Danny Boyle’s surprise hit of the year “Slumdog Millionaire,” was pegged to corner the “Little Miss Sunshine”/”Juno” feel-good indie market this fall. Unfortunately it has been blind-sided by the MPAA which recently gave the film an R rating, which will most likely shut it out of the success that “Juno” enjoyed and potentially jeopardize its Oscar contention. The soccer-mom oriented MPAA must have been turned off by the gross non-white characters that dominated the film, and thought a movie set in the slums of India would just to be catastrophic if witnessed by the teens of America. ‘Slumdog’ has its tough moments, but is certainly in no way deserving of an R-Rating and a PG-13 at worst. It’s practically a family, feel-good film! (but done by Boyle, it’s still aces, and probably the most exhilarating film we saw the Toronto Film Festival).
‘Slumdog Millionaire’ Gets An R Rating, There Goes The All-Inclusive Feel-Good Vibe And Possible Oscar Nod?
The company producing the film, Fox Searchlight, is apparently not going to go through the appeals process to challenge the rating since it wants to meet the November 12th release date. We hope this rating doesn’t sink the already slim chances the film had of connecting with a mainstream audience, because the film certainly has an uphill battle in its near future and it’s deserving of so much more.
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No matter what rating, Dev Patel does coming-of-age so damn well– the kid is very real. I’m seriously excited about this, so thanks for keeping us informed.
I have my qualms with the MPAA but seriously folks, they are not that hard to figure out. Now mind you I have seen R-rated films that should have been PG-13, Match Point (no language, offscreen violence and an occasional sex scene that features no nudity or motions of sex) comes to mind and The Fountain (although they did fight the rating and got a PG-13), and that is by the MPAA’s standards, not my own little personal opinions/taste. And I have seen PG-13 movies that should have been R…Titanic’s nudity would have given any other film an R rating. I’m not here to argue why you can show bullet headshots but not tits, but just to say, if you’re a regular film watcher, it should be no surprise as to the rating a film gets. But it seems everytime a popular movie gets an R rating, the same people bitch and moan and ask why? Little Miss Sunshine was R and people say, but it’s a great family film with an uplifting message. True, but it features very strong language (mostly from Grandpa) that not only involves f bombs but talk of sex too. More arguably would be Once. Again, I remember Roeper bitching that all teenagers should see this film and steamed it was rated R. Well, the film (being British) also has about two dozen f bombs, although it sounds more like “feck.”
And that’s basically it. If you say more than one f bomb, it’ll probably be R, although i’ve seen films with 2 and 3 and even 7 (Hero with Dustin Hoffman was PG13) or it u show any nudity other than an ass, it’ll probably be an R (although Doc Hollywood had an extended tit scene and it was PG13). Now if u go back to the 80s all the rating rules were fucked up due to the lack of the PG13 rating. Beetlejuice is a PG with the word Fuck and the Beastmaster is a PG with plenty of tit action.
I’m not saying the MPAA didn’t fuch Slumdog over with the R cause I haven’t seen it. But if it has language or nudity, it’s screwed. Violence on the other hand…….
“I’m not saying the MPAA didn’t fuch Slumdog over with the R cause I haven’t seen it. But if it has language or nudity, it’s screwed. Violence on the other hand…….”
Yeah, that is so completely fucked up.