"Rate This, You Fascists!" The Joys Of Investigating The MPAA In This Film Is Not Yet Rated

The Good: Well researched, Thorough, Interesting observations, Clever premise, Worthwhile argument
The Bad: Ultimately pointless for the effort, Repetitive DVD features
The Basics: In a decent documentary, Kirby Dick outs the members of the MPAA as part of a larger quest to explore how and why films receive ratings in the U.S.


Given the ridiculous number of films I watch and review as a professional reviewer and fan of cinema as an art form, it's very rare that I actually read reviews written by other people. I'm a strong believer in the unhindered viewing, which is ironic because if all of you stopped reading my reviews, I could not afford to see anything else ever. So, thank you for not sharing in my tragic fault. I did, however, read a review last year of This Film Is Not Yet Rated and I recall reading the glowing review praising Kirby Dick's latest cinematic endeavor. The reviewer admitted a biased toward Dick and I was intrigued because I had never heard of the director/documentarian. Still, the subject of the film being reviewed made This Film Is Not Yet Rated pretty much essential for me to watch.

Having learned of many tales of directors having films cut due to content deemed too explicit by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), Kirby Dick attempts to learn as much about the organization as possible. This task is made near impossible as the members of the MPAA are kept secret. In response to the secrecy that veils the organization, Dick hires a private detective and hunts down the board of parents who decide what films in the United States are rated. Dick soon finds that the task is not impossible, the MPAA is not made up of people who strictly meet the stated guidelines of the organization and that his film, like many of the filmmakers he interviewed, is headed for a battle . . . with the MPAA.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated is a movie with an excellent premise, great supporting information and a worthy objective that simply does not stick the landing. That is to say that the movie has an excellent idea and even a decent execution of its vision, but it does not bring the point home in a way that seals the deal. It leaves the viewer wishing for a little more. It has the feeling of not quite living up to its potential.

The divergence between the concept and the failed execution comes when the quest to uncover the identities of those in the MPAA is actually achieved. Dick reveals the identities of the 2005 MPAA reviewing board, a class that had supposedly changed by the time the film was released in 2006. The work was admirable, but the result was pointless. The current members of the secret board are secret.

But the exercise is not folly. Dick discovers that the group whose mission statement claims the reviewing board is made up of parents with children in a certain age group with limited terms for their tenure on the board is anything but. In determining the identities of those involved, Dick discovers that the MPAA is not being honest about its panel; members serve longer than their terms, are not parents and/or do not have children within the specified age groups. In exposing the group for its flaws or its fraud, Dick effectively raises the debate from a group of directors complaining about their work being censored to a legitimate critique of the secret organization gutting their content.

Dick's most persuasive arguments against the MPAA come in the form of the interviews with directors whose work have been edited in order to conform with the wishes of the MPAA. Directors like Kevin Smith, Darren Aronofsky, and Kimberly Peirce discuss their films and how they were hit with NC-17 ratings by the MPAA and compelled to alter their films to make them marketable. The film does an excellent job exploring how the NC-17 is a death knell for films and how directors are often ordered by the studio to make sure the film falls within a certain rating.

Dick and the directors he interviews quickly postulate and empirically prove several concepts dealing with how films are rated, including: the MPAA is more likely to restrict content based more on nudity/sex as opposed to violence, the MPAA is more prejudiced against homosexual acts than heterosexual ones, and the lack of ability to appeal a film and cite cinematic precedent allows the MPAA to maintain power and control over the filmmakers and their films.

Dick also deftly diffused the MPAA argument that they do not censor films by exploring the business ramifications of movies that have received an NC-17 rating. Outside the quest to discover the identities of the members of the ratings board of the MPAA, this is a remarkably informative documentary.

Dick is an unobtrusive documentarian, maintaining a dialogue and presence more akin to Michael Moore's presence in Fahrenheit 9/11 (reviewed here!) than, say, Moore's presence in Roger And Me. As odd as it may seem, until the very end, Dick does not make the movie about himself, his views or his agenda, instead making a classic argument against censorship and for individual responsibility.

His argument is rather effective and I have to say that he manages to keep the film entertaining and informative. The interviews are decent and the only weakness in the opening of the film where directors are telling their stories of fights with the MPAA is that there could have been more of them for my tastes.

