This Film Is Not Yet Rated

* WHERE: Theaters everywhere.

* WHEN: Opens today.

* RATING: Not rated, but probably NC-17 for showing sex scenes from NC-17 films.

* RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes.

* BOTTOM LINE: An entertaining documentary becomes a necessary indictment of the MPAA's rating system.

Movie critics don't agree on much - but if you polled a bunch of us, you would probably find one unanimous opinion: The motion-picture ratings system is a joke.

Filmmaker Kirby Dick lets the world in on that joke in "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," a comically toned indictment of the Motion Picture Association of America's methods for deciding whether a film will be rated G, PG, PG-13, R or NC-17.

Primarily, Dick concentrates on that line between a commercially viable R and a kiss-of-death NC-17, and the hypocrisies the MPAA builds into the system. Dick shows, through anecdotal testimony from filmmakers who have endured the process, what any movie-savvy viewer already knows: Independent films are rated more harshly than studio-made films, studio filmmakers are given more guidance in skirting the harsher ratings, and movies with gay sex scenes will receive harsher ratings than movies with straight sex scenes. (Dick shows side-by-side comparisons of similar sex acts getting different ratings depending on the genders of the participants.)

But beyond the arbitrary nature of the MPAA's decisions, one troubling aspect of the ratings system is that the raters' identities are kept secret. Dick puts a stop to that, hiring a pair of private detectives - a jovial lesbian couple named Becky and Cheryl - who stake out the MPAA's Southern California headquarters. This makes for some entertaining moments, as when Becky lucks into finding a list of MPAA office-phone extensions, but ultimately is less important to average moviegoers than it is to Dick and his fellow filmmakers.

The funniest part of "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" is the finale, as Dick submits the very film we are watching to the MPAA for a rating. (Guess what he gets.) The laughter turns slightly bitter, though, as Dick depicts the MPAA's torturous appeals process - a ritual rightly referred to as a "star chamber."

Dick (an Oscar nominee for his exposé of a Catholic priest's pedophilia, "Twist of Faith") coaxes several filmmakers - including John Waters, "South Park" co-creator Matt Stone, Atom Egoyan ("Where the Truth Lies"), Kimberly Peirce ("Boys Don't Cry") and Wayne Kramer ("The Cooler") - to risk their careers by publicly decrying the MPAA system. He gets no help whatsoever from the MPAA, which refused all interview requests.

The MPAA is represented by news clippings of Jack Valenti, the now-retired head of the MPAA, spouting the same platitudes he's been churning out for 30-plus years. Valenti refused to acknowledge problems in the rating system. Here's hoping his replacement, former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, will watch "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" and take the first steps toward fixing a broken system.

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* SEAN P. MEANS can be reached at movies@sltrib.com or 801-257-8602. Send comments about this review to livingeditor@sltrib.com.