MPAA Wants New Rating For 'Hard R' - otherwise known as "Parents too lazy to give a crap"

"MPAA chairman Dan Glickman is trying to find a new rating that will group together the movies that currently tip the dirtier scale of the R-rating -- the 'hard R' films that contain copious amounts of nudity, the f-word every three seconds, or gruesome torture-horror imagery, for instance."
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So…the debate rages on. Apparently, parents now want something to dictate when they’re letting their children see a “soft R” versus a “hard R” film. I’m sorry, doesn’t this already exist? It’s called NC-17, but unfortunately, most rental chains, and movie theaters won’t carry these films anymore. Mostly, it’s because if it’s NC-17 rated, people often assume it as a smut fest. The last movie I can think of that created any sort of buzz being NC-17 was Showgirls. Mostly because it was so horrible. I remember watching it years later (not my idea) and thinking, “This was NC-17?” It really wasn’t any worse that most other movies I saw as R growing up.

This gets me thinking though…instead of adding another rating, why not just start enforcing the ratings that are already in place. From the MPAA Website:

NC-17
“This rating declares that the Rating Board believes this is a film that most parents will consider patently too adult for their youngsters under 17. No children will be admitted. NC-17 does not necessarily mean obscene or pornographic; in the oft-accepted or legal meaning of those words. The Board does not and cannot mark films with those words. These are legal terms for courts to decide. The reasons for the application of an NC-17 rating can be excessive violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse or any other elements which, when present, most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children.”

Interesting, in that sense, then most of the following films probably should have been NC-17:
Hostel
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
300
Sin City
Saving Private Ryan
And other films of their ilk.

Just for fun, here are the definitions of PG-13 and R:

PG-13
“PG-13 is thus a sterner warning to parents, particularly when deciding which movies are not suitable for younger children. Parents, by the rating, are alerted to be very careful about the attendance of their under-teenage children. A PG-13 film is one which, in the view of the Rating Board, leaps beyond the boundaries of the PG rating in theme, violence, nudity, sensuality, language, or other contents, but does not quite fit within the restricted R category. Any drug use content will initially require at least a PG-13 rating. In effect, the PG-13 cautions parents with more stringency than usual to give special attention to this film before they allow their 12-year-olds and younger to attend. If nudity is sexually oriented, the film will generally not be found in the PG-13 category. If violence is too rough or persistent, the film goes into the R (restricted) rating. A film's single use of one of the harsher sexually derived words, though only as an expletive, shall initially require the Rating Board to issue that film at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive must lead the Rating Board to issue a film an R rating, as must even one of these words used in a sexual context. These films can be rated less severely, however, if by a special vote, the Rating Board feels that a lesser rating would more responsibly reflect the opinion of American parents. “

I love the following part:
“PG-13 places larger responsibilities on parents for their children and movie going. The voluntary rating system is not a surrogate parent, nor should it be. It cannot, and should not, insert itself in family decisions that only parents can make. Its purpose is to give pre-screened informational warnings, so that parents can form their own judgments. PG-13 is designed to make parental decisions easier for films between PG and R.”

R
“In the opinion of the Rating Board, this film definitely contains some adult material. Parents are strongly urged to find out more about this film before they allow their children to accompany them. An R-rated film may include strong language, violence, nudity, drug abuse, other elements, or a combination of the above, so parents are counseled in advance to take this advisory rating very seriously. “

Hmm. Compared to the other ratings, R leaves the most open interpretation. Probably by design. I remember working at the movie theater and having to have parents by their kids tickets to R rated films. I also remember a time when we couldn’t let any child in under the age of 18 to an R film, unless their parent was specifically going with them to it.

Basically, the R-rating is there to let parents know that they should take an extremely close look before allowing their kids to go see these movies. To that fact, the MPAA does a decent job. They don’t often hand out NC-17 ratings to movies undeserving, and they’ll work with the studios to get a certain rating. Example, I remember reading an article interview Mark Steven Johnson where he mentioned they could only have one great transformation scene in Ghost Rider to keep the PG-13 rating they were going for. Turns out the MPAA frowns upon people being on fire and having their skin melted off. Understandable.

