Moviegoers may do a double take Sunday. A newspaper advertisement for a new film includes the distributor`s very own rating, intensifying an old but high-stakes dispute over Hollywood`s arguably outmoded rating system.
The august New York Times has accepted the ad for Wayne Wang`s ”Life Is Cheap . . . But Toilet Paper Is Expensive,” surprising even the distributor and making a bit of history when it comes to non-pornographic adult films.
The Motion Picture Association of America gave an X rating to the film by Wang, whose past efforts include ”Slam Dance” and who has been lauded by the Chicago Tribune as ”an eloquent interpreter of Chinese-American life.”
This film concerns a San Francisco stablehand-turned-courier who goes to Hong Kong to deliver a briefcase. Alas, the association didn`t like a still shot of a nude pregnant woman and a nightmare scene of an arm being severed.
Silverlight Entertainment, the distributor, appealed to the association but lost. Then, it sent a letter to association boss Jack Valenti, calling for ratings of A or M for movies with strong adult themes or images, not porn but admittedly not for minors.
Those signing the letter included heavweight producers and directors Francis Ford Coppola, Bernardo Bertolucci, Ron Howard, Spike Lee, Barry Levinson, Paul Mazursky, John Sayles, John Schlesinger, Sydney Pollack, Rob Reiner and Edward Zwick. They noted, and Silverlight President Mark Lipsky underlined in an interview, that an X rating can be a commercial kiss of death. It leaves the impression that a film is porn and scares off mainline movie houses and newspapers.
Sunday`s ad, with Silverlight`s self-applied A, makes clear the existence of themes and images that may not be suitable for those 18 or under. It notes that the movie doesn`t carry the association rating and that ”many leading filmmakers believe the current rating system promotes censorship and does not serve the best interest of the viewing public.”
A Times spokesman said that acceptance of the self-rated movie ad was a first for the paper. Lipsky believes the ad, which cost about $2,000 to run in the paper`s Arts section, is a first for any big newspaper. The Times concluded that the film`s focus is not on sex and found persuasive
Silverlight`s approach to the ad, according to the spokesman.
The movie opens in New York on Friday, then San Francisco and Los Angeles. Lipsky hasn`t yet submitted the ad elsewhere.
A Tribune spokesman said its policy for X-rated films is to confine them to no more than seven column inches, allowing only title, stars, show time, place and price. ”Illustrations or descriptive exploitation copy” are forbidden, though exceptions are made for ”critically acclaimed,”
association-rated films that document ”transcending social value.”
When it comes to dealing with one Chicago business publication, mighty Sears, Roebuck and Co. is involved in more spin control than one of its Kenmore washer-dryers.
The giant, somewhat troubled retailer is in a cat fight with Crain`s Chicago Business. Less-than-chummy relations can be traced to editor-in-chief Rance Crain`s longstanding, unabashed criticism of company performance.
The weekly certainly can`t be accused of shilling and, of late, matters have gotten heatedly specific.
Crain`s was tipped to discussions between Sears, run by Edward Brennan, and Montgomery Ward & Co., run by brother Bernard, by sources asserting that Sears was mulling the sale of its retail operations. Sears and Wards issued a statement, acknowledging discussion of ”certain joint business opportunities” in a pre-emptive strike not unknown to corporate America or public officials.
That took wind out of Crain`s sails and inspired a sour-grapes column by Rance Crain, detailing how ”the biggest scoop Crain`s Chicago Business ever got” was scooped. (A newspaper could fill a page each day with accounts of stories, big, small and indifferent, undermined either by events or a savvy subject of inquiry.)
However, Crain`s did publish a headline-grabbing tale, quoting unidentified Sears board members, stating that Brennan effectively had been given six months to revive the company`s retail operations ”or face a move to oust him.”
That prompted Sears to offer for media consumption board members Donald Rumsfeld and Albert Casey, who appear partial to Edward Brennan, and denied any six-month deadline or plan to exit retailing. Given Sears` traditional reticence, unveiling the duo was akin to a pre-Mikhail Gorbachev Politburo making members available to deny rumors of a shakeup.
