Big Picture
Ashlee & Vincent Take NY Plus, Nicole Kidman hangs out with her family and Bradley Cooper is a grizzly guy. The latest pics!
MORE PHOTOS +Most Commented
- TV's Top Couples Tournament: Vote in the Final Round! (2036)
- TV's Top Couples Tournament: This Round Is Closed, Please Stand By (974)
- TV's Top Couples Tournament: This Round Is Closed, Please Stand By (695)
- Afternoon Mail! Are Gleeks Having More Sex Than Vamps? (586)
- TV's Top Couple Tournament: And the Winner Is... (477)
- Whitney Houston Dead at 48 (394)
- Beyoncé and Jay-Z Share First Photos of Baby Blue Ivy! (391)
- Morning Mail! Is Lea Michele Ready to Walk Like an Egyptian? (286)
- Twilight Director Talks Kristen Stewart and Ex Michael Angarano: "They Were Such a Great Couple" (261)
- Life After Breaking Dawn?! Maybe, Says Studio Head! (226)
Top 10 Stories
- Did Sony Try to Cash In on Whitney Houston's Death? Label Apologizes for Pricing "Mistake"
- Whitney Houston Death Probe: Doctors, Medical Records Sought in Investigation
- So True? So False? Did Billy Bob Thornton Use Bizzarro Relationship With Angelina Jolie as Basis for New Movie?!
- Sienna Miller Shows Off Baby Bump at Fashion Week Fête
- Teen Mom 2 Finale Recap: Jenelle Rehabs, Leah Divorces, Kailyn Gets Dumped and Chelsea... Sigh
- Playmate Claire Sinclair Describes Scene of Alleged Domestic Dispute With Marston Hefner
- Glee-Dux: Guess Who's Back?! V-Day Episode Delivers Romance, Smooches and Shockers!
- Blake Lively Gets Restraining Order Against Man Who Wanted to "Guide" Her
- 19 Kids and Counting Alleged Extortion Plot: Singer Laughs Off "Intimate Photos"
- Rumer Willis' Hollywood Hills Home Burglarized
Fashion Police
Angelina: Going Grey! Plus, Christina Hendricks, Vanessa Hudgens, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Michelle Williams and Kristen Wiig. Rate the highs and lows!
MORE PHOTOS +
Our Partners
MPAA Schools "Bad Education"
The MPAA has a message for Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar: Celluloid gay sex will get you a NC-17 rating in America.
The Oscar-winning helmer's latest film, Bad Education, was again slapped with the dreaded rating this week by the Motion Picture Association of America's Classification and Ratings Appeal Board for the offending scene.
The film's U.S. distributor, Sony Pictures Classics, had appealed the original NC-17 rating to the Washington D.C.-based organization, but the decision was upheld by the board, MPAA spokeswoman Phuong Yokitis said Wednesday.
While the film will likely only play the art-house circuit in America, the rating may still affect the number of theatres willing to pick it up around the country.
The film opened in New York last Friday, where it averaged nearly $50,000 in three theaters to tally $147,000. It bows Dec. 10 in Los Angeles.
Neither Almodóvar nor Sony Pictures Classics had any comment on the rating.
The "scene of explicit sexual content" at the heart of the ratings blow is a racy encounter between two consenting adult men, played by Gael Garcia Bernal and Fele Martinez. The film itself deals with men who fell in love as Catholic schoolboys and also touches on childhood sexual abuse at the hands of priests--although no actual priestly pedophilia is depicted.
Gay organizations have complained in the past that the MPAA, now headed by new boss Dan Glickman, employs a double standard when it comes to doling out NC-17 ratings to films that feature male-on-male sex scenes or full-frontal male nudity, as opposed to lesbian sexual situations. For instance, Gina Gershon's steamy 1996 same-sex romp Bound earned a more commercial R rating.
This is not the first time one of Almodóvar's efforts has been saddled with an NC-17. His critically acclaimed 1990 film, Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down, was branded "bad" by the organization for its racy heterosexual scenes between Victoria Abril and Antonio Bandaras. (Almodóvar's last film, 2002's Talk to Her, for which he earned a Best Original Screenplay Oscar, was rated R.)
Sony Pictures Classics is no stranger to the so-called "kiss of death" rating, either. The indie arm of Sony received an NC-17 earlier this year for the Ewan McGregor flick Young Adam, which had only a brief run in theaters.
0 Comments
Now loading...