Re: [TV orNotTV] Netflix Marilyn Movie Gets NC-17 Rating

[Jim Ellwanger]

The major chains that have theaters in New York and L.A. may not show NC-17 
films, but independent theaters and smaller chains (such as Laemmle in the L.A. 
area) generally have no problem with NC-17 or unrated films.


> On Mar 26, 2022, at 5:31 PM, Tom Wolper  wrote:
> 
> The cinemas in New York and Los Angeles won’t show NC-17 films. The ones that 
> will would also show them unrated. It’s possible they’re using the adult 
> rating as a selling point.
> 
> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 8:15 PM Adam Bowie  > wrote:
> I have to concur with Tom that this makes little to no sense. 
> 
> I know that they have cinemas in New York and Los Angeles, so could it be 
> that they need MPAA certificates to get into even just those theatres? In the 
> UK, a few Netflix films get short cinema runs in some of the arthouse chains 
> (and I always wonder if Netflix gives incentives to those chains to play the 
> films). But even then, the titles that get these releases are the awards 
> hopefuls that Netflix usually saves up for later in the year. Those films do 
> need certification in the UK under the BBFC, which these days tends to be 
> more concerned with violence and sexual violence than more than anything. I 
> think only film clubs, not open to the paying public can show unrated films.
> 
> There was a good documentary a few years ago called This Film Is Not Yet 
> Rated which tore apart the US movie ratings scheme and noted the inequities 
> between hetero and homosexual deptictions resulting in different ratings.
> 
> [Just before I hit send I saw Tom's reply...] Snap!
> 
> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 10:58 PM Kevin M.  > wrote:
> A while back, filmmaker and occasional pot smoker Kevin Smith penned an essay 
> about the MPAA that a quick Google search did not unearth, but I recall him 
> explaining the process including the appeals for several of his films. 
> 
> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 3:52 PM Tom Wolper  > wrote:
> I find this story the way it’s reported to be confounding. Here’s what I 
> understand about movie ratings:
> 
> Originally each state had a censorship board and each film had to be 
> submitted to each one and then cuts would have to be made in order for the 
> film to be distributed to theaters. As Hollywood grew to the point that they 
> couldn’t continue the system they set up a national production code and an 
> office in Hollywood to enforce it. The production code process lost its teeth 
> in the early sixties with lots of foreign films and independent films coming 
> into the market. The successor they came up with was the ratings system. A 
> filmmaker submits their script to the MPAA office, is told the rating, and 
> what they would have to change if they want a different rating.
> 
> Mature films got an X rating. With court decisions striking down obscenity 
> statutes, mainstream theaters started showing hardcore porn movies with the X 
> rating. Major theater chains decided not to show any X rated movies, even 
> serious adult themed ones. Same with newspapers and the ads they’d accept. So 
> the MPAA came up with NC-17 which was supposed to differentiate from porn but 
> it got caught up in the same embargo.
> 
> In practical terms if a studio submits a script and is told it will get an 
> NC-17 rating they ask what changes they need to make to get an R rating for 
> distribution.
> 
> Netflix doesn’t need to submit a film for a rating in order to stream it and 
> if wide theater distribution meant anything to them they’d make the changes 
> to get it to an R. And art houses will gladly accept unrated movies.
> 
> What confounds me is why Netflix bothered to submit the script for a rating 
> in the first place.
> 
> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 3:29 PM Mark Jeffries  > wrote:
> "Blonde," the Netflix adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' novelization of the 
> life of Marilyn Monroe starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn, has picked up the 
> scarlet "adults only" rating from the MPA, the first film made for a streamer 
> with that rating:
> 
> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/netflix-marilyn-monroe-blonde-nc17-1235118236/
>  
> 
> 
> The possibility of a limited run in theaters may not be much of a problem in 
> this case, since the major theater chains don't touch NC-17 films with a fork 
> lift and won't book Netflix films, while the mostly independent arthouse 
> circuit will.  Besides, the big audience will be when it hits The Service.
> 
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> "TVorNotTV" group.
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> .
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> 

Re: [TV orNotTV] Worst Film Nominated for Best Picture [Was:: Being The Ricardos

[davesik...@gmail.com]

 And Robert Osborne loved "This Is Spinal Tap."
There's no accounting ...
--Dave Sikula

On Saturday, March 26, 2022, 09:11:31 AM PDT, Jim Ellwanger 
 wrote:  
 
 Better hope the vengeful ghost of Alex Trebek doesn't take note of a former 
"Jeopardy!" champion calling "How Green Was My Valley" lousy. (I have no 
opinion about it, because I haven't seen it... in fact, all I really know about 
it is that Alex always said it was his favorite film.)


On Mar 26, 2022, at 2:35 AM, 'Dave Sikula' via TVorNotTV 
 wrote:
"Don't Look Up" is indeed terrible, but there have been lousy nominees aplenty 
over the years. I actually kind of like "Greatest Show;" it's not great, but 
once one gets a sense of DeMille's directing style (it's especially apparent in 
"The Ten Commandments," in that he never stopped directing silent pictures; he 
just added sound), it's tolerable. I've seen a lot of worse pictures that were 
supposed to be "important."

There are plenty of dogs that actually won. "Cimmaron" is generally ranked 
among the worst, but it's just dull, not bad. For sheer lousiness, though, it's 
hard to beat either "Cavalcade" or "How Green Was My Valley," though I'll 
stipulate that I don't like that one because I can't stand John Ford 
(especially "The Quiet Man").
As for McKay, the more films he does (and I liked "The Big Short"), the more 
obvious and smaller his bag of tricks becomes. I'm thinking particularly of 
"Don't Look Up," with its overripe "aren't we outrageous to tell truth to power 
this way?" vibe, but also the atrocious "Winning Time," about the Lakers. Too 
much talking to the camera, outright lies about people and events, and ramping 
everything up to eleven. Farrell (who would have been awful as Jerry Buss) 
should consider himself lucky that he got edged out.
--Dave Sikula

On Friday, March 25, 2022 at 8:41:16 PM UTC-7 PGage wrote:

