Carrey film "too risqué" for US release

[John Johnson]

Jim Carrey black comedy I Love You Phillip Morris may not get a US cinema release because it contains an explicit gay sex scene.

Despite securing distribution deals in the UK and Europe, US firms are uneasy with a love scene between Carrey and Ewan McGregor's character Phillip Morris, reports The Times.

"The depiction of the sexual activity was far more than I've ever seen in a mainstream film with a mainstream celebrity," said Lewis Tice, director of publicity and marketing for TLA Releasing. "There's a graphic sex scene in the first 10 minutes that I was surprised to see."

Filmmakers are re-cutting the movie for US distribution companies in an attempt to secure a theatrical release. If no agreement is reached, the movie will go straight to DVD.

"Mostly straight, multiplex-going audiences don't want to see a romantic comedy in which two dudes get it on; unless it is meant as a joke," commented Scott Stiffler, author of Why Hollywood Avoids Gay Movies.

I Love You Phillip Morris focuses on real-life con artist Steven Marshall (Carrey), who falls in love with his cellmate (McGregor).

http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a15052 ... lease.html

[JSWalsh]

I think we're reaching the saturation point where this kind of thing isn't really controversial, but people just don't want to see it.

Considering how many gay movies there are being made, a gay movie isn't controversial anymore. But the fact is, they are made for a niche audience. The average American moviegoer isn't going out to see a gay movie as if it were no big deal. I mean, there are very few mainstream hits that have explicit straight sex scenes these days, a sex scene that appeals to less than 10% of the audience is going to be a turnoff right out of the gate. That's not about closed mindedness or whatever, it's just natural.

Without the "controversy" here, I suspect this movie would come and go without a ripple.

[Monterey Jack]

If it were a graphic lesbian sex scene, no one would be batting an eye about the film's commercial possibilities.

[JSWalsh]

Of course not. There's no more surprise in that than there is that people are outraged over male teachers having sex with teenaged girls but are generally not so concerned with female teachers having sex with teen boys.

Straight guys don't like going to movies where guys are having sex. They like seeing movies with women doing it. Whether or not in numbers that make or break a movie is debatable, though--I can't recall too many movies with ANY kind of explicit sex being big moneymakers in the last decade.

[AndyDursin]

I agree with John that there's not much outrage to be found with this story. Either that or this is just a futile attempt at drumming up publicity for a movie that's quite possibly terrible and/or has little chance of making money to begin with.

John's point is right on the money. Do gay people like watching movies with "straight sex"? I'm guessing not. So why would most straight males want to watch a movie with gay male sex? I have to say that's not really an interest of mine, so does it make me a homophobe? Likewise, does it make someone who's gay a "hetero-phobe" if they don't want to see straight people engaging in a graphic sex scene?

To follow through on MJ's point, it doesn't require brain surgery to figure it out -- to cite one example, most straight guys loved watching Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve take it off in THE HUNGER, and that had little to do with making a statement about sexual preference as it was two beautiful women removing their clothes at one time on screen for all to enjoy. I can't speak for all of the straight male population of the world but somehow I don't think Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor carry the same sort of appeal. lol. So it's a natural reaction, it's not some kind of "homophobic" statement or what not. If it gets gay males excited that Ewan and Jim are getting it on in this movie, more power to them -- doesn't mean I want to see it.

My guess is there's some other reason why nobody wants to release this film -- like, umm, maybe because it's terrible? Jim Carrey in a graphic sex scene of ANY kind -- gay, straight or whatever -- isn't something I'd ever want to see! lol.

[Eric Paddon]

Straight guys don't like going to movies where guys are having sex. They like seeing movies with women doing it.

Speak for yourself JS!

But in a more serious vein, this increased graphicness on all levels is just another reminder to me of why I'm glad that in this age where almost nothing of present day popular culture appeals to me, thank God for the DVD player and the ability to just retreat to the simpler days of the past.

[JSWalsh]

This has me thinking about David Mamet's observation that he doesn't like any sex scenes on-screen not because he's some kind of prude--listen to his movies--but because sex on-screen always has the power to disconnect the audience the way no other actions do. When you see someone killing someone in a movie, you know it's phony, but when you see two people getting it on, your mind starts thinking "So did these two people actually get naked during the making of the movie? Did they enjoy kissing each other?" It probably isn't so straightforward as that, but you have an awareness of something else going on than the story.

This is why I've never been one of those who gets in a snit over the way people have no problem with violence but they do have a problem with sex. It's because everyone knows the violence is faked, they didn't actually kill that guy, it's playtime, but the sex? It takes one out of the movie--it does me, anyway.

Eric, I agree with your general point, but I'm not sure if it's the era or just my age. This week I've been watching Bergman films. For years I avoided them, very wary about the subject matter and the criticism about them. Now, at 43, I feel I'm at the right age for them, and I've found them so rewarding. I look at what's in the theaters and I wonder, would I be loving the movies if I were in my teens or twenties? I look at some of the movies and scores from the 70's and 80's praised on, say, AICN and FSM, and I actually laugh out loud at the utter crap that some people love and consider classic filmmaking.

The video revolution has saved us, but on the other hand, has it also doomed what we consider good filmmaking? Would there be a larger market for new, intelligent, creative work if those customers didn't have DVDs to run to?

