This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)

Director:

Kirby Dick

Writers:

Kirby Dick (writer) &
Eddie Schmidt (writer) ...

Release Date:

1 September 2006 (UK)

Genre:

Documentary

Tagline:

censorship, uncensored.

Plot:

Kirby Dick's exposé about the American movie ratings board. |

Plot Keywords:

Filmmaking | James Bond | Business | Ratings | Truth

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Kirby Dick	...	Himself - Interviewer
Eddie Schmidt	...	Himself - Interviewer
Becky Altringer	...	Herself - Investigator
Cheryl Howell	...	Herself - Investigator
Paul Dergarabedian	...	Himself - Box Office Analyst
Lindsey Howell	...	Herself - Investigator
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ben Affleck	...	Ollie Trinke (archive footage)
Allison Anders	...	Herself
David Ansen	...	Himself
Tom Arnold	...	Albert Gibson (archive footage)
Darren Aronofsky	...	Himself
Jamie Babbit	...	Herself
Kevin Bacon	...	Lenny (archive footage)
Clark Baker	...	Himself - Private Investigator (as Clark)
Alec Baldwin	...	Shelly Kaplow (archive footage)
Christian Bale	...	Patrick Bateman (archive footage)
Maria Bello	...	Herself
Jason Biggs	...	Jim Levenstein (archive footage)
Rachel Blanchard	...	Herself
Pierce Brosnan	...	James Bond (archive footage)
Richard Burton	...	George (archive footage)
Thomas Haden Church	...	Jack (archive footage)
Tom Cruise	...	Dr. William 'Bill' Harford / Maverick (archive footage)
Robert De Niro	...	Max Cady (archive footage)
Michael Douglas	...	Det. Nick Curran (archive footage)
Atom Egoyan	...	Himself
Stephen Farber	...	Himself
Colin Firth	...	Vince (archive footage)
Peter Gallagher	...	Buddy Kane (archive footage)
Martin Garbus	...	Himself
Louis Garrel	...	Theo (archive footage)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt	...	Neil (archive footage)
Joan Graves	...	Herself (voice)
Mary Harron	...	Herself
Will H. Hays	...	Himself (archive footage)
Richard Heffner	...	Himself
William Holden	...	Donald Gresham (archive footage)
Paul Huebl	...	Himself - Private Investigator (as Paul)
Jeremy Irons	...	Dr. Stephen Fleming (archive footage)
Chris Isaak	...	Vaughn Stickles (archive footage)
Kirsten Johnson	...	Herself - Interviewer (voice)
Wes Johnson	...	Fat Fuck Frank (archive footage)
Johnny Knoxville	...	Ray Ray Perkins (archive footage)
Wayne Kramer	...	Himself
Jennifer Jason Leigh	...	Hedy Carlson (archive footage)
Lawrence Lessig	...	Himself
Eugene Levy	...	Jim's Dad (archive footage)
Jon Lewis	...	Himself
Kyle MacLachlan	...	Zack Carey (archive footage)
William H. Macy	...	Bernie Lootz (archive footage)
Olivier Martinez	...	Paul Martel (archive footage)
Michael McClellan	...	Himself - Appeals Board Member (as Michael Mcclellan)
Kimberly Peirce	...	Herself
Michael Pitt	...	Matthew (archive footage)
Bingham Ray	...	Himself
David L. Robb	...	Himself
Jay Rosenzweig	...	Himself - Private Investigator (as Jay)
Peter Sarsgaard	...	John Lotter (archive footage)
Cookie Schwartz	...	Herself - Private Investigator (as Cookie)
George Segal	...	Nick (archive footage)
Kevin Smith	...	Himself
Kevin Spacey	...	Lester Burnham (archive footage)
James Spader	...	James Ballard (archive footage)
Matt Stone	...	Himself
Justin Theroux	...	Timothy Bryce (archive footage)
Billy Bob Thornton	...	Hank Grotowski (archive footage)
Michael Tucker	...	Himself
Mark Urman	...	Himself
Jack Valenti	...	Himself (archive footage)
Jon Voight	...	Luke Martin (archive footage)
John Waters	...	Himself
Marlon Wayans	...	Shorty Meeks (archive footage)
John Wayne	...	(archive footage)
Steven Weber	...	Sam Rawson (archive footage)
Robert Wisdom	...	Mr. Scott (archive footage)

MPAA:

Rating surrendered; previous version rated NC-17 for some graphic sexual content.

