WWTBAM Bored

Went and saw this last night. I hadn't even seen preview or knew what it was until the wife suggested going to a movie and to look to see if there was anything I wanted to see.

The last few movies I saw, I went to because the kids wanted to see them (Batman vs Superman, Star Wars, Divergent, etc.). I don't really enjoy movies where the action is so animated it isn't believable (even if it is done so well it looks real). I don't like movies where the action IS the movie at the expense of a plot.

This movie, Eye in the Sky, was a surprise. A little action, a lot of suspense, and a lot of thought provoking situations, good dialog and as far as I can tell or care, good acting. It is rated R but aside from a couple of F-bombs, it must get its rating for some gore, but it really should be PG-13 in my book (and I'm pretty much a prude).

Two Thumbs Up.

It only takes three f-bombs for an R rating.

Just like Planes, Trains and Automobiles...one scene has it eleven times, that movie was R

triviawayne wrote:It only takes three f-bombs for an R rating.

Just like Planes, Trains and Automobiles...one scene has it eleven times, that movie was R

It's more complicated than that. I've attached a link to the current rules, which have been in place since 2010.

If you look on Page 7, it says that one use of the f-word as an expletive in a non-sexual context results in a PG-13 rating . More than one (or one in a sexual context) requires an R-rating, but that's subject to an exception by a 2/3 vote of the Ratings Board if they feel most American parents would believe that a PG-13 rating is appropriate because of the context or manner in which the words are used or because the use of the words in the motion picture is inconspicuous.

In the last couple of years, a de facto maximum of two uses has become common, but it's not a firm rule. The Ratings Board has leeway to go beyond two if they feel the film warrants a PG-13 rating. Per Wikipedia, The Right Stuff (5) and All the President's Men (7) received PG ratings in the pre-PG-13 era. Gunner Palace, a 2004 documentary about the Iraq war has 42 uses of the F-word in interviews with soldiers and still got a PG-13 rating on appeal.

http://www.filmratings.com/downloads/rating_rules.pdf

None of the f-bombs were directed at anyone or used as a casual conversational word (a la The Big Lewbowski where every other word was an f-bomb). In this movie, they were used as a reaction by the characters in situations of shock, concern, or anger as when they first see the bomb maker assembling suicide vests.

I don't really have a problem with the R rating, I just feel I've seen worse at a PG-13. This is definitely an adult movie if only for the plot/story. Not much of interest for anyone under 16 without an adult to discuss it, IMO.

BackInTex wrote:I don't really have a problem with the R rating, I just feel I've seen worse at a PG-13. This is definitely an adult movie if only for the plot/story. Not much of interest for anyone under 16 without an adult to discuss it, IMO.

The opposite problem comes up in regard to G-rated films. A few years ago, there was a movie called The Straight Story. Richard Farnsworth got an Oscar nomination for playing an elderly man who rides hundreds of miles cross country on a tractor to try to reconcile with his estranged brother (it's based on a true story) The film was rated G because it didn't have any type of objectionable material in it, but it definitely wasn't a children's movie. Nevertheless, a number of parents took their kids to see it under the impression that the G rating meant kid's movie, and the kids were predictably completely bored. In addition, some adults stayed away because they were under the exact same impression. Since then, almost every movie intended for adults gets a PG rating because the producers don't want the G-rating.

Yep, we've come a long way from Planrt of the Apes (Heston version), which was rated G (the next up option was M, for "mature audiences") despite (obviously fake) blood, language which even today gets blanked out on some networks (goddamn doesn't fly in some circles; in 1968, "damn" wasn't allowed on tv), and moon shots of the astronauts in the first potable water they find.