I was anxious to see this documentary because of its subject and because Kirby Dick's "Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997)" was excellent.
Overall, this documentary has interesting stuff to offer the viewer. But I'm disappointed and a bit annoyed by several things:
1. There was no point in showing the entire "private investigation" saga. The whole thing could have been done behind the scenes, giving us only the results. Although private investigation could be interesting, I don't see what point it served except for stretching the movie in additional 45 minutes.
2. What's the point of telling us about the private life of the private investigator (no pun intended)? Does the fact that she is gay has ANYTHING to do with the MPAA? So the MPAA "doesn't like gay sex" and the investigator is gay... therefore... what? Therefore the MPAA hates the investigator or something?
3. I'm not an expert, but does it really take an investigator a whole month to get several names? What's so difficult in doing any one of the following:
4. OK, so the "big finish" of the movie was telling us the names of the raters? Hmm... OK. You could have told us that in the first 5 minutes.
5. The message everyone is trying to give is: "It's OK to show sex, but it's not OK to show violence (either cartoonish or not)". OK, this is C-R-*-P. I agree with the first part, but what are you trying to "sell" us? That there SHOULD be censorship/rating on violence? That action movies ARE the cause of violence on the street? That sane and rational people can't tell the difference between fictitious violence on the screen and actual acts of violence? Do me a favor.
Don't get me wrong. There are some very interesting issues in this documentary and I learned a lot about the MPAA and how difficult it is for the indie film makers. But I was left with a bad taste because half of the movie could have been left in the editing room while providing us with the same knowledge, and it tries to push the "free sex" message so hard that it ruins its own slogan of "free decision" by telling us we can't distinguish reality from fiction when it comes to action movies.
Overall, this documentary has interesting stuff to offer the viewer. But I'm disappointed and a bit annoyed by several things:
1. There was no point in showing the entire "private investigation" saga. The whole thing could have been done behind the scenes, giving us only the results. Although private investigation could be interesting, I don't see what point it served except for stretching the movie in additional 45 minutes.
2. What's the point of telling us about the private life of the private investigator (no pun intended)? Does the fact that she is gay has ANYTHING to do with the MPAA? So the MPAA "doesn't like gay sex" and the investigator is gay... therefore... what? Therefore the MPAA hates the investigator or something?
3. I'm not an expert, but does it really take an investigator a whole month to get several names? What's so difficult in doing any one of the following:
- Writing the license plates and getting the owners' details. Come on, any decent P.I. with minimum resources/connections can do that! (and don't tell me "that's illegal" - investigators do worse things than that)
- Follow the car to the person's house.
- These people are getting paid by the MPAA. It's a salary that has to be declared and paid taxes for. Can't the P.I. get this info from the income tax (again, with the right resources/connections)
4. OK, so the "big finish" of the movie was telling us the names of the raters? Hmm... OK. You could have told us that in the first 5 minutes.
5. The message everyone is trying to give is: "It's OK to show sex, but it's not OK to show violence (either cartoonish or not)". OK, this is C-R-*-P. I agree with the first part, but what are you trying to "sell" us? That there SHOULD be censorship/rating on violence? That action movies ARE the cause of violence on the street? That sane and rational people can't tell the difference between fictitious violence on the screen and actual acts of violence? Do me a favor.
Don't get me wrong. There are some very interesting issues in this documentary and I learned a lot about the MPAA and how difficult it is for the indie film makers. But I was left with a bad taste because half of the movie could have been left in the editing room while providing us with the same knowledge, and it tries to push the "free sex" message so hard that it ruins its own slogan of "free decision" by telling us we can't distinguish reality from fiction when it comes to action movies.