Disney's 2011 family adventure Mars Needs Moms wasn't just a box office disappointment; it was a box office disaster, one of the worst in movie history. Mars producer Robert Zemeckis, appearing at the Philadelphia Film Fest with his latest Oscar-hopeful, Flight, prefers to remember Mars Needs Moms another way: "It's the best 3-D movie since Avatar."
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Filmmaker Jennifer Lynch knows a thing or two about battling the MPAA — her 1993 debut Boxing Helena earned the ratings board's dreaded NC-17 for its sexualized violence and general depravity — and so it seems just like old times that her latest effort, Chained, faces the same fate for "some explicit violence." But wait: Isn't violence supposed to fly with the ratings board while sex gets the adults-only rating? What gives? Actually, look no further than the film's NSFW trailer for your answer.
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Mmm-hmm: "'I am not being Harvey Weinstein, showman,' he said in a separate interview on Friday. 'I am not using the ratings system for publicity. Yes, I’ve done it in the past. Mea culpa for that.' But, he said of Bully, 'this is completely out of passion.'" [NYT]
You don't need me to explain to you how Harvey Weinstein is half huckster-genius and half megalomaniac witch doctor (even though I have, again and again and again). Find all the evidence you need in Thursday's announcement that Bully — the "controversial" documentary chronicling America's bullying epidemic — would finally receive the PG-13 rating it so conspicuously sought from the MPAA. The best part: It won't even have to trim the offending scene at the heart of all the publicity to date. Surprise! Suckers.
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No Bully-style quibbling here: Per a just-issued press release email, the Weinstein Co. approves of the MPAA's decision on their other Very Important Movie of the year, the boobtacular June sequel Piranha 3DD. "PIRANHA 3DD accepts a well deserved Rated R for 'sequences of strong bloody horror violence and gore, graphic nudity, sexual content, language, and some drug use,'" writes a rep for the company. See, they can totally accept the MPAA's decision without turning it into a shameless opportunity for publicity!
So did all that MPAA ratings nonsense and media outcry pay off for Bully? What do you think? Lee Hirsch's film achieved the year's best documentary opening to date with $115,000 on five screens in New York and Los Angeles — a $23,000-per-theater average that amounted to the best of the week by nearly $10,000 over The Hunger Games. But now that The Weinstein Company has to take its unrated baby out of the doc-friendly megamarkets and into the mainstream wilds, a new report suggests that Harvey Weinstein may be preparing to make the cuts required for a PG-13. Surprise!
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Yikes: "[T]he Motion Picture Association’s claims of $58 billion in actual US economic losses and 373,000 lost jobs came from this press release. These numbers originated at a think tank called the 'Institute for Policy Innovation' – an organization that Businessweek once profiled in an article called 'Op-Eds for Sale.' In it, an IPI analyst freely admitted to taking payoffs from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for writing 'op-ed pieces boosting the lobbyist’s clients.' The IPI’s president supported this behavior, saying it was neither wrong nor unethical, and dismissing those who apply 'a naïve purity standard' to the business of writing op-eds. This doesn’t necessarily mean that MPAA lobbyists paid the IPI to conjure up these numbers. But whatever their genesis, they’re not easy figures to support." [TED Blog via The Dish]
It has come to this for "unaccompanied" teenagers desperate to see the unrated Bully: "An AMC spokesman said it will indeed allow that, but only if the child presents a signed permission slip from a parent, either via a form letter made available by the theater or an improvised note on a standard piece of paper. The move is an apparent attempt to support the film -- AMC executive Gerry Lopez has two teenagers and has been vocal about its importance -- while still paying deference to the Motion Picture Assn. of America and its ratings system." Related: Is Harvey Weinstein just recycling tricks from his Kids playbook? [LAT]
With the MPAA ruling in favor of upholding Bully's R-rating, the Weinstein Co. has announced that they'll release the documentary as planned on March 30 -- in its full, explicit language-laden unrated cut. The question is, will theaters let minors see it? "I know the kids will come, so it’s up to the theaters to let them in,” said director Lee Hirsch in a press release, with TWC marketing head Stephen Bruno adding pressure to the theaters to "step up and do what's right."
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SXSW 2012 marked the starring screen debut of model-turned-actress Dree Hemingway – daughter of Mariel, great-granddaughter of Ernest, and at 24, a veteran of the fashion world -- as an airy Los Angeleno named Jane who befriends a cranky senior citizen (85-year-old newcomer Besedka Johnson) in Sean Baker’s Starlet, a surprisingly sweet tale comprised of a series of moving, naturalistic episodes … and one infamous hardcore sex scene. But as much as Starlet is a fantastically observed introduction to Hemingway, who possesses Evan Rachel Wood’s preternatural poise and Daryl Hannah’s leggy looks, sitting down with her in Austin – and indulging in a post-interview round of karaoke together -- offered greater insights into one of the more talked-about but hard-to-talk-about films of the fest.
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While the latest chapter in the rapidly expanding mythology of Harvey Weinstein involves the mogul shooting down a pitch from President Obama ("I sent him an e-mail back saying he was the most overqualified book scout I've ever had"), I remain preoccupied with the saga surrounding Bully, the Weinstein Company doc still embroiled in a battle with the MPAA ratings board to overturn its R for strong language. The publicity clamor continued Wednesday with a young bully victim dropping off a petition with a reported 200,000 signatures to MPAA HQ and Ellen Degeneres discussing the "controversy" on her show. But it's what quietly came the day before that seems the most intriguing.
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Their five-time Oscar winner The Artist may have just experienced its most lucrative weekend at the box office to date, but newly installed Legionnaire of Honor Harvey Weinstein and his Weinstein Co. minions remain firmly focused today on the Great Bully Ratings Non-troversy of 2012. How do we know? To Twitter, where #BullyMovie is this morning's highest-ranking (promoted, ahem) trending topic.
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You've heard about Bully, right? The anti-bullying documentary featuring real video of real teenage bullies tormenting real peers, interspersed with experts and victims alike expounding on our ongoing bullying epidemic? Of course you have, because when The Weinstein Company wasn't shoving its 2012 Oscar crop down your throat, it was protesting way too much about a ratings "controversy" that would require youngsters under 17 to attend the doc with a parent or guardian. God forbid! Because the last thing we want is parents and teens watching and ideally discussing a film about bullying, right?
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Says storied MPAA-fighter Harvey: "I have been compelled by the filmmakers and the children to fight for an exception so we can change this R rating brought on by some bad language. As a father of four, I worry every day about bullying; it’s a serious and ever-present concern for me and my family. I want every child, parent, and educator in America to see Bully, so it is imperative for us to gain a PG-13 rating. It’s better that children see bad language than bad behavior, so my wish is that the MPAA considers the importance of this matter as we make this appeal.” [Press release via IndieWire]
During the rush to get awards season hopefuls in front of various guilds, the studios have turned to increasingly digital means of distributing screeners to voters. Theatrical screenings and snail-mailed DVD screeners have given way to iTunes codes that allow recipients to download films directly for viewing on laptops, iPads, and other devices. It's a bold move dependent on a trust that none of the nearly 100,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild, for example, will turn around and pirate said films to the internet. But that's exactly what one SAG member did last winter.
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