go fuck yourselves, mpaa

I'm not sure exactly what the situation is in other countries regarding the motion picture industry, but here in the United States, there's a group of people called the Motion Picture Association of America which imposes self-declared control over our country's motion picture industry (with the help of major Hollywood studios). It's a monolithic organization that has two major duties, in order of least evil to most evil.

Their least evil task is to crack down on movie piracy by litigating against people who bring cameras to movie theaters and point them at the canvas to make bootleg copies of the movies (because apparently the studios aren't making enough money from either box-office sales or theater concession kickbacks). But their most evil task is controlling whether you can see a movie, and indeed, whether a movie can even be shown, by their rating system.

Oh sure, the theory seems innocent enough. Parents who want to find out if a movie is appropriate for their children and who are too busy to do actual research on the film simply need consult the film's rating, and they know in a very off-hand way if the movie's appropriate or not.

Unfortunately their ratings system more powerful in practice. The least-given rating to a movie is NC-17, and for good reason: not only do you cut out kids from ever seeing the movie while it's in the theater, but many theaters won't show the movie at all. Even more unfortunately, the line between R and NC-17 is vaguely defined, and you can count on the MPAA to NOT explain where that line falls. Many people (myself included) simply ignore the ratings system and judge the movie on its merits (good or bad). Also, they don't tell the movie producers any specific reasons why they gave a movie the rating they did. So a conversation between them could go like this:

PRODUCER: Hi, I'm producing this movie.
MPAA: Yes, we know. We gave your movie an NC-17 rating.
PRODUCER: But why?
MPAA: Because fuck you. That's why.

Look, here's all you really need to know about their stupid movie ratings.

Rating	What the MPAA claims it means	What it REALLY means
G	It's perfectly safe for kids.	This movie was either made by Disney, or it was so old we couldn't be bothered to research it fully.
PG	It seems safe for kids, but they might be confused by it.	It's okay for kids, we just needed another rating between G and PG-13 to add to your confusion.
PG-13	It's safe for the older kids, but you might want to keep the youngins at bay.	This movie is not only too violent and/or nude for the little children, but it's also not violent or nude enough for adults.
R	This isn't really appropriate for kids, but it's probably okay for the older teens in your household.	It's got plenty of blood, gore, and violence, but nary a single boob, because violence is better?!
NC-17	This is only appropriate for adults.	We gave this movie too high a rating for you to see it, and there's nothing you can do about it, so there. Nyah.
NR	We haven't gotten around to giving this a rating yet.	We're still looking for reasons to give this movie a higher rating than necessary. Either that or it's some independent film that didn't get submitted, but we know theaters won't take a chance on it. Mwahahahahahaha.

The most important thing you need to know about it is this: you should find time to do research on a movie, and not trust a monolithic group of people like the MPAA to do your parenting for you.

on irc channels and misanthropy

I haven't posted anything in a while, because not much of anything has happened...but here we go. Whatever you do, don't go onto IRC unless you know the people there. They are just as likely to step into your neck as say hello to you. It's a place where people go to become misanthropic douchebags. I just had a particularly idiotic experience in #c-64 on IRCnet. Seriously, have the concepts of "treating someone fairly" and "not being an asshole" been lost to the internet and IRC in particular? I mean, I get pissed off at the world too, sometimes. I need a place to vent, and I can understand others and the desire to express their inner asshole. But if I went around punching the shit out of everybody who I thought was incredibly stupid or a complete douchebag, I'd have pretty worn-out fists by this point. My point is, there's a concept called "restraint" that keeps people from becoming enemies with everybody else. Try using it sometime, douchebags.

whatever you do

Never go into a chatroom and tell people "this is the part where you tell me to get a life". You will *never* hear the end of it. Hoo boy.

one fortnight later

I like pie.