Review of This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006) by Alex P — 15 Mar 2009

Good idea for a documentary, but he tried to fit waaaaaay to much in to an hour and a half - I think if he didn't focus on the personal history of the PI, Kirby Dick could have given us more in-depth information on some more of the issues.

I do think the public and movie makers have the right to know who is rating films - because it is so very biased. LGBT issues came up a lot, as well as the issue of sex vs. violence in film - I agree with Kevin Smith.

.. if there was to be some sort of list of what is the pecking order of worst things to put in films, rape/domestic abuse should be at the top. And why does the MPAA have a problem with The Cooler or The Dreamers, but will let stupid movies like the Scary Movie franchise to show fake penises a gajillion times? Censorship of the arts is a huge issue - I remember writing a paper about this very topic in an Art and Morality class as an undergrad - should we really be letting 8 or 9 anonymous (and biased towards Conservative, according to this doc) people decide what ratings movies get? Why not have a representative or two from some of the minorities, or at least a few progressive folks put in their say? And then the whole part about how when you try to appeal the MPAA, you can't cite a previous film as a precedent! WTF? That, though, was overturned in 1997.

.. but still! Literally a couple hours after I watched this, I was listening to the directors commentary on the Fever Pitch (2005) DVD, and the Farrelly Brothers were saying that in one scene, a woman flashed her Red Sox bra at J.

Damon and the MPAA told them the movie would get an R rating unless they took it out... An R for a bra? Come on MPAA! Titanic was PG-13 and we saw Kate Winslet in a bit less than a bra... but oh wait, you couldn't use that as an example in 2005 - it was against the rules.

Well, the scene got taken out... if the people on the MPAA wanted to change movies so much, they should have become editors.