CleanFlicks, the Utah-based video company that cuts nudity, sex, violence, and bad language from movies like Titanic, is branching out. It already has 10 branches from Oregon to Ohio, and is planning several more. The company's online service (cleanflicks.com) also sells edited videos or edits movies for about $12. Very violent movies, like Gladiator or The Patriot, run about $17 an edit, though CleanFlicks won't even touch about two dozen films, from Caddyshack to Basic Instinct. For those who would rather know what they're missing, Trilogy Studios (also based in Utah) will soon release Movie Mask ($50, moviemask.com). Scenes aren't deleted—they're replaced. In Kate Winslet's topless Titanic scene, she's now wearing a digital corset. Swords in The Princess Bride are replaced with Star Wars lightsabers. Bullet wounds in The Matrix are now "a fun comic book-style effect." But what will be truly amazing is when a device comes out that removes the cheese from Christians' apocalyptic films.
"Making the hard decisions about what our children see and hear has to be the job of parents. Software is no substitute," wrote Ken Paulson in a recent Freedom Forum commentary on these film-cleaning solutions.