This semester I was in Leonard Maltin‘s Film Symposium class over at USC. Basically we meet every Thursday night for 4 hours for a pre-release screening of a movie and a Q&A session after with either the producer, director, or some other person involved in the making of the film.
A couple of weeks ago we viewed Blue Valentine, a new film starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. I’m generally not good as summarizing movies, so I’m just going to use the synopsis from the official movie site:
BLUE VALENTINE is the story of love found and love lost told in moments past and present. This honest and moving portrait follows Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams who star as Dean and Cindy, a married couple who spend a night away from their daughter in an attempt to save their failing marriage. Juxtaposed with playful scenes that trace their romantic courtship six years prior, Gosling and Williams journey through the brutal heartbreak that comes with fading love and broken promises.
What I loved about this movie was its believability. The emotions, interactions, and sequence of events do not feel forced or staged–something that’s very hard to come by nowadays in cinema. And what makes much of the film real and watch-worthy are the sex scenes. The raw, graphic, and well, realistic scenes (which include Williams receiving oral sex) add a lot to the development of the film, but it also pushed the MPAA to give the movie a NC-17 rating.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the movie biz, an NC-17 rating is the like the kiss of death. The majority of movie theaters will not play a NC-17 movie and that means lower revenue, restricted publicity, and less consideration for awards such as the glorified Oscar.
But there’s less reason to worry now. Today the filmmakers won their appeal and the MPAA changed the NC-17 rating to a R rating.
Wait for it. Wait for it. YESSS!
The movie will be released on December 31st. Go watch it.
Uchinabaker Eats 
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