MPAA News

The organisation that was previously well known as the MPAA has changed its name a little. The Motion Picture Association of America has become The Motion Picture Association.

The trade group, representing Hollywood's major studios + Netflix, then adds a regional identify to this generic name. So in the US the organisation will be known as MPA America whilst in the far east it will be known as MPA Asia Pacific.

The MPA name has been used outside of the US for sometime, so that will be familiar already.

The updated version of the iconic globe and reel logo that is so familiar to American moviegoers will now be used by all regional offices. Previously used versions of the logo will be phased out in the coming weeks and months.

The MPA writes:

Unifying the Motion Picture Association brand is the latest initiative under Chairman Rivkin's leadership, which has also included the addition of Netflix as a member studio earlier this year and the elevation of Gail MacKinnon to Senior Executive Vice President of Global Policy and Government Affairs, overseeing all government affairs functions around the world. This month, the Motion Picture Association returned to its newly renovated headquarters in Washington and will begin hosting screenings and other events this fall.

No Safe Spaces is a 2019 USA documentary by Justin Folk.
Starring Adam Carolla, Dennis Prager and Jordan Peterson.

A documentary that showcases colleges shutting down freedom of speech.

No Safe Spaces, a documentary by Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager, looks at the erosion of First Amendment rights in America.

The movie stars comedian-podcaster Adam Carolla and radio talk-show host Dennis Prager, the latter of whom sent a letter to the MPAA to protest the film's PG-13 rating, which is largely based on a 30-second animated clip of Firsty, a walking, talking embodiment of free speech who gets shot up with bullet holes.

Any kid who sees it will probably laugh, Prager wrote in a letter to the MPAA. HE also noted that Firsty isn't killed, and he says that he seeks with all of my work to make content that is suitable for all ages.

Much of the movie takes place at colleges where protesters railing against invited conservative speakers like Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter use profanity in their language and on their homemade protest signs, though the cursing has been blurred and bleeped in an effort to obtain a PG rating, says Prager.

But when it comes to Firsty, we would ask that you reconsider and allow the scene to remain and still achieve a PG rating so that we can reach the widest possible audience.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw is a 2019 USA action adventure by David Leitch.
Starring Dwayne Johnson, Idris Elba and Eiza González.

Lawman Luke Hobbs and outcast Deckard Shaw form an unlikely alliance when a cyber-genetically enhanced villain threatens the future of humanity.

In this Fast and Furious spinoff, Dwayne The Rock Johnson and Jason Statham's characters find themselves having to stop Idris Elba s Brixton Lore from unleashing a deadly virus on humanity.

One of the big fights will unfold when Luke Hobbs, Deckard Shaw and Vanessa Kirby's Hattie Shaw team up with Hobbs family to clash with Brixton Lore and his goons in Samoa. Johnson shared how it was initially planned for him to bite and spit out his opponent's eye. He claimed:

Unfortunately the scene where I bite the bad guy's eye out and spit it on the dirt didn't make it. MPAA ratings board forbid us to show it because it was too violent.

PG-13 movies are granted a fair amount of leeway when it comes to action and violence, but naturally there are some things that are off limits within that rating. Luke Hobbs removing a man's eye from his socket would have been shocking, brutal and badass, but the MPAA wasn't having it, so we'll have to make due with Johnson's character simply tossing his adversary to the ground and bludgeoning him senseless.

Kelly McMahon is the new head of the MPAA's film ratings board, the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA).

The 46-year-old longtime corporate lawyer leads the small group of parents who anonymously assign ratings, ranging from G to NC-17, to hundreds of movies a year. She replaces Joan Graves, 77, who recently retired after 18 years as head of the ratings body.

McMahon, in her first interview since taking the helm, defended the ratings system, which she says has remained a reliable and essential tool for families navigating the multiplex. However, she says one of her first major goals is to reach out to parents, filmmakers and political groups -- including LGBTQ and religious organizations -- to hear their concerns.

She also wants to add more people to the rating board to ensure its decisions are representative of American consumers. The board currently employs only eight raters; McMahon wants to grow the board to 12. She also wants to address the once-common G (general audiences) rating, which has virtually disappeared from the industry.

Rocketman is a 2019 UK / USA musical music biography by Dexter Fletcher.
Starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Taron Egerton and Richard Madden.

A musical fantasy about the fantastical human story of Elton John's breakthrough years.

The film-makers behind the Elton John musical fantasy Rocketman have clashed with a Hollywood studio over a naked sex romp featuring Taron Egerton and Richard Madden.

Paramount Pictures have demanded that Rocketman director Dexter Fletcher and producer Matthew Vaughn cut a 40-second scene that shows Egerton, who plays the singer and Madden, cast as his one-time lover and manager John Reid, writhing on a bed. Fully exposed white derrieres are on display, but the nude escapade is tastefully done.

Nonetheless, Paramount are forcing the director to cut the scene so it will have an American PG 13 rating, maybe with an eye on repeating the success of the similarly sanitised gay sex in the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody .