What can you expect from the MPAA when you make a movie with "some some graphic sexuality"? Yup, the kiss of death. Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno has been slapped with a rating of NC-17 by the MPAA, according to a list posted today by The Hollywood Reporter.

The rating was posted on the MPAA film ratings site at least as early as last Saturday, but News Askew noted that it was marked as "pending appeal" and had received the rating for "some graphic sexuality." I just checked the MPAA's site, and now the film doesn't show up at all. What happened? Was the appeal lost? Will cuts be made to secure the R rating? Who made the "some some" typo -- the MPAA or THR?

The ratings tussle is not entirely unexpected. Seth Rogen complained about the MPAA last month because of the film's difficulty in securing an R rating, and Smith took down a raunchy online-only teaser until the MPAA approved it. I would imagine that Smith is contractually obligated to deliver an R-rated version, but I wonder what nightmares he faces to please the MPAA?

As it happens, Smith will appear at Comic Con on Friday evening to talk about his film, and I'm sure he'll have something to say about the rating. Zack and Miri Make a Porno is still due to hit theaters on October 31.

Movies about ex-convicts and their difficulty assimilating back into society generally begin with the prison release, during which the protagonist typically looks downright miserable. At first thought, I recall the opening of Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66, which ironically exaggerates the hopelessness of post-incarceration by adding a lack of a public restroom to the list of things the former jailbird is without. But at the beginning of John Crowley's new film, Boy A, the titular young man being turned back into the world is high-browed and smiling from ear to ear. And this change from the expected norm really drew me into the film immediately.

Perhaps the difference is that for most films about ex-cons, the hero doesn't have a very good chance at starting over. For "Boy A," however, there's a literal reinvention taking place. In the first scene, the young man (Andrew Garfield) sits with his caseworker, Terry (Peter Mullan), and discusses the details of his release, which include his receiving a new home, a new job and, most importantly, a new identity -- he chooses the name "Jack." Also, rather symbolically, Terry hands Jack a gift, a pair of sneakers that unintentionally represents the young man's ability to comfortably run away from his former life.

If Harvey Weinstein didn't exist, someone would have to invent him. One week his garbage gets recycled into source material for The Village Voice, the next he and his brother Bob cut a 95-film, multi-year deal with Showtime and resurrect Scream. And then he gives a wide-ranging interview with The Hollywood Reporter which includes his explanation for why The Weinstein Co. created Third Rail Relasing, a new distribution label. Is it to showcase undiscovered independent gems? Introduce the world to global filmmaking talent?

No, it's for dumping the garbage. He told THR: "We should have had Third Rail two years ago, t's a good way of differentiating between what we really believe in, and what has been for ancillary value."

Third Rail recently released Death Defying Acts, with Guy Pearce and Catherine Zeta-Jones, admittedly only to fulfill a contractual obligation. Other barely there releases this year include music doc Lou Reed's Berlin, Hong Kong action flick Flash Point, and Aussic croc thriller Rogue. (I really liked the latter two, by the way.) The widest release (48 theaters, per Box Office Mojo) was George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, which made just under one million dollars. But I guess Harvey didn't "really believe" in any of them.

One thing you should know about the Julian Schnabel-directed concert documentary Lou Reed's Berlin is that Lou Reed has personally instructed theaters to play the film at concert-level volume. That means it's really, really loud. When I saw it (at NYC's Film Forum, which is following Reed's command throughout the film's limited engagement), an elder woman walked out. Of course, I can't be sure that it was due to the sound, though the exit was during one of the loudest songs.

The volume may seem excessive and unnecessary to some, but at a time when concert docs are shown in IMAX and/or in 3-D, it really helps a film like Lou Reed's Berlin compete for audiences seeking a filmic experience comparable to the real thing. And leaving the theater with your ears ringing will help you think that you were actually there when Reed performed his 1973 album Berlin live for the first (and second, third and fourth) time in Brooklyn, New York, December 14-17, 2006.

The casting rumors for Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards just keep circulating -- I'm dying for something to be confirmed, already! Brad Pitt was rumored to be in talks for the key role of Aldo Raine, and given that Tarantino flew all the way to France to meet with him suggests it's more than idle talk.

Now, according to Variety, Tarantino wants Leonardo DiCaprio to play Hans Landa, and is meeting with the actor on Thursday to discuss the part with him. This would be DiCaprio's first time working with Tarantino, and frankly, it would be a nice break from his Martin Scorcese trend. DiCaprio is another one of those actors with a pre-production list a mile long, so a scheduling conflict could manage to keep him out of the movie.

While I was really behind the idea of Pitt, I'm not sure how I feel about DiCaprio. Don't get me wrong, I really like him, but he's becoming the go-to guy for just about every film that's in production. Plus, Tarantino is pretty famous for his inspired and offbeat casting. Hiring two of Hollywood's golden boys (and I mean that in a nice way) seems a little pedestrian. But Tarantino is anything but predictable, and he can coax surprising performances out of all sorts of actors. What looks rather uninspiring from the outside could be one of his best ensembles yet. What do you think?

...and here's where I usually shake my virtual fist at the horror heavens and ask "Why? Holy sweet sausage on rye, WHY the holy hell are they offering up a sequel to Pulse, which is easily one of the lamest of all the very lame J-horror remakes?" (Dramatic pause) "Why?!?"

