Unlike the MPAA we do not assign
one
inscrutable rating based on age, but 3 objective ratings for SEX/NUDITY, VIOLENCE/GORE
and PROFANITY on a scale of 0 to 10, from lowest to highest,
depending on quantity and context.
Based on the short story "The Palace Thief" by Ethan Canin, Kevin Kline stars as a passionate Classics
professor who finds himself drawn into a turbulent battle of wills with a new student (Emile Hirsch) who challenges his authority. Their
conflict results in a series of compromises on the part of the teacher who's trying to befriend the student, and finally to a fateful
decision that has a profound influence on both their lives. Also with Embeth Davidtz, Joel Gretsch and Rob Morrow. [1:49]
SEX/NUDITY 3 - A group of young men row across water to reach a girls' school on the other shore; they approach three young
women sitting on a pier, they flirt back and forth, talk about skinny dipping and begin to remove their clothes (we see a boy bare-chested
and two girls open their blouses exposing cleavage and part of their bras). A young man opens a footlocker that is stocked with
pornographic magazines, one boy begins to look at them and says "these show hair"; the covers show nude women with private parts
strategically covered and we are shown a centerfold who is holding a pillow over her bare breasts. A young man and a young woman kiss
briefly. A man kisses a woman on the cheek. We see young women dressed in cheerleading outfits that expose their bare thighs, and a
woman's evening gown exposes cleavage and bare shoulders. A man and a woman seem to be attracted to each other, but the woman is married.
VIOLENCE/GORE 1 - A man talks about when his father died. A man bats a baseball that crashes through another man's car
window. A man speaks abusively to his son. A boy spits on the ground and snorts a couple of times. A man urinates (we hear a trickle).
DISCUSSION TOPICS - History, the Greek and Roman periods, greed, consequences, Democracy, preparatory schools, bravado,
conscience, pressure to succeed, cheating, moral leadership, virtue.
MESSAGE - A man's character is his fate. Conquest without contribution is without significance. The worth of life is not
determined by a single success or failure.
(Note: People are shown smoking cigarettes and cigars, and drinking alcohol.)
A CAVEAT: We've gone through several editorial changes since we
started covering films in 1992 and some of our early standards were
not as stringent as they are now. We therefore need to revisit many
older reviews, especially those written prior to 1998 or so; please
keep this in mind if you're consulting a review from that period.
While we plan to revisit and correct older reviews our resources are
limited and it is a slow, time-consuming process.
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