This is a much more difficult call than naming the best film ever nominated for 
Best Picture (obviously, The Godfather). I did a quick Google search and saw a 
lot of different nominees, some of which I thought were ridiculous (I really 
liked JoJo Rabbit). It’s hard to go back in time to judge just how bad old 
films were. I have seen “Greatest Show on Earth”, and it’s not good, but I’ve 
seen Ivanhoe too and it’s not clear to me it is that much better. Dr. Dolittle 
has been my go to worst Best Film nominee (I hated it even as a kid in the demo 
when it came out). More recent films in contention for me are Prince of Tides 
and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
But I finally got around to watching “Don’t Look Up” this evening and, wow, is 
it bad. It is basically a mediocre 4 min SNL sketch stretched to 2 hrs and 20 
minutes. I don’t often agree with Sikula, but in this case he has been 
understated in his criticism. I write this as a huge fan of Vice and, 
especially “The Big Short”, which is one of my favorite films of the last 25 
years. DLU may not be the worst film ever nominated for Best Picture, but if 
it’s not it is in the top three.
I’m not that surprised the film stank; they took a big swing and whiffed. It 
happens. I think it would have been a lot better had they played it straight, 
as in Big Short, but it’s easy to say that after the fact. But I am shocked it 
got nominated. Why did that happen? Who thinks this is a great movie? Even if 
you thought it was sporadically amusing, like Anchorman II, you can’t really 
think it is good. I laughed at one joke, which paid off during the credits, and 
that might just have been relief that it was finally over. 
It strikes me that the thinking behind nominating this film is the same as that 
behind nominating other stinkers like Green Book, Blind Side and The Help. Lazy 
arm chair liberals mark it as somehow making a socially significant point, and 
they want to pat themselves on the back for getting behind it.

On Sun, 26 Dec 2021 at 11:03 PM daves...@gmail.com 

 Let me just say that, after enduring the grisly "Don't Look Up" tonight, I owe 
Mr. Sorkin an apology. McKay's effort (emphasis on the "effort") is so inept as 
to make Sorkins' look like a 30's Paramount comedy.
--Dave Sikula
-- 
Sent from Gmail Mobile

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Re: [TV orNotTV] Netflix Marilyn Movie Gets NC-17 Rating

[Kevin M.]

The only NC-17 rated film I remember seeing was Showgirls… and I wish I
could forget I ever saw it. I believe in that instance the rating was more
of a stunt than a viewer advisory. There was less nudity and less sex in
that than in other (better) movies with an R rating.

On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 5:31 PM Tom Wolper  wrote:

> The cinemas in New York and Los Angeles won’t show NC-17 films. The ones
> that will would also show them unrated. It’s possible they’re using the
> adult rating as a selling point.
>
> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 8:15 PM Adam Bowie  wrote:
>
>> I have to concur with Tom that this makes little to no sense.
>>
>> I know that they have cinemas in New York and Los Angeles, so could it be
>> that they need MPAA certificates to get into even just those theatres? In
>> the UK, a few Netflix films get short cinema runs in some of the arthouse
>> chains (and I always wonder if Netflix gives incentives to those chains to
>> play the films). But even then, the titles that get these releases are the
>> awards hopefuls that Netflix usually saves up for later in the year. Those
>> films do need certification in the UK under the BBFC, which these days
>> tends to be more concerned with violence and sexual violence than more than
>> anything. I think only film clubs, not open to the paying public can show
>> unrated films.
>>
>> There was a good documentary a few years ago called This Film Is Not Yet
>> Rated which tore apart the US movie ratings scheme and noted the inequities
>> between hetero and homosexual deptictions resulting in different ratings.
>>
>> [Just before I hit send I saw Tom's reply...] Snap!
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 10:58 PM Kevin M. 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> A while back, filmmaker and occasional pot smoker Kevin Smith penned an
>>> essay about the MPAA that a quick Google search did not unearth, but I
>>> recall him explaining the process including the appeals for several of his
>>> films.
>>>
>>> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 3:52 PM Tom Wolper  wrote:
>>>
 I find this story the way it’s reported to be confounding. Here’s what
 I understand about movie ratings:

 Originally each state had a censorship board and each film had to be
 submitted to each one and then cuts would have to be made in order for the
 film to be distributed to theaters. As Hollywood grew to the point that
 they couldn’t continue the system they set up a national production code
 and an office in Hollywood to enforce it. The production code process lost
 its teeth in the early sixties with lots of foreign films and independent
 films coming into the market. The successor they came up with was the
 ratings system. A filmmaker submits their script to the MPAA office, is
 told the rating, and what they would have to change if they want a
 different rating.

 Mature films got an X rating. With court decisions striking down
 obscenity statutes, mainstream theaters started showing hardcore porn
 movies with the X rating. Major theater chains decided not to show any X
 rated movies, even serious adult themed ones. Same with newspapers and the
 ads they’d accept. So the MPAA came up with NC-17 which was supposed to
 differentiate from porn but it got caught up in the same embargo.

 In practical terms if a studio submits a script and is told it will get
 an NC-17 rating they ask what changes they need to make to get an R rating
 for distribution.

 Netflix doesn’t need to submit a film for a rating in order to stream
 it and if wide theater distribution meant anything to them they’d make the
 changes to get it to an R. And art houses will gladly accept unrated 
 movies.

 What confounds me is why Netflix bothered to submit the script for a
 rating in the first place.

 On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 3:29 PM Mark Jeffries 
 wrote:

> "Blonde," the Netflix adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' novelization of
> the life of Marilyn Monroe starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn, has picked up
> the scarlet "adults only" rating from the MPA, the first film made for a
> streamer with that rating:
>
>
> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/netflix-marilyn-monroe-blonde-nc17-1235118236/
>
> The possibility of a limited run in theaters may not be much of a
> problem in this case, since the major theater chains don't touch NC-17
> films with a fork lift and won't book Netflix films, while the mostly
> independent arthouse circuit will.  Besides, the big audience will be when
> it hits The Service.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "TVorNotTV" group.
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> To view this discussion on the web visit
> 

Re: [TV orNotTV] Netflix Marilyn Movie Gets NC-17 Rating

[Tom Wolper]

The cinemas in New York and Los Angeles won’t show NC-17 films. The ones
that will would also show them unrated. It’s possible they’re using the
adult rating as a selling point.

