Fancy Store-Bought Dirt

Shorter "This Film Is Not Yet Rated"

Jack Valenti makes one hell of a lobbyist, especially given how terrible he comes off as a talking head when edited by a hostile documentarian.

Two particular Los Angeles private investigators are among the most bumbling, idiotic PI's imaginable. But the fact that they both discuss their lesbianism at length just shines a completely different light on the movie.

At least one man identified as a "First Amendment Attorney" seems unable to tell the difference between censorship and freedom of contract.

MPAA raters tend to go too hard on sexually explicit scenes and too easy on violent scenes, at least compared to the values I share with most of the people on the movie. (I don't know what public opinion research says about how other Americans feel.) They also tend to go too hard on offbeat sex. Fair enough.

Most of the controversy seems to be between R movies and NC-17 movies because of how studios choose what to promote. Seven particular corporations have a 93% film market share. Their corporate parents have a 90% market share in U.S. communications, though it's unclear how Kirby Dick chose to define that market. (If anything I'm surprised both numbers are that low.)

The general consensus among participants in the movie seems to be that MPAA ratings should reflect more like majority rule. (After all, something that only 49% of the audience finds offensive can't be that offensive...)

Am I a bad libertarian for failing to be offended by MPAA ratings? They seem to serve their target audience pretty well, and as someone who enjoys indie films I can't quite sympathize with the plight of people who think that an unfair rating hurt their film's distribution. I mean, sure, people who are fervent about the quality of their work want to evangelize it, to spread their films as widely as possible.

The irony about this is that TFINYR itself makes basically zero effort to evangelize its own message. It's a feature-length act of begging the question, and if you're not already part of the choir then the sermon doesn't do much.

Posted by Matt Bruce at February 26, 2007 11:15 PM