In the U.S., movie ratings are sometimes "baffling, illogical or just plain outrageous," as Eric D. Snider wrote last year. Greater leniency is granted to blockbuster action movies, as long as the beheadings and other violent acts are not too bloody or explicit, while more peaceful-minded feature narratives and documentaries find themselves saddled with a rating that restricts their audiences because they have one too many 'f-bombs.'

In the U.K., the British Board of Film Classification has issued its latest set of guidelines "following consultation with about 9,000 people aged 16 and older," according to Reuters (via The Independent). "The clear message was that [explicit sex scenes in movies such as Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs] were acceptable at 18." The article notes that "films with an '18' tag are restricted to patrons 18 years of age and older." Greater concern was expressed about on-screen solvent abuse, such as glue-sniffing. Rules have now been stiffened in response, and more restrictive ratings may be issued in the future.

Of those surveyed, the report claimed agreement with ratings given "in 99 per cent of all cases" for films they had watched. Are film rating systems better or worse in other countries? I've never lived outside the U.S., so I'd be interested in hearing from our international readers about their impressions, positive or negative. For those inside the U.S., do you agree with the ratings given to movies you've seen? Or does the MPAA get it wrong more often than right?

There's been a flurry of activity this week around Year One, the Harold Ramis-directed and Judd Apatow-produced comedy starring Jack Black and Michael Cera as a pair of shiftless cavemen on a epic journey. (To see the film's kinda funny trailer, mosey on over here.)

Some time ago, the MPAA awarded the film an R rating -- something that neither Harold Ramis, Judd Apatow, Michael Cera nor Jack Black are strangers to. This Tuesday, Sony appealed, hoping to get a PG-13 without making any cuts to the film, but the MPAA stuck to the R, prompting many of the internet usual suspects to speculate that Sony would give in and release the film with the tougher rating. It wouldn't have surprised me -- Apatow has plenty of clout, and a great track record with R-rated comedies; the same, to a lesser extent, goes for Ramis. But no: Sony made cuts to the film, and merely two days after the appeal ruling, Year One is rated PG-13 "for crude and sexual content throughout, brief strong language and comic violence."

Generally I try to stay away from the MPAA discussion. I understand that, in theory, a rating system is pretty essential when it comes to movies, but I've seen this studio-paid puppet group bend over backwards for their clientele again and again. (Really, who does the MPAA serve? The public or the Paramounts?) So while I'm never pleased to hear that people are losing their jobs, I felt a nice dose of schad as I read this Hollywood Reporter piece.

Seems that studios have decided to slash the MPAA's annual budget by somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 million smackeroos. Now they'll have to get by with only about $75 million a year, which is still kinda high when you consider the MPAA's main goal is to sit down and watch movies. Surely they don't need $75 million worth of DVD players and clipboards. Yes, I know the MPAA is involved in anti-piracy, which used to give them an excuse to fly people all over the globe, but really ... if it weren't for the G, PG, and R, this organization would have folded up shop years ago.

Somewhere Kirby Dick is having a nice chuckle, but here's what I'm wondering: Does this mean that the MPAA can now adopt a "tougher edge" when doling out the ratings? You can't slash a staff's budget without creating a little animosity, so what's preventing the MPAA from tossing out old-school R ratings for sex comedies that normally get that coveted PG-13? Will this be an end to the PG-rated beheadings of Narnia 2? Or perhaps the MPAA ratings board will actually balance things out and start giving appropriate ratings to the indie flicks. Yes, I'm still pissed about Whale Rider being rated R. (Whoops, except it wasn't. PG-13 all the way.)

Apologies to the folks who lost their jobs, but if this brings a little more accountability to the MPAA, then I'm all for it.

The Motion Picture Association of America does a few other things too, but its most visible impact on movie-going is its ratings system. G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17, you gotta have a rating for your movie if you want most theater chains to show it, and the MPAA's secretive clan of breast-counters and violence-ignorers decides which label its gets.

