By the time you’re reading this it is either Valentine’s Day or past Valentine’s Day. Please check out the Memories section to responses from folks about romantic films and dating at the movies.
The major release this Friday the 13th is the Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore comedy 50 First Dates, which I’m not seeing today. I am saving that film for the entry for Valentine’s Day. I will conduct a little field research for this website about the dating and romantic aspect about going to the movies. So check for that entry.
Today I will be seeing a film that has sparked controversy due to its NC-17 rating, Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers. All that I have heard about the film is that the distributors planned on releasing the film anyways even if it was rated NC-17. There have been plenty of good films that were released with an NC-17 rating like Poison and the unrated cuts of Requiem for a Dream and Kids. And there have been plenty of bad NC-17 films have been released like Showgirls. I personally think the NC-17 rating is bullshit. If your film is NC-17 that means you are not allowed to run ads in newspapers or TV and some theatre chains will refuse to carry your film. I know the MPAA rating system is designed for parents but who in the hell will take a child to see a NC-17 film? This is like the sick idiot who took a five year old to see House of 1,000 Corpses. It is not the filmmakers who need reform its the stupid parents who need to wake-up and realize that part of parenting is common sense. For example: would you take your child to see a PG-rated teen comedy or the NC-17 Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!? Think about it. And also Jack Valenti needs to retire or die, whichever comes first. I have never seen this man stand up for the little independent film guy, only the big major film studios. Did I mention he is an old senile bastard?
For some the NC-17 rating is like garlic to Dracula. For me I could care less about the rating, just as long as the movie is good and not shocking for the sake of being shocking. So I proudly bought my ticket to see this film as well as other people curious to see this film.
The Dreamers follow a young American exchange student and film buff named Matthew in France back in the 1960’s during France’s student riots. He strikes a relationship up with a brother and sister who share the same love for cinema as he does. When the parents of the siblings go away on holiday they invite Matthew to stay. They talk about films, culture, Buster Keaton, Chaplin, and have tons of hot wild monkey sex. A majority of the time a film gets an NC-17 rating is when it contains depiction of graphic sex and lemme tell you this film has lots of it. But this film is not pornographic by any means. The sex and nudity in this film serve a purpose by showing us the sexual frankness and freedom of the 1960’s.