There are many ways a film can get to a reviewer’s heart quickly. Give them free candy (which is dandy), or better yet, booze (which just plain kicks ass). For a nerd like me, however, there is yet another, quicker way—attack the MPAA. And Jack Valenti.
For those who’ve been paying attention, the South Park movie took aim at the very same organization for the same reason L.I.E.’s distributors do in their press release: censorship.
The Motion Picture Association of America is an organization whose members can “voluntarily” submit their pictures for rating. Yes, Billy, all of those PG, R, and NC letters and numbers that you see plastered underneath movies are voluntary, at least in the United States. And, since L.I.E. deals with subjects like pederasty and teenaged homosexual relationships, Alter Ego/Belladonna automatically opted for an NC-17 rating rather than submit the film for review.
But they also write, “corporate America is saying it cannot distinguish between serious films for adults and pornography creating a virulent environment of economic censorship.” After all, what major studio is going to release and market an NC-17 movie?
At the very least, people should go see this movie to say “fuck you” to people like Jack Valenti (who is also, by the way, one of the leading figures trying to shut down people’s rights to do things like listen to music or watch movies on different devices in their own homes. But I digress…).
L.I.E. is a bizarre, twisted, and hilarious movie. Somehow managing to toe the line between horrific and humourous, it is a beautifully filmed piece whose actors manage to highlight the discomfort of dysfunctional and abusive relationships. It’s easy to view this as a bandwagon film, following as it does on the heels of suburban dystopian films like American Beauty (which also, curiously enough, involves someone’s undoing that derives from homosexual activity, or at least one character’s inability to cope with it).
However, the suburban setting takes a backseat to plot; malaise functions as an enabler, not so much a character. Still, the eponymous Long Island Expressway serves as a convenient narrative image to tie the entire story together; it’s less a comprehensive theme than a common detail plucked from each character’s life.