An overwhelming majority of films get the rating they deserve -- or, at the very least, a rating that's consistent with how the MPAA has rated other films with similar content. But some MPAA decisions are baffling, illogical, or just plain outrageous. Here are the ones that perplexed us the most this year.

The Worst MPAA Ratings of 2008

1. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (rated PG for "epic battle action and violence"). The MPAA says, "The ratings are intended to provide parents with advance information so they can decide for themselves which films are appropriate for viewing by their own children." It's all about parents looking out for their kids. So how in the name of C.S. Lewis did this film -- rife with stabbing, throat-slitting, decapitating, and large-scale slaughter, much of it perpetrated by teenage characters -- get a PG? Does the fact that most of the violence is bloodless (and therefore not realistic) somehow make it family-friendly? Had there been even one sexual reference, it would have gotten a PG-13. Thank goodness Disney only packed the film with killing instead!

So we've already torn the Motion Picture Association of America asunder for not displaying enough discipline with select film ratings, but what about the times that the MPAA maybe overdid it a bit with their judgment calls?

Earlier this week, I watched Danny Boyle's Millions for the first time in a good while, and I'd noticed that it was only rated PG for "thematic elements, language, some peril and mild sensuality" after an appeal to the ratings board. It's a fitting rating for a film worthy of an audience of all ages, but it made me wonder what the similarly whimsical Son of Rambow did to merit a PG-13 for "some violence and reckless behavior". I suppose the argument could be made that the behavior in Rambow lends itself more to imitation, but I know that my theoretical children (they have their mother's eyes) wouldn't be watching one and not the other.

Later that day, I saw Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon, which gets an R for "some language". Now, I know that the MPAA tends to let adult-skewing PG-13 fare get away with an extra f-bomb or two (ex: About a Boy or the particular exception that is Gunner Palace), but by my count, F/N has a single -- albeit loud -- usage of Samuel L. Jackson's favorite expletive, and then nothing else that wouldn't earn an R. Isn't this just Once all over again? Are our nation's teens really going to stumble into this film and walk out worse off for it? (Robert Altman admitted on his Gosford Park commentary track that he intentionally swung an R for similar reasons.)

What does Zack and Miri Make a Porno get right, and wrong, about the world of adult films? What do adult films get right, and wrong, about sex? Why are most Hollywoood films so very, very un-sexy? What's the MPAA's problem with sex? And, with it being Halloween, what does this week's guest Violet Blue -- author, San Francisco Chronicle sex columnist and horror fan -- find scary about Ils, Dead and Breakfast and Daughters of Darkness? You can listen to the podcast here at Cinematical by clicking below:



As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.

I thought it wasn't possible to view the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings board with more disgust and contempt than I already did, but they've managed to surprise me. Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle's joyful, enriching drama about a poor young man going all the way on India's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, has been slapped with an R rating for "some violence, disturbing images and language."

Speaking of language, the MPAA is full of s***. Big, meaty piles of s***. Slumdog Millionaire (to be released Nov. 12) has a couple of F-bombs (just like most PG-13 films), some moderate other profanity, a couple of intense moments, and some non-graphic violence. In fact, as Slashfilm's Peter Sciretta (citing Alex Billington) has pointed out, there are several instances in the film where Boyle has obviously cut away to avoid showing anything too strong. Clearly he had a PG-13 rating in mind, and as someone who watches a few hundred new movies every year, let me tell you: This is a PG-13 movie. Its content is right in line with the vast majority of PG-13 movies.

Yet for some reason, the MPAA has given it an R. Let me steal a bit from Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers: Really?! Really, MPAA? You think the pencil-impaling, face-melting antics of The Dark Knight fall within the bounds of PG-13 acceptability, but a few gunshots and tense situations put Slumdog Millionaire over the line into R territory? Really? And the decapitations and mass slaughters of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian -- a film aimed directly at children -- only gets a PG (a PG!!) while Slumdog Millionaire gets an R? Really?! MPAA, if you were a judge, you'd be letting rapists go free while sentencing jaywalkers to the electric chair. I've seen more sober reasoning and sound judgment at a frat party. Michael Vick had more common sense than you.

