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Maybe your sister should consult with these people before stepping into a movie theater again.

A rating that quatifies the bad-ness of a movie exists. I wouldn't be surprised if the video game method is similar:

http://www.capalert.com/

I wonder what the Childcare Action Project will make of such a Christian movie, which will feature no unnatural creatures or magic or mythology...

You're on to something. It's called R-13.

Mary Poppins was a delightful romp for children and the young at heart through a make-believe world of frolic and fantasy. There were no instances of offensive material throughout the movie. While there were several occurences of "magic," there was nothing evil or sinister about any of the "magic." Mary could have been angelic. While some might consider the "We won't go to sleep!" from Michael to Mary Poppins to be arrogance and/or impudence, the obstinence was NOT at his parents. All instances of Jane and Michael taking issue with parental authority (e.g., the song) were with respect and even apology. I cannot find in the Bible anywhere God has a problem with children disagreeing with their parents but I can find a LOT of warnings against arrogance toward and rebellion against parents -- a LOT -- and with severe consequences ... and even more severe consequences for parents who abuse the authority and position He gave them.

Mary Poppins was a delightful romp for children and the young at heart through a make-believe world of frolic and fantasy. There were no instances of offensive material throughout the movie. While there were several occurences of "magic," there was nothing evil or sinister about any of the "magic." Mary could have been angelic. While some might consider the "We won't go to sleep!" from Michael to Mary Poppins to be arrogance and/or impudence, the obstinence was NOT at his parents. All instances of Jane and Michael taking issue with parental authority (e.g., the song) were with respect and even apology. I cannot find in the Bible anywhere God has a problem with children disagreeing with their parents but I can find a LOT of warnings against arrogance toward and rebellion against parents -- a LOT -- and with severe consequences ... and even more severe consequences for parents who abuse the authority and position He gave them.

Mary Poppins was a delightful romp for children and the young at heart through a make-believe world of frolic and fantasy. There were no instances of offensive material throughout the movie. While there were several occurences of "magic," there was nothing evil or sinister about any of the "magic." Mary could have been angelic. While some might consider the "We won't go to sleep!" from Michael to Mary Poppins to be arrogance and/or impudence, the obstinence was NOT at his parents. All instances of Jane and Michael taking issue with parental authority (e.g., the song) were with respect and even apology. I cannot find in the Bible anywhere God has a problem with children disagreeing with their parents but I can find a LOT of warnings against arrogance toward and rebellion against parents -- a LOT -- and with severe consequences ... and even more severe consequences for parents who abuse the authority and position He gave them.

As I remember, the book, movie and radio series were all wildly inconsistent with each other, and that's part of the charm. You can repurpose the basic idea and characters into multiple media and it doesn't get stale because the words are different, the characters are different, and the plot shifts.

So I would give this a chance, as it is, before condemning it.

Of course if you want to condemn it, you can always count on the capalert guy to do it for you, but that seems a little narrow-minded to me.

D

... to tell us PRECISELY what is wrong with any major film out there. At least for a very specific subset of the population.
Read it for a laugh, read it for a look into a closed mind; for whatever reason, it's an interesting place. And they count ALL of the naughty bits and tell you what they are.

http://www.capalert.com/capreports/

An excerpt from their analysis of Daredevil (The guy thought it sucked too), specifically the "I" from the WISDOM scale:

Impudence/Hate:
* six uses of the three/four letter word vocabulary
* a single use of the most foul of the foul words in song
* reckless regard for personal safety by a child
* a single use of the three/four letter word vocabulary by a child
* lies
* facial piercing
* adult tantrum

If you're a prude, watch something else.

This is one that always confounded me.

Books that deal with issues of race are often banned by people who object to racism. I sometimes think it's because they haven't actually read the books, but have merely done the kind of sanctimonious counting of "offensive" terms or situations (e.g., like the CAP Alerts. Or anybody remember that lady who talked to the Meese commission, and enumerated the number of times the word "horny" was used in Catcher in the Rye?). You could argue this for several of the books:

Huck Finn was clearly written with an anti-racist agenda, but was written ironically, from the perspective of an ignorant kid. It contains the word "nigger" many, many times. As a result of these two factors, it's considered by some as inappropriate for children.

