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 MPAA has rejected a proposed one-sheet poster for Alex Gibney’s documentary Taxi to the Dark Side. The original design incorporated an image from a news photo, of a hooded detainee flanked by two soldiers. The MPAA says since they won’t allow hoods on posters for torture porn, they can’t allow similar imagery to promote a torture doc. Distributor ThinkFilm plans to appeal.
• Brad Pitt is in talks to replace Heath Ledger, who was previously cast opposite Sean Penn, in Terrence Malick’s upcoming drama, Tree of Life. There are still few details to report about the project itself, although I guess we can reasonably deduce that whatever character Ledger was going to play has suddenly become about 14 years older.
• Midwestern exhibition chain Marcus Theaters has declined to book Sweeney Todd on any of its 49 screens, on the grounds that Paramount is asking for too much money for the prints. This seems like a late-game decision, considering the film is scheduled to open semi-wide on Friday, but Paramount says the release will be unaffected.
• Nancy Buirski is stepping down from her role as head of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, in order to create and manage “a fund to incubate and produce independent docus and fiction films.”