PRESS: In This Week's Cleanflix Interview

An interview with Cleanflix co-directors Andrew James and Joshua Ligairi by In This Week's Spencer Sutherland. Direct link to the original article at In This Week's website here.


Spencer Sutherland » 09.22.09 »

CLEANFLIX AT FILM FESTIVAL IN TORONTO

Looking for all the action, adventure, and comedy of Hollywood's biggest hits -- without the pesky sex, swearing, or violence? For no-R-rated-movie-abiding Mormons, CleanFlicks and its edited films were a godsend. The only problem was that the films' copyright holders weren't happy with the idea of someone else chopping up their intellectual property.

In their new documentary, CleanFlix, Utah filmmakers Andrew James and Joshua Ligairi tell the story of the rental chain -- and the culture that spawned its success -- while following founder Daniel Thompson through a bitter lawsuit and public sex scandal. Throughout the film, the directors refuse to take sides (even they seem to have different opinions on the matter), but certainly raise plenty of questions about censorship, religion and Hollywood.

IN recently caught up with the two filmmakers as CleanFlix made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Why was this was an important story to tell?

James » It is a topic that is widely misunderstood. We also wanted to ask questions about art, censorship, religion and sex, and I think the film brings up a lot of ideas that are worth talking about.

Ligairi » I'm interested in art that expands understanding of the human experience. We're showing the world this specific cross-section of American culture that many people have no idea even exists. But the film is even fresh for those that think they know the culture and the topic.

You are heavily ingrained in both the art of film and Utah culture. Is there a clear-cut right and wrong in this story from either side?

James » Yes and no. It's clearly wrong to make money by altering and selling copyrighted material that doesn't belong to you. That's as clear-cut as it gets, at least for me. However, if there were legal ways to do it, I think that question becomes much more difficult to answer.

Ligairi » The movie answers a lot of questions, but it also challenges the audience to ask some questions of themselves. There are a lot of gray areas here. I have varying opinions on the issue depending on what angle I am looking at it from. The idea of censorship is very troubling, and that is key here, but if we look beyond that for a moment, there are all kinds of other issues at play. Making the film has helped me realize how nuanced the potentially polarizing discussion actually is. The film is full of information (and hopefully insight), but it also requires some work on the part of the viewer. I'm more proud of that than anything else.

As a filmmaker, what would be your response if you found that edited copies of CleanFlix were floating around?

James » I would be upset, especially considering the fact that we've talked about doing our own "clean" version of the film. We've spent three years making it and labored over every little decision. It would be frustrating to see a lot of that work being arbitrarily changed by a third party.

Ligairi » Personally, I could care less. I don't believe in auteurs. Art belongs to the world. While there is great meaning for me personally in the act of creation, I can't deny that the film changes depending on the viewer. Each audience member brings something different to the table and what they bring literally has the power to change the meaning of the film--if only to them.

The end user has some rights. I'm not talking about this in the capitalistic sort of way that the sanitizers often do--the 'I bought it and I can do what I want' argument. I'm speaking from the theoretical standpoint that, as a filmmaker, my transmission hasn't served its full purpose until it is decoded by a receiver, and try as I might, I can never control the way it is received. If that answer is pretentious or over-intellectualized, the shorter answer is that we are toying with doing our own clean version anyway, so it probably won't come up."

If clean movies were ever able given a legal green light, do you think there is a market for edited films outside of Utah?

James » People often talk about this large market for sanitized films outside of Utah, and I suspect that there probably is, but one can only speculate. People tend to point at polls or cultural identity as a way to identify such a market, but CleanFlicks and companies like CleanFlicks never really took off in other places, so it's difficult to say.

Ligairi » Time will tell. All indicators point to a considerably large market. My guess is that it is as big as the market for unrated films, for instance. CleanFlicks had about 70 locations across the United States and was substantially bigger online. In the end, 80 percent of their business was online and outside of the state. We focus on Utah because it took Mormon culture to create CleanFlicks, but it was spreading everywhere and they were still growing at a rapid rate when they were shut down.

Because Walmart refuses to sell CDs with an Explicit Lyrics label, any artist who wants to sell records puts out a clean version. Would filmmakers be willing to do the same if a big retailer said 'No more R-rated movies'?

