Censorship Watch: Zack and Miri [Cant] Make a Porno, Crank: High Voltage short-circuited

Apparently for its concept alone, the raunchy sex comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno has been banned in Thailand.

Local distributor M Pictures attempted to release American director Kevin Smith's film on March 12 in a limited run at Paragon Cineplex, but the movie was  pulled over concerns by censors.

The distributor then made an appeal to the National Film Board, which today announced it has firmly stood by its decision to ban the film, saying "its explicit sexual content go against moral principles [in Thailand]", according to an article on The Nation's website.

The comedy is about a pair of friends, played by Seth Rogan and Elizabeth Banks, who hatch a scheme to make pornographic films as a means of getting out of debt.

Culture Ministry permanent secretary Vira Rojpojchanarat offers the reason the film is banned in Thailand:

"The screening of this film may encourage copycats here."

Zack and Miri Make a Porno has been a lightning rod for controversy since it was first proposed.

In Hollywood, the Motion Picture Ratings Association initially gave the film a NC-17 rating, meaning that only people age 17 and older can be admitted to the film. It's the most restrictive rating a film can receive in the US. Film studios typically seek to avoid the harsh rating because it limits how widely the film can be advertised and released.

After an appeal, the film was rated R (requiring that viewers under age 17 be accompanied by a parent or guardian) for "strong crude sexual content including dialogue, graphic nudity and pervasive language."

Smith also fought a pitched battle with America's ratings board over the film poster. After an image of Rogan and Banks purportedly receiving oral sex was rejected (but allowed in neighboring Canada), the initial teaser poster for the U.S. was of stick figures. The final poster was a fanciful cartoon drawing.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno was released in the U.S. last October.

People who have has seen the film say it is loaded with the typically raunchy but witty dialogue that Smith is known for, but the nudity primarily consists of bare breasts, which are sometimes allowed to be seen in Thai cinemas.

Update: Here's the full story from Daily Xpress.

Update 2: And DPA picked up the story, pointing out that "pirated versions ... are already widely available on the streets of Bangkok".

Update 3: Kevin Smith's News Askew website has comments about this as does the film blog, Cinema Blend.

Crank: High Voltage short-circuited

The frenetically paced, ultra-violent Hollywood action comedy Crank: High Voltage, which opened last weekend, has been snipped by Thai censors, who objected to a sex scene that takes place in view of a crowded grandstand at a horse-racing track.

It's the sequel to a 2006 action-comedy that also contained a public sex scene, in which the main character hitman Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) and his girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart) have sex on a crowded street in Los Angeles' Chinatown.

Then, the sex act was to boost Chev's adrenaline so he could keep a poison from entering his heart. In the sequel, Chev's heart has been stolen and replaced with a battery-powered ticker, so he needs to generate electricity from friction to keep pumping.

In the censored version, the sex scene at the race track simply cuts to the crowd's excited reaction of seeing the couple copulate in the dirt. And then Chev and the dishevelled Eve are on the run from the police.

Earlier in the film, Chev meets his girlfriend at a go-go bar, where other dancers are topless, and naked breasts are clearly seen. But Smart's character, who has become a go-go dancer since the first film, has black electrical-tape X's over her nipples.

In the US, Crank: High Voltage is rated R (admission to viewers under 17 only with a parent or guardian) "for frenetic strong bloody violence throughout, crude and graphic sexual content, nudity and pervasive language."