All these details, yet still no idea how "Catwoman" got released: "This Film Is Not Yet Rated"

I vaguely recall this independent -- and you'll see why it was independent -- film being in theaters last year. While the reviews were good, there was no "Fahrenheit 9/11"-level buzz that sent me rushing to the movie house. Too bad, since this is an entertaining little documentary, even if -- like Moore, Spurlock, et al -- there's a clear agenda at play.

"This Film Is Not Yet Rated" aspires to be an ex-pose-say on the movie rating system and people who control it at the Motion Picture Association of America, led for eons by Jack Valenti. The filmmaker, Kirby Dick -- apparently his real name -- is sick and tired of the hypocrisy and inconsistency of the ratings board, so he sets out to unmask the people on the board and give voice to directors and actors who think the system is all a bunch of crap.

As with almost any group of smart people who are angry, the interviews are pretty good. Let's see ... Matt Stone of "South Park" fame, John Waters, Kevin Smith, Atom Egoyan, the "Requiem for a Dream" director, the "Boys Don't Cry" director, the "American Psycho" director. All in all, a fun crew. Strangely, no Michael Bay, James Cameron or Martin Scorsese.

Why? Maybe because the ratings board could care less about violence or even a certain degree of straight sex, but anything a little more steamy or -- gasp! -- gay is a big no-no, aka a sure NC-17 rating, the kiss of death at the box office. We see and hear all sorts of examples of violence vs. sex and straight sex vs. gay sex. This comes after some general talk about the nuances of sex scenes and where exactly the line between R and NC-17 lies.

Where "Rated" really starts to have fun, though, is when the director hires private detectives to identify the super-secret ratings board members. Here we are in the 21st century, and Dick's private dick -- who, ironically, is a woman, although she's lesbian so ... well, I don't know what that means -- uses such methods as watching people through binoculars, eavesdropping in restaurants and going through people's trash. I'm not kidding, and it's pretty funny.

At 90 minutes, the film moves along quickly, and Dick surprisingly accomplishes much of what he set out to do. Even better, get a load of this from IMDB: "The MPAA announced that starting in March of 2007, it will change their policy and allow filmmakers to cite other film's ratings as comparison. The MPAA will also provide information about the demographics of its board."

Compared with Spurlock and McDonald's, Greenwald and Fox News or Wal-Mart, and Moore and any of his subjects, "Rated" actually may force some changes. True, it's not exactly reversing the war in Iraq or solving the nation's obesity crisis. But if it leads to fewer sucking chest wounds and more female full-frontals in R-rated movies, I'm all for it.