Wow! I just had some deep thoughts on this subject this past weekend. Just to touch on them: We let the ratings be our guideline on how we judge real world things or how we feel we are being judged...

Just a little while ago, I went to see "I Capture the Castle". It was a small independent film about a girl growing up in England and falling in and out of love. While watching this film, I was curious to see why it was rated "R". There was no violence, language or sexuality at all and certaintly no drug use. When I finished with the movie, I checked the rating in the newspaper and was shocked to see that it was rated "R" for "brief nudity". Brief indeed! For seven seconds of the film, it shows a woman's breasts while she is out in the rain. If I recall, "Titanic" was rated PG-13 even though it showed a nude scene of a woman for nearly ten minutes. Nudity should not be an issue in rating a movie if it is not applied sexually in the film. The MPAA's rating system has been failing the American Public for years. Why, just this year "Seabiscuit" was rated PG-13 for "some sexual situations and sports-related violence". Oh no! Better not take my ten year old kid to this movie if there's "sports-related violence"! Please! Meanwhile, "Freddy vs. Jason" missed the NC-17 and was rated R for "strong horror violence/gore, gruesome images, sexuality, language and drug use". Should anyone under 17 really see a grim and sick movie like that? The MPAA has truly fallen with its rating system and needs to start anew. A film should not be rated R for the F-word being used 2 times or more ("Billy Elliot") and a movie should not be rated PG-13 when it has oodles of blood and/or violence ("Dances with Wolves" for example). Forgive me. I needed to get this off my chest.