As a parent of teens, I've recently weathered three disappointments when it comes to the movies. First and foremost, one of my favorite companies, Clean Films, wrote to tell us that they're no longer going to be able to provide edifying entertainment for our family:
It is with great regret that we write to inform you that Clean Films is going out of business soon. As you may have heard or read, after three long years of legal struggles, a judge in Colorado has ruled that we cannot sell or rent edited DVDs anymore. While we thought very strongly about appealing the decision, the potential costs and risks to the company, its customers and shareholders was just too great. Accordingly, we have agreed to close our doors after a brief winding-up period.Second, M. Night's Lady In The Water was unbearably dull. Finally, a movie that we could all look forward to, and the king of clean suspense didn't deliver. Sigh.
And third, Snakes On A Plane, which sounded like the quintessential young guy's action/horror flick, is no longer going to be rated PG-13. According to this week's Entertainment Weekly:
About four months after the film wrapped, New Line execs woke up to what Snakes would be. "It was clear that the film needed more intensity," says (Toby) Emmerich (New Line President), adding that last summer's success with the R-rated Wedding Crashers helped assuage concerns ... New snake strikes were shot. The vicousness was amped up. One sequence involving a couple getting chomped while smooching in the john became a full-on mile-high-club sex scene.Another New Line leader credits the changes to the movie's active, vocal, internet-savvy fan base. Well, I'm a blogger, too. And I think this decision to "intensify" reveals a terrible lack of judgment. I'll even go public and predict that while Snakes might start out strong, it's going to fizzle out without making much money. (Let's hope I'm right.)
Hollywood has always objected to operations like Clean Films, arguing that such editing attempts infringe on their "artistic integrity." Well, here's another idea. Why don't the directors, editors, and writers themselves spend a bit of extra time to clean up the films, offering not just the "unrated, uncut" version on video store shelves, but a "family friendly" version also? (Comcast recently offered this option for The Fantastic Four and The Honeymooners, for example.) I know we'd rent them. Wouldn't you?
As Adam R. Holz puts it in Focus on the Family's pluggedin magazine, we need to "vote with our dollars" when it comes to the movies. Let's make it lucrative for Hollywood bigwigs to apply their artistic talents to provide what Clean Films was trying to accomplish on our behalf. I'm going to start sending my message to New Line by NOT forking over money to see the revised version of Snakes On A Plane. How about you? Oh, and pass it on, will you?