But I won't. There's obviously some sort of fan-base for this title, because movie studios don't bang out sequels (even DTV sequels) if they don't expect some sort of return on their investment. If we're looking for silver linings, we could note that both White Noise 2 and Wrong Turn 2 were more entertaining than first expected -- but if we choose to go the snarky route we could remind you that the star of Pulse ended up mocking it (to hilarious effect) in Forgetting Sarah Marshall! (Dang that scene made me laugh.)

Written and directed by Joel Soisson, Pulse 2: Afterlife stars Jamie Bamber from Battlestar: Galactica and a whole bunch of actors I've never heard of. (I don't mean that in a nasty way.) I'm assuming the plot has something to do with supernatural technology. Visit Shock for the brand-new cover art, and circle September 30 on your calendar if this is a title you're after. And hey, at least it's not PG-13, right? Matter of fact: Rated R for violence, disturbing images, some sexuality, nudity and language. Already it's better than the first one.

"If a film fell in the multiplex, and no one was there to see it..."

Limited release: such a simple phrase, and yet two words that all but indicate to a majority of moviegoers that whatever it is they want to see may or may not escape the confines of a NY/LA run before the film in question comes to them by way of Netflix mere months later.

Meanwhile, screens upon screens across the nation are filled by the likes of the same stars and the same stories, with the same special effects and the same happy endings, leaving the smaller films, the different films, the better films to slip through the distribution cracks, as it were.

Among their number falls The Promotion, a film which we've admittedly supported ad nauseum to the oh-so-ironic tune of $365,928 on a grand total of 81 screens. It opened just this past weekend in my market, Orlando, Fla., on a single screen, for a whopping four days, with a grand total of eight showings, before being shuffled off to make room for that other Jason Bateman co-starring comedy-drama hybrid.

It was the first day of July, and the last night for the film. Having enjoyed it twice before and driven by - I don't know - a sense of romantic futility, I turned out for that final showing. Lo and behold, I wasn't alone...

For everyone who's ever watched a bad movie and thought, "If this is what they produced, I wonder what they threw away?," the Village Voice has found an answer. In an amusing and fascinating article posted today, reporter Tony Ortega says he and a buddy accidentally stumbled across a recycling bin full of paper from Harvey Weinstein's office -- and not just from the office, but from Weinstein's own desk. Ortega proceeds to tell us all the juicy details he learned about the daily work of a movie mogul.

So what is Harvey Weinstein throwing away? Lots of copies of screenplays, naturally, as well as daily sheets (prepared by an assistant, no doubt) listing phone calls he needs to make or return. As you might imagine, the roster of people seeking Weinstein's attention is staggering, with actors, agents, lawyers, producers, and reporters all vying for his time. Michael Moore called him on April 25 and Weinstein didn't return the call for over a month. I'd say being able to ignore Michael Moore for a full month is the very definition of power.

Strangely, Weinstein's e-mails are printed out for him to peruse. (Maybe he gets eye strain from looking at a computer monitor? Maybe he just likes wasting paper?) There were some pretty interesting tidbits in the copies he tossed, including lots of stuff about the Weinstein-produced Project Runway, if you're into that.

With the film industry so busy that even the art houses are having trouble finding room for the indies they want to show, some execs are starting to look at more creative ways of getting their movies seen. That's why the Weinstein Co. is handing over one of its products to IFC Films, which will release it later this year in theaters and -- on the same day -- through Video-on-Demand, right into people's homes.

The movie is Elite Squad, a Brazilian drama about police corruption that won the top prize at Berlin in February and comes from a great pedigree: it was directed by José Padilha, who made the fantastic documentary Bus 174, and co-written by Bráulio Mantovani, who wrote City of God. (Cinematical's Scott Weinberg reviewed it mostly favorably at Tribeca.) It's the kind of foreign film that would normally do pretty well on the U.S. art house circuit, if the art houses weren't already overcrowded at the moment.

So the Weinsteins -- who actually helped produce the film, rather than merely buying the finished product at a festival -- have made a deal (with unspecified terms) with IFC Films. IFC will release it in a few theaters at the same time that it becomes available through IFC's Video-on-Demand service. Our Christopher Campbell wrote an excellent summary of this practice, known as "day-and-date," in April. Basically, day-and-date helps non-blockbuster films get seen by more people.

OK, so maybe they aren't turning all their movies into Broadway musicals, but it sure seems like it. According to Variety, The Weinstein Co. is out to produce a number of adaptations for the stage, beginning with Finding Neverland, which is expected to hit the stage in 2010 (or re-hit the stage, since the movie was based on a play by Allan Knee). After that, it's a stage version of Pink Floyd's The Wall (apparently adapted from the album, not Alan Parker's 1982 film). Then, other titles in the pipeline include the Miramax hits Shakespeare in Love, Chocolat, Save the Last Dance and Cinema Paradiso. Wait, a stage musical based on a movie that celebrates moviegoing? That's gotta be one of the dumbest things I've heard.

These certainly aren't the first movies to be exploited adapted for the stage, and they won't even be the first stage productions from the Weinsteins, who also had a hand in Tony-winner "August: Osage County," as well as the hit stage adaptation of The Producers and the soon-to-be-a-film "Frost/Nixon." The Finding Neverland musical is already being written, with book by original playwright Knee and music by "Grey Gardens" composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie. The Wall also is in the works under the care of playwright/screenwriter Lee Hall (Billy Elliot).

So far, it appears TWC is only adapting Miramax films, from back when the Weinsteins were in charge there, but maybe one day we'll get to see "Grindhouse: The Musical" or a stage adaptation of Fanboys (maybe it can even hit the stage before theaters, at the rate it's going).