Bottom line, those ratings are their for a reason folks. I again put this on the parents. If you’re going to let your kids go to R movies, then find out why they’re rated R in the first place. Start with any movie website (like movies.yahoo.com). They show the rating, and there’s usually a short blurb from the MPAA telling why this movie is rated as such.

Hostel:
R for brutal scenes of torture and violence, strong sexual content, language and drug use.

Star Wars: Episode III
PG-13 for sci-fi violence and some intense images.

Batman Begins:
PG-13 for intense action violence, disturbing images and some thematic elements.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:
R for pervasive extreme drug use and related bizarre behavior, strong language, and brief nudity.

I know those are gross generalizations, but if you’re a parent, and you still don’t get it, then go ask the people at the movie theater. Odds are, out of any 4 people working at the theater at any given time, together they’ve seen every movie in their theater. That’s the reason they work there in the first place, free movies. Ask them, they’ll tell you if there’s anything particularly disturbing, or bloody, or nude in the movie. All you have to do is ask.

d3o: Futuristic Armor

I remembered this story last year about new uniforms for skiers being used in the Olympics incorporating d3o panels into the uniforms to make them lighter and more comfortable. Thought it might be worth revisiting.

The below is an example of some of the uniforms used by skiers. Usually they have to wear some sort of protection along the legs and arms in case they hit the poles as they go past.

Then came d3o. What is d3o? Well, straight from the manufacturer, the d3o lab, “d3o technology is a specially engineered material with intelligent molecules that flow with you as you move but on shock lock together to absorb impact energy.”

Here it is explained a little deeper:

Not only do they use this in skiing equipment, but also gloves (like soccer goalie gloves or motorcycle glove) and they’ve done some testing in shoes. Sounds pretty cool.

Looking at their existing and upcoming products you have to wonder about the possibilities. Their athletic testing team includes a wide range of sports, including soccer, mountain biking, snowboarding, and strangely enough, something called mountain boarding. The possible uses for such a material are limitless though…especially once you get into the more widely funded American markets such as baseball, football, and hockey.

Barry Bonds wouldn’t look so much like Robocop just strapping on some d3o armor instead of his bionic arm he uses now.

More importantly, football and hockey players would be that much faster with the lightweight and tough material worked into their armor.

Also, there could be a lot more useful uses than just sports such as construction safety equipment (work gloves, hard hats) and perhaps more importantly police and armed forces armor (I wonder how this stuff would do against a bullet). It certainly couldn’t hurt to try.

Of course, what with stuff like this already available, and the invisibility cloak and spider-man material, I think we’re only one rich guy (Bruce Wayne) away from our first actual superhero. ^_^

What do you think would be the best application of this material?

Ghost Rider and Bad Comic Movies – Who’s to Blame?

I have to admit. I’ve been haunted by Ghost Rider. When it came out a couple of weeks ago, I was going to review it. I took the girlfriend to it on Friday night. I was even looking forward to it. I had dodged all reviews beforehand. Here was a movie of a comic character I wasn’t that wrapped up in. I have Ghost Rider comics in my collection, but I’ve never been rabid about the character. I loved the Johnny Blaze character though. I thought that visually the movie could look cool. Mark Steven Johnson had done a good job on Daredevil. I thought he hit the tone of that character. I was expecting a scary, supernatural story about hitting the lowest of the low, and then redemption. I knew that Nic Cage had long wanted to do a comic movie, and I thought that finally given his chance he would do good things. I also thought that, given Nic being a huge comic geek at heart, he would treat the character in the correct way and stand up for things that were wrong.

Well…it turns out I was the one who was wrong.

