'Tis someone very, very special's birthday today.

All these people would also like to say Happy Birthday as well.

Just to remind myself that life is worth living...

^^ Bung wants.



♥

How to turn a 15 into a 12A.

From the bbfc entry for Angels and Demons -

This film was originally shown to the BBFC in an unfinished version. The BBFC advised the company that the film was likely to receive a '15' classification but that the requested '12A' certificate could be achieved by making reductions in four scenes. In particular the BBFC suggested that sight of blood splattering onto a character's face, sight of a character screaming in pain as he burns, sight of a wound being injected and sight of a character self-immolating and burning should all be reduced. When the finished version of the film was submitted, all these reductions had been made satisfactorily and the film was classified '12A'.

So there you go.

This reminds me a bit of 2006 actually, when The Da Vinci Code came out and it got a 12A, but had to be cut. However, in The Da Vinci Code, it wasn't blood, but the music that scared the censors, something truly unprecedented:

The BBFC told executives at Sony, who are distributing the film in Britain, that unless significant changes were made to the film's audio content they would end up with a restrictive 15 certificate, which would have had a serious impact on the film's box office prospects.

A move to turn down a film's certification on the basis of its soundtrack is virtually unheard of. Normally, film producers have to cut only visual scenes to get the certification they require.

"It was when the movie was viewed again with the soundtrack that the problems emerged," a studio source said. "Everyone was full of praise for the score but the BBFC felt that the way it was being used to build up the tension was simply too much for very young children.

"The BBFC also thought that the film had a very high 'crunch factor'. You didn't just see the fight scenes, you heard the bones break."

Aware that anything other than a 12A certificate would have undermined the film's commercial prospects, Sony was forced to moderate the audio content for the finished version of the film. Last week, it was finally granted the desired 12A certificate by the board.

A BBFC spokesman said: "We advised Sony that, as things stood, the film would receive a 15 certificate unless changes were made. A good score is obviously there to build up the tension. But in this case, we felt it was making things too tense for a very young audience.

''The sound mix was also accentuating the violence to a degree which was unacceptable for a young audience."

"You do have to wonder if just turning down the sound is going to help matters that much," he said. "Even after the sound has been adjusted, you are still left with the problem of the violent imagery and it's this kind of imagery which really worries people."

Sue Palmer, an expert on child development and the author of Toxic Childhood, said: "It is an interesting response by the BBFC. The soundtrack is another dimension which reinforces what we see without us being very aware of it. However, children will still be seeing scenes of violence that they cannot deal with.

"We seem to assume that children mature at a faster rate and can handle more explicit material, but they can't. They are as emotionally vulnerable as they ever were."

Source

Personally, whilst I know the film made a lot of money and the 12A/PG-13 ratings played a part in that, I would have probably enjoyed it a bungload more had I not watched it with 10 year old chavs in the audience. So I'm quite curious as to what the 15-rated version was like. For now though, enjoy the amusing warning -

01. Who is your favourite American president of all time?
02. Did you watch the Eurovision song contest this year? If not, why? If yes, who was your fave?
03. What is the most ridiculous statement you've put in exam?



04. Unfunniest "funny" film?
05. (self-centred question) What's the first adjective that comes to mind when you think of me? (be honest, I won't take offence.) :P

Bung's Playlist for the week.

... And why they've been tickling my aural senses.

Tambourine - Eve
Rather than revising diligently like I'm meant to be, I've been watching all the episodes of season three of Skins instead. Tambourine was played in episode 2, where on Cook's birthday, he gatecrashes a "classy" boat-party. Tambourine plays as Effy dances sultrily and Freddie watches, pining for her. Awesome song with a great beat, despite "Shake your tambourine and catch yourself a whistle" being repeated quite a few times and there not being any real meaning. Just embrace the catchy and dance along.


Good Girls Go Bad - Cobra Starship ft. Leighton Meester
Cobra Starship are responsible for many of my guilty pleasure listens (Hollaback Boy, Billie Jean), but this one actually has a semblance of sounding like a song. It could very well be the song that Gossip Girl's Chuck Bass lives his life by, so, how apt that they've gotten Leighton Meester, star of Gossip Girl and my number 1 girl crush to duet with. And together, they are sugar, spice and all things nice. Simple, addictive fun, with the potential to be the Summer song of 2009.

Dragon Queen - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

My mouth you're touching
Your mouth is running
No loving for nothing
Nobody knock my body out

Strange, sexy, surreal.

Beautiful - Eminem
It seems awfully out of character for Eminem to release a song with this title, but he has done, and it's my favourite song from an otherwise disappointing Relapse. Personally, I feel it's one of Eminem's more accessible songs, and his most humane by far. The rapping is perfect and the chorus just ebbs melancholy, a combination last achieved by Kanye West and Chris Martin on... you've got it, Homecoming.

I Feel It All - Feist
It's been over a week since the last episode of The Inbetweeners season 2 has aired, and Bung is already feeling withdrawal symptoms. So, to make up for it, I've taken to saying "snatch" and "clunge" in a manner that would do Jay proud, as well as doing goonish things (as if I needed an excuse for that, hah!) In addition to this, I've also been listening to the "theme" from the show, that is, the song who's intro is played repeatedly in the background without them actually playing Feist's singing.
Four Women on One Man - Nina Simone
I had a nap one afternoon and had my iPod sat in the dock, playing away in the background. I woke up to Four Women, and... wow. It's one of the deepest, most poetic songs I've ever heard, as Nina adopts the voice of four different women in four verses, each of them having their own soliloquy. The song demands and displays the need for equality, both gender and racial, as well as the underlying want of freedom in our souls. Majestic.

