Second Guessing the Most Complaints the BBFC Got in 2016

The BBFC’s 2016 Annual Report is set to be dropped any day now (2015's one came out late June last year), and for me, it’s basically like waiting for Christmas. Of course I’ll do an extensive coverage of the Report when it comes out, as I did with the 2015 one, but for now, I thought I’d guess which films the BBFC got the most complaints about.

Note that these are my predictions for public feedback, not my own thoughts about the BBFC’s performance in 2016, which I have outlined in this blog post already.

01. 10 Cloverfield Lane (12A, people will say it should have been a 15)

Product reviews: BOX OF SIX MACARONS (Ladurée) and POSH PROFITEROLES (Marks and Spencer)

"Not really your kind of place, is it?"

Product review: ORIGINAL WAYFARER SHADES (Rayban)

Now that the sun is shining in Britain, it's important to shield one's eyes from the scorching sun, whilst also looking the part. I have several pairs of sunglasses, but, due to my fixation with Nabokov's Lolita, they predominantly tend to be heart-shaped. I've seen characters in films ooze swag in Ray-ban sunglasses before, most memorably Emma Stone in Easy A when she struts down the hall wearing wayfarers and a basque and everyone gawps at her. 

Facebook's somewhat lax policy to racist comments.

Yesterday, I commented on a thread on the Match of the Day account about some footballer being mentored by Jamie Vardy. I wrote something like 'hopefully this player doesn't inherit Vardy's penchant for racially abusing Japanese gentlemen in casinos.'

One Leicester fan, rather lacking in self-awareness, replied with this  (comment at the bottom).

To counter someone complaining about a player from their team for being racist about east Asians, with another, barely veiled racist comment at east Asians, sort of went to illustrate my point.

Unperturbed and unimpressed, I grassed him up to Facebook, only to receive a classic non-response:

So he not-very-subtly called me a 'chink', yet Facebook decided not to take the comment down, instead giving me advice on how to shield my eyes from racist attacks.

No wonder females, and especially females of colour, rarely get involved in football discourse. Cesspit.

I hope you're proud, Gary Lineker, for enabling Vardy, and other Leicester fans' racism, by normalising his usage of 'Jap'. This is the outcome of your careless words.

When the BBFC is wayyyyy more wordy than the IFCO.

Ireland's insight for why Spider-Man: Homecoming is a 12A is pretty straightforward:

Very similar to their insight for Wonder Woman, a 12A for 'moderate action violence' in Ireland and 'moderate violence' in the UK. Notice how in that case, the Irish used one more adjective than the BBFC did. Another movie which got a 12A in the UK for 'moderate violence', not-so-Magnificent Seven, has a wordy AF IFCO insight, 'intense sequences of Western action and killings'.

So this demonstrates that generally, the Irish like to use more words than the BBFC, right? Right?

Well, here's Spider-Man: Homecoming's BBFC short insight, which is detailed, bordering on verbose:

A few interesting things:

1) Obscured strong language? I remember in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, when Johanna tells the the Capitol 'f_ck you' and it's bleeped out, so maybe something like that? (Tho the BBFC just called that strong language, rather than 'bleeped strong language'.)

2) The IFCO have mild ticked in the sex/nudity box, yet the BBFC consider the sex references in Spider-Man: Homecoming moderate. This is very interesting, as the BBFC are generally more lax on sex references than the IFCO (Eddie the Eagle is a PG over here and a 12A in Ireland). The only time (to the best of my knowledge) that the Ireland have rated something lower than the British for sex references is the boob-groping in Your Name. So maybe the sex references is something like that?

3) The BBFC consider the threat moderate, yet the Irish didn't flag it. So either the BBFC are being too cautious, or the IFCO are too hardened.

I will be able to judge which insight was more appropriate when I see the film!

Product reviews: three shower gels (Radox, Boots own brand)

The Radox Brazilian fusion was 50p from Superdrug, the Zingy Lime Fizz was 75p from Boots, and the Radox lavender and waterlily shower gel was £1 from Boots.

Radox Brazillian fusion was by far my favourite of the three. It had an incredibly fresh smell and I loved the way it left my skin feeling afterwards, smooth and hydrated. There was a spicy edge to its aroma, which I presume is the Brazilian contingent. A.

