This Film Is Not Yet Rated

The hit of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED [98 minutes] is an unprecedented undercover investigation into the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) film ratings system and its profound impact on American culture. Featuring insightful and often hilarious interviews with John Waters, Matt Stone, Mary Harron, Kimberly Peirce, Atom Egoyan, and Kevin Smith, the film reveals how the ratings system restricts the exhibition of independent and foreign films, gay themed films, and rates sexuality much more harshly than violence. Maintaining power through secrecy, the MPAA refuses to let the public know even the names of the people who rate the films. To overcome that secrecy, the filmmakers team up with a female private investigator and follow her as she goes deep inside the ratings system – what they discovered compelled the MPAA to finally make long overdue changes to its ratings system.

Titicut Follies, Frederick Wiseman

Titicut Follies [1967, 84 minutes, B&W] is a stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts. TITICUT FOLLIES documents the various ways the inmates are treated by the guards, social workers and psychiatrists.

Wal Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Robert Greenwald

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price [2005, 99 minutes] is a 2005 documentary film by director Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films. The film presents a negative picture of Wal-Mart’s business practices through interviews with former employees, small business owners, and footage of Wal-Mart executives. Greenwald also uses statistics interspersed between interview footage, to provide an objective analysis of the effects Wal-Mart has on individuals and communities.

Why We Fight, Eugene Jarecki

WHY WE FIGHT [2005, 98 minutes], the new film by Eugene Jarecki which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, is an unflinching look at the anatomy of the American war machine, weaving unforgettable personal stories with commentary by a ‘who’s who’ of military and beltway insiders. Featuring John McCain, William Kristol, Chalmers Johnson, Gore Vidal, Richard Perle and others, WHY WE FIGHT launches a bipartisan inquiry into the workings of the military industrial complex and the rise of the American Empire.

Inspired by Dwight Eisenhower’s legendary farewell speech (in which he coined the phrase ‘military industrial complex’), filmmaker Jarecki (THE TRIALS OF HENRY KISSINGER) surveys the scorched landscape of a half-century’s military adventures, asking how–and telling why–a nation of, by, and for the people has become the savings-and-loan of a system whose survival depends on a state of constant war.

The film moves beyond the headlines of various American military operations to the deeper questions of why–why does America fight? What are the forces–political, economic, ideological–that drive us to fight against an ever-changing enemy?

‘Frank Capra made a series of films during World War II called WHY WE FIGHT that explored America’s reasons for entering the war,’ Jarecki notes. ‘Today, with our troops engaged in Iraq and elsewhere for reasons far less clear, I think it’s crucial to ask the questions: ‘Why are we doing what we are doing? What is it doing to others? And what is it doing to us?’

Additional resource:

Democracy Now!, 10 February 2006: “Why We Fight: New Film Takes a Hard Look at the American War Machine From World War II to Iraq.”

Winter Soldier, Vietnam Veterans Against the War

Winter Soldier, 1972, 96 minutes: In February 1971, one month after the revelations of the My Lai massacre, an astonishing public inquiry into war crimes committed by American forces in Vietnam was held at a Howard Johnson motel in Detroit. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War organized this event called the Winter Soldier Investigation. More than 125 veterans spoke of atrocities they had witnessed and committed.

Though the event was attended by press and television news crews, almost nothing was reported to the American public. Yet, this unprecedented forum marked a turning point in the anti-war movement. It was a pivotal moment in the lives of young vets from around the country who participated, including the young John Kerry….Their courage in testifying, their desire to prevent further atrocities and to regain their own humanity, provide a dramatic intensity that makes seeing Winter Soldier an unforgettable experience.

(Additional resource: “Why did it take 30 years for this film to get a national release?” Jonathan Curiel, San Francisco Chronicle, 2 September 2005.)