I didn't think R rated movies ever did terribly well at the box office down here but then again our rating system is probably different to the USA.
Then again I've never understood why two people engaging in a perfectly natural act was considered offensive yet blowing away a few hundred guys with a machine gun didn't raise a murmur.
What is sad is the overall demise in box office takings, one could attribute that to many things but the overall decline in activities outside our homes seems to me to be a worrying trend. Forunately one of our local cinemas now has a special deal on Tuesdays so we now make it a point to see one movie per week. Seems to me there's plenty of fine work being done and from more divergent sources than ever before and even Hollywood has lifted it's game.
Bob.

I agree with the family out to the movies thought. I seldom go to R rated films in the theater because I can't/won't take my kids to them. Some theaters in my area have actually noticed and added on-site child care.

I do rent and buy alot of films on DVD that are R rated which me and my wife enjoy when the kids are asleep.

A lot of this also has to do with who are the repeat customers for movies. You either need an incredibly wide base or you need a lot repeat customers. Adults don't go see a movie in the theaters multiple times, but kids will. It's one of the reasons Titantic was so Gigantic. Teenagers went to that movie over and over again. Because everyone knows teenagers love naval disasters.

I totally agree with Spot! With the cost of films pretty high - the cost of DVD's very low I rarely go to the theater anymore. I've found I actually enjoy movies more at home than at the theater. Add in stuff like Netflix, affordable (pretty much :)) home theater gear, Aura Bass Shakers or Buttkickers (oh man - I knew you were a tactile transducer guy Spot!) and the extra stuff that comes on the DVD's themselves....plus no bad projection, bad audio, cell phones, lines, insane snack prices.....

LOL! If a film is rated "R" people won't go? Come on, Jay, that's a reach, even for you.

Terminator Two was rated "R" and done very well. Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ did extremely well and also was rated "R". Many other examples I could give.

People go to GOOD movies. Ratings, have little impact if they will go see it or not. Well, maybe if you're a right wing religious fanantic it does matter, oh more accurately they pretend it matters, but no, not really, since they flocked in groves to Passion of the Christ, but that crowd being card carying hypocrites, of course they flap their gums about "violence" being bad in other films, but someone beat savagely, having nails driven through his hands, mocked, stabbed in the side and hung on a cross and left to die while a crowd watches is OK.

While the major studios frequently make more money on DVD's sales, people still go to theaters. Its the group experience, the way larger screen, etc. that if they movie is half way decent still draws a crowd. Are tastes changing? Yes and no. Like everything else, things go in cycles. Forty years ago who would have thought science fiction movies could ever be box office hits? Then we got the first Star Trek movie, several after,the Star Wars series, ET, Men in Black, Indpedence Day, etc, all grossing big bucks.

Make a good movie, people will go see it in theaters. Ratings are inmaterial and phony to begin with.

Interesting thoughts here so far.

I'm a bit odd, I think, because I watch films more to educate myself than to be entertained. Not that entertainment is bad---and really good films manage to do both.

I had essentially stopped going to the movies because very few new releases interested me. You get to be 47 years old, you've seen a million car chases, explosions, and ridiculous hero catch phrases. ("Let's DO this thing!" or "This time, it's PERSONAL!" uttered in an overly dramatic fashion while jacking the slide on his Glock. Puh-lease, Jethro!)

Those films that did interest me 1) often didn't come to my town, or stayed too briefly if they did, or 2) the theater-going experience wasn't pleasant, for many of the reasons DSE cited.

However, our local art museum opened a wonderful theater a few years ago and everything changed for me. This coincided with my entry into Vegas, so I've become a regular movie-goer again. But moreso than this great new venue showing great non-mainstream films, I'm pretty sure it was my plunge into Vegas that re-activated my interest in film (now instead of just watching it, I study it). If not for the Noble Theater, I'd still have started watching again, except on DVD.

As far as ratings go, for me they're irrelevant. Most of the films shown at the museum theater are R-rated, but anything from G on up is fine with me. I'm pretty sure the excellent WINGED MIGRATION was rated G. I loved it.

