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Bring It On

© James C. Hess

Now than that the dynamic duo, the self-proclaimed purveyors (perverters?) of Good Taste, Al Gore, Jr. and Joe Lieberman, have taken Hollywood to task for making R-rated films and movies it follows Hollywood, the chastened child, will find a way around a promise it swore to keep:

Not to make any more R-rated films or movies.

Hollywood is making fewer R-rated films and movies. It is.

Here's how:

It gets an R-rated film or movie rated PG-13 or PG.

An example: "Bring It On". Here is a movie that is undeniably R-rated material. But to appease the dynamic duo, to keep this hollow promise, Hollywood has managed, with Machiavellian ease, to have "Bring It On" categorized as PG-13.

These days, in the wake of the dynamic duo's verbal and very public admonishments, Hollywood is trimming films and movies to avoid an R-rating.

Why? Because these days the R-rating is a penalty. And because, more importantly, the PG-13 rating is not only Politically Correct, but also allows Hollywood to make one dollar more: Any child big enough to put the price of a ticket through the slot at the box office can get into a film or movie rated PG-13 or PG, which is really R-rated.

And that is what is really important: The bottom line.

"Bring It On" is an R-rated movie. It is. Raunchy language, a locker room scene that is deliberate nudity, sex jokes, "American Pie"-like sequences, and songs sung by pure and true cheerleaders (who really aren't).

Kirsten Dunst ("The Virgin Suicides") stars in "Bring It On" along with Gabrielle Union ("She's All That") as captains of two opposing cheerleading squads. One comes from an affluent suburb in San Diego. The other is from a black majority school in East Compton.

Dunst (Torrance) is the new captain of her cheerleading team, which just happens to be the defending national champion cheerleading squad. Strange this, because the team in question can barely finish a routine properly.

Enter Union (Isis), who pays Torrance's team a visit one day, to tell them tauntingly their previous captain stole all their winning routines from East Compton, the team from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks.

And, by the way, East Compton will be going to the nationals, and will be a serious challenge to Torrance's team.

Torrance, not one giving to losing easily, becomes desperate and hires a professional choreographer (Ian Roberts), who is anything but the limp-wristed dancing dandy one might expect: He shouts at them like a drill sergeant.