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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Sex & Lucia: "Banned" in Seattle?
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Charles Everett
Phenomenal Film Handler
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Posts: 1470
From: New Jersey
Registered: May 2001
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posted 08-16-2002 12:52 PM
Sex & Lucia opens today in Seattle but the city's 2 daily newspapers have banned ads for the picture. The excuse given? "We put this newspaper in classrooms. It's really about having standards for advertising content."As usual, Landmark Theatres doesn't fight this act of corporate censorship. The kicker is that Sex & Lucia won an award in a film festival where one of the offending newspapers was a corporate sponsor.
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Thomas Procyk
Phenomenal Film Handler
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Posts: 1842
From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 08-17-2002 10:54 AM
I never understood why some theaters treated ALL not-rated movies as if they were NC-17. (No children under 17. Period. With or without parents.) While a lot of unrated arthouse product can be risque, what about those occasional documentaries, biographies or classics that come along? While on the topic of classics, I noticed when GWTW was re-released in 1998, it had a "G" rating. So a film about the civil war, slavery, adultery, and a scene where a woman shoots a man point blank in the face gets a "G"?!?! So if GWTW remained unrated as it was in 1939, nobody under 17 would be allowed to see it at some of those theaters. However, since they slapped a G on it, a 6-year old can walk up and get a ticket by themselves. Go figure. =TMP=
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Paul Linfesty
Phenomenal Film Handler
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Posts: 1383
From: Bakersfield, CA, USA
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 08-17-2002 11:44 AM
Actually, if GWTW was re-rated today, it probably would have ended up with a PG or maybe even a PG-13. The G rating was awarded back in 1968 shortly after the ratings system debuted. The film was in a 70mm roadshow re-release at the time. Once a film is given a rating, as long as it remains in the version that was rated, it can keep that rating regardless of changing mores. Many films were given G's back at that time that today would be more strongly viewed. OLIVER, with its off screen beating death of a woman and child in jeopardy was also a G. Funny Girl, Ice Station Zebra, and many other roadshow films were also G. Even True Grit, originally an M, was re-rated G after cutting out the word "Damn." However, the explicit shot of a man getting his fingers shot off remained in the film.When WB re-released the "uncut" version of The Wild Bunch, the ratings board initially hit it with an NC-17. Strangely, the scenes that had been cut in the first place had no additional violence than the original R cut, which shows that standards of violence have been toughened up since the 60's. WB's saving grace was finding the documentation that proved the R had been given to The Wild Bunch before the general release version cuts had been made, so the MPAA rules allowed this version to retain the R rating.
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Arthur Allen
Film Handler
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Posts: 99
From: Renton, WA, USA
Registered: Aug 2001
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posted 08-19-2002 12:07 PM
The Seattle Times has had a history of altering naughty movie advertising. A movie called "The Last American Virgin" got changed to "The Last American NICE GIRL," with a newspaper headline font crudely superimposed on the original advertising artwork. The day after that ran, they changed the title to "Call Theater for Title," presumably after they found out the virgin in question was a boy. You didn't even have to call the theater for the title either, just look over at the regular text movie listings and there it was. Later the movie "Puberty Blues" got changed to "Growing Up Blues," and "Sammie and Rosie Get Laid" was changed to "Sammy and Rosie." Later the newspaper said that the local chain running that movie submitted the advertising that way. Based on the Times' track record, I'm not surprised.Strangely, the Times' former competitor, the P-I, used to run ads for X-rated theaters; until the two papers advertising departments merged in a Joint Operating Agreement. Back in 1981 my junior high social studies class used the P-I in an assignment, and one of the tasks was to find a G or X-rated movie advertisement and add it to our clippings for the assignemnt. According to the Times' spokesperson, I should have been warped for life for that. ![](http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif)
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Bill Gabel
Film God
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Posts: 3873
From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2002
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posted 08-23-2002 12:21 PM
Sometimes a theatre can not book a film because of the rating (NC-17 X ). At some theatre locations it is written in the lease between the property owner and the theatre chain, that they can not play rated X adult films. Its a matter of wording rated X or NC-17 or adult X. Most of these leases were done before MPAA, changed X to NC-17. If a film maker or studio does not like the rating they got, they can appeal the rating. In Los Angeles the appeal screening is done at a screening room other than the MPAA screening room in Sherman Oaks, Ca.. They run the film and afterwords talk for about 1-2 hours about the cuts that were done to the film. Most of the time the director or studio rep. is waiting in the lobby of the screening room. The directors would try to come into the booth to see what was happening in the other auditorium. When I was in Los Angeles, I worked at a screening room in Beverly Hills that did all the MPAA appeals screenings. So I saw a few MPAA ratings appeals, every few months.
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Aaron Sisemore
Flaming Ribs beat Reeses Peanut Butter Cups any day!
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Posts: 3061
From: Rockwall TX USA
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 08-23-2002 12:41 PM
>>The ad ban on Sex & Lucia is a double standard because the Seattle papers ran ads for Y Tu Mama Tambien<<Perhaps it is because the paper will not allow print ads for anything containing the word 'SEX'? Y Tu Mama Tambien (and your mother too) and L.I.E., while both containing very graphic sexual material, do not have the magic word 'SEX' in their titles. -Aaron
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