James » Filmmakers edit their films for airlines and television, so I imagine that they probably would, but again, that is just speculation. I guess it depends on the studios that own the films in question.

Ligairi » The music industry is probably the best comparison, yet it almost never comes up. Mainstream artists like Eminem, or whoever, don't complain about doing their clean versions because it is just part of the industry--the same way television and airline edits are part of the movie industry. A lot of cooler independent musicians opt-out and decide that they would rather leave their music intact than have it play on the radio or be sold at Walmart. That is a financial sacrifice that they make for their art. You don't see a lot of filmmakers willing to do that right now.

Though James and Ligairi are busy showing the film off at foreign festivals, they hope to have their U.S. debut at Sundance in January. Until then, Utah audiences can follow the movie's journeys at www.cleanflixthemovie.com.

Direct link to the interview at In This Week or check out Spencer Sutherland's blog The Sutherland Manifesto.

BLOG: Huck, flack, spin, & buzz (kill)

Joshua Ligairi » 09.20.09 »

Sometimes you've got to be careful what you wish for. In the film industry the wishful thing is "buzz." My mind is recalled to the early Christian notion that those things which you can see will pass away while those things that are invisible are eternal. In the case of indie film, once you're out there, there is no going back. For that reason we were discouraged from having our film reviewed by major news outlets such as The New York Times because, although a positive review from the Times may help, a negative review will kill the film dead in its tracks. So, the idea is to put a review like that off as long as possible, while building a strong grassroots appreciation for the film. Due to forces outside our control, like premiering at a major film festival, we are becoming evermore visible. What do we do now? There isn't really anyone to tell you this stuff. We've decided to run with it.

Just as predicted, there has been the good and the bad. The reviews are rolling in and, for the most part, have been positive. Still, those few bad reviews really stick in my craw. I don't mind so much when they are right about the problems the film has. There are plenty of valid criticisms. I have a few myself. For instance, there are certain things that aren't included in the film that I wish were but, for one reason or another, were impossible to include. I know that we couldn't have included those things, so I let it go, but the critics have no way of knowing our process, so I don't fault them when they can't let it go. I'm also happy to agree to disagree with a critic on certain points. And then, of course, some things are just a matter of personal preference or taste. All of that is fine. But there are two types of reviews that I cannot abide.

The first thing that drives me crazy is when a critic is reviewing your film, based not on what they are watching, but on the film they were expecting to see. This happens all the time, of course, but it was a particular problem with Cleanflix because the topic had been oft-reported on by the entertainment news community. They all thought that they knew what the film was going to be when they walked into the theater. The thoughtful ones were happy to be surprised. Many found that their expectations had been exceeded. The rest were upset that their false expectations hadn't been met. And it is not as though we had tricked them with marketing--we didn't even have a trailer! They just weren't willing to review the film on its own terms. Long gone are the days of Pauline Kael. Annonying. That said, this complaint is nothing compared to my major complaint.

The second thing that drives me crazy, and I mean to the point of distraction, is when a critic chides us for something that they missed. You know, like, they say that our film is missing something that it is clearly not. Did they go to the bathroom during that scene? Were they digging around in their popcorn? Maybe they were busy tweeting that our film was a let-down. I don't know. What I do know is that whatever it was that distracted them, caused them to miss some vital piece of information that I was later blamed for.

The problem is that this approach is key to film criticism these days. Critics see a film once and write their review. That's just the way it worst. For that reason, it is difficult to get after them too much. I would be hard pressed to watch a film once--live--and then be expected to have total recall a day or two or seven later when writing a review. Of course they are going to miss things. Of course they are going to get a few things wrong. It is expected and totally reasonable. The problem is that many of these reviewers aren't in touch with themselves enough to know when they are fuzzy on the facts. In fact, often the opposite is true. They approach your film cock-sure, dragging you over the coals for things they claim the film is lacking, but in actuality is not. This isn't as much of an issue with bigger films, because enough people have seen and reviewed such a movie to expose the reviewer as the one who is out of the loop. But with a film like ours, an indie film being seen for the first time at a festival, the critic is among the first to review the movie and, if they mess up badly enough, they may ensure that nobody else gets the chance to review the movie in the future.

Photo from TIFF Cleanflix premiere in Life.

