Double Flee A

I've been wondering about what the rules are, governing the text in movie ratings boxes. It seems to me the studio's marketing department is in charge of it, and not the ratings people.

This is from "mean girls", the movie about a girl moving into a new high school.

Teen partying? Shouldn't that be "underage drinking" or "juvenile delinquency"? Don't make it sound so damn glamorous, if it's worth warning people about.

Here's one from what looks like an upcoming art film, which means the focus of the movie is likely to be something about gay people that's silly in a languid, overdone kind of way, but since it's aimed at the vanilla strip mall audience, doesn't have to do anything but semi-shock people and make them wonder if they're getting it or not. The movie's called "thumbsucker":

"A disturbing image"? Fully a third of the people who see this movie are going to be there to see what that could possibly be. Any guesses?

posted by dale @ 8:18 AM