To Kill A Mockingbird deals with a rape trial, and therefore could be considered inappropriate for kids. It also contains a lot of racial slurs and violence.

I think what's underlying the attacks on these books, though, is less these characteristics (which are usually the nominal reasons for banning them), but the anti-authority themes running through the books. They question the conventional morality of the times they describe. People who don't like that kind of thinking may find that mroe offensive than all of the ostensible faults of the books. They don't wnat to encourage this kind of questioning (of course, they're way too late to try to stop it now.)

You can see a similar effect, by the way, against some of the best anti-authoritarian books like Animal Farm ("it makes kids think animals can talk!"), Brave New World ("but it mentions sex!"), Slaugherhouse Five ("it's filthy!"), and so forth.

This site makes for weirdly compelling reading. Check out the scores for Scary Movie and American Psycho...

No, but it might be surprising how much the ratings have creeped. I know a lot of people don't care. Some people do.

Those specific set of standards they include according to the rest of the article include "biblical values/morals". Do we really want that as the basis for our rating system?

Why not? They've served us well on this continent for over 300 years. The founders of the country desired them to be the basis of the country. Even the founders who were Deists appreciated the Bible's moral teachings, and, in fact, knew that a free society was dependent on such a moral foundation.

Anyway, there's no need to criticize CAP's analyses since the MPAA doesn't have anything to do with CAP. Moreover, CAP's scores are based on numerical observations. It does not set ratings; it shows raw scores resulting from deductions when violations of Biblical morals are observed. The scores are broken down by category so that a movie goer can determine if the movie's content is acceptable to his own level of standards. CAP doesn't tell you what score is "too low" for you to see. It's your choice.

I would imagine that anything remotely homosexual would immediately bring about an R rating. Saying Jesus Christ or God damn would also be an instant R.

You would be wrong. The movie characters could say "G- d-" a millon times, and the movie could still earn a high CAP score. Read the CAP methodology.

First of all, as I mentioned above, CAP does not issue ratings. It's up to parents to decide what they consider to be "PG" or "R" by this system.

Secondly, saying "G- d-" would fit into only one investigation area from which points could be deducted. If we guesstimate that such a violation causes a subtraction of two points (each violation incurs 1-3 points deduction) from the starting score of 100, it would be possible for a movie to have 50 instances of "G- d-" (actually, infinite instances since subzero scores are marked as zero) and still receive an overall score of 80.

A Christian ministry advising parents about the content of popular movies says its not surprised by a Harvard University study finding films within the same rating class are getting raunchier, noting it made the same discovery four years ago.

ChildCare Action Project Movie Ministry indicates the Harvard data echoes its own findings from 2000. The Harvard study, released last month, shows content of movies with specific ratings is getting stronger, meaning a film rated PG-13 today likely would have received an R rating several years ago.

Researchers looked at films released between 1992 and 2003. The study found more sex and violence in later PG movies and more of the same, plus more profanity, in PG-13 movies. It also found R-rated movies contained more profanity and sex.

Today's PG-13 movies, it was found, are inching toward what R-rated movies looked like in 1992.

Even films rated G were found to have more violence, especially in animated features.

The CAP Ministry notes it scrutinized films for eight years using a specific set of standards and mathematical formulae. The group's statistical analysis found PG-13 movies consistently including more objectionable elements as the years went on, leading the researchers to coin the rating "R-13."

"In the first five years the percentage of R-13 movies more than quadrupled (an increase of 459 percent) which says in the year 2000, 450 percent more of the PG-13 audiences were fed R-rated programming than in 1996/7," the Christian research said.

Researchers from both CAP Ministry and Harvard noted the movie rating system used by the Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA, is too general.

Said CAP Ministry founder Tom Carder: "The CAP Analysis Model could replace the MPAA. And the CAP Analysis Model provides it objectively, not vulnerable to mood and preference subjectivity so you can be in a better position to have the information you need to make an informed moral decision whether a film is fit for your kids (or yourself)."

