Today I went and saw Flags of Our Fathers, the new Clint Eastwood movie about Iwo Jima. It was a noon matinee show on a Tuesday, so of course the place was packed with the retired and elderly. As the credits of the movie started to roll, many of us stayed seated, as there was a slideshow of Iwo Jima photographs playing opposite everyone’s names. Once the credits finally ended, those of us remaining got up and started to shuffle out of the theater (OK, I didn’t shuffle, but everyone else did. [Freudian slip: I wrote “died” first, instead of “did”. Oops]).

Anyway, as anyone who has actually sat through all of the credits before might know, at the very end of every film they always put up the film’s rating. When Flags of Our Fathers’ R rating came up on screen I could hear a woman in front of my ask her friend: “Why would they rate this R?”

I had to try real hard not to laugh out loud. Um, maybe because of all of the gunshot wounds, blown up body parts, ripped off limbs, and splayed guts, perhaps? I’ve seen quite a few gruesome horror movies that still had less gore than this film.

To be fair, her point was more that school children should see this for its historical significance and to understand the kind of sacrifice these men made. Her understanding of how the MPAA rates films was a little lacking, though.