By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Censored poster: Alex Gibney's Taxi To The Dark Side
A tempest with a t-square is aborning over the MPAA’s decision to compare the poster of Taxi To The Dark Side with the advertising materials for Hostel and Saw and its spawn. Simply put, torture should not be implied in advertising materials that might be seen by the weak of heart or that vast non-voting class politicians pay lip service to, “The Children.” Exec-producer Sidney Blumenthal says: “As executive producer of Taxi to the Dark Side, I am appalled at the Motion Picture Association of America'[s] censorship of the poster for our documentary because its depiction of the reality of the Bush policy of torture is too disturbing. This acclaimed film, which has already won numerous festival awards, including best documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, and is shortlisted for the Academy Award, is the single most important movie of 2008, the campaign year.” Less declamatory is director Alex Gibney’s comments at A. J. Schnack’s blog, All These Wonderful Things. “Gibney doesn’t buy the “protecting the children” argument. “There’s a lot that my kids see daily on the front page of the NY Times. They’re offensive images. But they’re real images.” Gibney… putting finishing touches on his Sundance-debuting doc on Hunter S. Thompson said that the hood has become a symbol worldwide of US prisoner abuses, the topic of Taxi, which is a seering look at the Bush administration’s torture policies. He likened the MPAA’s desire to eliminate the hood to political figures denying that torture or mistreatment occurs in US facilities. “Removing the hood is the ultimate cover-up. (The U.S.) didn’t use to do that sort of thing. Removing the hood sends the same message as the Bush administration with the CIA tapes. It’s OK to do it, it’s just not OK to show it.” In campaigning for its chances as an Oscar nomimee, ThinkFilm big Mark Urman tells Anne Thompson that Taxi is one of the company’s “dark, edgy auteur-driven movies that used to be the province of the independents. We’re not up against The Sound of Music. We’re up against There Will Be Blood.” Let the free media begin! Here’s Variety’s take. A larger version is here. On the other hand, please note approved art for the beguilingly entitled sequel, Harold And Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. Hey, no hoods here! [Art also here.]