I am a parent, and I do think parents are getting lazy. I read reviews, because the ratings are not good at catching inappropriate material.

We need to do a better job of balancing child space versus adult space. Children should be banned entirely out of some ratings, movies, music areas, and times for TV (8pm on) so adults can relax and enjoy unadulterated entertainment that is not appropriate for kids. Child friendly rules have been creeping upward into adult space for years. Remember when people got mad that parents tried to censor Beavis and Butthead based on influencing children, and the parents got criticized for allowing their children to be up at 9pm, an "adult" hour? MySpace started out for adults to learn about bands, and now kids want to invade the adult areas and sue when they get into trouble? Maybe more onus needs to be put on parents and kids to stay out of adult space.

We need to return the R rating to movies aimed at adults, and ban the kids outright from R. That way, we won't have six year olds screaming in fright or asking "what's oral sex"? at pivotal points in an R rated movie, disturbing the adults and themselves (think six year old in "Kill Bill II- not happy for the adult filmgoers or the kid). Too many adults take the kids into inappropriate places because they live far from relatives and don't want to pay a "stranger" to babysit, or they are 19-22 and can't afford babysitters. If you can't get babysitting, wait for the DVD.

We also need to get adults out of "childspace". It's ok to have movies that bore adults because they are for kids. If you are at Pizza Hut or Fridays, complaining about children's behavior makes no sense. My favorite was the people who went to Ice Age and then complained about kids running in the aisles. It's a kid's movie. In shared space, some adults need to learn to be more tolerant of children's behaviors.

I didn't see that anyone posted this yet. Check out "kids in mind", for a review site that has a pretty good subjective scale that can give you a heads-up before taking your kid to a movie. I'm not affiliated, just a parent who uses it occasionally, along with my own sense.

http://www.kids-in-mind.com/

It's not foolproof, so I usually err on the side of caution and preview it first if its a DVD, for example.

> Shouldn't it be part of a parent's job to find out for him or herself what a given movie might contain...?

I think most parents don't have the time. Similarly, grocery shoppers don't have time to shop around and figure out which butcher shops have inaccurate scales, which books are good, or which doctors are incompetent. So we have reviewing organizations that are supposed to help us out.

> at least movies would then be subject to judicial review, instead of the moral whims of a bunch of allegedly average parents.

exchanges one set of old people for another.

What you need is another organization willing to issue ratings for movies, some other competition. Someone who rates homosexual sex in line with heterosexual sex, rates people of color in line with whites, and covets other viewpoints about political, religious and economic issues. They could even use the same PG13 and NC17 rating system, just use a different system of 'values'.

There's nothing stopping any institution from doing this. No government approval is necessary for some MPAA competition. Salon could even do it.

I remember seeing the trailer showing Jason Biggs on the counter molesting the pie. I don't recall if I saw it on TV or if I saw it at a theater, but it was most likely at a theater.

If I remember correctly, it's in the "deleted scenes" section of the DVD; I don't believe it's part of the main movie of the DVD.

That being said, it's sad the Salon writer accuses the film maker and his interviewee of almost outright lying about the trailer. Maybe the Salon writer never saw the trailer but it doesn't mean you get to accuse everyone else of lying.

If this is indicative of Salon articles, then I don't feel bad for never reading them. This is only the second one I've read; the first was a "review" of The Da Vinci Code and I found several errors in that article too.