Stay The *censored* Away From My Movies!

In what has to be one of the more interesting uses of new consumer technology, Wal-Mart is getting ready to sell DVD players equipped with censorship technology that will allow viewers to "excise" unwanted content. Parents (presumably) can program into the player what they thinks is inappropriate, from graphic violence to sex to bad language - or, in other words, from being fucked up to fucking to the word "fuck." Some directors are up in arms, and rightly so. You should really take the film as it's intended to be seen.

But on the other hand, it's not as if the would-be censors control anyone's view of the film but their own (or their kids). It doesn't stop me from fully enjoying the blood-spattered goodness of Kill Bill in the privacy of my own home or in the theater. Hey, at work I even programmed my PC's CD player to skip one of the 20 tracks on Mike Keneally's Dancing that, IMHO, is a dud in the middle of an otherwise brilliant album. Would Mike really care? Should he?