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This piece can serve as a great starting point to understand how on earth some movies full of violence get passed the criterion: the attempts at desexualizing the sex. Movie-goers, those living abroad in particular, can now better understand the system. Still, after watching it one doesn't get shocked, either. I guess this documentary deserves a go because it dares to talk about the elephant in the room.

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.

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.****/****

In the movie "Dragonfly", Kevin Costner's character says the "F" word once. At that point in the director's commentary, Tom Shadyac says, "...You can shoot a guy 3,000 times and get a 'PG-13', but if you say the 'F' word *twice* it's automatically an 'R'. I'll let that be its own comment." This was when I first started really thinking about the movie rating system as such, though the subject of our society's (by which I mean primarily America) bizarre, obsessive, unhealthy attitude toward nudity and sex is something which I have thought about for a long time. We are obsessed with nudity and sex -- as the old saying goes, "Sex sells," (which is understood to mean nudity, which of course is *not* the same as sex) -- and at the same time, apparently utterly terrified of it. This split has led us, as a society, to a point of hysterical insanity on the subject, and given us the highest incidence of teen pregnancy in the world, and by FAR the highest incidence of rape -- close to 10 times higher than the next-highest country.This film offers a greatly detailed perspective on one major manifestation of the issue, the movie censorship system -- sorry, I mean "rating" system. The side-by-side comparison of R and NC-17 scenes was particularly revealing. It just boggles my mind that people get so twisted up on this subject.I love the irony that the very ratings board scrutinized in this film was required to watch it. If there are any honest members on that board, perhaps it got them to think a little more about what they do and how they operate.(P.S. the explanation of the ratings near the beginning is hilarious!)