MPAA Upholds R Rating for ‘Dream House’

COMMENTS (14)

• Go see the documentary THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED for insight into how this pathetic, criminal cabal of nameless, faceless people (save charlatan Joan Graves) commits random, arbitrary acts of censorship every day.

  Why haven’t all the egregious decisions of the last year — KING’S SPEECH, anyone? — caused the demise of this absurd organization?

  Comment by evil empire — Wednesday July 6, 2011 @ 2:42pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • “Why haven’t all the egregious decisions of the last year — KING’S SPEECH, anyone? — caused the demise of this absurd organization?”

    Simple. If the studios didn’t “police” themselves they would probably have to put up with a government-set system because of the people who can’t stand to hear bad words or see naked skin will scream holy hell until they do.

    Comment by Jimmy — Wednesday July 6, 2011 @ 4:41pm PDT  Reply to this post

• What right-wing conservative nutjobs judge at the MPAA? Or do they give the R-ratings so that the studios give them something in return? MPAA is a buncha whores!

  Comment by Jena — Wednesday July 6, 2011 @ 2:49pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Studios do not want R-Ratings. Movies that are rated R make remarkably less money because it cuts out a large part of the movie going audience.

    In all honesty, the MPAA is an outdated and antiquated organization that needs to stop hiring 55 year old retirees and nuns to rate movies. Better yet, all of the studios should join together and just oust the MPAA altogether.

    Comment by Scott — Wednesday July 6, 2011 @ 4:41pm PDT  Reply to this post

    • R-rated films make “remarkably less money”?

      Um. The top-grossing films in the last 3 years were pretty much ALL rated R, apart from “Avatar”. Studios are CLAMMERING to make R-rated comedies. It’s mostly R-rated DRAMAS that are the problem. Just fyi.

      Comment by Mark — Thursday July 7, 2011 @ 8:30am PDT  Reply to this post

      • Don’t get me wrong, I get your main point, that a PG-13 would bring in a wider audience – however, that’s not as much the case as it used to be. In the last couple of years, especially, it’s the PG-13 films that are losing money, while the R-rated films are making bank – a lot of this has to do with the fact that the audiences who go to see adult comedies and action films want ADULT COMEDY and ADULT ACTION that’s not tempered. There are exceptions, like, say, the “Transformers” films, but that’s mostly because they’re franchises. But R-rated adult comedies are the big thing right now, and R-rated action/thrillers. Yeah, more people will be ABLE to get into PG-13 films, but those rules really don’t apply much anymore – the studios are so out of touch that they actually think that kids won’t be able to pay for and get into an R-rated film if they want to see it. It’s the QUALITY of the film that matters more than the rating when it comes to who gets in to see it.

        Comment by Mark — Thursday July 7, 2011 @ 8:35am PDT  Reply to this post

• The MPAA — more specifically CARA, which is the group that does the actual ratings (the MPAA is a lobbying group, which is a whole ‘nother problem) — exists to take the heat off its member film companies. Unlike the Hays, Breen, and Shurlock eras, today’s MPAA doesn’t censor, it labels based upon their reading of the lowest common denominator. That alone is scary enough, albeit pragmatic. The real problem is not the MPAA but newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, and theater owners who yield to pressure groups, in essence crushing filmmakers’ First Amendment rights by refusing to exercise their own.

  Comment by Santayana — Wednesday July 6, 2011 @ 5:06pm PDT  Reply to this post

• This films stars three 40+ actors with limited appeal to teens. The studio should wear the R rating like a badge of honor and market to adults.

  Comment by Ivarl — Wednesday July 6, 2011 @ 6:42pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Good point.

    Comment by Esquire — Thursday July 7, 2011 @ 5:09am PDT  Reply to this post

• good grief. you people know nothing about real censorship. Let’s start with the definition.

  Censorship: the act of an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.

  This board does NOT have editorial control over material. If the studios chose to edit their material based on the labels this board assigns, it is the studios who are the censors.

  You want real censorship? try living in china.

  BTW, the number one movie of the year so far? Rated R.

  What a bunch of reactionary whiners.

  Comment by mde — Wednesday July 6, 2011 @ 9:46pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • True, you can release your film unrated and no-one can touch a frame. But unrated films aren’t given advertising space by most outlets, then refused screening by theaters, and finally most video stores refuse to stock. It’s effectively forcing filmmakers to edit down to R in some cases.

    Comment by Ivarl — Thursday July 7, 2011 @ 1:23am PDT  Reply to this post

  • Um. You know NOTHING about the MPAA, apparently.

    When an un-appointed board of people exist SPECIFICALLY to “rate” your film, knowing full well that if they give you an NC-17 that the studio that made your film WILL NOT RELEASE IT with that rating, that’s called censorship. This un-appointed body is telling you that you HAVE to make cuts to your film otherwise they will STAMP it with a rating that will make it utterly unprofitable for you as well as the studio, as no theater will run it with an NC-17 rating. It’s the DEFINITION of censorship, but without doing it DIRECTLY. Don’t you understand ANYTHING about how this works? I understand the point that there have been a few very profitable R-rated films lately – but in general, a studio that finances your film wants a PG-13, because it means more money, statistically. If the MPAA says, “Nope, giving you an R, because of this scene here and this scene here, and we won’t give you a PG-13 unless you CUT those scenes” – and they do that because this UN-APPOINTED BODY OF CENSORS thinks PERSONALLY that people under the age of 13 shouldn’t be ALLOWED to see those things – that is called C-E-N-S-O-R-S-H-I-P. Nobody VOTED for the people who “rate” movies based on what THEY PERSONALLY think people of a certain age can “handle”. The MPAA are CENSORS. They tell you to CUT scenes out of a movie, or they won’t give you the rating you, or your studio want; and not just that – they’ll give a PG-13 to a film like “Hitman” that includes a ridiculous body count, murders left and right, blood everywhere – but then they’ll give an R-rating to a film if you use the F-word to describe lovemaking. EDUCATE YOURSELF. Just because they don’t CALL themselves “censors”, and just because they do it indirectly doesn’t mean they’re not CENSORS.

    YOU’RE WELCOME.

    Comment by Mark — Thursday July 7, 2011 @ 8:47am PDT  Reply to this post

• censor every movie in usa as this country produces only garbage filty movies. The number one movie is r rated shows how pathetic movie fans are. You produce the largest amount of porn and hence you,your lives,your minds are like everything . . .dirty garbage and filty. Become the Change obama spoke please people.

  Comment by truth — Thursday July 7, 2011 @ 5:35am PDT  Reply to this post

• Actually, they do supress content based on moral or other grounds. They send along comments to the filmmakers, telling them how to get a sought after rating (PG13 vs R, for example). The filmmakers are then forced to recut

  Comment by Vfxchick — Thursday July 7, 2011 @ 9:04am PDT  Reply to this post