On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 8:15 PM Adam Bowie  wrote:

> I have to concur with Tom that this makes little to no sense.
>
> I know that they have cinemas in New York and Los Angeles, so could it be
> that they need MPAA certificates to get into even just those theatres? In
> the UK, a few Netflix films get short cinema runs in some of the arthouse
> chains (and I always wonder if Netflix gives incentives to those chains to
> play the films). But even then, the titles that get these releases are the
> awards hopefuls that Netflix usually saves up for later in the year. Those
> films do need certification in the UK under the BBFC, which these days
> tends to be more concerned with violence and sexual violence than more than
> anything. I think only film clubs, not open to the paying public can show
> unrated films.
>
> There was a good documentary a few years ago called This Film Is Not Yet
> Rated which tore apart the US movie ratings scheme and noted the inequities
> between hetero and homosexual deptictions resulting in different ratings.
>
> [Just before I hit send I saw Tom's reply...] Snap!
>
> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 10:58 PM Kevin M. 
> wrote:
>
>> A while back, filmmaker and occasional pot smoker Kevin Smith penned an
>> essay about the MPAA that a quick Google search did not unearth, but I
>> recall him explaining the process including the appeals for several of his
>> films.
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 3:52 PM Tom Wolper  wrote:
>>
>>> I find this story the way it’s reported to be confounding. Here’s what I
>>> understand about movie ratings:
>>>
>>> Originally each state had a censorship board and each film had to be
>>> submitted to each one and then cuts would have to be made in order for the
>>> film to be distributed to theaters. As Hollywood grew to the point that
>>> they couldn’t continue the system they set up a national production code
>>> and an office in Hollywood to enforce it. The production code process lost
>>> its teeth in the early sixties with lots of foreign films and independent
>>> films coming into the market. The successor they came up with was the
>>> ratings system. A filmmaker submits their script to the MPAA office, is
>>> told the rating, and what they would have to change if they want a
>>> different rating.
>>>
>>> Mature films got an X rating. With court decisions striking down
>>> obscenity statutes, mainstream theaters started showing hardcore porn
>>> movies with the X rating. Major theater chains decided not to show any X
>>> rated movies, even serious adult themed ones. Same with newspapers and the
>>> ads they’d accept. So the MPAA came up with NC-17 which was supposed to
>>> differentiate from porn but it got caught up in the same embargo.
>>>
>>> In practical terms if a studio submits a script and is told it will get
>>> an NC-17 rating they ask what changes they need to make to get an R rating
>>> for distribution.
>>>
>>> Netflix doesn’t need to submit a film for a rating in order to stream it
>>> and if wide theater distribution meant anything to them they’d make the
>>> changes to get it to an R. And art houses will gladly accept unrated movies.
>>>
>>> What confounds me is why Netflix bothered to submit the script for a
>>> rating in the first place.
>>>
>>> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 3:29 PM Mark Jeffries 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 "Blonde," the Netflix adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' novelization of
 the life of Marilyn Monroe starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn, has picked up
 the scarlet "adults only" rating from the MPA, the first film made for a
 streamer with that rating:


 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/netflix-marilyn-monroe-blonde-nc17-1235118236/

 The possibility of a limited run in theaters may not be much of a
 problem in this case, since the major theater chains don't touch NC-17
 films with a fork lift and won't book Netflix films, while the mostly
 independent arthouse circuit will.  Besides, the big audience will be when
 it hits The Service.

 --
 You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
 Groups "TVorNotTV" group.
 To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
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 To view this discussion on the web visit
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 .

>>> --
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>>> Groups "TVorNotTV" group.
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>>> an email to 

Re: [TV orNotTV] Netflix Marilyn Movie Gets NC-17 Rating

[Adam Bowie]

I have to concur with Tom that this makes little to no sense.

I know that they have cinemas in New York and Los Angeles, so could it be
that they need MPAA certificates to get into even just those theatres? In
the UK, a few Netflix films get short cinema runs in some of the arthouse
chains (and I always wonder if Netflix gives incentives to those chains to
play the films). But even then, the titles that get these releases are the
awards hopefuls that Netflix usually saves up for later in the year. Those
films do need certification in the UK under the BBFC, which these days
tends to be more concerned with violence and sexual violence than more than
anything. I think only film clubs, not open to the paying public can show
unrated films.

There was a good documentary a few years ago called This Film Is Not Yet
Rated which tore apart the US movie ratings scheme and noted the inequities
between hetero and homosexual deptictions resulting in different ratings.

[Just before I hit send I saw Tom's reply...] Snap!

On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 10:58 PM Kevin M.  wrote:

> A while back, filmmaker and occasional pot smoker Kevin Smith penned an
> essay about the MPAA that a quick Google search did not unearth, but I
> recall him explaining the process including the appeals for several of his
> films.
>
> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 3:52 PM Tom Wolper  wrote:
>
>> I find this story the way it’s reported to be confounding. Here’s what I
>> understand about movie ratings:
>>
>> Originally each state had a censorship board and each film had to be
>> submitted to each one and then cuts would have to be made in order for the
>> film to be distributed to theaters. As Hollywood grew to the point that
>> they couldn’t continue the system they set up a national production code
>> and an office in Hollywood to enforce it. The production code process lost
>> its teeth in the early sixties with lots of foreign films and independent
>> films coming into the market. The successor they came up with was the
>> ratings system. A filmmaker submits their script to the MPAA office, is
>> told the rating, and what they would have to change if they want a
>> different rating.
>>
>> Mature films got an X rating. With court decisions striking down
>> obscenity statutes, mainstream theaters started showing hardcore porn
>> movies with the X rating. Major theater chains decided not to show any X
>> rated movies, even serious adult themed ones. Same with newspapers and the
>> ads they’d accept. So the MPAA came up with NC-17 which was supposed to
>> differentiate from porn but it got caught up in the same embargo.
>>
>> In practical terms if a studio submits a script and is told it will get
>> an NC-17 rating they ask what changes they need to make to get an R rating
>> for distribution.
>>
>> Netflix doesn’t need to submit a film for a rating in order to stream it
>> and if wide theater distribution meant anything to them they’d make the
>> changes to get it to an R. And art houses will gladly accept unrated movies.
>>
>> What confounds me is why Netflix bothered to submit the script for a
>> rating in the first place.
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 3:29 PM Mark Jeffries 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> "Blonde," the Netflix adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' novelization of
>>> the life of Marilyn Monroe starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn, has picked up
>>> the scarlet "adults only" rating from the MPA, the first film made for a
>>> streamer with that rating:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/netflix-marilyn-monroe-blonde-nc17-1235118236/
>>>
>>> The possibility of a limited run in theaters may not be much of a
>>> problem in this case, since the major theater chains don't touch NC-17
>>> films with a fork lift and won't book Netflix films, while the mostly
>>> independent arthouse circuit will.  Besides, the big audience will be when
>>> it hits The Service.
>>>
>>> --
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>>> Groups "TVorNotTV" group.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>>> an email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
>>> To view this discussion on the web visit
>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/72fc934b-fc67-4429-9a52-eb3b72d42b10n%40googlegroups.com
>>> 
>>> .
>>>
>> --
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>> "TVorNotTV" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
>> email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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>> 
>> .
>>
> --

Re: [TV orNotTV] Netflix Marilyn Movie Gets NC-17 Rating

[Tom Wolper]

Kirby Dick made a documentary a few years ago called This Film is Not Yet
Rated where he went into the history of the ratings system and the opaque
way it is implemented. He found lots of arbitrary decisions.

