Friday night J and I took ourselves to the Regent Square movie theater to see "This Film is not Yet Rated", a documentary about the MPAA ratings system and the shadowy board of parents that determines those ratings. The director, Kirby Dick (honestly, I had a moment when I though he had made that name up) also takes the viewer through the odyssey that is submitting his film for a rating and the subsequent confrontation in front of the shady appeals board in an attempt to get the NC-17 "recommendation" reduced.
Dick intersperses his narration with interviews of other independent film makers such as Kevin Smith, Matt Stone, John Waters and Kimberly Peirce, all who have run afoul of the ratings board in past productions.
Matt Stone's story is one of the most interesting of the film. Co-writer/producer of "Team America: World Police", he tells how they intentionally aimed for a more restrictive rating by filming extra footage of the infamous puppet sex scene, in hope of provoking the board into telling them which parts of the scene needed cut. Stone and several other directors discuss how difficult it is to get specific feedback from the board while working as an independent and how easy it is when that same director works on a film with the backing of one of the studios that underwrites the MPAA ratings system.
With the help of a pair of women detectives, Kirby Dick manages to learn not only the names and faces of the ratings board, but of the appeals board as well. Most of the parents on the ratings board have grown children and the appeals board is made of up the CEO's and CFO's of major movie studios, distributors and chain theaters with a Catholic priest and an Episcopalian Minister thrown in to "observe" the proceedings.
In the end, Dick is not permitted to videotape or record his appeal, so it is re-enacted ala courtroom style sketches, in a style reminiscent of the play "Twelve Angry Men". He loses by unanimous vote and decides to release his film unrated.
Naturally, none of the chain multiplexes in the Pittsburgh area elected to show it in their theaters.
It's ironic how the NC-17 rating was going to differentiate serious "adult" fare (think something like Philip Kaufman's Henry and June) from flat-out porn, but exhibition chains (AMC, Loews etc.) and rental companies (Blockbuster et al.) have turned the NC-17 into a ghetto and, in a case of self-fulfilling prophecy, are loath to touch NC-17 because they're provably box-office and rental-POS poison as well as controversial.
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