Bourne Ultimatum

The Bourne Ultimatum was a wonderful movie! In my opinion violence is the main reason for its PG-13 rating. There are quite a few intense scenes and some killing. There weren’t any sexual references and I don’t remember there being to much bad language. The most intense part was probably when Jason Bourne chased down one of his pursuers and ended up in a struggle with him in the bathroom. There was some graphic moves and and it ended in a violent struggle that ended in the “bad guy’s” death. What made it so intense was that it actually depicted the man’s death whereas some movies just imply death without actually showing the actual act. Another aspect of violence in the movie was several car chases that ended in injuries and death. One in particular ended with a fairly close up shot of the victim’s body slumped over the steering wheel with a bloody face. This shot in itself is scary even though it doesn’t show actual violence happening, just the end result. So, in my opinion I think the PG-13 rating for the “Bourne Ultimatum” was appropriate given the violence and intensity in many of the scenes.

Good Will Hunting

I just rewatched this classic from ten years ago.  And yes, it’s rated R.  Still, I’ve got to say that I loved the movie and found it very uplifting.  The movie, however, is filled with a bunch of f-bombs.  My question though, is: All are f-bombs and other swear words created equal.  Are the words that have been designated swear words inherently bad, or have they been categorized as swear words because of their offensive meanings?  Does the context have anything to do with it?  For example, does the F-word remain equally as vulgar when it’s not used in relation to sex?  What if it’s just a verbal tick, like when people say something was f-ing stupid?

 In this movie, the F-word is used a lot.  Some people would say that they should have just taken it out and made the movie a pg-13.  But I think you have to differentiate how words are used, taking into account the context and meaning.  Like in the post on this blog about the Movie Hoax, the offensive word in question seemed to be gratuitous, and therefore could and maybe should have been deleted.  But if you’re making a movie about a bunch of low class kids from Boston, I think you have to acknowledge that they’re going to use swear words in their conversations.  That’s just how they talk.  It’s not only not gratuitous to include it, it would be robbing the movie of a truthful element if you had Matt Damon and Ben Affleck saying ”fudge” instead. 

The real value of art is to teach us lessons about human nature.  If you’re dishonest about that nature, how can you expect any art to be worthwhile or valuable?

August Rush

First of all, let me just say, I did not enjoy this movie. I thought that having Robin Williams in it might make it better, but I was wrong. To sum up the movie really quickly, I’ll just give a brief description. This film is about a young orphan boy who hears his parents speaking to him through music and the sounds around him. He is a musical prodigy, and encounter different people from all walks of life. The other part of the film is about the boys parents. The mom was a rich young violinist, and the father was a young reckless rocker. They had met and had a one night stand. The rich girl’s father didn’t want them to be together. The girl was hit by a car, and that dad told her that she had lost the baby, when in reality, he had the baby sent to an orphanage. Throughout the movie, you see how music influences all the characters, and finally brings them together in the end.

Okay. Lame. August Rush is rated PG, which I think is pretty appropriate for this film. The two things that would not seem very PG to me are 1)Robin Williams character and 2) the one night stand between the young couple at the beginning of the movie.

1) Robin Williams- He seemed kind of scary! In the movie, he plays this musician who lives in an old theater in New York. He gathers homeless kids who play music, and lets them stay in the theater. He takes all their earnings, and the kids are scared of him. He tried to “snatch” August (the main boy) away, and was just a dishonest and scary man.

2) Promiscuity. Although nothing very graphic is shown in the film, it definitely implies that it’s okay to have premarital sex. Plus, there is some talk of just sleeping around and playing the film.

 All in all, it fits the PG rating, but I gave it two thumbs down.

Blood Diamond and The Bourne Ultimatum

After watching both of these movies I had completely different feelings from both films and the feelings these used to portray what was going on in the film. In Blood Diamond it goes through showing how conflict diamonds are played into the world of industrialized diamonds, and how the government has so much corruption that uses these unknown buyers for these diamonds to help fund these coalition groups that can try to over-throw the government and rule Africa. But in the mean time they show how brutal and violent they are to make people join forces with them so that they can come into power and the way they fund themselves are through these work camps that are used to find diamonds and sell them to outside sources that them sell them to all other clean markets. It also shows how these coalition groups use children from villages that they have pillaged and take these young boys and tell them to either join them or lose a hand so they can’t vote for new laws and policies that the government might put into act. Over-all this movie was an amazing showing of how things work in Africa and how much we really need to do to help stop these wars going on there. The film definitely deserved an R rating for violence and brutal images portrayed throughout the film, but it makes you feel totally for the characters in the movie and the need to help in any way we can.