First Kevin Smith couldn't get the rating he wanted for Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Then the poster got rejected. And now the latest: Numerous advertising outlets are refusing to promote the film at all on the grounds that its very title is unsuitable for mass audiences.

According to the Associated Press, about 15 newspapers and several TV and cable channels have rejected the ads because the word "porno" is objectionable. The city of Philadelphia won't put the posters on its bus shelters, and the Los Angeles Dodgers asked Fox Sports to stop running the commercials during their games after several viewer complaints -- never mind that up until last year, Viagra was an official sponsor of Major League Baseball, and if more than "several" complaints about that were received, they fell on deaf ears for half a decade.

The AP quotes a Dodgers spokesman talking about one of the complaints they'd gotten from a father: "He was explaining to his son what a squeeze bunt was. Commercial break, the ad comes on, and the kid asks, 'Dad, what does porno mean?'"

Personally, I think "squeeze bunt" sounds a lot dirtier than "porno," but I see where the father's coming from. Is it really that awkward, though? "Oh, it's just a movie for mommies and daddies. Don't worry about it. Now, let's get back to the squeeze bunt. You see, when a batter and a runner love each other very much...." It seems like a pretty easy thing to defuse.

But more to the point: I bet all of the outlets that have declined advertising for Zack and Miri have no problem running ads for movies with the words Kill, Shoot, Murder, Death, and War in their titles.

Over the past few weeks, movie ratings have been a popular topic for discussion. While Kevin Smith's upcoming Zack and Miri Make a Porno appealed an NC-17 rating (and won), The Dark Knight was enjoying a record-setting box office take and a pretty controversial PG-13 rating. Once again, we ask: Why is sex more inappropriate than violence? Should raunchy language and a few "thrusts" be condemned while a dude with half his face falling off and a psychopathic, murderous clown get off practically unscathed? And are there other issues at work here? Does a film with a giant budget and an all-star cast get it "easier" than a smaller film with a lesser-known cast and a director who chain smokes profanity?

No doubt there are shady politics at play here (as is all over this fine country of ours), and over the years there have been a number of films that deserved a different rating. Over on OMG Lists, they currently have up a list of six wrongly rated movies; films that, for one reason or another, deserved either a lower or a higher rating. It's a weird system, for sure -- these days, if you're a comedy, you kinda want that 'R' rating because your box office take will most likely be higher. However, if you're a horror flick, you want to try for a PG-13. Strange world we live in ...

But anyway, among the films featured on their list are Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which, at the time, received an R-rating because of a few profanity-laced scenes, but totally could've gotten away with a PG-13. Or what about Jaws ... with its PG rating! Hey, it's a film about a giant shark that devours people -- bring the whole family!

The most we can hope for now is the unrated director's cut of Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno, because the filmmaker has won his appeal with the MPAA and received an R rating, according to the Associated Press. It's been a long road for Smith's movie, which was unsurprisingly smacked with an NC-17 last month -- as if we didn't see it coming due to Smith's track record and the fact that it's a movie about a couple who, yes, that's right, make a porno. Oh, and of course there was that raunchy trailer, which gave us some semblance of the material the movie is dealing with (coprophilia jokes are likely always deemed adults-only content, at least in the initial ratings board screening).

So much for the MPAA and National Association of Theatre Owners' plans to remove the stigma attached to the NC-17. If ever there was a popular filmmaker to usher in a new wave of non-porn adults-only fare, Smith would be that person. And considering that Zack and Miri is about porn, it would be an appropriate gateway for the rating. Last week, when Smith spoke to AICN about the appeal, he seemed fine with the need for an R rating, stating that it's just "part of the process." Of course it is. The process consists of toning down a film to ensure an R and then releasing the original raunchier version on DVD in order for Hollywood to get the most buck for its bang.

Update: When Cinematical reached Smith for a quote, he had this to say on the decision: "I'm very happy with the result of the appeals process. Sadly, however, it doesn't cure my biggest headache: I'm still grossly overweight."