Read more

Congratulations. You are even more uptight than the fundie film reviewers at Christian Answers and the CapAlert. Report immediately to your nearest church for further indoctrination.

lol. I looked up the review mentioned above - check this out:
"In the months that followed our posting if this analysis report we received thousands of emails from adolescents who have seen this movie and spoke just like it. With the same or more severe level of contempt for wholesome and righteous ethics. I would post examples of their email here but most of them would look like "You --- ---, ---. You are a --- and a ---. Go --- ---. And see who cares about your --- ---, you --- --- sorry --- --- --- ---. --- my ---. And Satan's, too, you --- uncle ---- donkey ---." Just like South "Puke": BLU. And some people actually believe movies do not influence kids."

I think they influence people who post on Slashdot as well ;)

http://www.capalert.com/capreports/southpark.htm

Let me put this 191-minute movie in the following light. It was certainly a technological masterpiece and is certain to make an indelible mark on many, but bodies were thrown around like sparks from a stirred campfire and severed heads were used as throwing weapons. And the use of evil (sorcery/witchcraft/wizardry) for good continues so this movie continues the trend of the LotR movies to violate the admonishment of Isa. 5:20 which warns "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" With a final score of 56 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the lowest scoring of the three LotR movies. It is indeed equivalent to the scores earned by PG-13 movies in the comparative baseline database of movies but is just two points out of one hundred above R-13 . Though The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a magnificent work of art it is "hardcore" PG-13, fortunately not because of the hardcore language and sexual immorality typical of PG-13s, but unfortunately because of intense and graphic violence [Prov. 3:31-32] and issues of occult - witchcraft, sorcery, wizardry (Offense to God). [Deut. 18:10 - 12; 2Chr. 33:6; Rev. 22:14-15]

How can I call The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King a work of art? Because of the skill and talents that went into a beautifully choreographed and orchestrated symphony of visual and audio excellence in a story of conrapositioned good and evil. Then how can I find issue with it if it is so magnificent? Because, in nutshell, art does not equal sin and sin does not equal art. Art becomes sin when art uses sin. The inference drawn from the beauty of the manner used to contraposition good and evil may lead some viewers to believe more of evil than evil is due. Whether intentional, such presentation of sensory and spiritual food can be trickery. And that leads me into a mini-sermon about trickery.

Satan is the greatest trickster known to man. Satan has been very successful at tricking us. His first trick was mixing God's Truth with lies in fine-sounding argument and smooth talk -- Eve was the first victim of such deceit. And we have all suffered for it. One of Satan's greatest tricks is to convince many that God does not exist, keenly mixing that trick with the trick of convincing many others to think they don't need God: that we can deal with life, and death, all by ourselves, all on our own. Frosting for that trick is Satan convincing many of us that even he does not exist. Yet another great Satanic trick on mankind is to convince many that there are more than one god ... and goddess. Masterful is Satan in tricking us to believe that sin is not really sinful or that sin is relative: that there are no absolutes. Yet another of Satan's great tricks is convincing many that the Bible is no more than mortal man's attempts to control the populations with fear and calling it interpretation of God's Word thus making His Word seem subject to the personal and social preferences of the times the Bible was written. Satan has even convinced many of they who will not reject Jesus that God can be measured by their own standards. Another very successful trick of Satan's is to convince us at a young age that we do not have to answer to any authority, especially parental, and in doing so making it easy for us when grown to not submit to Jesus -- and be comfortable with it. Arrogantly. Amidst it all, Satan has tricked many of even the best of the believers that they have their heels dug in, steadfast in their faith as they compromise God's Word, situationally redefining it, counterfeiting it and conditionally applying it to fill their own bellies. All in the name of "interpretation." And the greatest of all of Satan's tricks is to convince us we are immune to his tricks, leading us by the nose into sin and away from Jesus while we think we are safe. These are just a

Gollum steals the one ring and goes on to rule Middle Earth with a clammy iron paw.

As long as rating systems are enforced, why should you or anyone else care what kind of games other adults play.

I agree. I wouldn't care particularly much... if the ESRB could just produce a decent rating system, and anyone at all cared about it. It's a sad day when the official ratings board of the ISDA itself can't devise a system to equal a bunch of berserker fundamentalists, and can't enforce its age recommendations as well as even the movie industry...

