Alan Ball’s New Movie Has Everyone Pissed Off, Except for Warner Brothers

In the entertainment industry’s noble quest to depict each and every kink, fetish, and sexual taboo before the year’s end, Warner Independent Pictures and Netflix’s Red Envelope Entertainment have upped the ante by purchasing rights to American Beauty scribe Alan Ball’s controversial directorial debut Nothing is Private which features “graphic scenes involving menstruation, rape, and pedophilia.” (The film is based on Alicia Erian’s novel, Towelhead, about a 13-year old Arab-American girl growing up in Texas.)

Roger Friedman over at FOX News is already up in arms, calling the movie “kiddie porn” and declaring that it should never see release. But it’s not just conservative newsmen who are upset by Nothing Is Private; S.T. VanAirsdale of the Reeler trashes the movie in an entertainingly over-the-top review, calling it “like Todd Solondz remaking Crash in a cul-de-sac, but with twice the tampons and a quarter of the self-respect,” and declaring he wants to bludgeon Alan Ball to death.

Hey, maybe the movie’s good, and maybe it’s bad. But for us, one simple question remains: Which major network will option the broadcast rights to R. Kelly’s (alleged!) sex tape? Conventional wisdom says Fox, but we kind of think it’ll be Ben Silverman and NBC. -Lane Brown

Ball’s ‘Private’ sold to WIP, Red Envelope [HP]
Kiddie Porn Movie Rocks Toronto as ‘Feel-Awful’ Film of the Year [FOX News]
Dear Alan Ball: Fuck You. Love, The Reeler [The Reeler]