Protest of MPAA Rating for New Holocaust Film

Posted on August 2, 2010 at 4:10 pm

“A Film Unfinished” is a new Holocaust documentary featuring never-before-shown footage from the Warsaw Ghetto. The MPAA has given it an “R” rating for “disturbing images of holocaust atrocities including graphic nudity.” This means that no one under 17 can see the film without a parent or guardian and restricts its availability to educational venues. Oscilloscope, which is distributing the film, has set the appeal with the MPAA for Thursday, August 5th. If you want to comment, get in touch with:
Joan Graves
MPAA Ratings Board
Los Angeles
15301 Ventura Blvd., Building E
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
(818) 995-6600 (main)
(818) 285-4403 (fax)
The film, which will be released August 18th in New York and August 20th in Los Angeles followed by a national rollout, documents an unfinished Nazi propaganda film shot in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. (The Warsaw Ghetto, part of the Third Reich’s Final Solution, was the largest and most notorious of the unlivable urban ghettos and a last transit point before deportation to the extermination camps.) Discovered in East German archives after World War II and labeled simply “Ghetto”, the footage quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record of the Warsaw Ghetto. However, the later discovery of long-missing film reel complicated earlier readings of the footage and revealed many of the shots to be staged. A FILM UNFINISHED presents the raw footage in its entirety, carefully noting fictionalized sequences (including a staged dinner party) falsely showing “the good life” enjoyed by Jewish urbanites and probes deep into the making of a now-infamous Nazi propaganda film.
A FILM UNFINISHED had its US Premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival where it won the World Cinema Documentary Editing Award, and has gone on to win the top award at Hot Docs Film Festival and the WGA Screenplay Award at AFI’s Silverdocs Film Festival.
Producer (and Beastie Boy) Adam Yauch says, “This is too important of a historical document to ban from classrooms. While there’s no doubt that Holocaust atrocities are displayed, if teachers feel their students are ready to understand what happened, it’s essential that young people are giving the opportunity to see this film. Why deny them the chance to learn about this critical part of our human history? I understand that the MPAA wants to protect children’s eyes from things that are too overwhelming, but they’ve really gone too far this time..”
Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League and a Holocaust survivor says, “The further away we get from the years of Holocaust the more necessary it is that our current and future generations understand it. What a shame for today’s teenagers who study world history to be denied viewing A Film Unfinished and seeing first hand the Nazi treatment of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. It’s depiction of the lengths to which the Nazis would go to dehumanize Jews is an important teaching tool, not only for its historic content, but for its relevance to today’s world.”
As we lose those whose first-hand experience has been essential in bringing this story to the world, it is even more important to make use of the few recordings that can document what happened during the Holocaust to rebut the deniers and carry the lessons of history to future generations. It is absurd that the MPAA will allow “comic” and “action” violence in a PG-13 film, but not the sober portrayal of historical events.
Oscilloscope co-founder David Fenkel said, “This clearly needs to be rectified. The rating is inconsistent with cultural norms and the film does not use the footage in any exploitative way. The rating will tragically would hinder the exhibition of the film to those who most need to see the film: namely students.”

Comic-Con: Etc. and Misc.

Posted on July 26, 2010 at 1:06 am

I saw Gamer Grub, a specially designed “performance” snack for gamers that won’t leave crumbs on the keyboard or make their fingers sticky.

A lot of people were walking around with dripping wounds on their faces. It turned out to be a promotional temporary tattoo from the “Dexter” people. There was real blood, however, at the Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive, an annual tradition at Comic-Con.

Among the highlights of Comic-Con for me each year are the presentations from the Comic Arts Conference, an association of academics who conduct serious scholarly analysis of comics, graphic novels, and sequential art. I truly enjoy their serious, thoughtful engagement and especially their vocabulary, using terms like “meta-panels,” “panopticonism,” “historiographic meta-fiction,” “inexpungable relativity,” “multivocality,” and “ret-con.” And I like to think about the way that comic book stories, carrying the same characters through decades of real time, provide an opportunity for scholars to think about the power and possibilities of endless narratives carried forward by many different people through many different eras.

