ViewGuide

Created Aug 02, 2011 09:27PM PST • Edited Aug 02, 2011 09:27PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   OK 2.5

   Dirty linen from 20th Century Hollywood gets aired in this screed against the MPAA ratings system. While modestly interesting to serious movie fans, its narrow self-interest grows tiresome and seems rather dated now that we’re hurtling into the 21st Century world of on-demand movie viewing and citizen reviewing. Funny how things have changed in the five years since it was made.

   The movie features directors of R-rated movies venting about how unfair it is that their creations occasionally get stuck with the dreaded NC-17. Meanwhile a pair of second-rate private investigators try to out the MPAA ratings board members who assign those NC-17s. It’s all very Inside Baseball.

4. Acting

   OK 2.5

   Major directors speaking about their work is always interesting, even when they’re being petulant. Here we get Kevin Smith, John Waters, Matt Stone, Kimberly Peirce and Darren Aronofsky.

5. Male Stars OK 2.5

6. Female Stars OK 2.5

7. Female Costars OK 2.5

8. Male Costars OK 2.5

10. Film

    Barely OK 2.0

    Self-absorbed petulance isn’t attractive, nor especially dramatic. Neither is this documentary.

11. Direction Pretty Bad 1.5

12. Play Barely OK 2.0

13. Music Barely OK 2.0

14. Visuals OK 2.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 2.6

    Glimpses of sexual encounters and violence against women don’t add up to much, notwithstanding some simulations of sickening acts using mannequins. Verbal descriptions of deviant sexual behavior from the likes of John Waters resonate more.

17. Sex Titillating 2.4

18. Violence Fierce 1.7

19. Rudeness Nasty 3.7

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

    Pity the movie was so self-absorbed.

    • It focuses exclusively on the extreme end of the ratings scale, ignoring G through R movies. How well does the MPAA system work for that vast majority? Are parents and kids served well?
    • It ignores the world of video games, now a larger industry than movies. Sociopathic violence is rewarded in many games. How well do ratings and restrictions work to protect young gamers?
    • It doesn’t recognize the transition to on-demand movie viewing and the rise of citizen reviews and ratings, e.g. here at ViewGuide, where an evocative edginess rating system allows every citizen reviewer to judge a movie’s sex, violence and rudeness. Netflix, which partially funded This Movie Is Not Yet Rated, employs its own edginess rating system. Thus the MPAA ratings monopoly is in the process of being broken, for better or worse.
    • It treats feature films as primarily artistic endeavors, disdaining the commercial requirements of studios and theaters. This is the core conceit of Hollywood creative types, who view themselves as artists and activists, never mind their coddled existence in the middle of a commercial industry.

22. Circumstantial Natural 1.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0