My Love - The Bird and the Bee
I got into The Bird and the Bee after hearing their song "Fucking Boyfriend" on the Forgetting Sarah Marshall soundtrack and falling in love (the song does get played in the film, but in the background in the nightclub scene so blink and you miss it). The band really know about the many faces of love, and, whilst My Face celebrates the beauty of it for the most part, it also recognises the sadness involved, "sad clown". There is also one line of transcendence in the
song - "I'm not afraid of all the reasons why we shouldn't try", which I just love, love, love.



Bubbles - Dizzee Rascal
Bung hasn't been clubbing for over two weeks now, and she's missing the not-so-duclet tunes of her homeboy Raskit. As with my two Dizzee Rascal favourites Dance wiv Me and Fix Up Look Sharp, Bubbles is a terrifically cockney song, encompassing what it's like to be a black lad growing up in a crime-ridden area of London. Dizzee loves embracing the minutiae, and in this song he'll tell you how much his trainers cost. It's like the "99 Problems" of the L-D-N.

Mil Besos - Patty Griffin
Another love song to wrap up this eclectic playlist, this one an eligiac Spanish tribute what Bung can only guess was a lost love.

Te he de seguir amando,
te he de seguir besando
hasta volverte loca.
hasta que me devuelvas
el corazn que en besos
yo te deje en la boca...

So they're the nine songs that I've listened to this week obsessively! How about you?

Goddess.

That is all.

10 Least Favourite Oscar Nominated Performances of this Millenium.

Some of them bland, some of them unintentionally hilarious. All, in my eyes, overrated.

01. George Clooney, Syriana.
02. Ruby Dee, American Gangster.
03. Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road.
04. Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine.
05. Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland.
06. Keisha Castle-Hughes, Whale Rider.
07. Naomi Watts, 21 Grams.
08. Ellen Burstyn, Requiem for a Dream.
09. Alan Alda, The Aviator.
10. Kate Winslet, The Reader.

Actually watching the DVD extras.

A conversation with good ol' Lukebung, my fellow cinephile over watching the DVD extras - or a lack thereof, coupled with dire, dire boredom from revising Java, got me curious as to exactly what was lurking on the second disc of Pan's Labyrinth SE DVD that I'd been given for my birthday. And there's a tonne of goodies, from Mercedes' Lullaby hummed/played on a variety of instruments, the film trailer, director's notebook and an interview for The Guardian. The two most visually features were the storyboards and film comparison, as well as a montage of the various posters for Pan's Labyrinth, and I thought I'd share 'em:

Ha.

#1

Life lessons from cinema #2.

“Love is passion, obsession, someone you can’t live without. If you don’t start with that, what are you going to end up with? Fall head over heels. I say find someone you can love like crazy and who’ll love you the same way back. And how do you find him? Forget your head and listen to your heart. I’m not hearing any heart. Run the risk, if you get hurt, you’ll come back. Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love - well, you haven’t lived a life at all. You have to try. Because if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived.”

- Meet Joe Black.

"Isla Fisher. Yes or no?"

This was the content of a text I just received, and, rather than give a meagre 160-character text back, I thought I'd blog about the lovely lady.

33 years old, pint-sized Isla Fisher is noticable for her large brown eyes and her stunning auburn hair. She is married to Borat/Ali G actor Sacha Baron Cohen and her dimiutive frame is accentuated when standing next to him in all his tallness, and the two make an adorable couple. Fisher could easily pass for someone half her age, such is her petiteness and innocent look. The two performances that I remember her best for are as psychotic Gloria Cleary in Wedding Crashers, whom Vince Vaughn misguidedly takes the virginity of - and then spends the rest of his time hiding from her, and as Becky Bloomwood in Confessions of a Shopaholic. The Shopholic novels are amongst my favourite in the chicklit genre, and I was extremely defensive when I first saw the trailer and saw how Americanized the film was, but, once I sat down and enjoyed the film with my friend in Bristol, I came to recognise that this was not so much a makeover as a complete reinvention of the Shopaholic franchise, and Fisher, a key part in that. The film takes Becky Bloomwood's hedonistic shopaholic to new levels, but, in the casting agents choosing Fisher as the lead, you could never totally hate Becky, no matter how selfish her actions are. Fisher is an absolute star in the film, exhibiting her comic timing wonderfully. Her delivery during the "Yes... I did google" is classic.

Isla Fisher has not really been tested with any overly-strenuous roles, but give her time. I like her, her bubbly charm and her screen persona very much.

And to close, I shall thank Paul Haine for the inspiration for this entry, and close with a rather lovely quote from her:
"I love acting, love it. It's the greatest fun in the world. I've always had no trouble feeling extremely grateful. So even though, comparatively, I wasn't doing so well, I thought I was on top of the world."

Maybe we could start again.

Awww. ILU Philip Taylor!

And... tomorrow, I shall try to actually, y'know *write* something. It's just, revision, ya know...

"A joke."

He's got a mouth on him, but c'mon, so purdy!



Everything I love's being knocked out today.

*shakes head*

Emmabung Watson is a Chelsea fan?

Look who was on The Simpsons!