By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Michael Moore “Rejects” “R” Rating For “Language, Some Violent Images, Drug Use And Brief Graphic Nudity”

Posted Monday, November 2nd, 2015 - 1 Comment »
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Academy Award® winner Michael Moore announced today that he will reject the “R” rating the MPAA assigned to his latest comedy, WHERE TO INVADE NEXT.  The ratings group cited Moore’s film “for language, some violent images, drug use and brief graphic nudity.”  Tom Quinn, Jason Janego and Tim League, who are distributing the film, join Moore in his appeal.  Moore’s new comedy WHERE TO INVADE NEXT will open in New York and Los Angeles on December 23.

Moore is no stranger to friction with the MPAA.  “Capitalism: A Love Story,” “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “Bowling for Columbine” and all the way back to his first film, “Roger & Me,” have all received the MPAA’s “R” rating for one reason or another.  “60 Minutes” took up the case 25 years ago, examining the “R” rating given to “Roger & Me” and the ratings system itself.

“It’s amazing how 25 years have passed—we invented the internet, gay marriage is legal and we elected an African American President of the United States” said Moore “but the MPAA is still intent on censoring footage that is available from any evening network news show. This film has been widely praised by critics for it’s warmth and humor and optimism. What is the real reason I keep getting all these ‘R’ ratings. I wish the MPAA would just be honest and stick a label on my movies saying: ‘This movie contains dangerous ideas that the 99% may find upsetting and lead them to revolt. Teens will be the most agitated when they learn they will soon be $80,000 in debt just by going to school.”

In his 2002 bestselling book, “Stupid White Men,” Moore described his struggles with the MPAA and why they gave “Roger & Me” an R rating over the scene in which a rabbit is killed for dinner – “but a few minutes later in the movie, the police shoot an African American man right on camera, and no mention was made at all over that by the MPAA. I guess we’re supposed to have gotten used to that image, so there’s nothing shocking enough about it to warrant an ‘R’ rating.”

The team of Quinn, Janego and League echoed Moore’s sentiments: “With this rating, the MPAA is effectively telling high schoolers they just aren’t mature enough to handle or discuss important issues directly affecting their pursuit of the American dream.  The notion that a teenager can’t walk into a theater and see WHERE TO INVADE NEXT is ridiculous and frankly un-American.”  

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT has been generating Oscar buzz since it premiered to raves and standing ovations at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival.  It most recently won the Founder’s Award and the Audience Choice Award at Chicago International Film Festival and the prestigious audience award at the Hamptons International Film Festival.  The film screened over the weekend as the Philadelphia Film Festival’s Closing Night Film and will have an AFI Fest Gala Premiere in Los Angeles this Saturday, November 7.

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT is a rollicking, hilarious and subversive comedy in which Moore, playing the role of “invader,” lands in one country after another to steal some good ideas and spirit them back to the USA. The creator of “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Bowling for Columbine” is back with this side-splitting and eye-opening call to arms. It is, as Israel Horwitz said recently, “simply his best film ever.”

The film was executive produced by Mark Shapiro, Will Staeger and Rod Birleson and produced by Moore, Tia Lessin and Carl Deal.

For more information:

http://wheretoinvadenext.com/

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Posted in MCN Curated Headlines, Movie City News, Press Releases | 1 Comment »

One Response to “Michael Moore “Rejects” “R” Rating For “Language, Some Violent Images, Drug Use And Brief Graphic Nudity””

  1. chris says:
    November 2, 2015 at 1:43 pm

    I say slap an R rating on him for not knowing the difference between “its” and “it’s.”

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon