Friday September 30th 2011
To celebrate the release of Melancholia today, the magnificent bastards at Artificial Eye have sent me a jiffy bag full of badges featuring that delightful ‘Persona Non Grata’ stamp off of Lars von Trier’s character poster. I have four First Class stamps in my wallet so that’s how many of the badges I’m going to give away.
If you want a badge just e-mail [no more seal pictures plz] with your address and a photograph of a happy seal. Happiest seals win.
*ADDENDUM: I should have pointed out that anyone caught e-mailing pictures of Kiss from a Rose hit-maker Seal will be immediately disqualified.
Thursday September 29th 2011
That’s right, the feature that inspired apathy the world over is back. This week: shark attacks, naughty teenagers and underage nudity. Provocative!
Rated 12A for moderate violence, sex and drug references
Drugs are a bit of a hot topic for the BBFC. You can sneak them into a 12A but only if they’re portrayed as INHERENTLY BAD AND WRONG. The makers of the upcoming Footloose remake have got the right idea, including only a ‘brief sight of joint smoking by a bad teenager’. Oh those bad teenagers, what are they like? Apparently he later asks the protagonist “You get high? Cause I do, every damn day. We could go burn one after school”. This is definitely how young people speak.
Rated 15 for one scene of sexual threat and moderate bloody violence
Shark Night 3D slipped in at PG-13 in the States, so most of its content can be very easily contained at 15. There are no ‘fucks’, minimal amounts of gore and the sexual references don’t extend far beyond the phrase “tickle your privates sober” (can’t wait to find out the context for that one). Even the ‘scene of sexual threat’, in which ‘a young woman who has been kidnapped by two men is appalled when they force her to strip to her bra and panties on the deck of a boat’ turns out to be something else entirely when the men reveal that ‘their actual intention is to feed her to the fish’. Which in the BBFC’s eyes is the equivalent of baking someone a lovely cake compared to anything approaching sexual violence.
Rated 12A for frequent moderate violence and threat, and one use of strong language
Thought Abduction was going to be as bland and anaemic as its star’s acting style? Think again! The BBFC guidelines promise ‘loud sound effects’, ‘heavy blows’ and even ‘red patches on clothing’. They also detail a scene in which an evildoer puts a cigar cutter around a teenage girl’s finger, but don’t worry because ‘her hand is not injured’. Explosive filmmaking at its finest.
Rated U for mild violence and occasional natural nudity
This is an interesting one. I saw Tomboy a few months ago (it’s brillo) and wondered at the time what the BBFC would make of it. It’s about a young girl who pretends to be a boy in order to fit in with a group of kids in a new town, and features — in the BBFC’s words — ‘a brief shot of the girl standing up naked in a bath, which reveals her true female nature to the audience’. Under the Protection of Children Act 1978, the board must censor ‘indecent’ images of children, i.e. those that are in any way sexual. Obviously the images in question aren’t, but given that the film’s largely about sexual awakening and gender identity, neither can they be entirely separated from a sexual context. And as the film features no other objectionable material, the BBFC’s decision meant the difference between a U certificate and an outright banning.
They went with common sense and opted for the U.
Rated 15 for very strong language and strong violence
From the look of the plot synopsis for Gillian Wearing’s arthouse pseudo-documentary Self Made (spoiler alert), it’s quite remarkable that the film didn’t tip into the 18 category on violence alone. But even more incredible — in the BBFC’s insane world of moral hypocrisies — is that it features THREE uses of the word ‘cunt’. Yep, more than two. Could this be the dawning of a new era in British classification? An era where characters can say ‘cunt cunt cunt’ and not immediately restrict their audience to over-18s? The mind boggles.
Tuesday September 27th 2011
Above: one of six newly-released character posters for Melancholia, which hits UK cinemas this Friday and is unequivocally amazing.
Oh, and if you missed it, this is what’s stamped in the top left corner …
Fabulous.
Monday September 26th 2011
Less than twenty four hours after I wrote about Kevin Smith’s cancelling of a UK press screening for his new movie Red State, he took to his online radio network SModcast to complain about the arrogance of certain ‘UK blogs’. I think he was mainly referring to The Shiznit, whose write-up of the incident was a little more vitriolic than mine, but I have to admit I was still a little upset by the rebuke.
I’ve considered myself a fully-fledged fan of Smith (or @ThatKevinSmith as he prefers to be known now) ever since I discovered Clerks at the age of 14, after which I rapidly absorbed all of his movies, books, stand-up shows and podcasts. I can honestly say the only time I’ve felt properly disappointed in him is when I saw Cop Out, which as he willingly admits, was a load of old balls.
So to hear myself bundled in — however obliquely — with ‘the haters’ because I’d dared to question his PR technique, hurt quite a bit. I mean, I wrote the piece more as a disappointed fan than an incensed critic, and suddenly I was being admonished by one of my teenage heroes for what he perceived as self-entitlement. Please love me Dad! WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME?!?
Anyway, either I’m subconsciously trying to make amends for my irreverence or K-Smith’s just made his best movie in more than a decade, because I pretty much loved Red State. Deftly blending horror and satire with its story of a Westboro-inspired extremist group who kidnap three teenagers, the film effortlessly maintains suspense despite frequent diversions into comedy.
Also: Kevin Smith shoots action like a boss. Who knew?
There’s a good chance I’ll watch the film again in six months and be distracted by its flaws (they’re certainly there, mostly in the last half hour) but until then I’m just going to bask in the comfort of being back in Kevin’s good books. Feel free to join me — it’s pretty roomy in here.
