Sometimes you just know when Harvey Weinstein is behind something. This wonderful man acts with an unparalleled bombast and brass that bleeds through even his most banal interactions—sometimes with such hysterical impunity that you shudder and melt with respect, knowing you would not want this guy any other way (unless you worked for him).

I offer Exhibit T (or whatever letter we are on): A press release The Reeler received with the subject line, "MPAA Restricts Audiences Under the Age of 18 From Witnessing a Momentous Event in U.S. History." You do not need to know the movie, and you do not need to know the back story; you just barely need to know that only one studio head in America would ever authorize such a classically impudent allegation.

And God bless him, really. Harvey went to bat this time around for John Dahl's WWII picture The Great Raid, which is set for an Aug. 12 release and slapped with an R rating for "strong war violence and brief language." If the trailer is any indication, you basically have some scary Japanese officers shooting people and extended battle sequences recreating what producer Marty Katz calls in the release "the greatest known rescue mission to ever occur."

Moreover, you have $70 million locked up in a summer film that kids technically cannot go see. So Harvey did his homework and spun off a rescue job of his own:

"There have been a number of war films with comparable levels of violence that were given a 'PG-13' rating including such films as Hotel Rwanda, Master and Commander and Pearl Harbor," said Harvey Weinstein. "The Great Raid tells the true story of what happened to our soldiers, many of whom were still teenagers, who were sent overseas during World War II. The violence is not there to shock the audience, rather, it's to show them an accurate depiction of what happened, and is by no means excessive."

Not that Harvey knows anything about "excessive," mind you. At any rate, with the clock winding down and Miramax's promotional campaign kind of flagging on this one, it might even be worth it to just say screw it—add more "strong war violence" and release The Great Raid without any rating at all. After all, look what the tactic accomplished last week for ThinkFilm's own quotable maverick Mark Urman and his studio's The Aristocrats.

Although, I admit blaming the MPAA for American teens' history deficiency may get crowds lined up around the block. Stranger things have happened, and Harvey has likely been a part of most of them.