A group of superheroes took on a group of virulent haters when Comic-Con attendees staged a protest against Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church.

You can buy tribbles at Comic-Con, and these are guaranteed not to reproduce.

One of my favorite promotions this year was for the forthcoming “Skyline,” about a strange light that sucks people up into the sky. They had a truck that launched small, ghostly white “bodies” made of soap bubbles that floated up past a huge sign for the movie.

No staples, no need for Mylar bags, and your mother can’t throw them away — there are now digital comics for you to read on your iPad or computer. But what will happen to all of the meticulous grading and how do you buy and sell vintage digital comics?

At the huge “Tron” session, the film-makers recorded the audience and promised to include their cheers in the movie.

Movie stars like Harrison Ford, Angelina Jolie, Sylvester Stallone, and Robert Downey, Jr. get a big reception from the crowd at Comic-Con. But they also go wild for Janet Waldo, Stan Freberg, and Tom Kenny. If you know who they are and want to hear a funny story told by Janet Waldo, send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com

The biggest announcement of this years Con was the cast for “The Avengers” movie, to be directed by Con favorite, Joss Whedon.

Everything is mutli-platform and omnimedia. TV shows spin off games. Games spin off movies. Both spin off comics and graphic novels and they spin off movies, television shows, and apps. I played Glee karaoke for the Wii and it was a blast.

Most popular questions at the panels: What are the DVD extras? How do I get your job?
You are AWESOME! (Yes, I know that’s not a question, but apparently, some people do not.)

No one really was stabbed here, despite news reports. A guy poked another guy in the face with a pen. Everyone is fine.

I spoke to Neil Kaplan, a voice-over actor (he once voiced Optimus Prime) who has created a non-profit group called Audio Theater for Our Troops. He hopes to build a library of audio materials to send to military forces for entertainment and support.

A guy standing at the microphone to ask a question was wearing a black hood and long cloak. The moderator called on him, “Uh, the next question is from, uh, Death?” The guy in the cloak responded with as much dignity as he could muster: “I am a Sith Lord.”

I was captivated by a book called Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel and got a chance to speak to the co-author, Anina Bennett. She told me her husband is a graphic designer and history buff who originally wanted to write straightforward historical adventure stories that evolved into a graphic novel and then evolved into a book that took a fictional inventor and his fictional invention, a robot, and put them into real, historical events. “People get turned off by the way history is taught,” she told me. Inspired by Gore Vidal and the Flashman books, the two of them worked together to tell true stories through the adventures of the robot, illustrated with astonishingly authentic-looking historical artifacts. The book is simply gorgeous and very inviting, and there is a brief but excellent teachers guide available. J.J. Abrams has announced he will make the movie.

There are enormous displays on the Exhibition floor, some costing a quarter of a million dollars. We could have our photo taken on the throne of Asgard, in the zombie house from “The Waking Dead,” or lifting a car like the superhero members of “No Ordinary Family.” But what I found most moving and inspiring was the rows of displays from people with their own comics and graphic novels. It isn’t the marketing blitz; it’s the power of imagination and the need to tell stories that is the real energy behind Comic-Con. And I cannot express how impressed I was with the talent, dedication, and professionalism of everyone I spoke to.

Can’t wait for next year!

And yes, there are two more Comic-Con posts coming, one on movies and one on television. Stay tuned. And if you’ve read this far, send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Comic-Con in the subject line. First one will win a Comic-Con souvenir.

