If it's rated 'R,' who brought all these children?

"It's a big change that we're going to post our rules and regulations on the website," says the MPAA's Ms. Bernards. The new rules, she says, have been in the works for awhile and come in response to feedback from parents, filmmakers, and others.

The proposed changes address some of the criticisms leveled against the system in the recent documentary "This Film is Not Yet Rated" – released on DVD this week – which characterized the ratings board as secretive, anonymous, and inconsistent.

But some parents say they long ago stopped using ratings as their reference for decisionmaking.

"Why would I trust the movie industry?" asks Lisa Wolfe, a New Yorker whose boys are 12 and 13. She particularly objects to the fact that a brief sex scene can get a movie an R rating, while a PG-13 movie might have extreme violence.

When he was 10, she chose to take one son to "Nowhere in Africa," an Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film about a German-Jewish family in 1930s Africa. It had received an R rating for sexual content, but she felt it was a positive experience. She also took her sons to "Borat." She was surprised and a little disturbed by a naked wrestling scene, she says, but her big concern – that her sons wouldn't understand the subtlety of a film that uses racism to mock racism – proved unfounded, and she felt that seeing it with them and discussing it afterward helped them put it in context.

Some parents look beyond the MPAA ratings to sources that offer extra information. Common Sense Media began its website – which covers movies, video games, TV, and other media – in response to parents' pleas for a consistent system. The site rates media for sex, violence, language, and "message"; gives an "on," "pause," or "stop" button on each, and suggests specific ages.

The site gives "Billy Elliot," a film rated R largely for profanity, an "on" rating for 15-year-olds and up, while the PG-13-rated "Casino Royale" gets a "pause" rating for 14-year-olds and up, with a review calling attention to scenes with violence and torture, and its questionable message about sex and behavior.

"All kids and parents are different," says James Steyer, the website's CEO. His son is more at ease with fantasy violence than his daughter is, he notes. "To know your own kids, and then make a good judgment, you have to have the information."

Thompson also cites www.Kids-in-Mind.com and www.ScreenIt.com as providers of detailed information about movies. And when it comes to the truly inappropriate – the 7-year-old at "Munich" or a 4-year-old watching Hannibal Lecter eat brains in "Hannibal" – she wishes theaters would take action. They could create a pamphlet outlining why it's important for parents not to take young children into some movies, she says, or have a policy that they'll encourage families with young children to find a more appropriate movie.

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