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Asher
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Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Sikander
Um, no it didn't. |
quote:
Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Come on Kitty, you should know better than to trust Asher's veracity when it comes to facts, especially after I'd already corrected him...  |
http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/sto...1320095,00.html
quote:
Puppet oral sex goes against grain for US censors
Staff and agencies
Tuesday October 5, 2004
The latest feature film from the creators of South Park is facing the box office kiss of death NC-17 rating because of a scene showing simulated oral sex between marionettes.
The makers of Team America: World Police have reportedly gone to great lengths, modifying the offending scene nine times for submission to the Motion Picture Association of America, the US film classification authority. They are keen to secure an R rating, which would allow under-18s to see the film when accompanied by an adult.
The makers, directors Matt Stone and Trey Parker and producer Scott Rudin, are contesting the MPAA classification, saying that the film doesn't show anything that's not been seen before in other R-rated movies. And besides, Rudin told the Hollywood Reporter, "our characters are made of wood and have no genitalia. If the puppets did to each other what we show them doing, all they'd get is splinters."
A resolution to this dispute is particularly urgent because the film-makers are contractually obliged to deliver an R-rated film for release by October 15, but the film is scheduled for sneak previews this coming weekend.
Stone and Parker are no strangers to ratings wrangles - their 1999 film South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut was also the subject of a very long and public battle with the MPAA, but ultimately got an R rating.
Parker pointed to the differences between the MPAAs treatment of simulated violence and simulated sex. Team America features violent scenes in which a Tim Robbins puppet is set on fire and a Susan Sarandon puppet is dropped off a 20-story building - all acts that passed MPAA muster.
"We blow Janeane Garofalo's head clean off, [but for the MPAA] it's all about the positions of the dolls having sex," Parker said. "It's not funny - it's tragic." |
http://www.madblast.com/view.cfm?ty...re&display=3165
quote:
Team America: World Police is already getting the buzz for skewering politics and celebrities in the action movie spoof starring marionettes. But the biggest story is the graphic sex scene between two puppets that was the sticking point of the MPAA. A very graphic version of the scene still exists, but there was more that director Trey Parker and producer Matt Stone cut out.
“The sex scene was basically more than twice as long,” Parker said. “It was great.”
Stone added, “They loved each other very much.”
Puppet makers the Chiodo brothers had never explored puppet sex before, and were game to tarnish their reputations in the puppet community by catering to the South Park guys’ wishes.
“It was interesting because Matt and Trey had done an animatic with the GI Joe and Barbie dolls and then we tried to duplicate that,” Stephen Chiodo said. “So we had rehearsals bringing in our puppeteers to do positions. We had to rig them in certain positions to make sure we could get those poses. And we learned a lot of interesting things, like a pile drive and a salad.”
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Charlie Chiodo added, “Things that I had never seen before. And it’s funny. Some of those puppeteers that had been doing this for 20-30 years, they stepped out of that. They didn’t want to do that.”
Making marionettes do any kind of action was difficult and time consuming throughout the film, but for the all important lovemaking session, Parker had to get hands on. “Trey is a great director but he could not direct some of the nuances he wanted,” Edward Chiodo said. “So while we were doing these scenes, he grabbed the puppet and said, ‘No, I want it like this.’ And he was doing it.”
“He was up there joyfully performing it,” Charlie added.
One thing Parker was careful about was not to make the puppets too lifelike. Parker recalled, “The puppet guys were even like, ‘Look, we put little pubic hair on them.’ We’re like, ‘No, no, don’t want to do that. We just want them to be little dolls.’”
The brothers found that that added a bit of innocence to the R-rated tryst. “The puppets have no genitalia expect the breasts,” said Edward.
“There is no male genitalia,” Stephen added. “It’s like they’re Barbie and Ken dolls, so again, it’s nothing more than all kids have seen before and it's not a kids movie anyway.”
Adding such details like genetalia would have ruined the humor. “The more realistic it became, the less funny it was,” Stephen said. “The more axes of movement, the more lifelike movement we gave the puppets during the sex scene, it just wasn’t funny. But when you had them stiff like dolls, kind of rutting, it just was funny.”
According to the brothers, a realistic sex scene could have been constructed with puppets had the filmmakers wanted that tone. “We had fully articulated faces that could give the whole range of emotions,” Charlie said. “And we said, ‘Do you want the eyes closed, do you want them moaning?’ [They said,] ‘No, keep the eyes open.’”
The full scene should be included on the DVD release, but it will be released theatrically in foreign markets “just because that would be great,” Parker said. “That would just point something out, that America is the only country that can’t see the whole puppet sex scene and every other country, in Australia and the UK.”
Having fought the MPAA before, Parker expected this to be the central controversy. “I knew the whole time,” he said. “[Some people thought], ‘Well, maybe they won’t have a problem with it?’ I was like, ‘No, I’ve been through this before. They are going to totally have a problem with it.’”
Even collaborator Stone thought they might get away with the scene. “I didn’t think they would [care],” Stone said. “I was wrong.”
However, the most disgusting scenes, including scat and golden shower practices, were only shot with the intention of being cut as a concession to the MPAA. Parker does not even wish to include them in foreign or DVD releases.
“There were some fluid scenes, yes, but those we put in specifically to be cut out,” Parker said. “We shot shots knowing that they would want something to bargain with. We shot shots knowing that we wouldn’t even want them in the movie, just for them to take out.”
