Having some free time yesterday, I went looking for a good book to read. Instead of a good book my eye was caught by Aint It Cool: The Harry Knowles Story. I’ve been a reader of Aint It Cool for a long time but I’d never gotten the desire to read his book. A lot of people don’t get it; but I’ve always enjoyed Aint It Cool for it’s enthusiasm and completely unprofessional lack of cynicism even as I was unimpressed by their equally unprofessional editorial standards. It’s a quick read and only about an hour or so I was able to get through a sizable portion of the book. I liked his addendum’s on his favorite / least favorite films as well as his list favorite studio projects that aren’t making any headway.
In particular I recommend the chapter on Matt Drudge, focus groups and especially the preamble by noted filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. In a succinct page and a half Tarantino ably sums up what it is about Knowles that makes us interested in his opinions. It was interesting read and for me at least a nostalgic blast from the past and a reminder of what’s great about Knowles.

That last part should read “what used to be great about Knowles”. I know I’m not breaking the story of the year here but Aint It Cool News has completely lost it’s mojo. I don’t even know why I bother reading it anymore. There’s an ironic part of the book where he’s criticizing Matt Drudge and it’s a pretty blatant case of Harry fretting about the mote someone’s eye while ignoring the plank in his own. The warning signs have always been there but Harry’s degenerated into a total studio shill, a guy whose first mission is to do damage control for the studios. There’s no film too rancid that Harry can’t pad out an apology for under the guise of a “review”.
And it’s not just Harry either. Drew “Moriarty” McWeeny is a good writer but he’s symptomatic of the site wide loss of credibility. I remember when Showtime announced they’re absolutely bullshit dumping of Takashi Miike’s much anticipated entry on Masters of Horror, anthology because it was “too disturbing”. Chud.com got it right with their mix of humor and indignation. Aint It Cool on the other hand got McWeeny; who was employed by the series; to pen this completely pandering apology. It was McWeeny scolding the fans for not considering the business aspect.
Want a precise moment in time where AICN allegiance shifted from the film geek to the studio? It’s these two sentences:

“Showtime saw the episode, they freaked out, and they decided not to show it. Considering it’s Miike, that shouldn’t really surprise anyone.”

It was an almost cartoonish moment of hypocrisy for a site that once considered itself a guerrilla resistance to the corporate entertainment media.

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The always excellent chud.com has an interesting acticle up that starts out as a defense of Die Hard 4’s PG-13 rating but ends up being an indictement of the MPAA’s rating system.

Devin proposes a familiar solution, more rating classes. He thinks Die Hard 4 would be a good fit for a PG-15. Roger Ebert similiarly proposed an A rating a few years ago as a commercially viable alternative to the NC-17 rating, which was created to be an alternative to the X rating.

I think Devin makes some insightful points but his solution is misguided. This type of thinking is how we got the PG-13 and NC-17 ratings in the first place and the system has only got more broken. The root of the problem is two fold:

1) The over whelming majority of the population doesn’t even know what the MPAA is. Despite that ignorance their ridiculous rating system is exalted on some pedestal. The rating reflects nothing more than the arbitray opinion of a shadowy and politically motivated private organization.

2) The rating system operates under the assumption that the viewing rights of private citizens should be infringed upon in order to ensure that some 15 year old in Topeka Kansas doesn’t see a pair of tits on screen.

Most people assume that the MPAA is some kind of government beaurocracy (thank god it’s not) but actually the organization was created by and is financed by the six major studios. It’s a private organization and its only authority is self appointed. Furthermore, not only is the rating voluntary but it costs money and it’s not cheap.

There’s a better answer; fewer restrictions and scaling back the power of the MPAA. To the civilized wold those Christian Fundementalist rating sites (like this one) may seem backwards but I think they’re on the right track. At least these people are taking responsibility for themselves for vetting content and deciding for themselves if a film reflects their values.

Furthermore that 15 year old in Topeka Kansas is too busy getting to third base with his pet mule to worry about going to the movies. Secondly, 15 year olds spend most of their time trying to see a pair of tits in real life, and a good number actually succeed. We’re kidding our selves thinking we’re ‘protecting’ our nations youth from R rated material while they live X rated lives filed with sex drugs and adult situations.

Technically studios are perfectly free to release adult themed films (I’m not talking about porn) to the public but there’s a whole gauntlet of fines, levies and ad restrictions in the way. This was not the case in the pre NC-17 days when films like Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Clock Work Orange where the norm at the local cinema. I don’t think adding sex and violence to films makes them better per se but neither is it a coincidence that the golden age of american cinema occurred in between the tyranny of the Hayes Commission and the buearocratic obstructionist tactics of the MPAA.

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Guess what Horshack, all your dreams are coming true because now you can add Orson Welles on myspace. That’s right Orson “War of the Worlds, Charles Foster Kane, Keep your damn crayons off my movie, Unicron” Welles can live in your precious precious top 8. Get on it bitches!

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