I experienced things in that theater I never wanted to experience watching a comic book movie. I laughed. I rolled my eyes. My girlfriend laughed. I threw my hands up in the air.

I was dejected for a loooong time after seeing Ghost Rider. I was somewhat encouraged reading Harry’s review at Aintitcoolnews.com. His review pretty much sums up what I’d like to say about Ghost Rider. I thought it was bad. I think I’d rate it barely at ** out of *****. That’s two out of five. That’s pretty much the lowest I’ve rated any comic movie…except Elektra. I’d give that lower.

Anyway, I was somewhat encouraged by Harry’s Review…but then something happened. Too many damn people went to see it. It took in $52 mill it’s first weekend. “It’s ok.” I thought. People will let each other know how horrible it is. Didn’t happen. It made $20 mill it’s second weekend. “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?” I thought. It’s kind of a standard rule that new franchises will get sequels if they make that mythical $100 million dollar plateau. In Ghost Rider’s 3^rd weekend, it made $11.5 million dollars bringing its total to almost $95 million dollars. For a crappy movie. It’ll break that $100 million dollar barrier and a sequel is already in the cards.

How?

How could a movie this bad do this well? It hurts because, I love comic characters. I collected comics for over 20 years. I read and lived and grew up with these characters that we’re seeing come to the screen at a record pace now. It hit a high point early in my life with Batman (1989), but then went downhill with it’s sequels, until restarting hope again with Blade, which led to the X-men, and then to Spider-Man. All those hits led to DC restarting the Superman and Batman franchises recently. Still…we’ve had some pretty decent adaptations not get sequels, while crap like Ghost Rider is getting a sequel.

Who’s to blame?

I needed to look at the data to be sure what I was thinking was correct. My hypothesis was that the movies that stayed closest to the heart of the intended characters did the best box office wise, and should have warranted sequels. I was wrong. Let me lay it out for you:

Here are the comic movies I could think of since the Batman days. I know there are omissions and I’m sorry. I think I hit all the major ones though. The movies are sorted by year and the title. The two movies with *’s, those weren’t listed with critics reviews from Yahoo Movies. The critics reviews and user reviews were taken from the A+ thru F scale, and I correlated them to numbers. I added my own review numbers and then averaged the reviews. I added a column to show whether or not the movie, for the most part, hit the tone of the character, in my opinion. The total box office and rating is also included.

Then I started playing with the numbers to find out which movies do the best.

Out of the average reviews, here’s what I found:

As you can see…the numbers are all over the place. All but the worst reviewed films get over $100 million dollars. You can see a definite trend, the B+ and B movies made about $50-60 mill more than the C, C+ and B- movies. The only A- movies on the list for average reviews are Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2.

So, besides a very general trend…not much there.

How about tone? The “Tone Wrong” movies were the ones I thought were furthest from where they should have been. These are the biggest transgressors in my opinion: Batman and Robin, Blade Trinity, Punisher (2004), Elektra, and Ghost Rider.

Hm. They still averaged a decent 62.5 mill at the box office, whereas movies like the Crow, and Hellboy did less than that. Of course, those are lesser known characters, and Batman and Robin and Blade Trinity are sequels of established franchises.

Ok. How about established franchises?

Comic sequels (Batman sequels, Blade sequels, X-men sequels and Spider-Man sequel) averaged $175.8 million. I didn’t count Batman Begins or Superman Returns, since those are reboots of the franchises. The original films (Batman, Blade, X-men, and Spider-Man) averaged $220.4 million dollars. This number is a bit skewed by the biggies (Batman and Spider-Man). So…this result goes against the logic that the sequels do better than the originals.

Alright…how about 2^nd tiered characters vs. 1^st tier characters.

Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, X-men, Hulk, and the Fantastic Four. Those are the biggies. Their movies averaged out to $213.5 million at the box office. The rest of the movies averaged out to $65.5 million. There’s a distinct correlation there. Still, those biggies are the ones that contain the most mass appeal. They’re the most well known. They hit home the easiest. I still maintain that a good chunk of the reason for the success of Spider-Man wasn’t all about the action and effects. The character is someone most people can identify with. If you’re a teenager, who hasn’t fantasized about being a secret superhero? That’s one of the main misses with the 90’s Batman franchise. They had a distinct opportunity to bring Robin in as a kid, whom a lot of younger people could identify with, but they brought him in older. Of course…that’s not to say Schumacher wouldn’t have still ruined the franchise, but it could have helped.

Surprisingly, there has only been 1 lower tiered character to break the $100 million dollar barrier: Daredevil. I liked that movie a lot. I thought it was well done, hit the tone of the character, and the Director’s Cut of the movie is a heckuva lot better than the one released in theaters. Ghost Rider will break the mark, that’s for sure. Still…it’s bad, so why is it doing so good?

There were movies on the list that while tonally correct, were still pretty bad. Fantastic Four and Hulk and the Punisher come to mind. Granted, they’re not on par with being as horrible as Ghost Rider, but they come close. Punisher is the closest. I remember watching the movie, and literally only thinking that one or two scenes should have been included, and the rest thrown in the trash. Fantastic Four and the Hulk, they’re faithfully adapted for about half of their movies…mostly until the Arch-nemesis is revealed and fleshed out. Then they fall off the precipice down the crevasse of suck.

Please Please Please Dear God, all you movie studios, script writers, actors, directors, etc….remember: the hero of a film is only as good as his foil!

I still maintain and the Hulk movie should have been 90 minutes long and cut out everything having to do with Banner’s father gaining powers, etc. Have him fight his way out of the Army, have one last stare down with Sam Elliot, say goodbye to Jennifer Connelly, and jump off into the sky.

Fantastic Four is close as well, although a notch below the Hulk. Everything not dealing with Doom is decent, fun, and hits the tone of the comic book of the ultimate dis-functional family. They use teamwork when it counts.

It all comes back to tone though. The characters that are more well-known are able to stick with their tone more. 2^nd tiered characters are forced to undergo a tonal shift so that they can be more widely accepted.

They tried to do this with the Punisher. He only pretend tortured that crook because you were supposed to root for him. Except that the Punisher is the ultimate anti-hero. He kills without remorse all the time, as long as they’re guilty in his eyes.

Elektra is an assassin who fights ninjas. She doesn’t have any super-powers. She’s a well-trained martial artist.

And Ghost Rider doesn’t learn to enjoy his alter-ego. He’s possessed. He’d do anything to get out of being possessed. He’s in pain when he transforms. He can’t control the Rider. He’s just a vessel. He gets possessed around evil beings, does his thing, and that’s it.

There’s one more set of numbers I’d like to throw out: Ratings.

Rated R comic movies averaged $63 million dollars while PG-13 ones averaged $180 million. That’s the final kicker.

When faced with a 2^nd tiered character that the public doesn’t know, the studios will make the movie stick to a PG-13 rating, and make enough changes in the character so that the PG-13 kids will like it. Makes you wonder how they made Sin City, Hellboy, Constantine. I mean, I’d kill for a rated R Ghost Rider horror tale done by Del Toro. I’d kill for a rated R Daredevil sequel done by Fincher. And Punisher, still needs to be R, and the studio needs to let the character run wild. The body count needs to be in the hundreds, and the fights need to be like the Bourne Identity (vicious).

Conclusion: if these tonally correct and character faithful movies ever get made of these lesser known characters (I’m looking at you guys Flash and Ant-Man), no one will go see them. Studios will pay $60 mill to make the movie, another $40 mill to promote the film, and then the box office will come in around $70 mill. That’s why the chances of Jack Black starring as Green Lantern in a comedy will always be greater than a serious drug addict Green Arrow story.

Ultimately, who’s to blame? We are. The consumer. If we didn’t go to the crappy comic book movies, we wouldn’t get more crappy comic book movies.