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).

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.

There are loads of British actors and comedy actors in this film, it can get a little distracting at times as you try to wrack your brains to work out who is which character, but in the end this enchanting film stands on it’s own.

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.

To be honest, it surprised me and shocked me. The US tends to be very against “big government” and would rather be self-regulating, but this really highlights a case where the system does not work. The fox is in charge of the henhouse and the decisions made are very inconsistent.

Watch this if you have ever wondered why one film received an R rating, but another less violent film received an NC-17.

For comparison, see the UK censor’s site www.BBFC.co.uk and look at the downloads section where you can see the guidelines for film makers in PDF form. You can also see reasons why, for example, ‘Star Wars Episode II – Attack Of The Clones’ received a one second cut to remove footage of a head butt. We also know that . And, more importantly, you as a concerned viewer is able to contact the BBFC to ask for the reasons a particular film or game received a rating.

And we also have more ratings – U, PG, 12, 15, 18 and R18, for the “adult” movies.

The official site for the movie (an independent film which received an NC-17 rating), can be found at http://www.ifc.com/films?aId=18019

I have just realised how much I don’t read pages I am linked to. I’ve been to The Internet Archive (aka the WayBack Machine) many times, mainly to get older pages of websites. Now I know that the pages can be used for so much more.

The Moving Image Archive has a huge number of public domain films. A large number of these are old black and white movies that you often hope will be shown, but never are. Cary Grant, with his “English” charm and wit is one of my favourite actors. The Moving Image archive has several of his films that are definitely worth watching. Charade with Audrey Hepburn is public domain because of “the failure to put the then required copyright notice in the released print.” Their loss is our gain

Texts brings together a number of projects to provide public domain textual works. Think Project Gutenberg, but bigger.

Audio gives us public domain audio works (duh). You have internet radio, music labels, speeches and science. Great idea.

Software is “designed to preserve and provide access to all kinds of rare or difficult to find, legally downloadable software titles and background information on those titles.” It’s shareware, freeware, demos and all sorts of things like that.

Education has a store of “educational content including coursework, study guides, exercises, and recorded lectures. It is meant for students, teachers, and self-learners at all levels.” Get reading and researching!

I haven’t been through these in any detail (except the films – I want some of those movies), but the aims are clearly laudable. This sort of thing is what the internet is ideal for. It brings together a source of information and entertainment that you couldn’t easily get otherwise. Go see it.