Pages tagged “mpaa”

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MPAA Shuts Down 50+ Torrent Sites

The Motion Picture Association of America and Dutch anti-piracy advocacy group BREIN terminated over 50 torrent sites after bringing their massive copyright violations to the attention of each respective site’s hosting providers....  read more

MPAA Overturns Blue Valentine's NC-17 Rating

The MPAA has unanimously voted to overturn the controversial NC-17 rating for Blue Valentine after a personal plea from Harvey Weinstein....  read more

Weinstein Company Hires Top Lawyers to Take on MPAA

According to the MPAA, The King’s Speech is just as terrible for your children as Saw VII. The British period piece’s R rating (which is due to one scene in which the king swears while trying to rid himself of his stutter) has stirred up controversy over a ratings board that’s tough on language and sexuality but soft on gory violence, and The Weinstein Company has hired a team of top lawyers as it prepares to appeal the rating....  read more

Adam Yauch's Holocaust Documentary's MPAA Appeal is Today; Does it Deserve an R Rating?

Update 9 p.m. EST: The MPAA upheld the film’s R rating after the hearing today. Yauch has not backed down on his protest. The well-regarded holocaust documentary A Film Unfinished goes before the Motion Picture Association of America today to decide if it deserves the R rating it received last week from the ratings board. To appeal a rating is not unusual, but this case proved especially fraught because of heated comments by Adam Yauch, former Beastie Boy and founder of Oscilloscope, the movie’s distributor. He publicly branded the decision “bullshit,” a particularly vocal takedown of the MPAA’s long-maligned history...  read more

U.S. Government Takes Down Nine Pirating Sites

The federal government has launched the cannons of copyright crackdown on a number of pirating websites in the first move of the recently-announced Plan to Combat Intellectual Property Theft....  read more

MPAA Gives Harry Potter First PG Rating Since Third Installment

In a surprise decision, the MPAA has given Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince a PG rating. The last two films have been rated PG-13 for "sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images," and in a series that gets progressively darker, these traits certainly won't be missing from the film adaptation of the penultimate novel. But perhaps they won't be quite as severe as they have in the past, as the MPAA simply warns viewers against "scary images, some violence, language and mild sensuality." The last Potter film to receive a PG rating was Prisoner of Azkaban, which is the...  read more

Did The Hangover Dupe the MPAA?

Zach Galifianakis has been widely hailed as the crossover star of The Hangover, which will open Friday to cheerleading reviews and big box-office hopes. But as early screenings of the movie continued this week, a debate has popped up: Are there really polaroids of Galifianakis getting a blow job during the end credits? ...  read more

Sacha Baron Cohen's Brüno threatened with an NC-17

An early cut of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Brüno was only offered an NC-17 certificate from the MPAA because of graphic sexual content, Universal confirmed this week. According to The Wrap, there are two sequences the ratings board found particularly galling: an anal-sex scene and another that involves Cohen sneaking up on a man on a hunting trip without any clothes. ...  read more

Slumdog Millionaire gets an (unnecessary?) R rating

The big success of this year's festival circuit proved to be Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, which has since vaulted to a privileged place in the Fall’s packed release slate. The crowd-rousing movie got the usual comparisons to the Little Miss Sunshines and Junos of festivals past, but now the MPAA has put an unexpected strain on its ability to become the season’s crossover hit. ...  read more