Watch This Film Is Not Yet Rated For Free

Absolutely amazing

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Documentary filmmaker Kirby Dick launches an incendiary, full-frontal assault on the Motion Picture Association of America's Classification and Ratings Administration (a.k.a. the MPAA's CARA). This is the entity that assigns ratings to movies -- the familiar G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17 designations. This secret, unregulated organization wields considerable power over the film industry and operates, the filmmaker asserts, on a highly subjective and prejudicial basis.

Filmmaker Kirby Dick takes on the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). It interviews filmmakers and film critics. Kirby hires private investigators to find the secretive film raters. He also has a couple of former raters who are willing to talk.This documentary definitely has a point of view. It has some insightful stuff about the MPAA. It's interesting to see how secretive the organization is. The movie is one-side. I can't blame it on Kirby because I doubt MPAA would be any more forthcoming in any case. Kirby takes a bit too much glee in a couple of scenes. There is a Canadian movie from inside a ratings agency called "My Tango with Porn". There are some interesting insights like the clergy and film corporate insiders in the appeals board. Some very interesting filmmakers are sticking their necks out. This is by no means complete. There are some assertions that are a little more precarious.

This Film starts off with an interview with Kimberly Pierce talking about how her film Boys Don't Cry(1999) was slapped with an NC-17 Rating instead of an R Rating. There are 3 reasons why this happened and all of them for sexual content.We Then Get interviews from John Waters and Kevin Smith saying how there films got slapped with either an R or NC-17 Rating. John Waters talks about how his comedy A Dirty Shame(2004) got slapped with an NC-17 For the overall sexual tone. Kevin Smith talks about how his film Jersey Girl(2004) Got Slapped with an R Rating instead of a PG-13 Rating for get this a conversation that Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler have in a restaurant.The film is also about the films Director Kirby Dick hiring a private investigator to see who the secret board of MPAA Members are.The film also has interviews with Matt Stone who says that his films South Park(1999) and Team America(2004) were rated NC-17. South Park for Language and Team America for sexual content.This is one of the best films I have ever seen and was very interesting seeing how Sex is the main problem in film and not Violence like every parent says. The Interviews are great and the film has some guts for trying to access secret information definitely give it a watch.Originally Rated NC-17 For Graphic Sexual Content Later Toned Down To An R for Sexual Content then finally Unrated.1hr 38min/98min.31 uses of the F-word.****/****

This is an investigation into the membership and methodology by which the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) reaches decisions about ratings for films in the United States.The MPAA will not disclose the names of the members who rate the films, saying only that they are parents of kids. There is a lot of inconsistency in the manner in which ratings are given to films and director Kirby Dick in this film addresses those inconsistencies, speaking to many directors about their dealings with the MPAA. Some of the revelations by the directors are quite interesting and speak to the seeming arbitrariness by which the MPAA operates. Kimberly Peirce ("Boys Don't Cry") is particularly poignant about the different treatment toward a woman dressed to pass as a woman in her film as opposed to more tolerant treatment toward a woman experiencing a similar sexual experience in other films. Kevin Smith speaks of why the MPAA rated his film an NC-17 and it is because Liv Tyler's character in his movie expresses pleasure from sex. Dick discloses the number of directors who have been forced to change NC-17 into R-rated films and it is a who's who of directors.If a film receives an NC-17 rating, it will have difficulty securing distribution or advertising-essentially ensuring that the film will be an economic failure. In retaining the ability to make directors change their films, the MPAA under the leadership of Jack Valenti and then his successor together with deputy Joan Graves, head of the ratings board (and very handsomely compensated), the organization seems like a willing handmaiden to the studio system in the United States. Even more byzantine and moralistic is the appeals board to which a filmmaker reaches out if he or she is unhappy with his/her rating. That board includes two members of the clergy who do not vote, but who are present nonetheless for the appeals from filmmakers as to why their film shouldn't be rated NC-17 and the board's subsequent response to their appeal. The presence there seems like a not-so-subtle message from the MPAA to filmmakers. It turns out that the appeal board members are even more invested in retaining the power of studios to control the messages conveyed by filmmakers in that all the members are important figures within the film business.For Dick, more annoying is the fact that the identities of the MPAA members are kept secret. This is done, allegedly, in order to immunize the members from outside pressure. This point seems to be undercut by the fact that during the film board members are reported to be speaking with studios about how to get a certain rating. And Dick learns that, contrary to the claims of the MPAA, the board ratings members are not parents of kids-for whose benefit the MPAA supposedly works. In any case, Dick hires an investigative company to attempt to identify the members of the MPAA which rates films. The MPAA comes off as small-minded and Napoleonic in its use of power arbitrarily to serve the power of the studios for whom it was essentially created. Dick makes an entertaining and insightful film and is very enterprising in wheedling out the identities of the MPAA rating board. All in all, this is a fairly entertaining expose of the myopia and secrecy of the MPAA.