Where the Truth Lies director Atom Egoyan lost a valiant battle with the MPAA ratings board yesterday over scenes of "explicit sexuality" in his film. (Cough cough three way!) The bad news: WTTL will have to carry an NC-17 rating (or go out unrated), which may prevent some theaters from showing the movie. The good news (unsexy version): Distributor ThinkFilm will probably receive scads of free publicity from the movie's soon-to-be famous menage a trois. The good news (sexy version): The released version will carry Egoyan's original group-sex vision:

At issue, according to ThinkFilm, was the mystery's pivotal scene, which involves a menage a trois among Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth and [Rachel] Blanchard, which leads to a young woman's death. According to Egoyan, the shot was filmed as a single sustained master shot and he couldn't cut it any further without rendering the mystery incomprehensible.

We're so happy they stuck to their naughty guns; no one wants to watch an incomprehensibly edited three-way. It would be a shame if the tantalizing mysteries (Hey, where did Kevin Bacon's hand go? Is he giving Firth a reacharound? Whose leg is that on Blanchard's shoulder?) raised by an artistically shot gang-bang scene were destroyed in an editing bay.

• 'Truth' hurts for Canadian director [THR/Reuters]

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