I am loathe to report that the majority of our negative reviews had at least one, if not several, instances of the reviewer claiming that we had missed opportunities that we hadn't. I cannot began to communicate to you my level of frustration that is pent up when reading such reviews. How is one supposed to react in a situation like that? In normal life (especially in this online culture we're living in) I would write back and verbally rip this guy to shreds. I can't do that as a filmmaker. I literally had to talk myself out of writing a scathing letter to a bumbling critic for an entire hour on one such occasion. In the end I was glad I didn't because to do so would only have been worse for my film.

Look at the flack Bruce Willis took for defending Live Free or Die Hard to talk-backers on the AICN boards. People were surprised he would stoop to that level. Well, what would you do if a bunch of people you didn't know were trashing something you cared enough about to dedicate more than a year of your life making and promoting? I'm not surprised in the least that Bruce wanted to defend his flick. The reality is, you just can't do it. Learning to deal with criticism is just part of being a film professional. Filmmaker Richard Dutcher, who actually appears in Cleanflix, gave me some good advice. He said to read the bad reviews once. Just once. Really listen to the critic and see if there is anything to learn. Then, throw it away. Read the good reviews a hundred times. That helped and has stuck with me.

And, of course, there is a positive side to this whole thing. The best part is that, based on the acclaim of Cleanflix, I'm going to get to keep making movies. Also, it is just fun knowing that people you like and respect are talking about you and your film. Just being online the last couple days and seeing Peter Sciretta tweeting about our film with guys like Jason Reitman and Frank Marshall has given me goosebumps. Malcolm Ingram of Small Town Gay Bar and SModcast fame was at our final screening. Danny Boyle almost walked into the screening, but it turns out he was at the wrong theater. Bummer. But there were many appreciative industry elite and there was a great press turnout as well. Our publicist even said that he spotted Elvis Mitchell at one of our screenings. No word from him yet, but Elvis, if you're out there, I'm a big fan of The Treatment. Call me.

One little highlight that you probably wouldn't expect to be one is that I sat and chatted with Peter from /Film and Alex from First Showing after a screening. I'm something of a film geek and I actually get a bigger kick out of knowing that /Film or Ain't It Cool has reviewed my film than even Variety or the Hollywood Reporter (even though we had a great interview with THR). And not only that, but they liked it. What a relief. I have promised to send a copy of Cleanflix to the Film Junk and Filmspotting podcasts, and I'm grateful that I have the excuse of waiting until our next film festival before I send it because I'm kinda nervous to hear what Adam and Matty, or worse, Greg, Sean, and Jay think of the movie I spent two years making. I don't know what I'll do when Roger Ebert finally reviews it.

I know that this probably sounds weird, a filmmaker excited to meet a blogger, and I know that it is usually the other way around, but when you are just starting out, you are a dyed in the wool geek such as myself, and you have been reading these guys forever...well, there is no denying that the whole experience is just thrilling. So, in the end, you take the good and the bad and hope that the buzz you've worked so hard to build doesn't turn out to be a buzz-kill.

PRESS: /Film review of Cleanflix

A review of our film, Cleanflix, by /Film editor Peter Sciretta. Direct link to the original post at /Film's site here.

Peter Sciretta » 09.19.09 »

When I first found out that a documentary about CleanFlicks was playing at the Toronto International Film Festival, I immediately added it to my must-see list. I’ve always been interested and outraged at the concept of Cleanflicks.

For those of you who don’t know, Mormons are advised not to watch R-rated movies because the language, sex and violence will contaminate and pervert your brain. The modern day prophets say the best solution is to avoid these things at all costs. A video rental store was opened in Utah to cater to to the sanitized beliefs. CleanFlicks would take Hollywood movies and professionally edit them in final cut, removing most of the “bad parts.”

The film features a number of comparisons between original theatrical cut and CleanFlicks re-edits, most of which are both hilarious and appalling. Swear words aren’t bleeped, scenes are suddenly cut, the CleanFlicks edits are actually remarkably well done, at least technically. But deleted shots, sequences, or conversations, often results in a completely different intention in the dialogue or moments of a film.

"Cleanflix is easily the most interesting topical documentary about movies since This Film Is Not Yet Rated."

