Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: An MPAA Guide

If you follow films at all, you quickly discover that some directors hit your buttons. That even their miserable failures you find fascinating and watch and even defend. Tim Burton has long been one of those directors for me. He has an amazing visual sense and is an extremely musical director (in fact, most of his films have been discussed in the scholarly literature on film music). Since I enjoy his films so much, I became curious about what the MPAA had to say about them. Most of the entries were prosaic at best, but the entry for his 2005 version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory struck me as both humorous and apropos:

Rated PG for quirky situations, action and mild language.

That's right, after seeing Burton's films for 20 years, the MPAA finally decided that they contained "quirky situations." That's like saying the Star Wars films contain lightsabers - it is true, but so generic, it tells you nothing.

Twister: An MPAA Guide

Disaster movies fascinate me, especially weather-related ones. Perhaps that fascination comes from growing up in Arkansas and being glued to the weather broadcasts out of Little Rock, watching that little green or red (and never blue) band creep slowly toward my hometown wondering what the sky would dump on us that night. Whatever the cause, watching the world ice over in The Day After Tomorrow is great fun, even if the movie itself is a little plodding and forgettable. I've even gone so far as to prominently include discussion of one of the grandfathers of disaster movies, When Worlds Collide, in an article I wrote because Harry Partch was approached to work on it.

In any case, the movie Twister held a particular fascination for me when it came out because it featured a weather disaster that I had experienced first hand (and would again the following year in even greater detail). I knew that tornadoes were deadly, which made the thrill a little bit deeper. Still, I never realized how scary those images were until I discovered why the MPAA had given it the rating of PG-13:

Rated PG-13 for intense depiction of very bad weather

That's right, not only did it depict weather, but very bad weather. That little qualifier put it over the edge. A movie called "Thunderstorm" would probably only rate a PG.

Braveheart: An MPAA Guide

Last week, we watched Mel Gibson's latest movie, Apocalypto (and for some reason, my hands keep wanting to type Apocalypso...that would be a very different movie). We knew going in that it was brutally violent and, yes indeed, it has a scene that makes the infamous heart scene from Indiana Jones of the Temple of doom look tame in comparison. I eagerly watched to see what the MPAA rating would say about this movie. Surely something along the lines of "Rated R for scenes of human sacrifice and hearts being cut out of people." Surely something equally icky. But no, they merely told us it was "Rated R for sequences of graphic violence and disturbing images." We all knew that from the reviews. Where's the creativity, I ask?

Turns out the creativity was with an older Mel Gibson movie that also has sequences of graphic violence and disturbing images, but received this warning instead:

Rated R for brutal medieval warfare

That's right, forget the scenes of torture and disembowelment at the end, it's all about the brutal medieval warfare.

The Simpsons Movie: An MPAA Guide

Last night, after Sam was in bed, Joy and I sat down to watch The Simpsons Movie. Joy was bustling about, so I watched the previews and got the movie cued to the opening. As I was wading through all the material, I noticed the MPAA warning for the movie:

Rated PG-13 for irreverent humor throughout

I've always enjoyed the MPAA ratings for their reasons. For instance, never mind that there is a bit of cussing and and violence and (cartoon) nudity in The Simpsons Movie. No, the MPAA is worried that young children and their parents need to know that the movie makes fun of everything from McDonald's type restaurants to the EPA (and the DVD gets its dig in at the EPA from the very beginning). Isn't that kinda what The Simpsons are known for and haven't they been around for 20 years?

I love the unintentional humor of the MPAA so much, that when I come across a particularly wonderful warning, I'll post it here for your enjoyment. Any suggestions for future posts are welcome as well through the comments.