In the Bourne Ultimatum that was just a fantastic movie. So well done, exciting, and intense but still a great story involved. The rating on this was a solid PG-13 due to violence. But I wonder if this were to be played maybe 20 or 30 years ago what the rating might be then. I would say that this might be rated R because of the violence in it. Because of car chases and gun shots, and the great acts of martial arts and pretty much kicking the crap out of some other guy this could possibly rate R in 1970.

Hoax

I recently watched Hoax, which is rated R. The only things that gave it that rating were a couple f-bombs and a very short glimpse of an older lady’s breast.

I can’t help but wonder why they included the f-word, because it didn’t contribute to the dialogue in any way. It seemed almost out of place given the almost comical situation that the movie is based around. The nudity was also unneeded, it was so short and a little bit surprising because the scene was fine without it. I almost didn’t even notice, I just thought “Is that what I think I just saw?”

Some movies really have no need for these things to advance the plot, so why do writers work it into the script? If the two above details were missing the movie would have been rated pg-13 and nothing would have been lost.

Enchanted and Hairspray

On Wed., Nov. 21, I saw Disney’s Enchanted in the theaters for the first time and Hairspray on DVD for the third time.   They’re two of my favorite films this year.  I feel that they are good movies to compare and contrast since they are both PG-rated live action musicals released in 2007.  (James Marsden also co-stars in both, but that shouldn’t have an effect on the ratings…) 

Both films are bright, fun, and enjoyable for all ages, but a G rating would be inappropriate.  PG is a much better rating for them.  They both definitely have adult elements, especially sexual innuendo, but not nearly as much as in most PG-13 movies.  However, I remember hardly any innuendo in PG movies of the ’90s, if any at all.  It seems that the PG rating may have become more adult since then. 

That said, the innuendo in both Enchanted and Hairspray is virtually invisible to children.  It is very subtle in both films.  In Enchanted, sexuality is viewed from the childlike perspective of a Disney princess lost in New York and learning about the “real world.”  In Hairspray, it is mostly present as double entrendre in song lyrics.  Sexuality is more integral to the plot of Enchanted than to that of Hairspray, but it isn’t offensive enough in either to merit a PG-13 rating.  

In the case of Enchanted and Hairspray, the ratings seem to be uniform.  The movies have about the same amount of adult content as well as the same overall feeling to them, so it seems right that they are both rated PG.

Stardust

I saw the movie Stardust for the second time this weekend. It’s rated pg-13, which I think is a good rating for it because it could be scary for kids and death is one of the main themes, to more exact murder.

I really enjoyed the movie, but I found it interesting how most of the characters were in a race to kill someone else. I think the rating fit well because there was not anything that could have been edited out without completely ruining the plot.

Although one of the themes was death, it didn’t seem very violent because it was a fantasy. In real life people don’t cut a person’s heart out to eat it and gain eternal life. This fantasy element made it ok. I’ve found that with most fantasy movies violence is more acceptable because the movie is not realistic.

Movie Ratings

Welcome to our blog.  Over the next few weeks we’re going to be writing about movie ratings and how these rated categories affect our lives.  In the interest of full disclosure, we are a group in a BYU media literacy class and this blog is our class project.  We were assigned to create some sort of media presentation that adressed a media issue we felt strongly about.  We chose movie ratings because, as BYU students and Mormons, movie ratings play a large part in our lives and the general culture of our church. 

 For example, church culture often dictates that rated “R” movies are bad, off-limits.  On the other hand, many people we know seem to think that as long as a movie is not an “R” it’s okay to watch.  There are many more attitudes as well, ranging from a complete shunning of the rating system to rationalizations based on differing rating scales in different countries.  And, with the advent of movies edited for content, the issue is clouded even further.

 What we’re interested in is how well ratings actually warn against offensive content, and, here’s where things might get controversial, how do we determine exactly which content is offensive?  Are there universal standards, or should we make our own choices?  Can a movie be uplifting and appropriate even if it’s rated “R”?  Can a ”PG” movie be spiritually damaging? 

These are the questions we’re going to explore.  The format we’ll use is simple.  Group members will post their feelings about movies we’ve seen.  Everything we discuss will be filtered through the content, how it affected us and of course, the rating.  Please feel free to make comments (helpful, insightful ones, not standard Daily Universe-style holier-than-thou stuff please).