The sanitized versions could be rented at the CleanFlicks store, or even be made available for purchase to the paying public (they did this using a 1:1 ratio, including an original purchased copy with each CleanFlicks copy). At one point the company was operating 10 corporate stores, in addition to almost 70 franchised dealerships. The documentary Cleanflix tells the story of the rise and fall of CleanFlicks and other edited movie dealerships in Utah, with a primary focus on Daniel Thompson, a CleanFlicks franchisee who became the de facto leader of Utah’s the edited movie revival. And Daniel’s story has just as many twists and turns as the headline story.

If I have any complaint about the documentary, it is that at one point it becomes too focused on Thompson’s story, and misses opportunities to talk about the ethics, present and future of the sanitized movie business. I would have loved to learn more about how and why Hollywood creates TV and airplane edits of films, but refuses to provide these edits to the Mormon audience. I would’ve liked to see a follow-up on the DVD players being created today that allow parents (or whomever) to selectively edit adult content out of a movie. This story doesn’t end with Daniel, and the movie shouldn’t end with him either.

But that said, Cleanflix is easily the most interesting topical documentary about movies since This Film Is Not Yet Rated. Cleanflix is a movie which continues hours after the credits, in the conversations and debates you will have with your friends and family. It creates a discussion about art, censorship, rights, religion, and technology. With popularized art, what are the rights of the creator (director), copyright owner/distributor (studio), and the art buyer (moviewatcher). And as technology grows, will Hollywood be able to contain the demand for sanitized movie edits?

Interestingly enough, the directors have said they would like to give the film a big premiere in Mormon country… Sundance, make this happen!

/Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Direct link to the review on /Film.

PRESS: CBC review of Cleanflix

A review of Cleanflix by Greig Dymond, Senior Producer of CBC Arts. Direct link to the original post at the CBC's website here.
Greig Dymond » 09.18.09 »

Last night I caught a compelling doc that deserves to find an audience beyond the festival circuit. Cleanflix is about a highly profitable business that sprung up in Utah about 10 years ago: several video-DVD rental outlets started to provide cleaned-up versions of Hollywood favourites for Mormons who liked movies but didn’t want their families exposed to any sex, violence or swearing. Case in point: a lot of these folks wanted to watch Titanic, but without that scene where Leo paints a portrait of the topless Ms. Winslet. Thanks to modern technology, it wasn’t that difficult to add in some clothing for her doomed character.

"A very smart and critical – but never dismissive – film about two vastly different worlds colliding."

Things were going along swimmingly: the owners of stores such as Clean Flicks and Flick’s Club were making oodles of cash and the customers were satisfied. But then some A-list Hollywood directors – including Michael Mann and Steven Soderbergh – found out about the rather radical changes being made to their films without their permission or copyright clearance. Needless to say, all heck broke loose.

Directors Andrew James and Joshua Ligairi grew up in the Mormon community and they’ve made a very smart and critical – but never dismissive – film about two vastly different worlds colliding over artistic censorship.

Direct link to the review at CBC Arts.

PRESS: Ain't It Cool review of Cleanflix

A review of our film, Cleanflix, by Ain't It Cool's Cartuna. Direct link to the original post at Ain't It Cool's site here.

Cartuna » 09.14.09 »

The short version:
Very compelling, if somewhat slanted documentary. I really enjoyed it, and would watch it again, or maybe even buy the DVD at some point.

The long version:
In Utah, where Mormons have been explicitly told that they are not to watch R-rated films by their prophet, enterprising entrepreneurs start businesses where they edit people’s videos of blockbuster Hollywood films to remove any ‘objectionable’ content.

This documentary follows a few of these businesses, as they bump into copyright law and the wrath of the artists whose work they are nipping and tucking.

As you might expect, the ‘choir’ was definitely in the house for this particular bit of preaching. This is a documentary that has chosen sides - from its opening frames, it paints the Church of Latter-day Saints as horrifying and maniacal (by simply showing one of their prophets, preaching, on a distorted grainy videotape) and I wouldn’t want to be the one to argue against this stance.

"Daniel Thompson rivals King of Kong’s Billy Mitchell as one of those ideal documentary subjects who you can’t quite believe is a real guy."

