William Fuld

http://www.amctv.com/show/detail?CID=63457-1-EST

Next week AMC is showing a new documentary produced by ABC News about the bowdlerizing of movies by companies like CleanFlicks and Clearplay, and Hollywood's reaction to it. Looks interesting and the topic always stirs up discussion around here.

whotony

is it ironic that AMC is running a doc on censorship?

BigDan

Since neither what CleanFlicks does nor what AMC does are examples of censorship, I don't see the irony.

It is surprising to me that what CleanFlicks does is apparently legal, and I'll be interested to see the program on AMC.

whotony

what is it when they bleep out words that they(amc) decide are bad for us to hear?

you can spin the defintion of censorship anyway you want but when i see a movie with blurred body parts and cut scenes and bleeped words, that is censorship to me

BigDan

Hey, AMC has never played any movie I've made at all. They must be censoring me.

If you choose not to spend your money on a particular movie, are you censoring it? If Warner Bros. chooses not to make a particular movie, are they censoring it? If I write an article for the local newspaper and they don't end up printing it, is that censorship (or, for that matter, if they do print it but edit it before publication, are they then censoring it?)

Choosing what to do or what not to do with one's business is generally not censorship, though I suppose that in the way it's being used in the title of the program they're running, it would be the same as what AMC does. So, I could see the irony in that way.

But neither really is censorship (which implies a silencing rather than the station merely using judgment in regard to what they wish to broadcast to their customers).

whotony

ok whatever, you're right.

shaun3000

And the mass-murdering of hundreds of thousands in Rwanda wasn't genocide.

I'm tired of people being so damn nitpicky about the proper use of the word censorship. If its not censorship, what is it? Editing parts out of a work deemed unsuitable for an audience is censorship in my book.

BizRodian

DVD Talk Rule #34 - If anyone mentions the word "censorship" the thread must turn into a battle over semantics.

Gerry P.

Yikes. Way to derail the thread, BigDan.

AMC still sucks, by the way.

Michael Ballack

Some people feel censorship is only when the government does it, I disagree.

P.S. I hope Clearplay and Cleanflicks goes out of buisness.

BizRodian

Guys, seriously just go do a forum search for "censorship" and you'll see why bringing up the word is just a bad idea.

DRG

Both definitions are right (even if they address two related but different ideas), and thus, neither definition is wrong.

On topic, I can't stand to watch movies on AMC anymore, but this is a different deal. I'll be checking it out, if I remember.

Forum Troll

AMC is a total joke. Everything they show is pan-scanned from its original aspect ratio, edited for content, time compressed, and interrupted by commercials every 11 minutes. So which is worse? I dunno.

jaeufraser

Personally I don't relate censorship with any of these things, considering the negative connotation the word carries, and of course the more forced and silencing nature of real censorship. Things like cleanplay, barring copyright infringement and such, are opt in type systems, and quite frankly I have no issue with them if they're legal, because the only people using them are people who want to use them. As much as I'd hate to be forced to watch edited versions, I don't feel the need to force others to watch unedited versions. Knock youselves out...the uncut versions of any film shown on AMC or these cleanplay is, in general, readily available, so I guess I just don't care.

Spiderbite

censorship - The act, process, or policy of censoring.

censor - A person authorized to examine literature, plays, or other matieral and who may remove or supress what he considers morally or otherwise objectionable.

Source...The American Heritage Dictionary

Continue discussion.

Cameron

yah...amc is a shit sandwich...i'll watch it....and i got money that says that you will see a scarface clip....cuz thats what keeps em coming back....scarface clips.

Giles

The Washington Post review of the special made mention to this hypocrisy as well. As to Familyfilms - their blatant homophobia was appalling IMO.

mikewendt

I watched the doc last night... These companies are all appalling, IMO. And to think they sued directors, like Steven Soderbergh. I thought it was funny when the Cleanflix guy thought the DGA was ordering a copy of all the movies he'd cut to see "how good his editing skills are." Stupid...

These companies need to be stopped. I was really shocked at the husband/wife team that were removing all the usages of "God" and all instances of homosexuallity.

And some of the examples of their edits showed how they hurt the story. The Bourne Supremacy one stood out to me. Matt Damon walks up to the wrecked car to confirm that the person inside is dead. In the original they show a shot of the dead guy. But because he had blood on his face it needed to be cut. Now Damon walks up, looks in and walks away. Is he dead, did he escape, is he smiling waving a middle finger at him? But the "editors" say that we clearly know he's dead, so showing him dead isn't nessisary. What a bunch of bullshit.

Same with the Mean Girls edit example. It ruined the joke. The whole joke was Tim Medows character seeing Tina Fey in her bra... Now that that's gone, the jokes gone and the few jokes, between the two, that follow don't really make as much sense.

These companies suck! And need to be stopped! If they don't like questionable content, don't buy the fucking DVD... Oops, now I need to be edited.

whynotsmile

interesting topic but AMC made a pretty shitty doc. Kept using the same footage over and over. If it wasn't for the input of some big directors I would have shut it off.

What was with showing those dvd cases rising up and falling down over and over and over?

brainee

I watched the doc too. I don't get how there's even a question of legality with these companies that sell/rent edited DVDs. Presumably they're making money, so they're buying the official DVDs, editing them, and reselling them (or renting) for more money. Seems like a "no-brainer" copyright violation. If the MPAA can sue little old ladies and crush file-sharing sites, what's the problem here? Also, why doesn't Hollywood make the airplane and television edits of movies available on DVD? The point of the doc was to show that there's a market for this stuff (regardless of how stupid it seems to most of us here).

I do have to say that I don't see a problem (at least legally) with the one company, where they sell DVD players that do the filtering. In that situation, they're not altering and redistributing the DVDs, so I don't see the same copyright violations apply to this product. I'm not sure how smoothly the product works -- when you buy the DVD player are you locked into whatever titles are programmed into it, or can you do "updates" to keep putting new titles into the machine. If the former is the case, then it seems like a seriously flawed product.