banned Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It seems a little strange that as current pop culture becomes more and more comfortable with adult films, a porn company in Australia is going to court this Thursday to fight the current system of film classification, as reported by Reuters. As it currently stands in Australia, film ratings fall into three major categories. G ratings are applied to a film that would be open to anyone, an R rating is given for films that contain violent or disturbing images, and finally an X rating is given to any sexually explicit film; which brings with it a heavily restricted distribution policy. So while it isn't illegal to watch or own pornographic films, only two territories (including the capital Canberra) can legally sell pornographic films.

Adult film company AdultShop.com Limited is asking the Federal Court to overturn the X category, arguing that "The Office of Film and Literature Classification is required to take into account current community standards in relation to explicit erotic films,". The company commissioned a survey back in September from ACNielsen that "found 70% of Australian adults were not offended by explicit erotic films and 76% thought they should be available on a restricted basis." Already, family groups are concerned that if the ban were lifted, porn could start appearing on the shelves of local video stores and shops. But until the court rules, Australians can get their porn the same way everybody else does -- the Internet.

Although the box office has been very kind to Borat, some feel the film might be a little too controversial and have subsequently banned it from playing in their country. That's right, I'm talking about Russia -- home to the cold, the snow, those big furry hats and tasty vodka. Pic was supposed to debut on November 30 through local distributor Gemini, who are linked to 20th Century Fox. However, the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography refuses to license the flick because it "contains material that some viewers may consider offensive to certain nationalities and religions."

The best part of this whole thing is that Borat would be the first non-pornographic film to be banned in the country. In fact, plenty of hardcore porn films are licensed by the agency each year. Wait, so Russian midget orgies are less offensive than Sacha Baron Cohen pretending to be a moronic Kazakhstani news reporter? Something is not right here. It's not like he's running around Russia making a fool out of the locals. No, he's making a fool out of Americans -- other countries should be itching to release this thing in their theaters. Isn't it sad that a country is so afraid its people do not have a sense of humor that they're going so far as to ban a comedy because stupid people might not get the jokes?

Ok, this is weird. Instead of the by now expected "Christians will be offended" reasoning behind the decisions of various nations not to exhibit The Da Vinci Code, the movie, which was released in Chinese theaters on May 19, has suddenly been pulled without explanation, effective tomorrow. Among people familiar with the treatment of foreign releases in China, it's believed that this is the first time a foreign film has been approved for release there (each movie has to be examined by a censorship board before it's exhibited) only to find itself yanked from screens a few weeks later.

One possible reason provided for the movie's withdrawal is that it's being done to make room for domestic features in theaters this weekend, but since the release of Ice Age 2 seems to be going ahead as planned, that explanation is dubious at best. An unofficial spokesperson for the Chinese Film Bureau (identified by the AP as "a man who answered the phone" -- we're talking very, very unofficial) indicated that the he wasn't actually even sure the film had been pulled (it has). Like I said -- weird.

In its nearly three weeks of release, The Da Vinci Code made about $13 million, making it the second-biggest foreign earner ever at the Chinese box office (in first place is Titanic, with an obscene $45 million).

As The Da Vinci Code continues to pull in piles of money around the world, the controversy about its content refuses to die and reports of further bannings continue to trickle in. The latest news comes from Pakistan where, though the country is approximately 97% Muslim, the government has decided to ban the movie out of respect for the nation's Christian minority. According to the country's minister of culture, the fact that his own religion isn't mistreated in the movie isn't the issue. In fact, he said, "Islam teaches us to respect all prophets of Allah mighty, and degradation of any prophet is tantamount to defamation of the rest."

Additionally, the movie has been banned in five Indian states for fear it would cause unrest. Though, as with Pakistan, Christians make up a very small minority of the country's total population (less than 2%, according to Variety), there are states in which they are the majority, and several of those states experienced protests prior to the film's planned release. Though the rest of India -- including a handful of states in which Christians make up a large percentage of the population -- is flocking to see the movie (albeit with a "THIS IS FICTION" disclaimer), it cannot be seen in Punjab, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Andra Pradesh or Tamil Nadu.