Aw. I love Donnie Darko so, so much.

Agreed that the school should have asked permission from parents before showing an R rated film to kids under 17.

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I'm picturing a ransom note looking something like

GiVE uS tHe mONeY or yOUr sEnSE Of cOMpasSiOn GetS IT.

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What do you guys feel about showing a non-R-rated portion of an r-rated movie? When I was an assistant teacher in an acting class, someone had a monologue from "The Jury" and the teacher showed just the portion of the show with the monologue. A couple of parents were very upset, and I do have to say it never occured to me to question her (I was 19, though and the teacher was 50) motives in showing the exerpt.

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Let's start with suing someone for "emotional kidnapping."

When I read the article, it didn't seem those were his actual grounds for the suit (and if those were listed in the article, I've already forgotten them). I suspect the reporter worded it poorly, took the father's objections (offered in conversation), then presented them as if they were legal concepts.

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Gone with the Wind - 10.2% chance of becoming a bestseller

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Oh my. I don't think I would have survived....

Seabirds, Rain Kept Men Alive for 9 Months

MEXICO CITY — Lost at sea since October, the three fishermen from a hamlet outside San Blas were given up for dead long ago.

After weeks of looking for their son at fishing ports up and down the Pacific Coast of Mexico, the parents of Salvador "Chava" Ordoñez resigned themselves to the belief that he, his two companions and their 30-foot fishing boat had been swallowed up by the sea, family members said.

On Tuesday, news of a miracle came from 5,000 miles away. After more than nine months adrift, Ordoñez and his companions had been found alive north of Baker Island in the central Pacific, the lonely stretch of ocean where aviator Amelia Earhart disappeared almost 70 years ago.

...

Trade winds and ocean currents had carried the three men from the waters off their home state of Nayarit more than halfway to Australia.

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I guess I should write my hypothetical book, since my title's a winner:

The title Scarce Half Made Up has a 63.7% chance of being a bestselling title!

I did have to think about this for a while to figure out where any of these things happen in the movie:

the movie is filled with all kinds of offensive subject matter, including "gross obscenities, various types of deviant sexual activity, and misogynistic fantasy."

And then I realized, they're upset about a short scene where 3 teenage boys crack some jokes about Smurfs having orgies. That's the obscenity, the deviant sex, and the misogyny. It's a conversation about Smurfs! I'm so amused by that.

The problem is that movie ratings make no sense. I can think of PG movies that I'd consider inappropriate for a school to show, and R movies that are fine. Donnie Darko has a fair amount of cursing. That's the only reason it's an R.

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What do you guys feel about showing a non-R-rated portion of an r-rated movie? When I was an assistant teacher in an acting class, someone had a monologue from "The Jury" and the teacher showed just the portion of the show with the monologue. A couple of parents were very upset, and I do have to say it never occured to me to question her (I was 19, though and the teacher was 50) motives in showing the exerpt.

In general, as a parent, I don't like to have my role and my rights (including what I see as my-say-so) ignored by schools, etc. 99 times out of 100, I'm going to let my kid experience the thing the teacher/school wants to present to him, but I like a "heads up," and would prefer to be asked to consent too much, than not asked to consent enough, where my minor children are concerned.

How old were the students, Sophia? The younger they are, the more I expect to be asked for consent. If a 12th grade class was being shown a non-violent (or non-profane, or non-sexually explicit) excerpt of an R-rated film, I'd might be pissed enough that I'd say I was going to send a note or make a call saying, "Hey, just ask, all right?" but then not do it. In other words, I'd bitch.

If my kids was under the MPAA's suggested age ranges for a film (even if they weren't seeing the more mature parts of the film), I'd probably make the call.

If I thought the movie and the scenes my kid was shown were way over the line for my kid's age, the Super and the School Committee would hear from me. At least.

I haven't seen Donnie Darko, but I expect I would have wanted to watch it first, and then probably would have let my 9th grader see it, but might have wanted to talk to him or her, first, or at least have been prepared to talk to him or her, afterwards.

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I guess I should write my hypothetical book, since my title's a winner

Yeah. You really should write that hypothetical book.

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Pastor plans to sue school for "emotional kidnapping and psychological rape" of his daughter's "Christian innocence," by showing Donnie Darko in her freshman English class without informing the parents first

"Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion."

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