This week we talk about the studios finance and distributions and how they were independent’ films. This caused independent producers to find themselves as dependent employees. This week we focused on independent films. The independent cinema has become victims of their own success. This has made independent films look more and more like “microcosm of the studio business” (Schamus, 1998). The industry observers have seen the emergence of the “indie blockbuster” strategy with films like Miramax’s. The conglomerates’ systematic is an addition to the indie film movement. The split between the blockbuster drove major studios and their “Indiewood” counterparts a key to characteristic for the conglomerate era. Cabletelevision has become involved in the indie movement. Mostly in the lower-budget genre and specialty realm. In the early 2000s, studios produced blockbusters that assured them of having profit. Also blockbusters were invested in the indie movement itself. The Payne term ” the cleft between studio movies and independent movies” this could be seen as a symbolic tension that has become essential to the “studio system”. As motion pictures have developed and movie industries have moved away from the classic age of Hollywood with the Paramount decision. At this point all Independent filmmakers were given a chance to show their skills off. In the article Schatz talks about the new development, “The Studio System and Conglomerate Hollywood,”.

The other screening I watched this week was This Film is Not Yet Rated. This documentary was an American film about the Motion Picture Association of Americas rating system and the effect on American Culture. the MPAA critics are completely confidential and are believed to be made up average American parents that are “not gods but not fools”. The MPAA has received harsh criticism for giving certain films a “NC-17” rating while letting other similar films be shown without question. This means a movie or film rating indicating that the movie contains adult content and should not be seen by people under the age of 17. We don’t witness the entire investigation, however we view it long enough to understand the confusion of some film producers and the shadiness of the MPAA. Several of the MPAA’s tactics are intended to silence employees and any specific feedback on a “NC-17” decision or rating. The MPAA may need to become more open with its investigation and more clear with their direction and involvement of their system. The MPAA rated movies very seriously when reviewing them and many people do not get their movies rated differently when trying to change them. Overall I found this documentary very interesting and showed what the film industry goes through when submitting their movies to the NPAA and how they can actually not get approved at all.

The documentary A Decade Under the Influence was to show that more films were starting to show more sexual scenes that were becoming okay in all types of movies. At this point movies were no longer made with perfect people who live the best lives. In the video they talk about the “new hollywood”, the films became very popular to people, if they related to how people’s lives were going. at the time. At one point in the documentary there was a change in how the style of the movie went. In the documentary this all came from the revolutions going into the 60s. The documentary Why Be Good? Scandals were based like Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. This caused Hollywood to have to shape up and keep negative news out of the media. In the documentary Jeanine basinger says there were scenes that brought up issues of “ what’s appropriate for people to see, censorship immediately emerged as a key issue linked directly to the medium of film”. There were many conflicts happening during production, about if a film was going too far or not. The 1970s was the era that made new generation of filmmakers create a new kind of audience.

Question: Is the movie rating system working or should they change it?