Things I'm Doing: Reviews, Networking, and MPAA Ratings

Between funerals, graduations, and Father's Day this past week, I went to a sneak preview of A Mighty Heart, an adaptation of the memoir by the same name. This was part of my trial run for a movie reviewing job prospect I picked up on a few weeks back. After that I had a couple days to write the trial review and send it in, which was fairly difficult; not exactly because writing reviews is hard, but because A Mighty Heart is probably one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It portrays the entire Muslim religion as a doctrine of soulless brutality and is an insult to the values it allegedly supports. It tries way too hard to be "gritty and realistic" and a result ends up just being narratively obnoxious.

So basically, I didn't like the movie. If my assignment was to write an opinionated review, I probably would have blown a gasket (the same way I did about The Passion of the Christ and World Trade Center, because it's that bad). Luckily, I wasn't writing an opinionated review.

Before I go any further, this site is awesome. If you look at one of their reviews, that's basically the kind of thing I'm writing. Let's get started on why Kids in Mind is awesome, especially now.

As you're probably aware, there's somewhat of a hoopla going on over a recent decision by the MPAA. As of now, having the characters in a movie smoke can be grounds for an R rating. From what I've seen, the popular position (among people I hang out with, anyway) is that this is unreasonable censorship. I don't exactly think so, but I'm not exactly in favor either.

Screenwriter Craig Mazin (of Scary Movie cred) has what I think is a pretty thoughtful post up about why the MPAA's decision may be a good one. I read Mr. Mazin's blog fairly often. I find he has some great stuff to say, though I almost never totally agree with it.

In this case, the part I don't agree with is the idea that MPAA ratings are not censorship. It's true that it is the choice of theaters to ban movies above a certain rating, and it's true that theaters that do so are, as Mr. Mazin says, "way out of line." But with a system like MPAA's, a situation like that is inevitable.

To use an analogy, let's say you live in a country where people happen to work a lot of overtime, and students happen to get a lot of homework, and there happens to be a fast food restaurant on every block, and where obesity, especially in young people, is mysteriously increasing over time. Yes, it's each person's individual choice to work lots of overtime, and it's each person's individual choice to eath fast food frequently, but let's be honest: WTF else do you expect to happen?

The problem with MPAA ratings is that they're ambiguous. An R rating could mean anything; it could mean there's full-frontal nudity, it could mean there are guys getting disemboweled on Normandy beach, it could mean there are 74 f-bombs, it could mean there are junkies shooting up... you get the idea. And yes, it's possible for somebody who wants to to find out why a movie is rated R, but how many people do you know who actually do that?

An MPAA rating is not a guideline to help people judge which movies their kids should see. It's a stigma with no useful meaning, a magic word used to instruct people on what's socially acceptable to let people of a certain age watch. It's a completely empty rule. And it's not balanced, and it doesn't work; if you don't remember what happened when Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom came out with a PG rating, ask your parents.

Parents who carry even the semblance of giving a flip about their kids' movies are better off doing their research on a site like Kids in Mind. If they're not willing to do that, then why even pretend to care?

Anyway, that's my MPAA rant. What's important is that, like every prospect I run into these days, I'm invoking every major deity I know in hopes of this freelance reviewing gig working out. To be honest, it's not a Big Money kind of opportunity; if all goes well, I might be able to pay for some insurance with a job like this. But that's how it works in freelancing: you build it up by bricks.

Also, jobs like this are of more than financial importance. More than one reviewer comes to each of these screenings, leaving networking opportunities ripe for the picking. Plus there's one of the usual perks of entertainment jobs: free movies.