According to the mavens at KungFuCinema.com, Miramax is unsure whether it will dub and drastically edit the terrific Shaolin Soccer for a wide release in North America.

What apparently has been decided is that the film will go out subtitled, in limited release, on September 5. It's unclear whether a wide release will follow. So that's good news -- I loves me some subtitled films -- and bad news. The bad news is Miramax's prevarication was apparently prompted by a poor test screening in Calgary, meaning the company has certainly lost any gumption it may have had for aggressively marketing the release to a broad audience.

Here's what confuses me. According to the articles linked above, instead of cutting some 20 minutes from the film, the studio now plans merely to trim the limited release only slightly, to obtain a PG-13. Interestingly, the MPAA Web site lists a PG rating for Shaolin Soccer; either Kung Fu Cinema meant to say the movie would be trimmed for a PG, or those nuts at the MPAA actually gave the unedited version an R. Sad to say, the latter scenario wouldn't actually surprise me, though it would prove just how completely irrelevant that organization has become.

I don't wanna go off on a rant ...
In related news, Newmarket Films (warning: the preceding hyperlink points to one of the most irritating Web site interfaces on the Internet) has apparently been ordered by the MPAA to remove from all its advertising an Ebert blurb instructing audiences to "take the kids" to see Whale Rider. Because the film is rated PG-13 (a bong is apparently visible in the background of one shot), and because the industry has (stupidly) agreed -- under pressure from the previous administration in Washington -- not to market PG-13 films to children, the MPAA said Ebert's comments cannot be used in conjunction with advertising for the film.

OK, the marketing-to-children policy is irritating, but as Ebert cogently points out it's only one indicator of the real problem -- that, as far as the MPAA rating board is concerned, Whale Rider and Charlie's Angels' Asses: Full Throttle are comparable in terms of "adult" content. God knows I don't think we need more ratings to address the problem, but we do need to use the G and PG ratings for what they were originally intended to convey -- a G-rated film is not completely inoffensive, but is suitable for "General Audiences" (famous G-rated titles from back in the day include Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dracula Has Risen From the Grave; look 'em up yourself if you don't believe me), and a PG-rated film contains some potentially bothersome material. As it stands both G and PG are reserved for incredibly tame material, meaning nearly every major movie with stronger content than, say, the PG-rated Freaky Friday gets saddled with the increasingly meaningless PG-13. Come on — what kind of bizarro world do we live in where the movie version of S.W.A.T., attacked in its day for bringing TV violence to new levels — gets a PG-13? Either the MPAA is cutting the film an undeserved break, or the picture itself isn't delivering the level of wanton violence that the franchise deserves.

Along the same lines, Elvis Mitchell published a welcome piece in the Times yesterday on the near-disappearance of actual human sexuality from the movies, and the conventional-wisdom impossibility of a major-studio release actually hitting theaters with an NC-17 rating.

So with the G and PG ratings marginalized as kiddie fare on one end of the spectrum, and the NC-17 deemed box-office poison on the other, we're actually worse off now than we were when we had the simple G-PG-R-X ratings system. These days, every major film gets either a PG-13 or an R, a thumbs up or a thumbs down on attendance by the under-17 crowd. The MPAA continues to claim that parents are, by and large, happy with the system. If so, then parents aren't nearly demanding enough.

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Comments

Miramax is basing its decisions on a test screening in CALGARY? The same Calgary that is home of the world's largest rodeo (The Calgary Stampede, that is), where people of Asian descent are about as plentiful as Kennedy kin at a Shwartzenegger fundraiser? WTF--imagine what woulda happened to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon if it's final cut had been based on a test screening in Branson, Missouri. Well, if Harvey et. al. base their editing decisions on the reactions of the yahoos in Calgary, we're all in for da shit.

Posted by: Dan Jardine at August 11, 2024 02:20 AM

Yeah, finally a movie that might stand a fighting chance at one of those shopping malls in the Valley, and the Miramarketers decide to take it up north. Crazy.

All my love to Sony Pictures Classics. If Miramax had to find an audience for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, who knows what kind of obscurity that film might have drifted into?

Have you seen Shaolin Soccer, Dan? I'm a big fan, but I recognize that it might be too damn goofy for kids today.

-bf-

Posted by: Bryant at August 12, 2024 02:01 AM

Test screening in Calgary? Try pure, unadulterated dumping. They threw the beast up in every multiplex in town (a little perspective - not even PIRATES got them all) with no advance advertising and it was gone after six days. Even GIGLI was here for two weeks. I have a hunch that Mirmax just wants to use this "test run" as an excuse to just dump it and get it over with. It's a crying shame too, 'cause this is some wonderful stuff.

Posted by: Ryan Cracknell at August 19, 2024 09:25 PM

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