Place of Stuff

I really enjoyed “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” and I am happy to say that the next movie
“Prince Caspian” is due to be released on 27 June 2008 in the UK. If you enjoy fantasy films and
have kids (so you have an excuse to go), definitely book seats to go see this film. The Disney
film site has a widget, no idea what you get, but the widget is below. Apologies, the first time
you load it it takes a while to load up and it needs Flash(and messes up the page a little).
Continue reading ‘New “Narnia” Movie - Prince Caspian’ »

I love watching decent, well-written fantasy films. As a fan of Neil Gaiman’s work, I was very excited to see the book “Stardust” translated to silver screen. And I have just returned from watching the film Stardust at my local cinema.

The film is rated, accurately in my opinion, as PG. There is mild peril, no bad language and lots of romance. This is a really magical film; a real fairy tale with good guys, bad guys, a damsel in distress and some wicked witches. Oh, and a destiny unrealised.

There is some excellent acting: Michelle Pfeiffer plays a wizened wicked witch, Robert De Niro plays a sky captain who is on a ship harvesting lightning (and puts in a wonderful performance). I hadn’t realised what an expressive face Claire Danes, the female lead, has. The romance is realistic and never tacky - take your other half, take your kids, there really is something for everyone in this film.
Continue reading ‘Stardust’ »

The title of this post is the title of an interesting film I saw last night - This Film is Not Yet Rated. The film came out in September 2006 in the UK, so I’m a little behind the times, but this is a fascinating documentary about the MPAA and the US film ratings. Do you know which rule states when a film goes from an R rating to an NC-17 rating? Nope, me either. Interestingly, according to the documentary, the MPAA either doesn’t know or doesn’t want anyone else to know.

The MPAA comprises 7 media companies and members of each company sit on the board. The film shows that the board is biased towards violent films (violent films tend to get an R rating) and against sex - homosexual acts in particular as they tend to get an NC-17 as against an R for heterosexual sex. The board, at the time the film was made, would not disclose any names of raters, only the head (Joan Graves at the time). This is to prevent them being influenced by film makers. Odd since the film makers made up the MPAA and effectively run it.

It also showed the draconian appeals system - those on the appeals board are anonymous even at the appeal and filmmakers appealing against their rating cannot cite other similar film’s ratings to help their case. There are also 2 church representatives on the appeals board, for some odd reason. They may or may not vote at the appeal, but they can make comment during deliberations.
Continue reading ‘This Film is Not Yet Rated’ »