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:NC-17 (rating surrendered) | Greece:K | Argentina:18 | Canada:14A (Canadian Home Video rating/Manitoba/Ontario) | Australia:MA | Netherlands:16 | USA:TV-MA (TV rating) | USA:Unrated (rating surrendered) | Malaysia:(Banned) | UK:18 | Singapore:R21

Filming Locations:

Encino, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Independent Film Channel (IFC)

Trivia:

The MPAA announced that starting in March of 2007, it will change their policy and allow filmmakers to cite other film's ratings as comparison. The MPAA will also provide information about the demographics of its board.

Movie Connections:

Features But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)

Soundtrack:

Nations On Parade

Informative, mean and funny as hell!

Ever been curious about the American film rating system? Then Kirby Dick's This Film Is Not Yet Rated is perfect. It does to US censorship what Michael Moore has done to others: it makes everyone look like jackasses, mainly because that's what they really are.

The film explains pretty early on, through South Park-style animation, what kind of rating a movie can get in the USA: G, PG, PG-13, R or NC-17. The last certificate is the most unpleasant one, as a film with that classification won't get a proper distribution. And it's that particular rating that Dick wants to dissect.

This documentary is divided into three sections: the largest one sees various filmmakers (Kimberly Pierce, John Waters, Kevin Smith) revealing the problems they've experienced because of the American ratings board, the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America)

The second section features the director's efforts to uncover the identities of the film raters. You see, the MPAA is supposedly composed of average American parents, doing a fair job. Then how come no one knows who these people are? As the investigation continues, we learn that one board member doesn't even have kids, while several others' offspring are already adults. So what's really going on?

The last part of This Film Is Not Yet Rated focuses on Dick's own censorship trouble: he sent a rough cut of the documentary to the MPAA, receiving the dreaded NC-17 (since there's some footage coming from other NC-rated films), and now he's trying to appeal, which isn't that easy...

The best part of the film is the first one I mentioned, mainly because we get to know the rules of the game a bit better. Apparently, any kind of "weird sex" is not welcome: oral sex (Boys Don't Cry), threesomes(The Dreamers, American Psycho), gay stuff (Mysterious Skin, Where The Truth Lies), female masturbation (no problem if it's a guy)... the list is quite long. Of course, you're better off if your film is endorsed by a major studio. That's why a glimpse of Maria Bello's pubic hair got independent film The Cooler an NC-17, while Sharon Stone doing much more in the audience-baiting Basic Instinct was "appropriate" enough to receive an R. No wonder most filmmakers hate the MPAA. Hell, we even find out that Trey Parker and Matt Stone deliberately put distasteful material in Team America just to make fun of the ratings board.

Another "funny" thing is, the NC-17 is only used against sex. No one ever says anything about on-screen violence. In fact, any movie can have the highest body count ever, and be rated R. If there's no blood, it might even get a PG-13. As people point out, all other countries have the exact opposite attitude, condemning violence rather than sex (I know, from personal experience, that most films rated NC-17 in the US are usually classified "15" or "16" in Europe, while excessive violence tends to lead to an "18").

As someone wisely says in this hilarious, poignant opus, ratings don't really matter. If it's a film a lot of people want to see, no rating in the world can damage it. If it's a film few people want to see, then no rating in the world will save it. That might be true, but this movie also made me realize that I would definitely not want to be a member of the MPAA. Their criteria are too weird for normal people to understand.