MPAA news stories on Newser

PG-13 Rating: Ticket to Box-Office Magic?

Matt Cantor — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:57:00 CDT

One key to The Avengers ' record success this weekend: its PG-13 rating. The top six highest-grossing movies ever made are all rated PG-13; the rating points to a film that's titillating enough for teens but isn't likely to offend adults, the Los Angeles Times notes. The rating has become...

US Cuts Off Funding to UNESCO Over Palestine

Kevin Spak — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:26:31 CDT

The US has officially cut off all funding to the UN’s Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization over its acceptance of Palestine as a full member. The impact will be felt immediately, because the US had a $60 million dues payment due in November, the AP reports. The Obama administration’s hands...

Chris Dodd's New Job: Hollywood's Top Lobbyist

Nick McMaster — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:13:30 CST

Chris Dodd, freshly retired from the Senate, has a new job—CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, notes the Hollywood Reporter . The MPAA is Hollywood's biggest lobbying group, though it's probably better known for its role overseeing the ratings system. Dodd takes over at a time of declining...

Similar Sex Scenes Earn Different Ratings

savageviking — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 11:37:20 CST

Hollywood's rating system is coming under fire again after two Oscar contenders, Black Swan and Blue Valentine , received R and NC-17 ratings, respectively. Debate is raging because both films depict oral sex scenes in essentially the same way, for the same time and with no nudity, reports the Los Angeles...

'Male Nudity' Scares MPAA

Kevin Spak — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 13:43:22 CDT

Watch a trailer for Jackass 3D , and you might notice that it’s rated R for, among other things, “male nudity.” This struck Brian Patrick Thornton of Jezebel as odd—why specify that it was men who were naked? He did a quick scan through the past five years of ratings...

Why All Movies With Smoking Should Be Rated R

Evann Gastaldo — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 09:18:00 CDT

Between 2005 and 2009, tobacco use in top-grossing movies declined by almost half—and that same time period also showed a notable decline in the number of high school students trying cigarettes. Coincidence? Probably not—which is why the CDC is calling for all films with tobacco use to be...

Tech Losers of the '00s

Kevin Spak — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:13:02 CST

It’s been an amazing decade for technology, but not everyone came out ahead. CrunchGear considers the big losers of the '00s, starting with the biggest: Brick and mortar retailers. Once consumers learned to trust online merchants, lots of stores—we’re looking at you Circuit City and CompUSA—went the way...

Movie 'Chastity' Sells Better Than Sex

Jane Yager — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 04:40:15 CST

Filmmakers looking to score a box-office hit should follow the lead of Twilight, Lord of the Rings , and Spider-Man : keep the love scenes chaste. So claims a new study of more than 900 films released between 2001 and 2005, which shows that, contrary to popular belief, nudity and explicit sex...

Streep's Reefer Moment Hardly R-Rated

Kevin Spak — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:43:00 CST

Insiders say the only reason Meryl Streep’s new romantic comedy It’s Complicated has an R rating is a scene in which she smokes marijuana, and that’s causing a “minor ruckus” in Hollywood. A source close to the hearings tells Robert Ablon of the Los Angeles Times “pot smoking with no...