On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 6:58 PM Kevin M.  wrote:

> A while back, filmmaker and occasional pot smoker Kevin Smith penned an
> essay about the MPAA that a quick Google search did not unearth, but I
> recall him explaining the process including the appeals for several of his
> films.
>
> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 3:52 PM Tom Wolper  wrote:
>
>> I find this story the way it’s reported to be confounding. Here’s what I
>> understand about movie ratings:
>>
>> Originally each state had a censorship board and each film had to be
>> submitted to each one and then cuts would have to be made in order for the
>> film to be distributed to theaters. As Hollywood grew to the point that
>> they couldn’t continue the system they set up a national production code
>> and an office in Hollywood to enforce it. The production code process lost
>> its teeth in the early sixties with lots of foreign films and independent
>> films coming into the market. The successor they came up with was the
>> ratings system. A filmmaker submits their script to the MPAA office, is
>> told the rating, and what they would have to change if they want a
>> different rating.
>>
>> Mature films got an X rating. With court decisions striking down
>> obscenity statutes, mainstream theaters started showing hardcore porn
>> movies with the X rating. Major theater chains decided not to show any X
>> rated movies, even serious adult themed ones. Same with newspapers and the
>> ads they’d accept. So the MPAA came up with NC-17 which was supposed to
>> differentiate from porn but it got caught up in the same embargo.
>>
>> In practical terms if a studio submits a script and is told it will get
>> an NC-17 rating they ask what changes they need to make to get an R rating
>> for distribution.
>>
>> Netflix doesn’t need to submit a film for a rating in order to stream it
>> and if wide theater distribution meant anything to them they’d make the
>> changes to get it to an R. And art houses will gladly accept unrated movies.
>>
>> What confounds me is why Netflix bothered to submit the script for a
>> rating in the first place.
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 3:29 PM Mark Jeffries 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> "Blonde," the Netflix adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' novelization of
>>> the life of Marilyn Monroe starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn, has picked up
>>> the scarlet "adults only" rating from the MPA, the first film made for a
>>> streamer with that rating:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/netflix-marilyn-monroe-blonde-nc17-1235118236/
>>>
>>> The possibility of a limited run in theaters may not be much of a
>>> problem in this case, since the major theater chains don't touch NC-17
>>> films with a fork lift and won't book Netflix films, while the mostly
>>> independent arthouse circuit will.  Besides, the big audience will be when
>>> it hits The Service.
>>>
>>> --
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>>> Groups "TVorNotTV" group.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>>> an email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
>>> To view this discussion on the web visit
>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/72fc934b-fc67-4429-9a52-eb3b72d42b10n%40googlegroups.com
>>> 
>>> .
>>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "TVorNotTV" group.
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>> email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
>>
> To view this discussion on the web visit
>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAJE-FiHDzDLYK%3DVtBLfGiyaNCvxxf_1z3PUu0Ea5-bwWZncuHg%40mail.gmail.com
>> 
>> .
>>
> --
> Kevin M. (RPCV)
>
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> 
> .
>

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Re: [TV orNotTV] Netflix Marilyn Movie Gets NC-17 Rating

[Kevin M.]

A while back, filmmaker and occasional pot smoker Kevin Smith penned an
essay about the MPAA that a quick Google search did not unearth, but I
recall him explaining the process including the appeals for several of his
films.

On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 3:52 PM Tom Wolper  wrote:

> I find this story the way it’s reported to be confounding. Here’s what I
> understand about movie ratings:
>
> Originally each state had a censorship board and each film had to be
> submitted to each one and then cuts would have to be made in order for the
> film to be distributed to theaters. As Hollywood grew to the point that
> they couldn’t continue the system they set up a national production code
> and an office in Hollywood to enforce it. The production code process lost
> its teeth in the early sixties with lots of foreign films and independent
> films coming into the market. The successor they came up with was the
> ratings system. A filmmaker submits their script to the MPAA office, is
> told the rating, and what they would have to change if they want a
> different rating.
>
> Mature films got an X rating. With court decisions striking down obscenity
> statutes, mainstream theaters started showing hardcore porn movies with the
> X rating. Major theater chains decided not to show any X rated movies, even
> serious adult themed ones. Same with newspapers and the ads they’d accept.
> So the MPAA came up with NC-17 which was supposed to differentiate from
> porn but it got caught up in the same embargo.
>
> In practical terms if a studio submits a script and is told it will get an
> NC-17 rating they ask what changes they need to make to get an R rating for
> distribution.
>
> Netflix doesn’t need to submit a film for a rating in order to stream it
> and if wide theater distribution meant anything to them they’d make the
> changes to get it to an R. And art houses will gladly accept unrated movies.
>
> What confounds me is why Netflix bothered to submit the script for a
> rating in the first place.
>
> On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 3:29 PM Mark Jeffries 
> wrote:
>
>> "Blonde," the Netflix adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' novelization of
>> the life of Marilyn Monroe starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn, has picked up
>> the scarlet "adults only" rating from the MPA, the first film made for a
>> streamer with that rating:
>>
>>
>> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/netflix-marilyn-monroe-blonde-nc17-1235118236/
>>
>> The possibility of a limited run in theaters may not be much of a problem
>> in this case, since the major theater chains don't touch NC-17 films with a
>> fork lift and won't book Netflix films, while the mostly independent
>> arthouse circuit will.  Besides, the big audience will be when it hits The
>> Service.
>>
>> --
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>> "TVorNotTV" group.
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>> email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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>> 
>> .
>>
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> 
> .
>
-- 
Kevin M. (RPCV)

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Re: [TV orNotTV] Netflix Marilyn Movie Gets NC-17 Rating

[Tom Wolper]

I find this story the way it’s reported to be confounding. Here’s what I
understand about movie ratings:

Originally each state had a censorship board and each film had to be
submitted to each one and then cuts would have to be made in order for the
film to be distributed to theaters. As Hollywood grew to the point that
they couldn’t continue the system they set up a national production code
and an office in Hollywood to enforce it. The production code process lost
its teeth in the early sixties with lots of foreign films and independent
films coming into the market. The successor they came up with was the
ratings system. A filmmaker submits their script to the MPAA office, is
told the rating, and what they would have to change if they want a
different rating.

Mature films got an X rating. With court decisions striking down obscenity
statutes, mainstream theaters started showing hardcore porn movies with the
X rating. Major theater chains decided not to show any X rated movies, even
serious adult themed ones. Same with newspapers and the ads they’d accept.
So the MPAA came up with NC-17 which was supposed to differentiate from
porn but it got caught up in the same embargo.

In practical terms if a studio submits a script and is told it will get an
NC-17 rating they ask what changes they need to make to get an R rating for
distribution.

Netflix doesn’t need to submit a film for a rating in order to stream it
and if wide theater distribution meant anything to them they’d make the
changes to get it to an R. And art houses will gladly accept unrated movies.

