Edited by - outkastfan on 3/4/2004 11:50:30 PM

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Edited by - outkastfan on 3/4/2004 11:51:09 PM

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The film is certainly interesting as a sexual oddity; however, I really don't think it is very good, despite its all-star cast.

~ GaySatyr

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www.caligulathemovie.com

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For those who haven't seen Midnight Cowboy it was
rated X by the MPAA for language, drugs and a few
seconds of nudity. A woman's breast was not kissed
or not even held but viewed for 2 or 3 seconds at
the most but that was 1969 MPAA standards. I once
saw a Tonight Show with Johnny Carson many years
ago where an elderly gentleman was talking about
his youth at the turn of the century. He said one
favorite pastimes of the young men of that era was
to go downtown after it had rained to see the young
women cross some of the mud puddles and the women would raise their skirts a few inches as not to drag their
long dresses in the mud. You could then see their
ankles covered in stockings. What did you think
when you saw a woman's ankles back then Johnny asked.
Oh, my heart would just just pitty pat said the elderly
gentleman. Different era, different times.
Wayne

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People soon associated "X" with pornography - quickly forgetting about the mainstream movies. (And, as said, the adult industry increased the number of Xs used to indicate their own brand of movie - even though this had nothing to do with the legitimate MPAA rating. BTW: I didn't know that "XX" was used for nudies - interesting trivia.)

In order to avoid confusion, the MPAA switched over to "NC-17".

From their website:

Then again, Roger Ebert goes on at length about how messed up the MPAA rating system, and its application, is - and I agree. Things would be so much simpler if the (re)introduced "X" (or something else) that was meant to specifically define a movie as pornographic - rather than just "should be barred to children". Without that distinction, we have producers deliberately censoring themselves so as to avoid the "NC-17" stigma, which, they think, would cause people to think it was pornographic.

For instance, there was no legitimate reason for "Eyes Wide Shut" to have its orgy scenes digitally altered simply to avoid the "NC-17" rating. There are still legitimate (by which I mean mainstream) films with that rating. Really, they should have gone with Kubrick's original vision, accepted the "NC-17", and released (and marketed) it as a mainstream art film. But people still equate "NC-17" with "pornographic" - although, perhaps, not quite as much as they do "X". (I've seen a clip of the unaltered orgy scene, and there's really nothing more questionable about it than any other number of R rated movies - things are at a distance and happen too quickly to see anything more explicit than you'd expect out of a "normal" movie.) So the MPAA is really doing nothing other than harming the film industry with its current system.

In any case, the point of my replying was to make the comment that the adult industry didn't "steal" the X, they simply appropriated it. (And, in fact, never "rated" any of their movies as "X" but, rather, as "XXX" or "XX" - as I just discovered.) It was simply society that made the association with a single "X". (Perhaps the general public are the ones who "stole" it...)

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Believe me, there is a high laziness factor among many parents when it comes to entertaining the family and themselves at the same time. Many parents don't care about the content of movies their kids watch, and they won't think twice about bringing their kids in to see an Eyes Wide Shut because it's easier than trying to coordinate them being in a different theater watching a movie that'll end half-an-hour earlier giving the kids free reign to get into trouble, which means they're gonna call the cell and dad will have to leave the theater before the movie is over anyway to deal with Susie smacking Johnny because Johnny "Finished her" on the Mortal Kombat 3 in the lobby. Can you tell I've been here?

Not to say that parental laziness is the only reason teens are a large part of the R movie market. I just want to make sure no one underestimates the financial power of teens at the box office.

But don't cotton too quick to the idea that the MPAA is harming the film industry with its (voluntary, btw) suggested ratings. Think of this: the quickest way to destroy the current porno industry would be to allow Michael Bay to film million-dollar orgy scenes within $150M pictures and then give him wide theatrical distribution. Ninn and Blake are great, but how pale would they look if Industrial Light and Magic got their hands on cumshots and lesbondage scenes?

Myth, I must disagree with your assessment of EWS being as tame as other R-rated filums. I saw this in the theater and I could not believe that I was seeing that much sexuality with a theater full of people. Take away the big budget, and expert camerawork, add some closeups and you've got the first Orgy World, without TT.

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I can easily think of others that surpass it too. Quickly off the top of my head are Boogie Nights, Body Heat, one scene from Videodrome that "showed" a woman masturbating with a dildo, And God Created Woman (the remake anyway), the famous scene from Basic Instinct, Porkies (God, don't get me started on low-brow comedies...), and so on.

Just about the only "sexual" scene in EWS was the monologue by Kidman as she tells Cruise about her erotic dream - and that was all verbal, as well as being laced with violence, so it was more shock value that arousal value.

Edited by - Mythsong on 5/5/2003 12:02:17 AM

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