Follow Up: 2011 Not an R Year

Earlier this month, I was projecting a very non-R rated Oscar nominee field predicting the only R rated film would be The Descendants. I feared I could be wrong and we'd see Ides of March, Drive, J.Edgar or even Bridesmaids or The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

But 9 films were nominated, and the only R rated film was...The Descendants. Joining the ranks of 7 PG-13 films (The Artist, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, The Tree of Life, and War Horse) and one PG film (Hugo).

Which, I can appreciate, and think is an interesting occurrence, that I'm curious will mark the coming years. Perhaps it relates to film studios making more "box office safe," films that wouldn't limit the audience size by the rating, that resulted in this.

I also have to wonder about the impact of last year's film The King Speech, which was a tame movie with one foul mouth scene that sky-rocketed the rating and became somewhat of a discussion over the past year.

Even at the box office, the top 20 films only have 2 rated R movies which were summer comedies (The Hang Over Part II and Bridesmaids).

Will the not R best picture nomination trend continue? 2012 will show.