What confounds me is why Netflix bothered to submit the script for a rating
in the first place.

On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 3:29 PM Mark Jeffries  wrote:

> "Blonde," the Netflix adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' novelization of the
> life of Marilyn Monroe starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn, has picked up the
> scarlet "adults only" rating from the MPA, the first film made for a
> streamer with that rating:
>
>
> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/netflix-marilyn-monroe-blonde-nc17-1235118236/
>
> The possibility of a limited run in theaters may not be much of a problem
> in this case, since the major theater chains don't touch NC-17 films with a
> fork lift and won't book Netflix films, while the mostly independent
> arthouse circuit will.  Besides, the big audience will be when it hits The
> Service.
>
> --
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> "TVorNotTV" group.
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> email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/72fc934b-fc67-4429-9a52-eb3b72d42b10n%40googlegroups.com
> 
> .
>

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[TV orNotTV] Netflix Marilyn Movie Gets NC-17 Rating

[Mark Jeffries]

"Blonde," the Netflix adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' novelization of the 
life of Marilyn Monroe starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn, has picked up the 
scarlet "adults only" rating from the MPA, the first film made for a 
streamer with that rating:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/netflix-marilyn-monroe-blonde-nc17-1235118236/

The possibility of a limited run in theaters may not be much of a problem 
in this case, since the major theater chains don't touch NC-17 films with a 
fork lift and won't book Netflix films, while the mostly independent 
arthouse circuit will.  Besides, the big audience will be when it hits The 
Service.

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Re: [TV orNotTV] Wake up Maggie [Was: Foreign Correspondent…]

[PGage]

Fair enough. MH didn’t make the new rules (or burn the old ones) herself.
But she does play the game by the new rules with exceptional vigor, and
their are reporters at the Times who still seem to okay it with
substantially more ethics and principle.

On Sat, 26 Mar 2022 at 7:32 AM Tom Wolper  wrote:

> I see Haberman as the fruit of a poisoned tree and not a rogue in a
> fundamentally sound institution. In the run up to choosing Trump the GOP
> decided to get rid of their guardrails and disrupt the entire political
> system. US institutions that relied upon the stability of that system,
> including political journalism, went into denial about the disruption.
>
> So I can’t make it personal to Haberman. She’s performing journalism the
> way her publisher and editors want her to. The results of it are shockingly
> bad but her personal failure is dwarfed by the institutional failure.
>
> On Fri, Mar 25, 2022 at 6:17 PM PGage  wrote:
>
>> About 15 months ago we had a short thread on NYT reporter Maggie
>> Haberman, which was basically a conversation on was she a bad reporter, or
>> one of the worst reporters ever. I had the former position, but the
>> interval seems to be proving me wrong.
>>
>> Steve Schmidt took a dump on her all over Twitter today. Nit sure how
>> that will play out (I will defer to others better situated to judge if the
>> texts he released are “menacing”, as Maggie accuses).
>>
>> I have to say, Schmidt’s claim that she published an at best lazy and
>> sloppy story accusing him of wrong doing to service Kushner so he would do
>> her a favor does sound exactly like the way she operates, very
>> transactionally.
>>
>>
>> https://twitter.com/steveschmidtses/status/1506738476821090307?s=21=fjjcqLIV0oQRw4GtjrPr6Q
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 8 Jan 2021 at 6:14 PM PGage  wrote:
>>
>>> I’ve actually had two brief Twitter arguments with Maggie Haberman.  She
>>> is not as bad as many of her critics maintain, but she is the prototype of
>>> a certain kind of New York Times reporter, who sacrifices truth and
>>> accuracy for access to powerful government sources. In a way she is the
>>> Judith Miller of the Trump era (that is an exaggeration, she is nowhere
>>> near  as bad as Miller was).
>>>
>>> Still, any reporter, even Maggie or Chucky Todd, is a hero of the
>>> Republic in the era of Trump’s constant war against the press.
>>>
>>> On Thu, 7 Jan 2021 at 8:16 PM Kevin M.  wrote:
>>>


 On Thu, Jan 7, 2021 at 7:37 PM PGage  wrote:

> On a day when a seditious mob directed by a US President to break into
> the Capital to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power, and one of
> them scratched into one of the Capital doors “Murder the Media”, I did not
> want to spend my time bashing US coverage.


 Today on CNN, Jake Tapper referred to Maggie Haberman as one of the top
 two journalists in the country. I swear I did an actual spit-take.



>
> But a day later, I will note that I wound up watching most of the days
> events on MSNBC (I was working from home, and happened to have a 90 minute
> break about 20 minutes into the event, so  was kind of stuck for a while
> with MSNBC, the channel my tv happened to be on). A lot of their reporters
> in the field did a good to very good job, but, so unfortunately, Chuck 
> Todd
> was in one of the co-anchor chairs (remember, we were supposed to be
> watching the EC count) and talked over, in his awkward, Toddish, insipid
> way the far more polished and insightful Katy Tur.
> --
> Sent from Gmail Mobile
>
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> 
> .
>
 --
 Kevin M. (RPCV)

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 .

>>> --
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>>>
>> --
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>>
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Re: [TV orNotTV] Worst Film Nominated for Best Picture [Was:: Being The Ricardos

[Brad Beam]

Merv Griffin, invoking the Zbornak Rule: “No parting gifts!”

