I Don't Understand Canadian Movie Ratings

Or, more correctly, I don't trust them...

Last night Beth and I watched End Game (don't bother, unless you are a huge Cuba Gooding Jr. fan; it's slow, confusing, overacted by Burt Reynolds - as if that's a surprise - confusing, underacted by Angie Harmon - which was disappointing - and, did I mention, confusing!).

Now, often, in Canadian video rentals, there is both the Provincial Rating (or the rating from some other province) and the US's MPAA rating. And sometimes not. Sometimes there is just the provincial rating, sometimes the MPAA and, often, no indication of which it is. Because in this wonderful nation of ours, films are rated by each province - sometimes.

So, for instance, End Game doesn't currently have a rating in Alberta - I checked. But the rating granted by some other unknown province, which was prominently displayed on the case, was PG. In fact, both the display case and the Blockbuster case, said PG. The MPAA's rating, however, was R. I know this because it was printed on the DVD itself, and because Blockbuster, to their credit, had printed on the back of the rental case, "MPAA rating R." (Blockbuster - good on yah!)

Now, I know that there are differences between Canadian and US sensibilities, but PG and R?? Good grief.

So we watched the movie (as disappointing, and did I mention, confusing, as it was). There was one "f-bomb" uttered by Cuba's character, a few other minor obscentities, and LOTS OF VIOLENCE. Shootings, beatings, and one guy hit by an SUV, which was shown with all of it's shocking impact (pun intended). Now, given the state of movie ratings in Canada, I doubt this would have warranted an R rating - but at least a 14A (That's about equivalent to a PG13 in the US) would have made sense.

What's most troubling is that it makes movie watching with my kids a real tricky proposition. My Mom rented the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and wanted to show it to my kids. Beth and I said we wanted to pre-view it first, because it was rated PG. We didn't know why, what the language was like, etc. We watched it, and my kids watched it. It was a pretty decent family movie.

Now, maybe the point of a rating system is to encourage parents to preview movies by being as vague as possible. But it that's the case, I think it has exactly the opposite effect. I think that parents get tired of trying to guess which PG movies should be PG, which should be G, which really should be 14A (or higher) and just give in. "Oh, yeah, it's PG, it should be fine." And the whole "Parental Guidance" gets chucked out the window.

I can't blame the government for lazy parents - but I can blame them for making my job harder with things that are supposed to be making it a little easier, like movie rating systems. If they don't want to be helpful, then don't rate them at all, and let me do the work. But for heaven's sake, stop making me guess as to what you mean; and stop being so bloody inconsistent!

There, I'm glad I got that off my chest... anybody know a good movie I can watch this weekend?