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Have you ever wanted to show your children a movie, but wished you could edit your own "parental cut"?

A new technology called Movie Mask is sure to be a hit with parents. The software allows you to filter out sex, violence, and cursing from your household DVDs. Imagine We Were Soldiers without any blood or GoodFellas who never utter a discouraging word. Since meetings between Trilogy representatives, studios, and the MPAA are proceeding, the software may be coming to a home theater near you. The success of another Utah-based company, CleanFlicks (which was covered in a recent CT story) indicates that the venture could be quite successful.

That is, if legal action from the Directors Guild of America doesn't get its way. Moviemakers are not thrilled about the new services, calling them a form of censorship. Just as this edition of Film Forum was getting a final edit, headlines began appearing that announce the attempt to stop this trend before it really spreads. For starters, check out stories at The Directors Guild of America (here and here.)

Director Steven Spielberg, a member of The Film Foundation, argues, "Every film represents a truth which is morally and exclusively the right of the writer and director. No one is authorized to impose their truth on top of ours despite how strongly they may disagree with it. Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan have been cited as two of my most important contributions to history through cinema. The public has a choice to make—do they or do they not want to share in this experience. No one has the right to delete, re-shuffle, or in any way alter our films without our permission or the permission from the copyright holder."

Why such a fuss over bleeping out bad words? Don't network television stations do this all the time when they broadcast R-rated films?

No, actually. Trilogy Studios's pioneering software doesn't just "bleep" out bad language or cut scenes. It actually alters the imagery. Titanic's Kate Winslet doesn't pose nude when Movie Mask is running—instead she appears in a corset. And Saving Private Ryan starts with a bloodless massacre. Referring to Private Ryan's opening scene, Trilogy cofounder Breck Rice boasts to ABC News, "There are 32 edits in that scene. If you had never seen the original, you wouldn't know the difference—gone are the severed limbs and gushing blood. We've taken out some of the real gory scenes where people's guts were laying on the beach."

What do you think? Is Movie Mask a gross abuse of technology that compromises the visions of artists? Or should parents have the options of altering works of art in order to protect their children from certain elements of a work? Let me know what you think. (Your reply may be excerpted in an upcoming issue.)

It's hard to imagine what Movie Mask might do to the scantily clad heroes of John Stockwell's Blue Crush, a movie about surfer girls striving to make their mark in the sports world. But even religious critics are admitting that there is more to this surf flick than meets the eye. The human drama at the center is realistic and engaging—at least compared to other titles in the surfing genre. And everyone agrees: the waves are truly worth catching.

Holly McClure (Crosswalk) says, "I really enjoyed this movie for a lot of reasons but mostly because it introduces the sport of surfing as I've never seen it before. I also like the fact that the hero turns out to be a woman who gets her dream and her man! If you've ever been curious about surfing and you can't go to Hawaii to see the biggest waves in the world, do the next best thing and see this movie!"

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August (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46