On the DVD, the film looks good and the commentary track is as insightful and enjoyable as the actual feature. Before this film, I had not seen a point to a commentary track on a documentary, but on This Film Is Not Yet Rated, it works. The only problem is that virtually all of the other DVD bonus features mirror the commentary track, so if one listens to all of the commentary and watches all of the features, some of the behind-the-scenes stories are told three times (or more).

It's not enough to prevent me from recommending the film, but it is enough to plunge the DVD presentation down into more average territory. Still, it's a worthwhile movie to watch and certainly an important one for those who are concerned about the erosion of our civil liberties and the notion of artistic freedom.

For other documentaries, please check out my reviews of:
The Fog Of War
Who Killed The Electric Car?
Shut Up And Sing

6.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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John Waters Entertains And Unsettles With Role Models!

The Good: Very funny, Great narrative voice
The Bad: Something of an acquired taste, Opens with a lot of namedropping.
The Basics: John Waters beautifully exposes the outsiders in the United States in Role Models, his latest book which is overall an intriguing anthology of character explorations.


A few months back, my wife and I were up late watching - of all things - Jimmy Kimmel Live, which we had been catching more and more since his hilarious post-Oscars episode. John Waters was on plugging his book Role Models and my wife was getting a kick out of him, while asking every few minutes "Who is this guy?!" I knew of John Waters, more than having any familiarity with his work. Indeed, the most I had seen of any of his movies had been snippets from the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated. But, I enjoyed the snippets and the interview and for an anniversary afterward (due in no small part to the local Borders getting closed down and discounting everything drastically), my wife presented me with a copy of Role Models.

How this book hung around long enough to be discounted 75% with a store closing (not a Stephen King book in sight, what the hell?!) is a mystery to me, though the experience my wife and I had with it might be part of the reason. Role Models is a collection of character studies and each chapter has a different focus, told through the distinct voice of John Waters, and the opening of the book might seem like a lot of namedropping. My wife started reading Role Models aloud to me as I drove her around - too bad she didn't make it to the later chapters on Marine porn and Zorro the stripper! - but she became very frustrated reading the references to people she was unfamiliar with. Opening with Johnny Mathis, whose work neither she nor I were familiar with, Role Models became a painfully convoluted series of namedrops that distracted from many of the points Waters was trying to make. So, for example, after asking Johnny Mathis who his role model was, Mathis responds "Lena Horne" (10). The question and answer are literally a single line on page ten, with a one line follow-up. What follows that is not any sort of reflection on Mathis or his answer, but rather an eighteen line digression on Waters's thoughts on Margaret Hamilton. Reading John Waters' namedropping tangents is like wrestling with the perspective issues from the narrative technique of Thomas Pynchon (V is reviewed here!).

But, I soldiered through on my own and having finished Role Models, I think I am feeling exactly like John Waters wanted me (and other readers to feel). I feel like my life has been underlived and somewhat pointless. After all, I've written novels - two of which have been published -, have the first ten episodes of a one hundred episode television series written, and I've met a crapton of celebrities, but usually in the hustle and bustle of a convention atmosphere. I've done nothing. My life has been waiting for the opportunities, the pop, which Waters writes about on virtually every page. He writes about artists who have created undying works, dangerous pornogaphers who have made half a million dollars selling outsider erotica in a single year and stippers who inspire thirteen full pages! They are all original, interesting and had their own weird big break that brought them to the attention of John Waters. It's enough to make anyone who has never been to the Vanity Fair post-Oscar party weep at how banal life can be.

In all honesty, reading Role Models makes me wish I could be a beggar in front of John Waters' house. Sure, I'd flatter him (and because I am genuinely interested!) by asking him to screen his movies for me, but then I'd want to have the resources to take his advice (or some of it, anyway!). In his chapter "Bookworm," he recommends his indispensable books. Well, Mr. Waters, you sold me on wanting to read In Youth Is Pleasure, We Need To Talk About Kevin, Darkness And Day [admitting that probably excludes me from ever running for public office again, though possibly reading a John Waters book did that already!] and even Two Serious Ladies, but my wife and I spent our disposable income for books on yours, can we borrow your copies? Waters makes us yearn for more time to read and live rather than press ridiculously through the day to day like we are all bound to.

Because the book is a series of essays, there is a hit-or-miss quality to Role Models. Some of the chapters do not add up to much, like how "Little Richard, Happy At Last" is more self-referential about getting and participating in the interview with Little Richard than the content of the interview. In other words, the chapter is more about meeting Little Richard than anything Waters learned about him by interviewing him. Waters discusses rumors or preconceptions he had based on Little Richard's life, but they do not get debunked or clarified through the interview.