Violence has been part of human entertainment since our earliest times. The Illiad and the Bible would definitely get rated M if they were videogames (AO for some parts of the Bible even!).

Re. the Bible -- Got to love that immoral author. :)

I was complaining, not so much about the presence of any violence in a work, as about the presence of gratuitious violence, e.g. not necessary to the thrust of the story, gamplay, etc. I wouldn't complain about, say, The Godfather, but would about The Phantom Menace, because the immense amount of fairly gruesome violence in the former added to the story, while the larger-scale but more "kid-friendly" violence of the latter took away from it. Essentially, what I'm questioning is the literary good sense of the developers of games like Wolfenstein 3d or whatever.

It is simply easy for someone to blame someone else, rather than looking closer at home. If there is trouble, blame someone else. Let's blame Marilyn Manson, South Park (Canada!), or Games.

A quick search on the lovely capalert site reveals that there is exactly one movie that has received a perfect zero rating: American Psycho.

My favorite choice quote from the "review":
There is no listing of Chapter and Verse references for this movie. There is not enough room.

Bwahaha!

Reminds me of my plan to sculpt a movie designed to get exactly zero points on the capalert scale: 15 minutes of wanton violence/crime, followed by 15 minutes of Impudence and Hate, 15 minutes of Sex and Homosexuality, etc...

Dude, do you run Capalert?

If not, perhaps you and the webmaster can engage in some mutual religious masturbation. You sound like you desperately need a partner.

As an activist and advocate for youth rights, nothing aggrevates me more than retailers/theaters barring the sale of entertainment, whether it be video games, movies or music.

Granted, voluntary enforcement leaves the retailers at liberty to decide whether to create such a policy without laws forcing them to, but barring sale based on an organization's rating system (ESRB, etc.) is shoving someone else's opinion (rating) down the consumer's throat, and barring the sale to individuals, based on the vague and discriminate class of age.

In Michigan, section 301 of the Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act of 1976 prohibits a place of public accommodation (defined: a business...of any kind...whose goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations are...made available to the public) "from denying an individual the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities...of a place of public accommodation because of religion, race, color, national origin, age, sex, or marital status." It is undoubtedly arguable that any retailer in Michigan prohibiting a minor from buying a "Rated M" game is violating this act.

The responsibility lies in the hands of the parents, not the retailers, or the government. If parents want to make their purchasing decisions based on a rating system, whether it be the ESRB, or something like the Childcare Action Project, so be it. Retailers should either sell the product to everyone, or not carry it at all. The "One Rating System to Rule Them All" mindset is not the way to go about it.

Just my two cents...

I'm sure this probably will have been said several time by the time I click submit but:

While I think that creating a dot kids domain isn't necessarily a bad thing, there may be a few problems.

The first, and perhaps most obvious problem is classifying something as "kids safe" or "not kids safe". "kids" is a very broad definition. I mean, would you seriously apply the same standards to a 16 year old as you would an 8 year old? Some things (like goatse) are obviously "not kids safe", and some things are obviously "kids safe". Unfortunately, probably 90% of websites are in the grey area.

It really depends on an individual view-point. Some people would consider even the most mild things offensive, and some wouldn't. All it takes is one single curse word on some page of a site(more or less), and the site potentially could fall into the grey area between "kids safe" and "not kids safe".

Sites with some dynamic interactive content(i.e. forums, comment boards, guestbooks, etc...) would be automatically in the grey area, since who knows what could appear there, although they are forbidden by the bill anyway.

But what will the standards be? Even if they are relatively simple, you run into all sorts of problems. For example, say the only rule is "no porn". Okay, how do you really define porn? Thats a very broad definition. As I said before, some thing are definitely porn, and some are not, but many are in between. Okay, say you make the rule simpler. No nudity. Well, even thats a bit broader, and could have many problems. So you define exactly what is meant by nudity. Well, then you run into the problem that nudity alone is not harmful. You could have pornographic pictures that do not meet the definition of nudity. Okay, so no pictures with nudity or sexual acts/references. By the time you're done with a good definition, you've already excluded most of the websites on the internet. In fact, I can't think of a single website I frequently visit that wouldn't fail a test like that.