https://youtu.be/BPlBYUaxcyM

> On Mar 26, 2022, at 12:11, Jim Ellwanger  wrote:
> 
> Better hope the vengeful ghost of Alex Trebek doesn't take note of a former 
> "Jeopardy!" champion calling "How Green Was My Valley" lousy. (I have no 
> opinion about it, because I haven't seen it... in fact, all I really know 
> about it is that Alex always said it was his favorite film.)
> 
> 
>> On Mar 26, 2022, at 2:35 AM, 'Dave Sikula' via TVorNotTV 
>>  wrote:
>> 
>> "Don't Look Up" is indeed terrible, but there have been lousy nominees 
>> aplenty over the years. I actually kind of like "Greatest Show;" it's not 
>> great, but once one gets a sense of DeMille's directing style (it's 
>> especially apparent in "The Ten Commandments," in that he never stopped 
>> directing silent pictures; he just added sound), it's tolerable. I've seen a 
>> lot of worse pictures that were supposed to be "important."
>> 
>> There are plenty of dogs that actually won. "Cimmaron" is generally ranked 
>> among the worst, but it's just dull, not bad. For sheer lousiness, though, 
>> it's hard to beat either "Cavalcade" or "How Green Was My Valley," though 
>> I'll stipulate that I don't like that one because I can't stand John Ford 
>> (especially "The Quiet Man").
>> 
>> As for McKay, the more films he does (and I liked "The Big Short"), the more 
>> obvious and smaller his bag of tricks becomes. I'm thinking particularly of 
>> "Don't Look Up," with its overripe "aren't we outrageous to tell truth to 
>> power this way?" vibe, but also the atrocious "Winning Time," about the 
>> Lakers. Too much talking to the camera, outright lies about people and 
>> events, and ramping everything up to eleven. Farrell (who would have been 
>> awful as Jerry Buss) should consider himself lucky that he got edged out.
>> 
>> --Dave Sikula
>> 
>>> On Friday, March 25, 2022 at 8:41:16 PM UTC-7 PGage wrote:
>>> This is a much more difficult call than naming the best film ever nominated 
>>> for Best Picture (obviously, The Godfather). I did a quick Google search 
>>> and saw a lot of different nominees, some of which I thought were 
>>> ridiculous (I really liked JoJo Rabbit). It’s hard to go back in time to 
>>> judge just how bad old films were. I have seen “Greatest Show on Earth”, 
>>> and it’s not good, but I’ve seen Ivanhoe too and it’s not clear to me it is 
>>> that much better. Dr. Dolittle has been my go to worst Best Film nominee (I 
>>> hated it even as a kid in the demo when it came out). More recent films in 
>>> contention for me are Prince of Tides and Extremely Loud and Incredibly 
>>> Close.
>>> 
>>> But I finally got around to watching “Don’t Look Up” this evening and, wow, 
>>> is it bad. It is basically a mediocre 4 min SNL sketch stretched to 2 hrs 
>>> and 20 minutes. I don’t often agree with Sikula, but in this case he has 
>>> been understated in his criticism. I write this as a huge fan of Vice and, 
>>> especially “The Big Short”, which is one of my favorite films of the last 
>>> 25 years. DLU may not be the worst film ever nominated for Best Picture, 
>>> but if it’s not it is in the top three.
>>> 
>>> I’m not that surprised the film stank; they took a big swing and whiffed. 
>>> It happens. I think it would have been a lot better had they played it 
>>> straight, as in Big Short, but it’s easy to say that after the fact. But I 
>>> am shocked it got nominated. Why did that happen? Who thinks this is a 
>>> great movie? Even if you thought it was sporadically amusing, like 
>>> Anchorman II, you can’t really think it is good. I laughed at one joke, 
>>> which paid off during the credits, and that might just have been relief 
>>> that it was finally over. 
>>> 
>>> It strikes me that the thinking behind nominating this film is the same as 
>>> that behind nominating other stinkers like Green Book, Blind Side and The 
>>> Help. Lazy arm chair liberals mark it as somehow making a socially 
>>> significant point, and they want to pat themselves on the back for getting 
>>> behind it.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sun, 26 Dec 2021 at 11:03 PM daves...@gmail.com 
 Let me just say that, after enduring the grisly "Don't Look Up" tonight, I 
 owe Mr. Sorkin an apology. McKay's effort (emphasis on the "effort") is so 
 inept as to make Sorkins' look like a 30's Paramount comedy.
 
 --Dave Sikula
>>> -- 
>>> Sent from Gmail Mobile
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
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> 
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Re: [TV orNotTV] Worst Film Nominated for Best Picture [Was:: Being The Ricardos

[Jim Ellwanger]

Better hope the vengeful ghost of Alex Trebek doesn't take note of a former 
"Jeopardy!" champion calling "How Green Was My Valley" lousy. (I have no 
opinion about it, because I haven't seen it... in fact, all I really know about 
it is that Alex always said it was his favorite film.)


> On Mar 26, 2022, at 2:35 AM, 'Dave Sikula' via TVorNotTV 
>  wrote:
> 
> "Don't Look Up" is indeed terrible, but there have been lousy nominees 
> aplenty over the years. I actually kind of like "Greatest Show;" it's not 
> great, but once one gets a sense of DeMille's directing style (it's 
> especially apparent in "The Ten Commandments," in that he never stopped 
> directing silent pictures; he just added sound), it's tolerable. I've seen a 
> lot of worse pictures that were supposed to be "important."
> 
> There are plenty of dogs that actually won. "Cimmaron" is generally ranked 
> among the worst, but it's just dull, not bad. For sheer lousiness, though, 
> it's hard to beat either "Cavalcade" or "How Green Was My Valley," though 
> I'll stipulate that I don't like that one because I can't stand John Ford 
> (especially "The Quiet Man").
> 
> As for McKay, the more films he does (and I liked "The Big Short"), the more 
> obvious and smaller his bag of tricks becomes. I'm thinking particularly of 
> "Don't Look Up," with its overripe "aren't we outrageous to tell truth to 
> power this way?" vibe, but also the atrocious "Winning Time," about the 
> Lakers. Too much talking to the camera, outright lies about people and 
> events, and ramping everything up to eleven. Farrell (who would have been 
> awful as Jerry Buss) should consider himself lucky that he got edged out.
> 
> --Dave Sikula
> 
> On Friday, March 25, 2022 at 8:41:16 PM UTC-7 PGage wrote:
> This is a much more difficult call than naming the best film ever nominated 
> for Best Picture (obviously, The Godfather). I did a quick Google search and 
> saw a lot of different nominees, some of which I thought were ridiculous (I 
> really liked JoJo Rabbit). It’s hard to go back in time to judge just how bad 
> old films were. I have seen “Greatest Show on Earth”, and it’s not good, but 
> I’ve seen Ivanhoe too and it’s not clear to me it is that much better. Dr. 
> Dolittle has been my go to worst Best Film nominee (I hated it even as a kid 
> in the demo when it came out). More recent films in contention for me are 
> Prince of Tides and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
> 
> But I finally got around to watching “Don’t Look Up” this evening and, wow, 
> is it bad. It is basically a mediocre 4 min SNL sketch stretched to 2 hrs and 
> 20 minutes. I don’t often agree with Sikula, but in this case he has been 
> understated in his criticism. I write this as a huge fan of Vice and, 
> especially “The Big Short”, which is one of my favorite films of the last 25 
> years. DLU may not be the worst film ever nominated for Best Picture, but if 
> it’s not it is in the top three.
> 
> I’m not that surprised the film stank; they took a big swing and whiffed. It 
> happens. I think it would have been a lot better had they played it straight, 
> as in Big Short, but it’s easy to say that after the fact. But I am shocked 
> it got nominated. Why did that happen? Who thinks this is a great movie? Even 
> if you thought it was sporadically amusing, like Anchorman II, you can’t 
> really think it is good. I laughed at one joke, which paid off during the 
> credits, and that might just have been relief that it was finally over. 
> 
> It strikes me that the thinking behind nominating this film is the same as 
> that behind nominating other stinkers like Green Book, Blind Side and The 
> Help. Lazy arm chair liberals mark it as somehow making a socially 
> significant point, and they want to pat themselves on the back for getting 
> behind it.
> 
> 
> On Sun, 26 Dec 2021 at 11:03 PM daves...@gmail.com 
>  
> Let me just say that, after enduring the grisly "Don't Look Up" tonight, I 
> owe Mr. Sorkin an apology. McKay's effort (emphasis on the "effort") is so 
> inept as to make Sorkins' look like a 30's Paramount comedy.
> 
> --Dave Sikula
> -- 
> Sent from Gmail Mobile
> 
> -- 
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> "TVorNotTV" group.
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> email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
> .
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> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/dcf3492d-05ac-4a37-966c-35695282c579n%40googlegroups.com
>  
> .