Ultimately, the Chiodo brothers are proud to have the scene in a film. “Pushing the envelope is making puppets do things you normally haven’t seen before,” Stephen said. “I think having a love scene with puppets is really pretty brilliant. And again, it’s more of a parody on the film Armageddon where you’ve got in the midst of all this drama and tragedy, you’ve got these two people falling in love and having sex. So it’s really a love making scene as the guys as the guys have talked about it. And they just push it further and further until you see puppets do things you've never seen puppets do before.” |
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,15106,00.html
quote:
R Sex for "Team America" Puppets
by Bridget Byrne
Oct 8, 2004, 2:40 PM PT
The Team America: World Police wooden puppets' sex scenes have been chipped down to an R rating.
After what has been, reportedly, lengthy dickering and bickering Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the South Park creators responsible for this cheekily politically incorrect marionette action spoof, and the Motion Picture Association of America watchdogs, who sets ratings guidelines, reached an edit compromise.
The R rating makes the non PC movie more legitimately accessible to the youth audience than the ultra restrictive, box-office poison, NC-17 rating that bars anyone under 17, originally slapped on the Paramount satire, which is being promoted with the advertising tagline "Putting the 'F' back in Freedom."
However the final edit doesn't make the filmmakers entirely happy. Stone is quoted as saying, "The puppets did make love for about three and half minutes, now it's just a cheap one-night stand."
The puppets were not anatomically correct and the filmmakers say they were not used any differently the kids might when playing with dolls.
"It's something we all did as kids with Barbie and Ken dolls. ... The whole joke of it is that it's just two dolls flopping around on each other. You see the hinges on their legs," Parker told the Los Angeles Times.
Producer Scott Rudin says that at least nine edits of the puppet love scene were shown to the MPAA before the board accepted that it had been toned down enough to qualify for an R, which requires anyone under 17 to be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian. The Restricted tag warning says the rating is for "graphic, crude and sexual humor, violent images and strong language, all involving puppets."
"There's nothing we're asking for that hasn't appeared in other R-rated movies, and our characters are made of wood," Rudin told the Times during the struggle to find a compromise.
The final decision was reached Tuesday just in time for the outrageous comedy's sneak preview in 800 theaters this weekend, prior to its October 15 opening nationwide.
The movie, lampooning the action genre, features international cops trying to stop a rogue dictator, in the guise of North Korea's Kim Jong-Il, from selling weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. The MPAA viewing police apparently also weren't happy with a scene that shows WMD inspector Hans Blix eaten by the dictator's sharks. The film also includes a sequence in which Hollywood liberal Susan Sarandon is dropped from a skyscraper and her equally political partner Tim Robbins is set on fire.
But Parker says nevertheless it was the puppet sex that the MPAA saw as a much bigger no-no than any of the violence.
Paramount had hoped for an R rating and a spokesperson said the studio was "happy" it had been achieved. The MPAA didn't return a phone call seeking comment. |
See, the US version was castrated due to ratings.
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dejon
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Is it just me, or are both Troy and Alexander lame efforts to tap into Gladiator's success?
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Kaak
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quote:
Originally posted by Ljube-ljcvetko
It was not considered child molestation in ancient Greece. It was perfectly normal. The boys and men were even encouraged to have sex.
I don't know about female prostitutes attending Symposia. I guess it was also possible. The main issue was that a sex object had to attend the evening if it were to be any fun. |
Just a couple of points of fact...There were female prostitutes at the Symposia, and GREEKS DID NOT ENGAGE IN HOMOSEXUAL ANAL SEX... Every scholar I've ever heard talk about it said that the "sex" was just between the thighs, NOT penetrating any orrifices.
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Jon Miller
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I beleive that both were practised
Jon Miller
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Shi Huangdi
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Pittsburgh, PA
Apr 1999
time: 00:18
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The reaction in Hellas:
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news...0&w=RTR&coview=
[quote]
RPT-Outraged Greeks say Alexander was not bisexual
ATHENS, Nov 19 (Reuters) - A group of Greek lawyers are threatening to sue Warner Bros film studios and Oliver Stone, director of the widely anticipated film "Alexander," for suggesting Alexander the Great was bisexual.
The lawyers have already sent an extrajudicial note to the studio and director demanding they include a reference in the title credits saying his movie is a fictional tale and not based on official documents of the life of the Macedonian ruler.
"We are not saying that we are against gays but we are saying that the production company should make it clear to the audience that this film is pure fiction and not a true depiction of the life of Alexander," Yannis Varnakos, who spearheads the campaign by 25 lawyers, told Reuters on Friday.
Stone was quoted on the MSNBC.com Web Site as telling the upcoming edition of Playboy magazine that the film's depiction of Alexander could offend some.
"We go into his bisexuality. It may offend some people, but sexuality in those days was a different thing," he was quoted as saying.
While the film starring Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie will be released on Nov. 24, Varnakos said he has already gathered enough information regarding the content of the movie to suggest there are "inappropriate references."
"We have not seen the film but from the information we have already there are references to his alleged homosexuality, a fact that is in no historical document or archive on Alexander," he said. "Either they make it clear that this is a work of fiction or we will take the case further."
This is not the first time Greeks have been angered by suggestions Alexander was homosexual and had affairs with young men.
Two years ago hundreds of northern Greeks from the province of Macedonia, where he was born, stormed an archaeological symposium after one speaker presented a paper on the homosexuality of Alexander. Police were called in to evacuate the participants.
One of the greatest military leaders of all time, Alexander, who was never defeated in battle, conquered about 90 percent of the then-known world before his mysterious death at the age of 32, building an empire that stretched from the Mediterranean to Afghanistan.
Varnakaos said as Stone has the right to freely express himself, the audience should have the right to know.
"We cannot come out and say that (former U.S.) President John F. Kennedy was a shooting guard for the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team and so Warner cannot come out and say Alexander was gay," Varnakos said. [/quote
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19-11-2004 16:32
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