This LJ Post is Not Rated

This Film is Not Yet Rated should win awards for best documentary. The irony is that it can't because the people who would nominate it would have to get over the fact that the director exposed the MPAA's hypocritical asses. And, as the director very calmly states, the paranoia around this organization borders on hysteria but may be justified. The director, in addition to having made a smart movie, has enough cheek and humor to really keep you absorbed. The question and answer period with the director is, if possible, just as revealing at about ten minutes as the entire movie is. The raters he submitted his movie to basically violated every single rule that the MPAA spends billions of dollars screeching about other people not breaking (number one with a bullet: they made a copy of the film he submitted to them!).

Everything you hate about screaming fundamentalists, you will find to hate in this movie reviewers. They make the rules and then pretend they did not ("we don't create the culture, we reflect it" when they're the ones making the connection between women's bodies being cheap and easy at PG-13 and men's bodies being dirty and inappropriate at R or worse). They lay out public guidelines for their own behavior and, surprise surprise, they can't/don't/won't police themselves to be sure they follow them. When filmmakers try to meet them half-way, they get pats on the head and told they're not quite there, but aren't they sweet for trying? And then they're left to guess at what to fix or else rebel and not get distributed. It's okay it you're with the MPAA...

The breakdown of what the ratings means really shows how ridiculous the system is. If you aren't bland, devoid of artistic content, or white and missionary-happy, your sex isn't welcome here. If you kill people but just don't show them bleeding, kids as young as thirteen can get at your movie without parental notification or consent. I don't like the credence given to the pop-psychology stuff with violence affecting kids and making them violent, but I do agree that, in general, the acts of violence that get a pass in this craphole system are a lot more damaging than things that don't get the same permission.

Everyone should see this movie. John Waters, Matt Stone, and Kevin Smith are all hilarious and spot-on with their anecdotes about the MPAA's rating system. Kevin Smith, in particular, is more refreshingly intelligent than even ever I've heard from him. Best quote of the entire fucking thing is his:

"If I were to create a ratings system, I would put...I wouldn't even put murder right at the top of chief offenses. I would put rape at the top of chief offenses. And assault against women 'cause it's so insanely overused and insulting how much it's overused in movies: a woman in peril. That to me is offensive, yet that shit skates."

He gets it. As a human being, he gets it. Violence against women isn't a convenient shortcut for development as a character; you don't get to play fast, loose, and fucking lazy with real issues because you're too stupid, too ignorant, or too patriarchally brainwashed to understand how truly traumatic it is to have that threat hanging over the head of just about every woman on the planet and then to have it thrown in like it necessarily makes good drama. It fucking does not. As a filmmaker, too, he gets it. Not only is this cheapening the fear of rape (which is not unhealthy thing to have given the sense of entitlement that movies especially encourage with regards to men getting laid), it's cheapening the effect of that background on our ability as an audience to appreciate and relate to a character.

And, yes, I would think that sexual violence that is non-consensual deserves at least an R rating no matter how tame the actual footage because it is a graphic depiction of violation just in thought, let alone in deed. We should be focusing more on issues of consent than on why it's not okay to show female pleasure, why we like tits but can't stand hips, why gay sex is inherently weirder than any heterosex (same sex in both = greater rating for the gay act), et al. Violence is the bane of our existence; sex is the only way to ensure existence is maintained. Without ascribing to the theories of the screamie-meamie psychologists who get the vapors when they hear that a kid who went beserk ever breathed air in a Game Stop, you can at least admit that violence is something we should protect against more than we should protect against a biological urge.

Fucking awesome movie. Highly recommend it to all.

(no subject)

So arcfox7 has come to know and love the glory that is Dynasty Warriors 5, and I'm getting all excited back and forth with saying who kicks ass and who sucks it, and I got cocky and bet I could name just about everyone in the game. Well, PS, I couldn't--we spent so much time playing DW3 and making up new names for the characters (like "Fagarine" for the Wei guy, and I know feiran knows who I mean) that I can't remember them all. I can remember faces and weapons and how much I hate them (there's an imbalance of hatred here, I mostly loathe Weis).

Who thinks they can name all fifty billion characters in DW5? Come on, no cheating, just give it a shot. Respect to the winner!

(no subject)

Guess who is ridiculously excited about this?

Okay, so the drawbacks are many. So what if I've refreshed my Netflix page since I read it and still no dice on them making it work for me? So what if I can only watch a few thousand movies--I'm willing to bet there's at least a couple thousand I won't have seen on there!

This is brilliant. You know how some of you have looked at the new iPhone and gone all boneless with pleasure? This is how I feel about this service. I was sure Netflix would have to do something pretty special to compete with Blockbuster, and now they have. Blockbuster finally managed to one-up Netflix with allowing for their rent-at-home service to include rent-and-return to their stores, solving the problem of yes, you can rent a hundred movies, but what if you wanted a new one right now?

And now Netflix has come up with their own answer. Structurally speaking, not enough people will have the equipment at home to make this--on the surface--seem competitive with Blockbuster (plenty of people have Blockbuster stores nearby and nice home theater systems; fewer have great internet/wireless coverage and computers to handle the streaming). On the other hand, people are getting to that point, vastly preferencing high-speed internet access, and faster computers are getting cheaper all the time with better components capable of handling this service. Also, software and servers to house these movies digitally would cost less than real estate to rent a store, doing an end-run around costs accrued by the Blockbuster model. Factor in wages not lost to employees or damage done to property, and I'd say Netflix is looking to run much more in the black than Blockbuster.

Will it take a while for this to be the norm? Maybe. But the prevalence of YouTube and Google Video will groom people to the service, so they're going to come at it savvy enough to use it and be comfortable with the format. Also, concerns about people not "gathering together around the PC" are being made obsolete by the blending of home entertainment to encompass the internet as well as the hi-def TV. Maybe it's just the geek in me, but I know plenty of people who happily watch movies on laptops or at their computer. I do it if I don't have time to commandeer the TV in our house, and I don't suffer for it. I don't miss special features much either (the exception last night was This Film is Not Yet Rated because those extras were bitching and worth staying up until 3 am for). The pricing is right (you pay nothing more for the streaming, just you get as many hours as you sink dollars into Netflix, and if that isn't a hook more sweet than the guy giving you the first hit for free, I don't know what is), the company sound....eeeee!!!!

::refreshes Netflix homepage::