they will be appealing the MPAA’s “R” rating that they have bestowed on Amir Bar-Lev‘s doc The Tillman Story. The MPAA says they have given the rating based on the film’s excessive language. Granted, the Tillmans do throw out a lot of F-bombs in the film (and you may recall that the original title was I’m Pat F______ Tillman, which in fact are the last words Pat Tillman said before he was killed) but there’s a difference between a Kevin Smith profanity-laced film and this family’s […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Aug 11, 2010 -
DICK’S MPAA ADVENTURE, PART 2
The Reeler has a piece up today following up on the IFC press release blogged below regarding Kirby Dick’s upcoming Sundance doc This Film is not Yet Rated and its MPAA controversy. It’s all a bit more complicated than the release made it sound…
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 14, 2005
