Hungrily anticipating their inevitable Best fucking Picture win for The King’s Speech, the Weinstein’s have approved a re-cut fucking version of The King’s Speech, gotten a PG-fucking-13 rating, and ordered a fucking re-releases that may or may not replace all prints in fucking circulation.
Freak the fuck out about it.
I know this bothered Nick for legit reasons, but I really can’t bring myself to fucking care in a day and age with unrated DVDs, day-and-fucking-date on-demand streams, digital prints, and all of the other fucking things that make a film’s life, even in theatrical release, kind of an amorphous and ephemeral thing. My anger remains squarely focused on the MPAA themselves, for all of the fucking bollocks they continue to pull (including giving the film an R-rating in the first place). Their hypocrisy is even more clear because they’re giving the film a pass on the usual regulation that 90 days have to pass between re-releases with different ratings. Granted, that’s a dumb rule and I don’t blame Weinstein for finagling a pass, but it’s pretty indicative of the state of things that this is the second time in the last few months that he’s gotten special treatment that involved the MPAA undoing a stupid decision for him.
It sounds as if the idea of bleeping the movie was discarded in favor of a straight-up re-cut, but who the fuck knows? The THR announcement is not overly specific. [UPDATE]: Badass Phil Nobile noted on Facebook that they will actually only be muting a few of the words to make the MPAA happy. So the scene ain’t cut, there won’t be bleeps, and more people get to see it. Time to get upset about something real.
What is certain is that this is not a fucking travesty against art, censorship, or even really a big deal. Yeah, that scene is good, but it could have been edited and written any number of ways in the first place without any of us have fucking knowing. The DVD will restore the original, and we’ll move on with our lives. As it is, more little kids and families (and minors with taste) will be able to see the film without a hassle, which many will want to do, post-awards.
Still, fuck the MPAA.
Also, both the original cut of The King’s Speech and this article contain 15 usages of the word “fuck.” I will not be re-releasing the article.
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