Crain`s editor Mark Miller stands by all the paper`s accounts, saying Sears is ”incapable of making a tough call” and has been mum on speculation that Philip Purcell, boss of the company`s Dean Witter Financial Services Group, is on deck to replace Brennan.
Actors` Equity Association was faced with a mess last week over a decision to bar a white actor from playing a Eurasian in a New York musical. It reminded an insider of the line about a chorus girl in a lousy show: She wonders about whom she has to have sex with to get out.
Well, Actors` Equity got out of its mess by reversing a ban on actor Jonathan Pryce playing in ”Miss Saigon.” The show`s producer is mulling whether to bring the show to Broadway and, perhaps in two years, Chicago.
The flap has brought attention to a little-known union, whose Chicago unit has been active in seeking opportunities for minorities.
Actors` Equity is a strong union in a weak, generally non-profit and heavily subsidized industry hurt by the decline of Broadway and summer stock. It has 40,000 members, generally low paid, including 2,700 in a Chicago-based 13-state Midwest region whose vice president, Chicago actress Madeleine Fallon, is, with Chicago`s Robert Heitzinger, a member of the council that reversed the ”Saigon” decision Thursday.
Actors` Equity, the granddaddy of performing unions, began in 1913. It was rebuffed by employers until a nationwide strike in 1919 finally brought legal recognition as the stage actors` bargaining agent. It had a tough time trying to unionize Hollywood`s silent-pictures actors, ultimately helping to found the Screen Actors Guild upon the coming of talkies.
Even before the critical U.S. Supreme Court school desegregation ruling of 1954, the union was helping to break color lines, refusing to appear in segregated theaters. That high-minded tack may have prompted the demise of much professional theater in the South and cost the union jobs.
In Chicago, there is a variety of contracts, depending on a theater`s size and types of shows. Most theaters, including Wisdom Bridge, Apollo, Briar Street and Body Politic, are under the Chicago Area Theater contract. By contrast, the Goodman and Northlight are under a separate League of Resident Theaters pact.
Fallon says most of the union`s time is taken up with employer concession requests. For example, a theater might be contractually obligated to employ at least five union actors, plus a stage manager. Because of budget problems, it might request a waiver to hire a non-professonal, at a reduced rate, for some small role.
The issue of ”colorblind” casting is not new to Chicago members. There was a huge dispute a few years back when the Marriott Lincolnshire production of ”The Wiz” used whites in roles designed for blacks. Meanwhile, Fallon notes, the union and producers three years ago bargained a ”historic breakthrough for minority actors.”
The main contract calls for both sides to ”encourage multi-racial, multi-ethnic production” and use of ”non-traditional casting.” Such casting, the contract states, is aimed at hiking jobs for minorities and females in roles where race, ethnicity or sex aren`t ”absolutely essential” to a play. There are procedures for mutual oversight, including the union giving data on minority membership.
What it amounts to, Fallon says, is that producers ”are willing to hire and we have to get our members` butts to auditions.”
The Persian Gulf crisis continues to bring out less-than-inspired critiques by media observers.
Typical was the Washington Post heralding (rightly so) ABC`s Ted Koppel for having ”left the competition in the desert sand” by getting into Baghdad as CBS` Dan Rather was ”still packing his bags in Amman, Jordan.” You waited 22 paragraphs to learn that newspapers, including the Post, were left in the dust, too, unable to get into Iraq, which gung-ho Dan eventually did.
The horse-race mode of scrutiny included uncharitable comments about CBS and Rather from Steve Friedman, new boss of ”NBC Nightly News,” fluffier these days and tagged ”Entertainment Tonightly” by one staff member.
Friedman said, ”We`ll see what they get. Being there is one thing. Getting something is another. . . . I can`t afford to have Tom Brokaw sitting there on a hope.”
Well, NBC didn`t get much of anything, anywhere. Up to now, the crisis marks another uninspired effort in the tenure of Michael Gartner, the Iowa newspaperman who runs the news division.
The Operation PUSH-Nike feud included a sterling bit of innuendo from Vernon Jarrett during a WLS-Ch. 7 commentary last week. He suggested the utility of probing the past of Rev. Jesse Butler, a harsh critic of PUSH`s attack on Nike. The results, Jarrett said, ”might be very interesting,” and he left it at that.
