Another good article from Cracked. And in case any of you never read their website they usually do quite a bit of articles about movies. Plus they have some of the funniest humor.
I'll post one of the 5 reasons that I found the most intriguing. If you want to read them all just follow the link at the bottom of the thread.
#2. Gaming the Ratings System
The Complaint:
"Screw Black Swan -- have you seen Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream? Of course you haven't, it got buried by the MPAA, which slapped it with an NC-17 rating. That's despite the fact that I've seen way worse in bigger movies than a little double-ended dildo action."
The Problem:
Quick, when's the last time you saw a trailer for a movie rated NC-17 on TV? Have you ever seen one showing at the multiplex? We'll save you the trouble of trying to remember beyond last week and tell you that you probably haven't. Television networks refuse to promote NC-17 films, and most large theater chains won't show them. You also can't find them in most rental stores.
NC-17 is the bogeyman of Hollywood, long considered commercial death because, to date, none of the NC-17 films released has made more than $20 million at the box office. Ever. Take Showgirls off the top of the list, and you won't find one that made more than $12 million. For reference, Battlefield Earth made $30 million.
So you've got a guaranteed box office assassination card. What do you do with it? Apparently, the answer is to slap it on your competitors, the independent film industry. You see, the MPAA (the film studio lobbyist group) controls the ratings board and also pays their salaries. So when a film comes along with some edgy content, a big studio can shove it through while an independent film gets hosed.
For Example ...
South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone got to see both sides of the process when their independently made film Orgazmo was given an NC-17 for lewd jokes and brief nudity in the form of breasts and asses (which doomed it to obscurity until Parker and Stone became household names), while South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut received an R for some pretty explicit cartoon sex and violence. The film even included a real picture of an erect penis disguised as a sex toy.
Not to mention gratuitous usage of Brian Boitano.
When asked why they thought they got a more lenient rating for South Park, Parker said, "The reason we got the NC-17 on Orgazmo was that it was released by October Films, which had no clout, and we didn't have the money to re-edit the film and continue to resubmit it. [On South Park] we got an R because Paramount was behind it, but the independent filmmaker gets screwed."
http://www.cracked.com/article_19012...vies-suck.html
I'll post one of the 5 reasons that I found the most intriguing. If you want to read them all just follow the link at the bottom of the thread.
#2. Gaming the Ratings System
The Complaint:
"Screw Black Swan -- have you seen Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream? Of course you haven't, it got buried by the MPAA, which slapped it with an NC-17 rating. That's despite the fact that I've seen way worse in bigger movies than a little double-ended dildo action."
The Problem:
Quick, when's the last time you saw a trailer for a movie rated NC-17 on TV? Have you ever seen one showing at the multiplex? We'll save you the trouble of trying to remember beyond last week and tell you that you probably haven't. Television networks refuse to promote NC-17 films, and most large theater chains won't show them. You also can't find them in most rental stores.
NC-17 is the bogeyman of Hollywood, long considered commercial death because, to date, none of the NC-17 films released has made more than $20 million at the box office. Ever. Take Showgirls off the top of the list, and you won't find one that made more than $12 million. For reference, Battlefield Earth made $30 million.
So you've got a guaranteed box office assassination card. What do you do with it? Apparently, the answer is to slap it on your competitors, the independent film industry. You see, the MPAA (the film studio lobbyist group) controls the ratings board and also pays their salaries. So when a film comes along with some edgy content, a big studio can shove it through while an independent film gets hosed.
For Example ...
South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone got to see both sides of the process when their independently made film Orgazmo was given an NC-17 for lewd jokes and brief nudity in the form of breasts and asses (which doomed it to obscurity until Parker and Stone became household names), while South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut received an R for some pretty explicit cartoon sex and violence. The film even included a real picture of an erect penis disguised as a sex toy.
Not to mention gratuitous usage of Brian Boitano.
When asked why they thought they got a more lenient rating for South Park, Parker said, "The reason we got the NC-17 on Orgazmo was that it was released by October Films, which had no clout, and we didn't have the money to re-edit the film and continue to resubmit it. [On South Park] we got an R because Paramount was behind it, but the independent filmmaker gets screwed."
http://www.cracked.com/article_19012...vies-suck.html
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"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and like it, never really care for anything else thereafter." - Ernest Hemingway
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and like it, never really care for anything else thereafter." - Ernest Hemingway