But what makes Role Models a salivatingly-good read, outside of Waters's distinctive voice with lines like "Today Bobby is renting or maybe squatting in a run-down home surrounded by jail-strength industrial chain-link fencing. As I pull up in a ridiculous Mercedes-Benz that I didn't order but was upgraded to by the car rental place, I feel a sickening sense of entitlement" (203), are the virtual unknown subjects in the book. Bobby Garcia, a gay man who loathes having sex with gay men and instead made a living (for a long time) making videos in which straight Marines jerk off for him and the camera and occasionally get involved with oral or anal sex with him. Yes, it sounds like an absurd plot for some strange gross-out comedy, but these are the personalities John Waters uncovers and explores in the book, in the process revealing to the reader an entirely different reality than the mundane norm where , well, shit, I can't think of what we're "supposed" to be like now that I've read this book!

No, reading Role Models will not make you into a pervert or seduce one to the "gay lifestyle," but it is enough to open one's mind to a world much larger than the Hollywood heteronormal, everything-is-easy-to-understand-and-feel portrayal of reality. That is the gift of the outsider and John Waters is a wonderful guide!

For other books of essays, please visit my reviews of:
Letters From The Earth - Mark Twain
When You Are Engulfed In Flames - David Sedaris
Politically Incorrect - Ralph Reed

6.5/10

For other book reviews, please check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Uncomfortable Laughter Rules Jackass Number Two An Anemic Stunt Comedy Film I Loathed.

The Good: There are some moments of humor.
The Bad: No plot, No character development, Loathsome pranks
The Basics: Short, unpleasant and repetitive, Jackass Number Two is simply an escalating series of painful and vile pranks which are not worth watching.


After weeks of trying to get through a review of Jackass Number Two, I've decided the best way I can muster up enthusiasm for this is to simply write a succinct one.

My wife came to our relationship with Jackass Number Two on her shelf of DVDs and that surprised me, despite knowing she had a love of dumb comedies. When she insisted we watch it together, I had trepidations, despite never having seen an episode of Jackass or the first Jackass movie. Those reservations, it turns out, were well-founded.

Jackass Number Two is a short film which captures various pranks formed by the team of twenty-something men who put one another in mortal risk for the thrill of surviving dangerous obstacles. The movie has no character development, no plot and is essentially a reality show on the big screen (or now on DVD). The team of young men, led by Johnny Knoxville, put themselves in ridiculous and painful situations just to be able to say they did them

The viewer, then, is subjected to Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Ryan Dunn, Wee Man (Jason Acuña) and the others doing such things as: getting branded (Bam has a penis-shaped brand burned into his butt, but because he flinches it is done several times and actually gets infected), running with bulls, having a leech placed on the eyeball and getting shot with rubber projectiles used for crowd control. A few of the stunts border on clever, like the way a gag that results in people getting punched in the face through a wall uses a sign with increasingly smaller script that forces them to move closer to it, but most of them are ridiculous and dumb. The men make a wheelchair rocket propelled and Knoxville launches himself into the air on a giant rocket.

Most of the stunts are painful, like five of the guys playing on a four-way see-saw while a bull tries to gore them from below or the way Wee Man is blown across a marsh using a giant fan and a parachute. Jackass Number Two occasionally tries to be simply funny, like a simple gag where a man wearing only his underclothes chases Wee Man in his underwear down the street and around a corner, a moment later resulting in the man being chased by over a dozen similarly diminutive men.

Jackass Number Two builds up to a stunt that is not just dangerous, but is mean on many levels to the guys involved. There is no narrative to the film; it's just a series of vignettes which take about five minutes each and usually involve coercing members of the group to go through with the current stunt.

The movie shows the men engaged in planning terrible, painful or embarrassing pranks which illustrate no respect for one another. The men keep upping the ante conceiving evermore heinous activities and watching the movie is dehumanizing to the viewer as much as it is problematic for the men involved. I found myself laughing occasionally at the stupidity of the pranks or because I was uncomfortable. I found myself looking away a lot because the movie often had elements which were nauseating and gross (several of the men vomit at various points in the film).

Jackass Number Two is gross and not entertaining enough to recommend or even encourage a third part. Utterly worthless.

0/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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