‘A’ for Adult Battles ‘X’ for Film’s Survival

Calling the X-rating the equivalent of “economic suicide” for non-pornographic films, a New York-based distributor announced today that his company is releasing Wayne Wang’s “Life Is Cheap But Toilet Paper Is Expensive” with a self-appointed adults-only “A” rating.

“If the (Motion Picture Assn. of America) is not ready to do that, then we’ll do that ourselves,” said Silverlight Entertainment President Mark Lipsky at a noon press conference in front of the MPAA’s Sherman Oaks office where films are rated.

Following the press conference, Lipsky presented a petition to MPAA Senior Vice President Bethlyn Hand asking the organization to add an adult rating between R and X to allow movies without pornographic content to be released in the United States without facing the ban on advertising for X-rated movies that is the policy at many newspapers and television stations.

Among the 31 directors who signed the petition are Francis Ford Coppola, Sidney Pollack, Walter Hill, Barry Levinson, Terry Gilliam, Ron Howard, Rob Reiner, Ridley Scott and Spike Lee.

Wang’s film was rated X by the MPAA’s Classification and Ratings Administration earlier this month and Silverlight’s appeal was rejected at a hearing in New York on Monday.

Lipsky said the A rating that Silverlight is putting on Wang’s film is intended to mean that “it is not viewable by minors.” It would be up to individual theaters, however, to enforce that.

In his attack on the rating system, Lipsky said Valenti’s rationale for maintaining the X is an annual survey showing that more than 70% of parents find the ratings either “very useful” or “fairly useful.”