It seems like every Utah geek blogger and their dog is either weighing in on the Hollywood vs Cleanflicks, et. al. ruling or filling the RSS aggregators with spittle about some new Toyota they bought. So, I admit, peer pressure is persuading me here...

Like many, it seems, I've never been a fan (or a member) of any of the edited film clubs. I always thought there was a something wrong with someone going into a place like that with a clear conscience and renting a film that would otherwise pass as softcore pornography.

This reminds me of a story. 

A few years ago, when I was still living in Cache Valley, a friend and I were driving back from Taco Bell where we had just had a delicious and nutritious meal and passed by a corrugated plastic sign posted in a grassy spot. The sign was an advertisement for Logan's newest edited films business: FLICKS CLUB.

Both my friend and I scoffed and snickered. Then, one of us noticed, because of the font the sign was done in, it would require very little alteration, either with electrical tape or a black marker, to change the "L" and adjacent "I" on the sign to appear as a "U". How funny that would be... and how ironic, too.

Okay, fast forward to now. Court says "can't do that!" and Cleanflicks is goin' out of business.

How do I feel about it? I have mixed feelings. I don't really think Hollywood producers and/or directors should have any say over what Joe Consumer does with a motion picture once they purchase a copy of it. That is, if I purchase Striptease on DVD and edit it on my computer so the whole family can watch it, I may be a really creepy guy, but I don't think Hollywood should have any say in it. It's called "fair use" and that's how it should be.

I have personal issues with people who have serious problems with their kids seeing stuff like Titanic with the boob shot and the love scene. Maybe that's because I thought it was fairly artistic, not to mention that Kate Winslet is a fine example of a woman in art form.

I mean, If we hide all that kind of stuff from our kids, edit or ban the movies and TV, cover all the cleavage-ladden womens magazine covers at the grocery stores, etc., what will the children do when they walk out of the house and see some neighbor-girl walking down the sidewalk in a low-cut blouse?

Oh yeah, that's where the anti-depressants come in.

Anyway... I have strayed off topic, so where was I? Oh, yeah, I have mixed feelings. Yeah, I thought these edited films places were running a stupid business, but didn't the movie biz folks in Hollywood have anything better to do? As others have pointed out, they were still making plenty of money on the business of edited films. Heck, I wondered why they didn't start slapping edited-for-TV versions on DVD for a piece of the edited-for-content action.

Oh. Yeah. Movie studios only do those television edits -- not out of the goodness of their hearts -- but because because the FCC forces them to. Maybe that whole artistic integrity argument does mean something and most Hollywood film biz people are really actively contributing to the moral decline of our society.

I guess the bottom line is that if you really want someone else making decisions on how to best slice and dice that steamy, bloody, profane film into something the whole family can stomach, get a Clearplay subscription or, better yet, take advantage of the open source mplayer's support for Edit Decision Lists (EDLs) to create (and trade online) non-destructive modifications to the presentation of a film.