No Country For Old Men

Well, it’s sad to say, but I was convinced to see this R rated movie by some friends and some really great reviews. No Country For Old Men is a Coen Brothers movie. If you don’t know some of the other movies they’ve directed, here are a few: Fargo, O Brother, Where Art Thou, and The Big Lebowski.

 This movie is set in the early 1980s in West Texas. A psychopathic killer is looking for a briefcase full of almost two million dollars, while a local man, who found the money after stumbling onto a drug deal gone bad, is trying to make sure he’s not discovered. The majority of the movie deals with the man who found the money trying to get away from the killer. This plot line is a return to the dark, noir themes which have provided the Coens with some of their most successful material. There is a style of comedy present in the film, but not as strongly as their other films. There is a very subtle comedic element throughout the movie, but if you’re looking for a good laugh, you might need to look elsewhere.  As much as this sounds like I’m trying to justify myself for watching an R rated movie, I thought this movie was done quite tastefully. There was no nudity and hardly any language in it; I’ve heard worse in PG-13 movies. There was a significant amount of violence, but I guess for me nudity is more offensive than violence. However, both nudity and violence are offensive.  

After watching this movie I was a little surprised at the rating, to be honest. This led me to think that many directors and producers have been adding certain elements to their movies in order to get an R rating. I don’t know if producers believe that their movies will be more credible if they have a higher rating, or if they want to attract an “R-rated audience.” Either way, I find this to be a slightly disturbing trend. Hollywood seems to place more importance on R rated movies so more directors and producers are making them. Good movies, such as this one, could quite easily be made PG-13, but won’t because the R supposedly makes them better. What will make producers move away from R-rated movies?

Beowulf

A little while ago I had the unfortunate opportunity to see the movie Beowulf after I was given free passes to it. Beowulf is the animated film adaptation of the Old English epic poem of the same name. This film was created through motion capture, which is a technique similar to the one used in The Polar Express. All of the actors look like their characters; however, it is clear that they are animated.  The movie stars such actors as Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone, John Malkovich, and Crispin Glover. Rober Zemeckis directed the film and took several directorial liberties to change the story to make it more appealing to general audiences.

 

Despite changing the original story of Beowulf, the greatest injustice to the public was the needless addition of nudity to the movie. Zemeckis decided to take every opportunity that presented itself to portray the animated characters with barely any clothes on. Although the film is animated and obviously not trying to portray reality, the nudity was still offensive and unnecessary to the general understanding of the film.

 

Beowulf is rated PG-13 for the violence and nudity, but for as many sexual references as the movie has and the nudity, it seems like the movie should have been rated higher. There is no strong language in the movie or profanity, but there are many anatomical and sexual terms that would very inappropriate for children.

 

I definitely wouldn’t recommend this movie to anyone, especially children. The fact that it is animated seems to attract many children, but it would be highly irresponsible to let them see this film.

What’s the point?

What is the point of movies having unneeded and unwanted explicit material?

 I’ve found that most people are uncomfortable with explicit scenes or intense swearing, so I wonder why movies are so heavily endorsed which contain those sorts of things. Many people don’t like it, but they support movies that contain these things anyway and just say “it was good, except for that one scene…”

 It almost seems like movie producers are competing with each other to be the most controversial, and the ones who aren’t are less of a producer because they have standards. I think all the explicit material in movies is not there because people want it there, it is there because people have become convinced that if it is rated pg or g that it is for children. The only way to appeal to adults it seems is to provide some sort of sex, violence, or swearing.

 Do you guys agree or disagree?

Return with Honor and Becoming Jane

 

I thought it was an interesting trend this summer that there were so many PG-rated movies geared toward adult audiences (Hairspray, Evan Almighty, etc.).  It seems that PG movies are usually mostly kids fare.  Two other examples of ”adult” PG movies are two of my favorites this year: Return with Honor and Becoming Jane.  Neither contained content that was substantially offensive, but I felt that they bordered the line between PG and PG-13. 

Return with Honor is about a returned LDS missionary who dies in a car accident and then is given 60 days to convert his mother.  As cheesy as the premise might sound, it is actually a beautifully nuanced film about the judgment we can impose on others.  Thematically, it is definitely not meant for children, as it deals with domestic abuse, alcoholism, violence, sex, and prostitution, though tastefully.  The movie doesn’t have any gratuitous sex, but it is sometimes intense and includes some mild language.  Becoming Jane is about the love life of Jane Austen.  It is very similar to other movies based on her novels, but much more naturalistic, dealing with the hard facts of life.  Life isn’t as clean-cut–or as clean–as her novels.  I was a bit shocked to see two completely naked men from behind in a PG movie.  The sexual innuendo was also very prominent and much more explicit than many PG-13 movies I’ve seen. 

As I said before, I thoroughly enjoyed both movies.  However, I would not want young children to be watching either of them until they are old enough to understand what they are watching.  Maybe they should be rated PG-13, but then again, most PG-13 movies are much worse than either of them.  I sometimes wonder if there should be a third rating in between PG and PG-13 for movies like these that don’t seem to fit either rating.  Or, conversely, these could be PG-13 (they are definitely fit for a 13-year-old to watch), and another rating could be added in between PG-13 and R for movies with more offensive content. 

At any rate, it will always be difficult to pidgeon-hole so many widely varying movies into only five or six ratings.  That’s why, even though ratings are a good guide, it’s also important for us to know what’s in movies before we go to see them or allow our children to watch them.  Kids-in-mind.com is a great place to go for that.  Before I see a movie, I usually check it out there first to see if there’s anything in it I might find offensive (although the site usually makes the content seem worse than it is).  If there is, I wait for the movie to come out on DVD so I can watch it on my Clearplay player with the content filtered.          

Knocked Up

This was an interesting R-rated movie.  I’d heard really good reviews for it, so I decided to rent it.  I have to say, I was a little shocked at some of the content.   Like Goodwill Hunting, which I previously posted on, there was a lot of profanity in this movie.  But the usage and context was quite different.  The swear words in Good Will Hunting that I thought added to the realism, actually took away from the realism and the overall quality of Knocked Up.

For some reason, the screenwriters fell in love with f-bombs and used them everywhere.  The problem was, they were just a cheap way to get a laugh.  A sort of substitute for genuine comedy.  The real shame is that the movie was brilliant in some respects.  Some of the jokes and comedy bits were outstanding.  And the film, even though its premise was an unwanted pregnancy, actually taught quite a good message about love and living with our mistakes.   I just felt the movie was sabotaged by a bunch of gratuitous profanity and vulgarity.   And I’m a firm believer that anything gratuitous takes away from a movie, even if it’s gratuitous  happy stuff.

So, this was one of the points of our blog in the first place.  I don’t think all profanity is the same.  The words might be the same, but context has so much to do with how offensive it is, in my opinion.

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.