Film Rating Advisors, Inc.
Co-founder of Film Rating Advisors, Inc.
PROFILE
Barry Freeman
Guest
FROM Barry Freeman
The Business
Film Rating Advisors, Inc. The Motion Picture Association of American doesn’t like to reveal much about the workings of the ratings board that assigns those PG-13’s and R’s and sometimes the dreaded NC-17’s to films. Now, two former members of the MPAA ratings board have left their posts and formed Film Ratings Advisors, Inc. Barry Freeman and Howard Fridkin say that instead of taking a movie straight to the MPAA and possibly coming away with an undesirable rating, filmmakers can come to them for advice. Kim Masters talks to Freeman and Fridkin about why the MPAA rating board’s decisions can sometimes seem arbitrary, and what a filmmaker has to gain by going to an outsider first.
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