Comic-Con Costumes

Posted on July 23, 2010 at 6:09 pm

Thoughts on the costumes at Comic-Con, composed as I waited in line for a panel that turned out to be full:
There are those who work all year to look good in spandex and those who do not. It is not hard to tell the difference. Spandex gives, my friends, but it does not forgive.
There is something that is just wrong about superheroes on an escalator. On the other hand, zombies seem right at home.
If you’re going for comfort, try the Obi-Wan Kenobi outfit.
I don’t think you can fight crime in high heels. Superheroine boots with stiletto heels don’t seem right to me.
Props to the men who commit to the Wolverine costume enough to grow the facial hair.
I saw hobbit ears for sale in two sizes, Frodo and Sam. The Sam size is larger.
What does a ninja say to a Jedi? I overheard one asking the other if he had a costume repair kit handy as he needed some superglue.
If I do not recognize the character, I assume it is from a game, not a movie or comic book. Especially if it involves cotton-candy-colored or spiked hair.
Comic-Con costumes are the equivalent of a trending topic on Twitter, a leading indicator of the direction of popular culture. There were fewer Captain Jack Sparrows and Jokers this year, more Katos and lots more of the three green guys — The Green Lantern, the Green Hornet, and Kick-Ass.
It takes some height to pull off the Darth Vader look, but the big guys in the Vader outfits really make it work.
No one should wear Renaissance Faire garb to a Comic-Con. We know you didn’t put that together for this event and it just looks wrong. Steampunk, on the other hand, is most welcome. Love that look, and the people who wear it show excellent attention to detail and an appreciation for natural fibers. Rock on.
Get over it, guys. The utlilikilt is not happening.
I like the way that when I ask people in costume if I may take a picture, they strike a pose.
Kids look adorable in superhero costumes.

(more…)

Related Tags:

Commentary Festivals

Is It Too Late for James Bond?

Posted on July 7, 2010 at 3:54 pm

It sounded promising, with Sam Mendes (“American Beauty”) as director and Peter Morgan (“Frost/Nixon” and “The Queen”) as writer, with Daniel Craig returning and, perhaps most intriguingly, Oscar-winner Rachel Weisz as the villain. But the status of the next James Bond movie has been shifted from on hold to canceled entirely. Has Jason Bourne done what all those bad guys could not? Has he wiped out James Bond? Have modern, shaky camera, gritty spy movies and mundane real-life spy stories like the recent arrests of deep cover Russian spies in the suburbs made it impossible for us to enjoy the glossy elegance of the Bond series after 22 films? Or can he be re-booted again, even re-Bourne?
The Guardian’s film blog has a good discussion about Bond’s future prospects. On one hand, James Bond is one of the world’s great brands, with all-but-guaranteed box office sales. On the other hand, the recent entries in the series, arguably everything since Sean Connery, have been infomercials stuffed with product placement and mired in retro notions of glamor that are uncomfortably outdated.
I don’t doubt that Bond will be back. The franchise still has value. But this stumble should be an opportunity to refocus on story, not stunts, and entertainment, not product sales.

Who Let Pepsi Be an Expert on Healthy Eating for Kids?

Posted on July 7, 2010 at 8:00 am

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has a sobering blog post from Michele Simon about the latest F is for Fat release, an annual report from the Trust for Healthy Americans. The Trust describes itself as Trust “a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health of every community and working to make disease prevention a national priority.” Its board of directors is headed by former Senator Lowell Weicker and filled with medical professionals and public health experts. So how does PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi get two pages in the report for corporate PR about how Pepsi is going to play a part in promoting healthy eating? And, as Simon points out Pepsi says this:

We firmly believe companies have a responsibility to provide consumers with more information and more choices so they can make better decisions… I believe the food industry can play a leading role in this area. In fact, we must play a leading role… It’s a challenge, but increasingly PepsiCo and other companies recognize and accept our responsibility to help our associates and consumers succeed.

while it pours hundreds of millions of dollars into fighting efforts to counter the effects of sugary, high-fat food products like those sold by Pepsi?

Harold Goldstein, executive director of the highly effective non-profit, California Center for Public Health Advocacy describes what Nooyi left out of her statement:

She doesn’t mention the highly sophisticated multimillion dollar national marketing and lobbying campaign they have undertaken to promote themselves as good corporate citizens and undermine efforts to establish state and local policies to reduce consumption of sugar sweetened beverages, which have been the single leading contributor to the obesity epidemic.

The Trust for Healthy Americans should be calling for more accountability from the makers of sodas and snack foods, not giving them a place for vague platitudes masking actions that undermine the very efforts they claim to support.

Related Tags:

Commentary Marketing to Kids