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This Film is Not Yet Rated proves that fascism is alive and well in America, and isn’t just coming from the Bush administration. No, these Stalinist tactics are being employed in terrifying ways by the Motion Picture Association of America. For anyone that has even a modest interest in keeping cinema void of censorship, This Film Is Not Yet Rated is required viewing. Documentary filmmaker Kirby Dick courageously takes on the MPAA and reveals them for the hypocritical, out-of-touch, carnivorous weasels that they are.
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Half of the film explores the mysterious submission process by which the MPAA makes its decisions and highlights several specific controversial ratings the board has dished out over the years. Through interviews with filmmakers and comparing scenes from films that garnered some movies harsh ratings (such as the highly feared NC-17) while others were given a pass, Dick thoroughly demonstrates that the MPAA rating system is a schizophrenic arbitrary mess. Your blood will boil as filmmakers describe the frustrating battles they have had in making their movies and you’ll wonder how this is happening today in America.
The other half of the film involves Dick’s austere investigative mission to expose the anonymous eight-member panel of the MPAA ratings board. He does this by hiring a team of private investigators to track and stakeout the board members everywhere they go, from their work to their homes. And after a lengthy investigation, rummaging through the member’s garbage and recording conversations at restaurants, the private investigators are eventually successful in figuring out who each and every member of the board truly is. |
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The film concludes with Dick’s hilarious and ironic errand of sending his film, this documentary, through the MPAA vetting process, only to receive the dreaded NC-17 rating. At this point, he must send the film through the equally ridiculous and infuriating appeal process.
This Film Is Not Yet Rated is a monumentally important documentary that gives the MPAA the long overdue, thorough ass-kicking it undeniably deserves. But be warned… it will piss you off.
Grade: B+ |
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Almost everything about Little Miss Sunshine was clearly wrought with cliché, from the archetypal characters right down to the tired old device of the “family bonding road trip”… but damned if it all wasn’t just immensely entertaining. The film may have been tailor made for the portentous-Sundance-attending-Sufjan Stevens-listening-indie crowd but it did so without any shameless pandering.
Directed by the husband and wife team of music-video and TV-commercial veterans, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, and written by first time screenwriter, Michael Arndt (who quit his job as Mathew Broderick’s assistant to craft this script for which he eventually won an Oscar), Little Miss Sunshine tells the story of a highly misanthropic and dysfunctional family’s two day journey in a yellow Volkswagen mini-bus from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Redondo Beach, California where they mean to enter their daughter, Olive, in a children’s beauty pageant. And of course on this journey hilarity, folly and tragedy ensue.
And that is perhaps what makes this film so very enjoyable and remarkable. Because it would have been very easy for these formulaic contrivances to descend into embarrassing and hackneyed potboiler, but the characters and performances resonate with an alluring and touching peculiarity. |
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The film blends broad, slapstick humor with complex, multidimensional character drama, sort of like National Lampoon’s Vacation merged with American Beauty. And while by no means a perfect film, it is certainly a well acted and heartwarming farce that teems with enough sincerity and subversion to easily keep from being a total hack piece.
Grade: B+ |
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Without question the scariest film of the year, the Oscar nominated documentary, Jesus Camp, was exponentially more terrifying than any slasher flick to debut in 2006. The film explores the controversial summer “boot camp” for children in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota called “Kids on Fire,” where every August scores of children attend a seminary of Christian indoctrination run by Pentecostal pastor, Becky Fischer.
The film features some of the best editing of the year and also some of the most harrowing sequences. Fischer makes no bones about the camp being a child’s training-ground for priming “warriors of Christ,” even comparing it to Islamic madrassas. And in one particularly disturbing scene the children pray and stretch their hands before a life-size cardboard cutout of George W. Bush…. utterly chilling. |
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The film was quite accurately accused of being a polemic screed, heavily biased in its depiction of the camp and evangelicals as cultish fundamentalists. Without question the film deserves this criticism, as filmmakers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing underscore every scene with spooky, atmospheric music best suited for a horror film, while also inner-cutting scenes of Air America radio-host Mike Papantonio, giving liberal rants on his radio show condemning the practices of evangelical extremists. However, truth be told, this is a horror film and there is no way to objectively cover these absolutely unhinged whack-jobs short of becoming one yourself. |
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All anyone really needs to know about the bias of this film is that camp rector Fischer refused to disavow the film and even used the finished product to publicize her work and as a recruiting tool a for the camp. But as the silver lining on this documentary, in November of 2006 Fischer ended up shutting down the “Kids on Fire” camp due to the overwhelming negative reaction to the film.
This is an excellent and alarming documentary not to be missed… just don’t watch it alone with the lights off.
Grade: B+ |
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Attempting to explain this film is equivocal to traversing the “Noble Eightfold Path” of Buddhism, as the more layers you peel away the more illusions will come into focus. Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story is director Michael Winterbottom’s wildly creative “adaptation” of Laurence Sterne's 18th century novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Sterne’s book has long been hailed as perhaps the most impossible book to adapt for the big screen ever written (although that honor should probably go to Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake in actuality). Many filmmakers have kicked around the idea of taking up this supposedly unachievable task only to chicken out in hopeless defeat. However, Winterbottom and long time collaborator, screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce, eagerly rise to the challenge and in the process reshape the very idea of “film adaptation.” |
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The film feels a bit similar to the Spike Jonze/ Charlie Kaufmann vehicle, Adaptation, in the way it turns the idea of adapting a difficult to film book on its head by instead making a film about attempting to adapt the book and in the process somehow managing to adapt the book as well. But Winterbottom and Boyce get even more meta, taking the concept about three steps further by making a film that is half a true and faithful adaptation of the Sterne novel, and half a mockumentary about a “behind the scenes” look at the process of making the film adaptation. |
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Yet it gets more complicated than that… The mockumentary segments are entirely staged and scripted, but many of the film crew and actors “perform” the roles they actually fulfill in the movie. So, the brilliant actor, Steve Coogan, who plays Tristram Shandy in the segments of the film which are faithfully adapting the novel, also “plays” himself as Steve Coogan in the mockumentary segments. So, the film ends up being the ultimate “movie in a movie” and “joke in a joke.” |
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While this all may sound very confusing, the film is actually rather accessible and enjoyable to watch. The result feels like This is Spinal Tap! mixed with Fellini’s 8 ½. Although, with a satirical concept this bold and creative, the film could have been a bit funnier, but nonetheless, it does generally work very well. And, as to whether it succeeds in adapting Sterne’s novel… um, well… no.
Grade: B+ |
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