I think Netflix is revolutionizing the movie-watching experience. If you're not a member, you might want to consider it. All the films you'd ever want to watch, delivered to your house, and you can keep them as long as you want, with a MUCH better selection of documentaries and foreign films (my favorites) than the local rental places could ever hope to offer. I've found Netflix to be an astounding resource for me.

I watch every DVD with a notebook, a pen, and the remote close at hand.

I also scribble notes at the theater---but afterwards, my handwriting looks like it was scratched onto the paper by an epileptic chicken. Harder to see in the dark, you know...

Billyboy, "Well, maybe if you're a right wing religious fanantic it does matter," name calling already, so early in the afternoon. I agree with your analyze about marketing cycles, but ratings do draw the teens' more than the older crowd. The rating system is truly screwed up and has always been since the beginning.

>I'm pretty sure the excellent was rated G. I loved it.

OTOT. Amazing amazing movie, but the part where the crabs chased and caught the wounded bird were anything but G :-( Ok, that is G but damn that was too much for me to watch, let alone my kids.

Ok, I just checked out imdb and their trivia said: "The scene where the goose gets stuck in industrial sludge was deliberately staged by the producers and the bird thus was immediately freed after shooting. Also, while the wounded Tern beset by crabs was not a staged scene, the bird was rescued by the crew at the last moment after shooting the action." Which makes me feel a little better. But that bird was going to die anyway, so what did the crew wind up doing with it afterwards?

Rich MacDonald, I'd forgotten about the "crabs vs. the wounded bird" part, and the goose in the sludge.

Which lends credence to the idea that some of us tend to selectively forget unpleasant stuff!

Walter Murch says: "What [viewers] finally remember is not the editing, not the camerawork, not the performances, not even the story---it's how they felt." Good directors and writers design this into a film----scenes with visceral impact. Some concentrate on "good" impact and some on "bad." There has to be a change of emotional pace, a change of gear. (And, in films depicting real events, some "bad" realism. I left WINGED MIGRATION kind of flying, myself. At least, I felt like flying. But I wouldn't have felt too good if the FINAL scenes had involved birds in trouble.

But these scenes (and the scene where the bird gets caught in the net) underscore the fact that, along with the magnificence of the migrations, birds (like us) are pretty fragile, too, and subject to the same sort of unfortunate stuff we all face. If it ain't the crabs, it's gonna be SOMETHING! <g>

Good question about the crew rescuing the bird, and its fate afterward. I dunno. That'd be a tough call----the crabs, or a slower death via starvation?

Another poster mentioned violent films which recieve rather benign ratings...but show some skin or some sex, and---well, here comes an R. That's true, I think, and illustrates another funny thing about humans. Many of us feel bad when we see an animal in trouble, SOME of us squirm when we see skin or sex, but TOO MANY OF US munch popcorn and laugh when we see a guy get shot. Go figure.

Regarding violence vs. nudity. The audience knows the violence is not real--actors don't kill other actors. An alien did not burst out of John Hurt's chest! That was, as we all know, special effects.

On the other hand, nudity is real. Occasionally, certain actors or actresses will use a body double (Jane Fonda in Coming Home comes to mind), but naked is naked. Seldom--rarely--is that every faked. If I know a movie has nudity, I won't watch it.

As a director, I have never asked an actor to do something I wasn't willing to do myself. I would not get naked in front of a camera (or behind one for that matter). But you can wire me with all the squibs you want!

I was taught years ago, if you can take out any element without destroying the structure of your design, whatever that design may be, then by all means take it out, you didn't need it to begin with. In my opinion, nudity is unneccessary. Bare bodies, couples fondling one another and grinding away does nothing to futher the story. In fact, the story comes to a grinding halt (pun intended) at that point just so the audience can be titillated. Then, when that scene is over, the story begins again.

That's why some musical numbers fail so miserably, because they do nothing to further the story or reveal character. It's just a musical number. When the story stops unfolding, your audience checks out mentally. That's a cardinal no-no and nothing justifies it!

I think the key, to paraphrase Jay, is whether the violence, nudity, profanity, puke, scatalogical humor, or whatever is GRATUITOUS, or ESSENTIAL to the story.