[Eric Paddon]

JS, my own personal view is the demise of the Production Code is what ushered in a less creative era overall. I am not saying that every facet of the old Production Code was good, because of course there were some silly elements to it. But having to work within the Code and recognizing that restraint had to be shown in certain areas IMO stimulated so much more creativity and greatness in filmmaking than there's been in the decades since. When Hitchcock makes a film like "Psycho" it makes its mark in a way that a version in today's day and age of anything goes in the ame of so-called "realism" could ever achieve.

I wish we had a modified code still in place because the anything goes attitude we've had since then shows how restraint is a concept beyond the mental capacity of so many filmmakers and they're making the end results totally unwatchable from my standpoint.

[JSWalsh]

I'm not for any kind of production code. I'm for artists working in movies who show some evidence that they have read books and experienced life outside of film school.

When you have a certain degree of education and experience in living away from movie cameras, your movies are going to have more substance.

I wish we had some filmmakers who studied Code-era moviemaking and learned from it. To me, there are few movie love scenes sexier than the one in THE MORE THE MERRIER where Joel McCrae and Jean Arthur are sitting on the steps, fully clothed, or many scenes in NOTORIOUS where Grant and Bergman can't keep their paws off each other--but do.

Explicit sex and violence are often--not always--substitutions for imagination. Few movie deaths are as poignant as one in PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET, and we don't even see it happening. (That's a great movie for sexual tension and explicit but not overdone violence.)

Bringing it back to the subject at hand, I have to admit I get weary at the latest protest about how some poor movie that's only trying to show two people getting it on is being made a victim of those backward Americans. I mean, I read a description of this movie and was like, who cares? If you can't interest me with a good story, posing as a victim of evil puritans ain't gonna win me over, though it will get support from those whose agendas intersect with that of the producers of this apparent turkey.

[JSWalsh]

Eric wrote: "...restraint is a concept beyond the mental capacity of so many filmmakers and they're making the end results totally unwatchable from my standpoint."

I often wonder just how impressionistic movies are going to get. Will they devolve to the point where we don't even get the names of the characters, we just see them jump in their cars and go off to shoot and chase in ten-thousand-cuts-a-minutes collections of scenes? More than they are now?

[Monterey Jack]

I can't recall too many movies with ANY kind of explicit sex being big moneymakers in the last decade.

Basic Instinct is the last movie I can think of whose advertising campaign rode (ahem) on it's explicit sexual content to really big box office. Lust, Caution had some of the most startlingly intimate sexual acts I've seen in a movie in years, and yet it fizzled at the box office (although the NC-17 rating and WWII setting probably crippled it's commercial asperations anyways). Even PG-13 T&A fests don't really make that much money. Why pay ten bucks to see Jessica Alba parading around in a skimpy bikini in Into The Blue when you can just wait four months and, uh, "enjoy" the film in the privacy of your own home? Hell, you can just wait a few hours, and all of the "good parts" will be heavilly screencapped and compiled on YouTube. The internet really killed the whole "sex sells" thing from the 80's and before. Now anyone is a few mouse clicks away from all the free nudity they can shake a stick at, so why sit through a lame movie like Honey just so we can ogle Alba's midriff?

[JSWalsh]

Yeah, sex has really moved out of the theater and into the home theater.

I actually bought HONEY on sale at a "buy all our VHS tapes" thing, and I lasted about ten minutes. I'm a perv, but apparently even I have my limits.

[The Pessimist]

Ooh! Ooh! Can I join the political debate?

[Eric Paddon]

I know there's an adage about how yesterday's radicalism can sometimes become tomorrow's conservatism. In 1962 it was bold and daring for Ursula Andress to come out of the sea in Dr. No wearing a bikini that was skimpy for then. Today, all of that seems quaint in light of what we see done in films or TV for that matter now. But I honestly would hate to envision the prospects of what goes on in film today to seem quaint and conservative to tomorrow's generation.

[Jedbu]

There actually is a modified "code" still being used in the movie industry, it's called the ratings system, and the problems with it are: a) it is not uniformly used when it comes to determining why a film is given a certain rating; b) it is not uniformly enforced by the theater chains; and c) with unrated versions, director's cuts and extended versions available on home video, who needs to go to the theater to see them?

There is a great movie called THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED, which deliciously shows the hypocrisy of the MPAA when it comes to rating films for the public and the absurdity. Independent films consistently get the short end when it comes to ratings, there is no clear line between what constitutes a "PG" from a "PG-13" from an "R" when it comes to sexual content or violence or language (simulated insertion gets an NC-17 but someone getting their genitals lopped off or brains being splattered everywhere gets an R?). One director tells about being told that a certain number of thrusts would get the the film a more restrictive rating but if he reduced it to a lower number the rating would be better.

Considering that filmmakers are never given a concrete set of guidelines to follow (because that would be censorship-pshaw!), they are constantly in a Kafkaesque game with this group, which makes the cultural commissars of the Soviet bloc look like free market capitalists. Add to that, many theaters don't enforce ratings in a strict way, usually because they just don't have the staff to do it but mostly because until one person who probably never goes to the movies except once in a blue moon gets their boxers in a twist and complains that they saw the silhouette of a nipple, well then we are all going to hell and Hollywood is sending us there in the proverbial handbasket.

And it probably was a male nipple anyway. . .

At least the Production Code had something that filmmakers could refer to and find a creative way to use it. I truly believe that directors like Stroheim, Lubitsch and even Preminger would be taken aback by some of the films made today, and could give today's directors pointers in how to achieve something with a glance or a gesture that would eliminate a lot of the "realism" that pervades movies today.