Feb
4
I recently saw David Cronenberg’s 1996 film, “Crash.” Not to be confused with Paul Haggis’ crappy 2005 Oscar winner, Cronenberg’s movie is the one about people who are car crash fetishists. I don’t mean they’re like the dimwitted lookie loos I’m stuck behind on the 405 whenever there’s a fender-bender. No, the folks in the Cronenberg film get into pileups because it turns them on. Pretty much every review written about the movie, including this one, makes mention of the scene where James Spader frottages Rosanna Arquette’s Freudian-looking scar.
I’ll wait while you open up another tab on your browser, log in to your Netflix account and add “Crash” to your queue…
Are you back? Good, let’s continue.
For reasons completely beyond my comprehension, “Crash” — the Cronenberg version — is rated NC-17. Now I’ve seen a movie where a guy has sex with pie, and that particular gem was rated R. So what gives? I don’t even think the pie sex was consensual.
As far as I’m concerned, the NC-17 rating has virtually no purpose or place. Movies slapped with that rating are generally reedited and resubmitted to the MPAA for a softer rating. Why? Well, newspapers won’t advertise movies that are rated NC-17, and major theater chains won’t exhibit them. NC-17 was supposed to replace the X rating, but not have all the baggage. And yet, it absolutely does. NC-17 is still equated with hardcore pornography. Never mind that hardcore pornography isn’t ever submitted to the MPAA for a rating in the first place.
Still, the occasional ballsy distributor will put out a flick with an NC-17 rating. Those films will play in art houses, and if they’re any good, do respectable business. I’ve seen NC-17 movies like Bertolucci’s “The Dreamers,” starring Bond Girl Eva Green; “Lust, Caution,” directed by Academy Award winner Ang Lee; and Lars Von Trier’s talking animal picture “Anti-Christ” theatrically here in the L.A. area. None of those films are pornographic and actually have some prestige talent on both sides of the camera. Now “Anti-Christ” does have a penetration shot, something that normally crosses the line that separates an art film from wank material. But Von Trier’s making a statement with his graphic imagery, so it goes from being art to porn to art again. And that’s just the opening scene!
Perhaps the most famous NC-17 movie is also probably the worst: “Showgirls.” What an unholy piece of shit that movie is. People can somehow wring some semblance of entertainment value out of that flick’s overwhelming badness, but nothing surprises me anymore. At any rate, “Showgirls” has the distinction of being a rather resounding flop during its initial release, grossing less than half of its $45 budget. Not only did it fail to set the box office on fire, but it continued to delegitimize the NC-17 rating. Again, it seemed like a designation for the trenchcoat crowd only.
What’s so bizarre and paradoxical about the ratings system is that theater chains won’t exhibit NC-17 movies, like I said earlier, but video rental outlets like Blockbuster as well as big box stores like Best Buy will stock their shelves with films that are unrated. Remember I also said that most movies initially given an NC-17 rating are cut down for a softer rating? Well, it’s the NC-17 version that’s released on video, but without a rating to eschew retailers’ insipid policies about distributing NC-17 films. Hell, many of those unrated movies sell themselves as “The version you couldn’t see in theaters!” Now you know why. You’re watching an NC-17 flick!
The NC-17 rating doesn’t even make sense on its face. It originally meant no children under 17 were permitted to see the film, but was later changed so that 17-year-olds weren’t allowed in, either. You have to be at least 18 to see an NC-17 movie. Whut?
Having been legally an adult for well over a decade now, ratings have become fairly meaningless to me. I pretty much watch whatever I want, and I have a tendency to gravitate towards stuff that’s “challenging” (read: loaded with sex and violence). That said, it’s pretty absurd that the MPAA has conspired for two decades now to strip movies of the things I enjoy seeing most by forcing filmmakers to conform to a bogus and wildly inconsistent set of guidelines in order to avoid an NC-17 rating.
-Brad Lohan
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