There probably won't be many useful sites there at all.

Secondly, back to the issue with age groups. Saying absolutely no possibly offensive material is okay for little kids, but what about teenagers. I remember having to do a school report about the Holocaust, and I think many people would consider sites about the Holocaust unsafe for little kids. I also had to do several reports dealing with science/medicine. Even a relatively simple no-nudity rule has problems then. Remember that the WHOLE site has to be "kids safe". Many medical sites have nudity somewhere to some degree.

Although its not 100% related, I think I should also bring up the idea of creating a .XXX domain. It would probably be a good thing to have one. The problem is if sites are forced to move to .XXX. Now, actual porn sites shouldn't have as much of a problem moving their domains. But what about sites that AREN'T porn sites, yet contain nudity, or even pornography. My site, for example, has a funny picture archive, and I'm sure some of those have nudity, or may be mildly pornographic. However, it is NOT intended as a porn site by any amount.

Anyways, back to the .kids domain. "So what's the problem?", you might ask, "Its only designed as a domain that parents can let their kids use without being worried.". I wish that would be true. Unfortunately, thats not what will happen. It'll be used as a whitelist for censorware. Schools will then end up only letting kids use the .kids domain. Even libraries may be affected.
Oh well, at least its not a mandatory .XXX domain.

The Religious Right, incredible as it may seem, can be the killer ally of the digital freedom movement, just like Stalin was in WWII. Remember that morality vs. copyright case? (the right to edit movies to the customer's content)

When talking to any individual with such orientation, we have to stress that the current copyright fundamentalism is made to favor Hollywood - you know, that big, unholy, pornography-peddling anti-God collective in California. Mentioning Scientology might help too. YMMV.

Now THAT is an 800-lb. gorilla.

Besides, some Christians really are that crazy. Ever see this guy? Check especially his hilarious South Park review.

(Note: I'm agnostic, myself, but I still can't stand fundamentalists who take every word in the Bible literally.)

...you should read this real review. Most disturbing is that MIB2, "...contains nudity rarely seen even in R-rated features." Who would of thought!!

When was the last time you saw a review that changed your mind about going to go see a movie? I heard Star Wars 4 sucked so I didn't pay the AU$15 to see it knowing it would show up on the cable tv some time. It was a good decisions but it was more based on the start wars 1 directors recut that sucked so bad and not so much on reviews. I decied to see FotR becuase of some of the ads and things I had heard about how they put it together. The only review that got me into a movie was CAP's review of the South Park movie.

As far as I can tell, not a hoax, but hilarious is this Christian review of the South Park movie.

a small sample ...

The most foul of the foul words was clearly spoken *by the children* at least 131 times

Henry Troup, hwt@igs.net

The same people who brought you CAP Alert! Anyone think Microsoft is starting to help fund the Religious Right against the evil "devilry" of *NIX and Macs?

Try this one - the movie is a danger to your soul!

LOL

Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting the link to CAP!! I haven't laughed so hard for a long long time... I absolutely loved their review of Southpark: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.

Now I know where to go to find out what movies are worth seeing - the worse they do on there, the more I'm likely to enjoy them!

I'm not trolling, flaming or anything else but...

What the hell is this doing posted to /.?

This is a lame list made by idiotic fundamentalist Christians (they're called the Lion and the Lamb, for crying out loud) who want to take all the 'bad things' out of our lives, what next, post capalert's opinion on LOTR on to the story above?

There's plenty of these idiots about, please do not encourage them by giving them hits. Try Landover Baptist if you feel the need to mock them.

(And a european parent at that)

I have no problem with the games and their content or whatever. I also hate extreme Christian tosspots like this guy. The aim of "reducing the marketing of violence to children" is, however, a laudable one. These companies put recommended ages on and then deliberatly market toys at children below that age group. My nine year old stepdaughter, like all of her classmates, has been into the Pokemon craze. The way I watch it, I don't see that there's much difference between the basic premise and dogfighting - setting pets on each other to see who wins. Admittedly, my nine year old stepdaughter does have Aspergers syndrome and therefore has a lot of trouble distinguishing what's serious and what's not.

