Paramount may soon be under investigation by the MPAA for allegedly marketing inappropriate content to children. Specific TV ads for Iron Man and Drillbit Taylor have been highlighted by the Better Business Bureau as being targeted to kids aged 12 and under. Apparently this isn’t kosher since both movies are rated PG-13. Of course, anyone who has been to or worked at a movie theater knows, there’s no stopping kids under the age of 13 from buying tickets to such movies. But that doesn’t mean it’s suitable for PG-13-rated fare to be directly marketed to the younger audience.

Both movies have been advertised during Nickelodeon shows Zoey 101 and Drake & Josh, which are primarily viewed by preteens and other youths. Stephanie Sanchez at IESB.net, reporting on this story, adds that the MPAA should also address Paramount’s marketing of Strange Wilderness, which she saw advertised during Spongebob Squarepants and Drake & Josh while watching the programs with her kids, aged 4 and 6. Considering that comedy is Rated R, it would seem obvious that it shouldn’t be targeted to the Nick crowd, but perhaps Paramount has trouble differentiating demographics when advertising through sister media (Paramount and Nickelodeon are both owned by Viacom).

…Read more

• Variety looks into reports from the British press that Steven Spielberg is gearing up to make a movie about the Chicago Seven, starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman. Spielberg apparently won’t confirm nor deny it; Aaron Sorkin signed a deal to write a script six months ago, but there’s no progress to report on that. Apparently.
• Not much has changed in the box office picture since Monday––National Treasure and Alvin and the Chipmunks are still dominant––but business was up seven percent over the comparative week last year, and that’s worth remarking on. Apparently.
• Chinese censors have issued an order asking producers to refrain from depicting “hardcore activities, rape, whoring, obscene sex exposing human genitals or sex freaks.” Not only would films involving such content be banned from receiving national awards, but their makers could “face a total ban from the biz for five years.”

Bloggy reactions are starting to float in on that whole MPAA vs. Taxi to the Dark Side thing, and although we’re sill seeing the predictable squabbling over ideology, pretty much everyone seems to be united on one thing: the poster itself is far less offensive than the MPAA’s stance on it.

AJ Schnack spoke with Taxi director Alex Gibney, who characterized the ruling as “a cover-up”:

Removing the hood is the ultimate cover-up. [The U.S.] didn’t use to do that sort of thing. Removing the hood sends the same message as the Bush administration with the CIA tapes. It’s OK to do it, it’s just not OK to show it.

Hammering home roughly the same message, The Cinetrix proposes a protest campaign:

This movie needs to be seen. These images need to be seen. Fuck, I’m willing to run the one-sheet image every day here until the decision is reversed.

Meanwhile, the boys at conservative film blog LIBERTAS think that the very idea of the film is reprehensible…which is why they’re mad at the MPAA for drawing more attention to it by giving the poster an air of snuff. In a post broken by images of the World Trade Center aflame, Dirty Harry writes:

…Read more

• The French Commission for Film Classification is looking to extend its jurisdiction to festival films — meaning that it wants to have power to place age restrictions on screenings at Cannes and elsewhere. Apparently, the French censors are super-lenient when it comes to sex, but fairly strict on violence: the only film they’ve limited to audiences 18 and up of late is Saw III. So even if the censors do get their way, all those preteen film festival goers should still be able to get their softcore kicks at Cannes.
•  John Anderson reviews Stardust: “Sprinkled with tongue-in-cheek humor, fairly adult jokes and some well-known faces acting very silly, this adventure story should have particular appeal to fans of “The Princess Bride,” but in any event will never be mistaken for a strictly-for-kids movie.”
• Simon Cowell is producing a feature remake of Fame. “We want it to be the musical version of Rocky– an underdog story, a feel-good film.” Then can we just skip ahead to the sixth sequel, where the champion has brain damage but tries to compete again anyway?

Michael Moore’s most recent documentary, Sicko, will premiere this Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival, and is scheduled for US release by Lionsgate on June 29. And suddenly, as if perfectly timed by the Weinstein Co. rather than the U.S. Treasury, Moore is being investigated for possibly violating America’s trade embargo with Cuba by going to the “forbidden” country to make a portion of his film. Cuba is even saying that Moore is a victim of censorship (read about it here). It doesn’t get much juicier than that.

In The Hollywood Reporter’s piece on the matter, “Healthy debate surrounds Moore’s docu ‘Sicko,’” has this to say about the publicity stunt:

Lionsgate and the Weinstein Co. are making the Treasury Department’s investigation a key focus of their “Sicko” campaign. The Weinstein Co. has hired David Boies, the chief attorney in Al Gore’s recount battle against George Bush in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, to help on the “Sicko” case. Chris Lehane, a political consultant on the film, said in an interview that TWC and Lionsgate would “go to the mattresses for this film and fight the Bush efforts in every way possible.”

On the anti-Moore side, News Corp. properties Fox News and the New York Post have run editorials and commentaries slamming the filmmaker.

While the Treasury Dept. triggered the current contretemps, “It’s Harvey (Weinstein) up to his old tricks, doing his Barnum & Bailey act,” said one prominent studio marketing executive. “It’s a textbook ‘create a controversy’ to rev up all the people who hate the government and bring attention to the movie, which is what film marketing is all about. A-plus to them.”

The funny thing is that, according to a press release about the film’s release date, Harvey Weinstein sees Sicko as “less controversial” than Fahrenheit 9-11.

“I’ve seen this movie with Republicans and Democrats, and this is one time Michael has sort of unified everyone,” [Weinstein] said. “The health care industry might not have a very good July Fourth.”

Here’s to so-called unification. We’ll have to see how that works out.