The documentarians were either very wise or very lucky to concentrate their narrative around Daniel Thompson, owner and operator of a small edited-video rental and retail business as their lead subject in the film, as the guy simply loves the attention of the media, and shows an incredible degree of hubris, which ends up coming back to bite him on the ass, multiple times. He rivals King of Kong’s Billy Mitchell as one of those ideal documentary subjects who you can’t quite believe is a real guy.

We follow him through his emergence as a national spokesman for the concept of edited videos up to and beyond a shocking sex-scandal.

I doubt edited-video supporters will really enjoy the film, but the rest of us should have a pretty darn good time.

Direct link to the review on Ain't It Cool.

PRESS: Cleanflix article in Salt Lake Tribune

An article about the Toronto International Film Festival World Premiere of Cleanflix by Sean Means of the Salt Lake Tribune. Direct link to the original article at the Tribune's website here.
Sean P. Means » 09.11.09 »

UTAH MORALITY TALE PREMIERES AT TORONTO

Considering the three years it took to get from Utah County to North America's largest film festival, it's understandable that filmmaker Andrew James was getting teary-eyed.

"It's really emotional -- it's been a great journey," James said, standing next to his co-director, Joshua Ligairi, in front of the audience Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival before the world premiere of their documentary "Cleanflix."

The 90-minute documentary examines the cottage industry that sprung up in Utah in 2000, when a company named CleanFlicks started offering DVD and VHS rentals of Hollywood movies -- edited to remove violence, profanity and sexual content -- to a predominantly Mormon clientele.

Thom Powers, the festival's documentary programmer, introduced the movie with a joking nod to the Sundance Film Festival. "Every year the film industry goes to Utah for 10 days," Powers said, "and the rest of the year we don't think much about the place."

As the movie rolled, the movie-savvy Toronto festival audience learned about the once-thriving business of CleanFlicks and its imitators, and the conditions that prompted that success -- namely, the prohibition by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' leaders against Mormons viewing R-rated movies.

The movie also details how CleanFlicks went out of business when a federal judge in 2006 ruled the edited movies violated copyright laws, while some offshoot companies tried to keep going in spite of the ruling.

After the screening, James and Ligairi fielded questions about the morality of the edited-movie business and how owners of that business justified breaking the law. One owner, Robert Perry, did not. He shut down his business after the court ruling. "You can't break the law and consider yourself a moral person," Perry told the festival audience.

James said that if someone tried to edit his movie, "I'd absolutely be upset about it. They're censoring copyrighted pieces of art they don't own, and they're making a buck off of it."

Both Perry and Utah Valley University communications professor Philip Sherman Gordon, who were interviewed in the film and attended its Toronto premiere, were pleased with the results.

Gordon argued the CleanFlicks side has won, in a way, because recent federal law allows software like ClearPlay, which edits objectionable material from DVDs. Perry said he's happy his side of the story is being told. "I had a good feeling when I first met them that they would do a good job."

Powers, the festival's documentary programmer, said Toronto, with its concentration of movie press and industry, is "a huge launching pad" for Cleanflix.

Having the premiere on neutral territory may be a plus as well, Perry said. "If this was at Sundance," he said, "we'd probably have picketing and riots."

Direct link to the article at the Salt Lake Tribune.

BLOG: Early press for Cleanflix

Joshua Ligairi » 9.06.09 »

So, Cleanflix, premieres on Friday, but it's been getting early buzz since we posted the announcement that we would be playing the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.

After an article in the Salt Lake Tribune, we were informed that Sean Means, film critic at the Tribune, would be making a special trip to Toronto just to see Cleanflix.

The first filmmaker interview was with Producer Kynan Griffin (Pride & Prejudice, Moving McAllister) at The Examiner. Subsequent filmmaker interviews followed in several print publications. You can listen to our first audio interview on A Damn Movie Podcast (warning, explicit language).

There have been some great blog posts anticipating the film from all over the world from Canada to Mexico. We've also been mentioned as top picks by guest bloggers on the TIFF09 documentary guide including David D'Arcy, programmer of the Haifa International Film Festival in Israel and both David Courier and Basil Tsiokos of the Sundance Film Festival programming staff.

We've also been featured nicely in little blurbs within other articles about TIFF09:

The Hollywood Reporter refers to Cleanflix among "high profile" and "heat seeking" films.

IndieWire features Thom Powers talking us up.