I don't believe that banning or censoring things is the answer. I do believe that awareness and parental responsibility will help. My two year old son will soon be old enough to be influenced by what he sees and hears (he picked up the word "bugger" quickly enough). I wouldn't like him to grow up thinking that it's normal to shoot/stab/punch people.

I don't want censorship (yeah - I surf for porn now and again) what I want is responsibility. I don't want people to blame the TV or the Internet for their kids seeing graphic anal fisting (much less Taco snotting), I want them to take responsibility and educate their kids. You can't take responsibility without knowledge.

The people who run this site may be going about things the wrong way, but someone needs to highlight that there is a problem.

PS Yes, our TV news does show what actually happens when people are shot/bombed/gassed and it aint pretty. And we still don't want guns - coincidence?

Can it get a movie past this guy? This man has a sick, sick mind. He manages to read filth and blasphemy into everything.

Can it get a movie past this guy? This man has a sick, sick mind. He manages to read filth and blasphemy into everything.

Why do we even need this, when we have quality public service such as this!

It's a spoof, don't worry. Although if you want an actual fundamentalist take on Monsters, Inc., get it here. Truthfully, the guy seemed to like it and not really have a problem with it.

And then you can check out their review of...let's see - how about South Park if you want some fire and brimstone ;)

And if that parody is the most revolting thing you've ever seen, that's only because you haven't seen the real thing yet...

It's a spoof, don't worry. Although if you want an actual fundamentalist take on Monsters, Inc., get it here. Truthfully, the guy seemed to like it and not really have a problem with it.

And then you can check out their review of...let's see - how about South Park if you want some fire and brimstone ;)

And if that parody is the most revolting thing you've ever seen, that's only because you haven't seen the real thing yet...

If ye want a real laugh, go read capalert, a 'Christian' movie review site. If this guy rated his own bible the way he rates movies, humans wouldn't be allowed to read it.

The best of these would be capalert.com. He hasn't rated "Freddy Got Fingered", but he has nothin' good to say about the South Park movie. "*South Park* is another movie straight from the smoking pits of Hell."

Fade To Black somehow got Cap from CapAlert to do a Q&A column. It's a hoot.
--

The best of these would be capalert.com. He hasn't rated "Freddy Got Fingered", but he has nothin' good to say about the South Park movie. "*South Park* is another movie straight from the smoking pits of Hell."

Fade To Black somehow got Cap from CapAlert to do a Q&A column. It's a hoot.
--

Coming soon to theaters: "How the Emperor Got His Groove Back"!

And the first thing they do is turn the emperor into a llama?? This movie is more perverted than I thought! Someone alert the ChildCare Action Project immediately!

It's almost as if the people at CAP are trying as hard as possible to cause a stampede to theatres to see that movie.

http://www.capalert.com/capreports/s out hpark.htm

Bible-thumpers shouldn't gibber so much. It attracts just the sort of attention they hate most. They'll never catch on, though. Heh-heh ....

Jeez.. aside from the last 2 paragraphs, the whole thing was ripped almost directly from a real review of Episode I by an extremely conservative religious group.

I'm not sure where the rest of it came from, or if he just made it up, but since this is obviously either an attempt at humor or an attempt at trolling, we should all just read it, and either snicker or shake our heads and be on our way.

Jeez.. aside from the last 2 paragraphs, the whole thing was ripped almost directly from a real review of Episode I by an extremely conservative religious group.

I'm not sure where the rest of it came from, or if he just made it up, but since this is obviously either an attempt at humor or an attempt at trolling, we should all just read it, and either snicker or shake our heads and be on our way.

Thanks for sending me over to the Filthy Critic. I doubt that this page will replace Capalert as my favourite movie review site but I had a good laugh learning about filthys rating system.

I'd bet that the guy from www.capalert.com, the ChildCare Action Project: Christian Analysis of American Culture Reports. They're hilarious. Here is his review of South Park.

I'd bet that the guy from www.capalert.com, the ChildCare Action Project: Christian Analysis of American Culture Reports. They're hilarious. Here is his review of South Park.