Filed under: Cinematical
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In this age of MPAA hypocrisy and marketing campaigns that tweak trailers for tone, you don’t always get what you pay for at the movies – or what you expect.
The MPAA saw fit to warn audiences that the PG-13 horror movie ‘The Roommate’](The Roommate (2011) - Movie | Moviefone) contains teen partying – that social menace – but not animal abuse, a move so cavalier in a movie so devoid of dimension that hardened horror lover (and friend to felines) Scott Weinberg walked out in a fury. As he wrote in his piece, Memo to the MPAA: Animal Cruelty Isn’t Kids’ Stuff, “In ‘Roommate,’ the kitten is sacrificed in stupidly mercenary fashion simply because the film has no humans worth caring about. Classy, eh?” A ratings system that punishes honest depictions of human sexuality with harsh ratings and lets kitty-killers slide isn’t one I’d turn to for guidance, and it’s unfortunate that many do, only because there’s not a better system in place.
Audiences are also being misled by marketing campaigns that cherry-pick scenes with a certain tone that, woven together into a trailer, lead the viewer to believe they’re off to see a feel-good flick or an average thriller when that’s not what they’re in for at all.
Take ‘The Company Men,’](The Company Men (2010) - Movie | Moviefone) for instance, with Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper. It’s a drama about upper middle class business execs who are left floundering after they’re all laid off. The knee-jerk reaction is, “Whatever, white dudes who make a lot of money lose their jobs and can’t find new ones and have to cancel their membership to the country club – wah!” The reality portrayed in the movie is actually quite moving and intense, with a nugget of hope held out at the end as a sort of peace offering. However, you’d be hard-pressed to guess that from the trailer’s more light-hearted touch.