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Red flags in the fine print

By Louise Kennedy, Globe Staff, 6/30/2002

f the reason given for a movie's rating includes the word ''intense,'' says former Motion Picture Association of America board member Jay Landers, that's a warning that the movie is pushing against the upper limit of its ratings category. Ditto for ''pervasive,'' ''heavy,'' or ''extreme.'' Another clue, he says: ''when they say `PG-13 for sexual content' and they don't minimize it - a scene of.''

Rod Gustafson of the Web site gradingthemovies

.com urges parents to look at previews on the Web or in theaters for more clues. ''When you start seeing words like `seductive' and `sensuous,' `action-packed,' `hard-hitting,' those should be little clues to you that there's a lot of sex, a lot of violence, '' he says.

One more tip: Don't assume that just because you saw a movie in the theater, it's OK for your kid to rent the DVD. You'll often see, in the fine print on the package, something like ''Additional material is unrated.'' That may be innocuous, or it may mean that the extra stuff includes all the scenes that were cut out to get a lower rating. The DVD of the PG-13 ''Behind Enemy Lines,'' for example, contains versions of killings that would have been rated R.

This story ran on page N16 of the Boston Globe on 6/30/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.