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Re: [TV orNotTV] Worst Film Nominated for Best Picture [Was:: Being The Ricardos

[Tom Wolper]

I’d never want to participate in a best/worst film of all time discussion
because in the era of streaming I have the ability to see movies that I saw
decades ago that disappeared from screens both big and small. There are
films I thought were mind blowing years ago that I now see as trash and
there are films I thought were boring years ago that I now think are
brilliant.

When I got DVDs from Netflix years ago I got Argo after it won best picture
and I realized what Academy voters consider a good movie has nothing to do
with what I consider a good movie.

To make this relevant to the thread, I heard the WTF interview with
Guillermo Del Toro where they spent a lot of time talking about Nightmare
Alley. I saw that Criterion Channel had the 1947 Edmund Goulding version
(it’s gone now). I watched it and then I watched Cronos to get a sense of
del Toro’s style. A week later the new Nightmare Alley turned up on Hulu so
I watched it. It was by no means a bad movie but outside of budget and
technology related improvements it wasn’t as good as the original. I was
surprised to see it got nominated.

On Sat, Mar 26, 2022 at 5:35 AM 'Dave Sikula' via TVorNotTV <
tvornottv@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> "Don't Look Up" is indeed terrible, but there have been lousy nominees
> aplenty over the years. I actually kind of like "Greatest Show;" it's not
> great, but once one gets a sense of DeMille's directing style (it's
> especially apparent in "The Ten Commandments," in that he never stopped
> directing silent pictures; he just added sound), it's tolerable. I've seen
> a lot of worse pictures that were supposed to be "important."
>
> There are plenty of dogs that actually won. "Cimmaron" is generally ranked
> among the worst, but it's just dull, not bad. For sheer lousiness, though,
> it's hard to beat either "Cavalcade" or "How Green Was My Valley," though
> I'll stipulate that I don't like that one because I can't stand John Ford
> (especially "The Quiet Man").
>
> As for McKay, the more films he does (and I liked "The Big Short"), the
> more obvious and smaller his bag of tricks becomes. I'm thinking
> particularly of "Don't Look Up," with its overripe "aren't we outrageous to
> tell truth to power this way?" vibe, but also the atrocious "Winning Time,"
> about the Lakers. Too much talking to the camera, outright lies about
> people and events, and ramping everything up to eleven. Farrell (who would
> have been awful as Jerry Buss) should consider himself lucky that he got
> edged out.
>
> --Dave Sikula
>
> On Friday, March 25, 2022 at 8:41:16 PM UTC-7 PGage wrote:
>
>> This is a much more difficult call than naming the best film ever
>> nominated for Best Picture (obviously, The Godfather). I did a quick Google
>> search and saw a lot of different nominees, some of which I thought were
>> ridiculous (I really liked JoJo Rabbit). It’s hard to go back in time to
>> judge just how bad old films were. I have seen “Greatest Show on Earth”,
>> and it’s not good, but I’ve seen Ivanhoe too and it’s not clear to me it is
>> that much better. Dr. Dolittle has been my go to worst Best Film nominee (I
>> hated it even as a kid in the demo when it came out). More recent films in
>> contention for me are Prince of Tides and Extremely Loud and Incredibly
>> Close.
>>
>> But I finally got around to watching “Don’t Look Up” this evening and,
>> wow, is it bad. It is basically a mediocre 4 min SNL sketch stretched to 2
>> hrs and 20 minutes. I don’t often agree with Sikula, but in this case he
>> has been understated in his criticism. I write this as a huge fan of Vice
>> and, especially “The Big Short”, which is one of my favorite films of the
>> last 25 years. DLU may not be the worst film ever nominated for Best
>> Picture, but if it’s not it is in the top three.
>>
>> I’m not that surprised the film stank; they took a big swing and whiffed.
>> It happens. I think it would have been a lot better had they played it
>> straight, as in Big Short, but it’s easy to say that after the fact. But I
>> am shocked it got nominated. Why did that happen? Who thinks this is a
>> great movie? Even if you thought it was sporadically amusing, like
>> Anchorman II, you can’t really think it is good. I laughed at one joke,
>> which paid off during the credits, and that might just have been relief
>> that it was finally over.
>>
>> It strikes me that the thinking behind nominating this film is the same
>> as that behind nominating other stinkers like Green Book, Blind Side and
>> The Help. Lazy arm chair liberals mark it as somehow making a socially
>> significant point, and they want to pat themselves on the back for getting
>> behind it.
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 26 Dec 2021 at 11:03 PM daves...@gmail.com
>>
>>> Let me just say that, after enduring the grisly "Don't Look Up" tonight,
>>> I owe Mr. Sorkin an apology. McKay's effort (emphasis on the "effort") is
>>> so inept as to make Sorkins' look like a 30's Paramount comedy.
>>>
>>> --Dave Sikula
>>>
>> --

Re: [TV orNotTV] Wake up Maggie [Was: Foreign Correspondent…]

[Tom Wolper]

I see Haberman as the fruit of a poisoned tree and not a rogue in a
fundamentally sound institution. In the run up to choosing Trump the GOP
decided to get rid of their guardrails and disrupt the entire political
system. US institutions that relied upon the stability of that system,
including political journalism, went into denial about the disruption.

So I can’t make it personal to Haberman. She’s performing journalism the
way her publisher and editors want her to. The results of it are shockingly
bad but her personal failure is dwarfed by the institutional failure.