Atlantic City Weekly puts us up there with the big boys.

Variety didn't have much to say, but they said it in Variety!

The Hollywood Reporter announcement includes us in the title.

The Torontoist features only our photo and George A. Romero's photo.

Buzz is weird. Of course, we are excited about all the attention the film has been getting (we haven't even hired a publicist yet), but almost nobody has actually seen the film. It seems that we're just getting great word of mouth from the few people who have seen it. Also, supposedly there is good buzz and bad buzz. You want some buzz, but not too much that you become over-saturated. It is all a bunch of stupid marketing stuff that is totally antithetical to the creative process. I guess it is important if you actually want to make art for a living, though.

All that aside, I'm looking forward to the festival. It is a real honor to be playing at a festival as prestigious as Toronto and we hope this is just the beginning of many wonderful film festival experiences. We're super excited to be screening alongside films from a myriad of talented filmmakers that I have looked up to for years. Not to name drop, but other filmmakers in attendance will be The Coen Brothers, Steven Soderbergh, Geroge Clooney, Chris Smith, Todd Solondz, Michael Moore, and Werner Herzog, and George A. Romero--to name just a few. The whole thing would be pretty over-whelming if the reality of it would actually sink in.

If you are interested in tracking the progress of the film, you can become a fan of Cleanflix at Facebook or join us on our struggling MySpace page. Cleanflix poster design by Natty Coleman of Worker's State.

NEWS: Adam(n) podcast appearance

Joshua Ligairi » 09.03.09 »

Two guys named Adam from Salt Lake City run a cool little film podcast where the movies of yesterday and today are jovially discussed in a low-key atmosphere that feels more like hanging out with old friends than a cineaste dissection of cinema. That's not to say that these guys can't drop science. The Adams are true film fans and can speak knowledgeably about anything from the work of Alfred Hitchcock to that of David Cronenberg. I've often enjoyed their rants on everything from Apocolypse Now and Blade Runner to Pee Wee's Big Adventure and Howard the Duck. These guys don't discriminate.

I first heard about A Damn Movie Podcast on Filmspotting (you may remember from a previous post that I am sickeningly addicted to several movie podcasts, Filmspotting ranking high on the junkie list) when one of those Adams, Adam Palcher, dropped in to talk about his favorite films of 2009 so far. Hearing a local on one of my favorite national podcasts, I did a spit take all over my Mac and then jumped on iTunes to look these guys up and see what I was missing out on. And I'm glad I did because it soon paid off in more than just cheap entertainment.

Last night I had the honor of being a guest on the show, recorded at Adam Sherlock's amazing house at a super-secret location in Salt Lake City. How amazingly super-secret? The guy has his own road. But I digress. Sherlock and Palcher invited myself and Andrew James, co-director of the Cleanflix documentary, on the show to discuss our film and the ideas behind it. What ensued was an interesting (to us) if incomprehensible (to everyone but us) conversation about Mormon culture, sanitized movies, the making-of our film, and the upcoming premiere of Cleanflix at the Toronto International Film Festival. I hope that what was said could be considered insightful commentary, but either way I had a great time and it was cool to see that the Adams are actually even more likebale in person than they are on the air.

You can download the podcast on iTunes for free. Just search "A Damn Movie Podcast." Our interview is halfway into Episode 71, the censorship episode, which also features a review of Private Parts and a top five list where the guys discuss movies that they would like to edit just to improve the quality of the film (the Phantom Edit anyone?). It is all worth a listen, but if you have a short attention span, our interview comes in at right about the 30 minute mark.

Another great thing is that the podcast happens to feature music from two of my favorite local bands, arguably two of the best indie/alt country bands in the world right now, Cub Country and Band of Annuals. You can find music from both of these bands online, and I would recommend that you do. I especially like the Cub Country album "High Uinta High" which is largely about singer/songwriter Jeremy Chatelain's (Jets to Brazil, Iceburn) love for the great state of Utah.

I should also probably mention, for those with sensitive ears, that these damn podcasters swear like sailors and the entire interview is riddled with colorful language. If you don't have access to iTunes, you can download the episode directly from their blog. The photos that I've posted of the Adams are by Renee Lee at BellaOra Studios and Francisco Kjolseth at In This Week.