I can think of plenty of good erotic thrillers where nudity/sex was crucial ("Body Heat," "Mona Lisa," and "Sea of Love" come to mind), just as I can think of plenty of films where graphic violence served the story ("Reservoir Dogs," "Good Fellas.") I can think of even more examples, where as Jay says, they serve no purpose in telling the story and are best left out.

That said, I will also admit there are times when I'm in the mood for silly gratuituous nudity, violence or sex. (say, "Airplane," Hong-Kong era Jackie Chan, John Waters or Russ Meyers, for example).

I would go to the theaters more often, but my 4-year old is in bed by 7:30, so my wife and I do the DVD thing a lot now. (We did take him to see the 50-year re-release of "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" in a theater though.)

The best stupid movie I ever saw was "JackAss" Absolutely no social, educational, moral, or other redeeming value. But it was funny to watch, it was like a bad Jerry Springer show, and I just couldn't turn away.

LOL! Same as felt about "Jackass". Rarely has any movie been so totally useless with zero redeeming value, yet at the same time its hard to look away wondering what they will do next.

As far as "naked is naked", some movies, its done tastefully, others, its not. As long as it isn't in your face, like Blue Lagoon, which had just enough nuidty between young teens alone on a island or later or in the long ago Romeo and Juliet. Without the "nude" scenes neither movie would have been creditable, since both were coming of age. On the other hand seeing the sagging butt of some TV actor (you remember who) thanks but no thanks, then again some of the day time soaps do it tasefully if a soap can ever be taseful, then on the other extreme seeing Tony on the Saprano's "perform" is far removed from being necessary for that kind of on going drama and I doubt many get "turned-on" by it.

Well, I think I agree with everyone's opinion in this thread in one way or another. My overall feeling is to have an "R" rating film to be a top box office hit, then that movie must be good. Where I feel something like a "PG" movie is aimed at children, therefore there's other reasons for that movie to be a top box office hit. Children are impatient and they're constantly being bombarded with advertisements to constantly remind them to annoy the heck out of their parents to take them to see the movie, because all their friends have gone to see it. Parents also need an outlet to take their children out for activities and going to a PG movie is a no brainer, where the parent can tolerate watching a PG movie and not have to worry about the unprepared responses to the 50 question conversations that may arise when Michael Douglas is slamming Sharon Stone up against the kitchen counter. You also have the fact that those same parents who go to those PG movies, are now confronted with other obsticles of having to find and pay for a babysitter to go and see that "R" movie. So even for the parents who would rather go and see the R movie, there's much less obsticles for the PG movie. We as adults also have much more options when going out for entertainment where going to a movie is usually a last resort, we can't think of anything better, last ditch effort. Only when there's that must see "R" flict will we make the initiative to over come all the obsticles, and we've lived a life full of advertising, so we've become much more patient, where we're able to say, "I'll wait for it to come out on DVD". My wife and I rent about 3 DVD movies a week, we prefer the luxaries as Spot outlined above. We don't watch much TV outside of local sports broadcasts, so we're subjected to limited movie advertisements, so every week their is new DVD releases, so we're able to see something that is "new" by our standards. Plus, I have a good excuse to go out and buy extra speakers and subwoofers for my surround system, and convince my wife it's a necessity that our next big purchase is a High Definition flat screen TV. It's for the both of us honey.......where I'm thinking damn that will be so cool listening to my PS2 gaming fixes in surround, with the thunderous explosions from the dual Infinity subs I have and I can tell if someone's sneaking up behind me in the online shooter games, all viewed on a large flat screen monitor so my gun aiming is more accurate. Yep, I'll be renting those R movies on DVD.

But that bird was going to die anyway, so what did the crew wind up doing with it afterwards?

Lunch? ;->

"Jackass: The Movie," the great uniter! Who'd a thunk it.

I haven't seen "Jackass," yet. That's one that will probably have to wait until the wife's out of town. I'd never live it down if I rented that one.

Turning to the T.V. side of things, has anyone seen "Steve Harvey's Big Time Challenge?" I think it's on UPN. Utterly idiotic, sophomoric, banal, moronic.... and absolutely the funniest thing I've seen on television in years. Think of an updated "Gong Show." No redeeming value whatsoever, and I love it.