On Fri, Mar 25, 2022 at 6:17 PM PGage  wrote:

> About 15 months ago we had a short thread on NYT reporter Maggie Haberman,
> which was basically a conversation on was she a bad reporter, or one of the
> worst reporters ever. I had the former position, but the interval seems to
> be proving me wrong.
>
> Steve Schmidt took a dump on her all over Twitter today. Nit sure how that
> will play out (I will defer to others better situated to judge if the texts
> he released are “menacing”, as Maggie accuses).
>
> I have to say, Schmidt’s claim that she published an at best lazy and
> sloppy story accusing him of wrong doing to service Kushner so he would do
> her a favor does sound exactly like the way she operates, very
> transactionally.
>
>
> https://twitter.com/steveschmidtses/status/1506738476821090307?s=21=fjjcqLIV0oQRw4GtjrPr6Q
>
>
> On Fri, 8 Jan 2021 at 6:14 PM PGage  wrote:
>
>> I’ve actually had two brief Twitter arguments with Maggie Haberman.  She
>> is not as bad as many of her critics maintain, but she is the prototype of
>> a certain kind of New York Times reporter, who sacrifices truth and
>> accuracy for access to powerful government sources. In a way she is the
>> Judith Miller of the Trump era (that is an exaggeration, she is nowhere
>> near  as bad as Miller was).
>>
>> Still, any reporter, even Maggie or Chucky Todd, is a hero of the
>> Republic in the era of Trump’s constant war against the press.
>>
>> On Thu, 7 Jan 2021 at 8:16 PM Kevin M.  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 7, 2021 at 7:37 PM PGage  wrote:
>>>
 On a day when a seditious mob directed by a US President to break into
 the Capital to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power, and one of
 them scratched into one of the Capital doors “Murder the Media”, I did not
 want to spend my time bashing US coverage.
>>>
>>>
>>> Today on CNN, Jake Tapper referred to Maggie Haberman as one of the top
>>> two journalists in the country. I swear I did an actual spit-take.
>>>
>>>
>>>

 But a day later, I will note that I wound up watching most of the days
 events on MSNBC (I was working from home, and happened to have a 90 minute
 break about 20 minutes into the event, so  was kind of stuck for a while
 with MSNBC, the channel my tv happened to be on). A lot of their reporters
 in the field did a good to very good job, but, so unfortunately, Chuck Todd
 was in one of the co-anchor chairs (remember, we were supposed to be
 watching the EC count) and talked over, in his awkward, Toddish, insipid
 way the far more polished and insightful Katy Tur.
 --
 Sent from Gmail Mobile

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 .

>>> --
>>> Kevin M. (RPCV)
>>>
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>>> 
>>> .
>>>
>> --
>> Sent from Gmail Mobile
>>
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> 

[TV orNotTV] Razzies torch "Diana: The Musical," "Space Jam: A New Legacy"

['Bob Jersey' via TVorNotTV]

The Redeemer Award went to Will Smith.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2022/03/26/razzie-awards-torch-diana-musical-show-love-smith/7172685001/
 (link)

B

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[TV orNotTV] This just in: ?uestlove is a frkn collector

['Bob Jersey' via TVorNotTV]

Be prepared for mind blowing. I'd like to just be his cataloguer.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/opinion/questlove-inspiration-collection.html
 (link)

B

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Re: [TV orNotTV] Worst Film Nominated for Best Picture [Was:: Being The Ricardos

['Dave Sikula' via TVorNotTV]

"Don't Look Up" is indeed terrible, but there have been lousy nominees 
aplenty over the years. I actually kind of like "Greatest Show;" it's not 
great, but once one gets a sense of DeMille's directing style (it's 
especially apparent in "The Ten Commandments," in that he never stopped 
directing silent pictures; he just added sound), it's tolerable. I've seen 
a lot of worse pictures that were supposed to be "important."

There are plenty of dogs that actually won. "Cimmaron" is generally ranked 
among the worst, but it's just dull, not bad. For sheer lousiness, though, 
it's hard to beat either "Cavalcade" or "How Green Was My Valley," though 
I'll stipulate that I don't like that one because I can't stand John Ford 
(especially "The Quiet Man").

As for McKay, the more films he does (and I liked "The Big Short"), the 
more obvious and smaller his bag of tricks becomes. I'm thinking 
particularly of "Don't Look Up," with its overripe "aren't we outrageous to 
tell truth to power this way?" vibe, but also the atrocious "Winning Time," 
about the Lakers. Too much talking to the camera, outright lies about 
people and events, and ramping everything up to eleven. Farrell (who would 
have been awful as Jerry Buss) should consider himself lucky that he got 
edged out.

--Dave Sikula

On Friday, March 25, 2022 at 8:41:16 PM UTC-7 PGage wrote:

> This is a much more difficult call than naming the best film ever 
> nominated for Best Picture (obviously, The Godfather). I did a quick Google 
> search and saw a lot of different nominees, some of which I thought were 
> ridiculous (I really liked JoJo Rabbit). It’s hard to go back in time to 
> judge just how bad old films were. I have seen “Greatest Show on Earth”, 
> and it’s not good, but I’ve seen Ivanhoe too and it’s not clear to me it is 
> that much better. Dr. Dolittle has been my go to worst Best Film nominee (I 
> hated it even as a kid in the demo when it came out). More recent films in 
> contention for me are Prince of Tides and Extremely Loud and Incredibly 
> Close.
>
> But I finally got around to watching “Don’t Look Up” this evening and, 
> wow, is it bad. It is basically a mediocre 4 min SNL sketch stretched to 2 
> hrs and 20 minutes. I don’t often agree with Sikula, but in this case he 
> has been understated in his criticism. I write this as a huge fan of Vice 
> and, especially “The Big Short”, which is one of my favorite films of the 
> last 25 years. DLU may not be the worst film ever nominated for Best 
> Picture, but if it’s not it is in the top three.
>
> I’m not that surprised the film stank; they took a big swing and whiffed. 
> It happens. I think it would have been a lot better had they played it 
> straight, as in Big Short, but it’s easy to say that after the fact. But I 
> am shocked it got nominated. Why did that happen? Who thinks this is a 
> great movie? Even if you thought it was sporadically amusing, like 
> Anchorman II, you can’t really think it is good. I laughed at one joke, 
> which paid off during the credits, and that might just have been relief 
> that it was finally over. 
>
> It strikes me that the thinking behind nominating this film is the same as 
> that behind nominating other stinkers like Green Book, Blind Side and The 
> Help. Lazy arm chair liberals mark it as somehow making a socially 
> significant point, and they want to pat themselves on the back for getting 
> behind it.
>
>
> On Sun, 26 Dec 2021 at 11:03 PM daves...@gmail.com 
>
>> Let me just say that, after enduring the grisly "Don't Look Up" tonight, 
>> I owe Mr. Sorkin an apology. McKay's effort (emphasis on the "effort") is 
>> so inept as to make Sorkins' look like a 30's Paramount comedy.
>>
>> --Dave Sikula
>>
> -- 
> Sent from Gmail Mobile
>

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