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PG-13 Rating Turns 20
Ant writes "CNN has a story about the 20 year anniversary of PG-13 and how it was created/born from two of Steven Spielberg's movies. (Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom and Gremlins)" Oh, Mola Ram and your heart-removing antics, little did you know the profound impact you would have.
I realize the importance of having a rating that differentiates between a kid's movie and one for young adults, but as a non-parent I look on it with contempt. Ever since the R rating begun to be widely enforced, studios have toned down violent films so they can still have a chance at making money from the younger market. For example: I might actually have gone to see the recent Alien vs. Predator film had it been rated R, but since it was PG-13, I decided to wait until I can rent it. Enforcement of the ratings system, and the studios' response to it, has dealt the death blow for true horror/action films, because studios must now focus on making higher quality products for a more discerning audience if they want to make profit and carry the R rating. Instead they choose to neuter their movies and add some more special effects and popular cliché to entice the kids.
I'm not suggesting that just because a movie is rated PG-13 that it is, by default, a bad movie. What I am suggesting is that continuations of previously successful films, and modern horror/action flicks will never be what we all remember them to be. We will never see truly cheesy and senselessly bloody movies like Evil Dead ever again.
Also, if anyone hasn't heard of a decent NC-17 movie since Showgirls, this one looks promising. I saw the trailer for it the other day.
Why is this "knews" piece even relevant? CNN has a pro-MPAA, pro-RIAA, Valenti puff piece every couple days. You don't see a whole lot of well-rounded copyright discourse on the major media news outlets. (Gee, I wonder why...) CNN: We're tough on music fans. We like suing kids and grandmas. We equate infringement with theft. We are fair and balanced, too.
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Though my position on this issue probably doesn't sync with the norm, I've found the problem with PG-13 to be the exact opposite of yours. Sometimes I'd just like to see a good movie without any of the questionable junk. (I know, I know - lots of people seem to prefer to see the stuff I just called junk in their moves - I'd rather that stuff be in movies rated R though.) Movies which for the most part probably could be rated PG throw some gratuitous scene or language in just to get the coveted PG-13 rating so that the teenage crowd won't dismiss it. So, what you end up with are movies which are mostly pretty good, but have some questionable content which may or may not fit with the rest of the story or the intended audience in one small scene just to get the more mature rating. So, from my perspective, the PG-13 rating has actually worsened my movie going experience. But, I recognize I'll be hard pressed to have very many other people on Slashdot agree. Let the puritanical accusations commence!
And it could possibly be because she is hot .
You mean films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey? That's probably my all time favorite. I find that "adult" film really means adolescent film. I don't care to spend hours and hours filling my head full of blooshed and gore. There's a whole universe of stuff out there that could make for interesting films, but people are so in love with violence that that's what we get. Either that or just plain stupid, sappy stuff.
Long ago I decided to vote with my buck and just stop going to the movies.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
I thought this movie was great. I live in east asia (though not in Tokyo), and virtually all the expats I've met that have lived out here for a reasonable amount of time thought this movie was great, too.
The director -- Sophia Coppola was it? -- apparently lived in Tokyo for sometime, and used her experiences when making the movie. Whatever it was, it really shines through. No matter how enculturated you become (for example, I've lived in Shanghai for years now, speak Chinese, and am possibly now more comfortable with Chinese culture than the one I was born with), there are always these hopeless times where you realize that no amount of xenophelia will ever make you fit in, and that you will always be an outsider, if only because of your race.
Lost in Translation captures this feeling of hopelessness in such an incredibly poetic way.
Most of the people I've discussed this movie with that didn't like it (and sibling posts bear this out) seem to be mostly concerned with the fact that the film has the slow pace of real life rather than the accelerated pace of Hollywood blockbusters. It's really much more like a French film than an American one, I think, in terms of pace and style.
If you're not into that sort of thing, well... what can I tell you?
But understand that you are probably not the intended audience of this movie. It's about culture shock, and if you haven't experienced culture shock, you probably aren't going to identify with it.