bob tarantino

The Salmon Arm Salute

Dean Beeby at the CP wrote an excellent, nicely detailed story about the Ontario Film Review Board, focusing on its recent decision regarding the social crudeness of a depiction of someone "flipping the bird".  The OFRB's own (rather informative) website is here.

The board, which classifies all mainstream films in the province, amended its manual so that the rude salute now will help knock a film from a General (G) designation into the Parental Guidance (PG) category.

The gesture, sometimes called “flipping the bird” or simply “the bird,” is rated the equivalent of an animal humping someone's leg, according to the manual's section on assessing the psychological impact of mainstream films.

And the “finger” is now classified as one notch more obnoxious than “a little bit of farting, belching” in the crude behaviours category, in the latest edition of the manual, obtained by The Canadian Press under Ontario's freedom-of-information law.

The gesture, though, is considered less obnoxious than a teenager vomiting and his friend urinating onto bystanders, say the arcane guidelines in the 32-page document.

Another Salvo in Charlie Wilson's War?

Arthur Kent (latterly the "Scud Stud") is "suing the makers of Charlie Wilson's War after footage Mr. Kent produced for a 1986 BBC news program about the Soviet Union's conflict in Afghanistan appeared in the 2007 Universal Studios movie without his permission".  It would be interesting to see the claim, as it appears that Kent is not only requesting monetary damages, but an injunction against further exploitation of the film - at least until it is altered to "eliminate anything associated with him". 

A number of questions arise from the brief description provided by the news report:

• who owns copyright in the footage used in the movie?  I'm not familiar with how the BBC handles copyright from independent producers (assuming Kent was not a BBC employee at the time he created the footage), but I would have thought the BBC would have acquired copyright in any materials which were produced at its behest.

• is Kent asserting a moral rights claim (perhaps not - the story seems to indicate that the claim is being brought in Los Angeles, and US copyright law provides exceedingly week protection for moral rights)? The report states that Kent "claims that his footage was re-edited and taken out of context ... images from Mr. Kent's documentary appear without their accompanying narration, and at other times narration is lifted from the documentary and is heard over other footage" - even if Kent does not own copyright in the footage in question, that would seem to be ripe territory for a moral rights claim, as distinct from a copyright claim.

In any event, this is a classic "errors and omissions" claim for a motion picture - a timely reminder of the importance for counsel to play an ongoing role in vetting all materials which are incorporated in a film project.

"various accounts of what transpired"

Did I mention you should go see 300?  You should go see 300.  Preferably on an IMAX screen.  And if only to snigger at the Toronto Star, which inexplicably felt the need, for a movie adapted from a comic book and which features gargantuan monsters and stylized renderings of grotesquely deformed humans, to publish a piece "debunking" the "inaccuracies" in the film.  The movie depicts a "moral universe" which is "bizarre", they quail.  Gee, ya think?  Odd that they never saw fit to publish a similar piece about other stylized pieces of fiction like, say, any of Michael Moore's flicks.

"a tough time proving his case"

Another $29 million for Borat, another series of people angry at being duped (some to the point of threatening lawsuits).  It's a basic CYA rule for movie producers that no one should appear on-screen in a motion picture without having signed some sort of consent and release.  What did the various folks appearing in Borat sign?  And will having signed those documents prevent them from successfully bringing a claim?  Helpfully, Slate has a brief Explainer on the topic, along with copies of the releases.