The 'zinginess' of the Boots Zingy lime fizz was a little too pungent; the smell completed overpowered my nosebuds when I applied some. Unfortunate, as I adore the colour (my bedroom walls are that exact same shade of lime green). C

Conversely, the scent of the Radox lavender and waterlilly was far too faint. No sooner had I applied it to my skin and washed it off, the smell of the product had gone. I know shower gels aren't supposed to linger that much (that's what perfumes are for, after all), but this shower gel was too diluted by half. The picture above, of the watery consistency, can attest to that. C+

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The rest of my product reviews are here.

A stray observation from perusing the DVD section of charity shops on a Saturday morning.

Hanna, which was the BBFC's second most complained about film in 2011 (second only to Black Swan), mainly due to the strength of the violence, exacerbated by the fact that it was a young teenage girl involved in most of the fight scenes, is a 15 in Ireland. I'm glad to see the Irish are sensible, and didn't let the fact that the lead actress being their countryman, blind them to their film rating duties.

Don't Drunk Snapchat.

When I send Snapchats when I'm drunk, I usually end up saying shady things that I regret the next day.

In last night's case, I just reiterated something that I've been banging on about for a year now.

In an attempt to do something a bit adventurous with my hair, I tried curling it to look as glam as Rosamund Pike's did in the book launch scene in Gone Girl:

I daresay my hair didn't quite stay as it was meant to, aha.

Book review: DAUGHTER (Jane Shemilt)

Although Jane Shemilt writes in lucid, gripping prose, her first novel suffers from several flaws.

NowTV's completely inaccurate listing of BBFC ratings.

I won a month's NowTV subscription from McDonald's Monopoly, which is super-handy as they have a bunch of shows and boxsets on there.

Prior to consuming the shows, however, I couldn't help but notice how off they were with the BBFC ratings of some of the shows:

Modern Family is a family show, who's episodes go up to 12, tops! Where on earth did they get the 18 from?

How I Met Your Mother and Delicious have episodes that are 15, but that's it.

Based on these three inaccuracies, I wondered if NowTV's default was just to autopilot everything as 18. But they get the show's rating wrong by rating it a lot lower than it should be, too:

And finally, it wasn't easy, but I found a show for which NowTV accurately listed the BBFC rating:

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Nerding out over the BBFC is my thing, chaps. Check out all the other posts I've done on them here.

Celebrity sighting: David James at King's Cross train station.

I met Per Mertesacker last year. I wonder which footballer I'll meet next. Dare I suggest... the racist scrote?

Restaurant review: YAUATCHA (Liverpool Street)

Restaurant review: EL GAUCHO (South Kensington)

Bar review: THE REDCHURCH BAR (Shoreditch)

The last time I had cocktails using a Groupon deal with my friend Rebecca was The Escapologist in Covent Garden, which, despite a customer who rudely pushed in in front of me, was a thoroughly enjoyably evening. Rebecca and I had had our boozy night back in September of 2016. Almost nine months later, here I was, taking advantage of another Groupon deal, again with the same babe.

However, the original plan had to been to visit The Redchurch Bar with a friend on May 20th. We arrived in Shoreditch at 4pm (where both the Groupon deal and Google say the bar is open from), but the doors weren’t open. We assumed the bar staff were just running a little late, so settled up shop in The Verge across the road, where, graciously, there was also a Happy Hour (review of The Verge coming soon).

We sat in The Verge until 7pm, occasionally popping over to see if it had opened yet. It never did, although at some points, a man (presumably the manager) was standing behind the locked door, furrowing his brows whilst on his phone. Eventually we gave up hope on our Redchurch cocktails, and went for dinner in Brick Lane. But that was really, really annoying. Of all the problems I’ve had with Groupon, up until then, I’d never experienced a place not actually being open.

So, of course, it was with trepidation that I approached the place with Rebecca some 10 days later. Amazingly, it was open! Admittedly, we got there a bit later, 8:30pm, but the lack of staff was telling immediately; it was a fairly spacious bar, yet I only spotted two couples in The Redchurch bar.

Something inconvenient that this place did with their deal which both The Escapologist and Adventure Bar eschewed (by allowing the deal-holder to open up a tab) was that we had to order all our cocktails at once. This wasn’t ideal because it meant some drinks lost some of their chill towards the end, and as we all know, if there’s anything I need more of, it’s chill.

Even more annoyingly, was the fact that they didn’t have ingredients for a bunch of the drinks. As I’ve stipulated in past reviews of Groupon cocktail deals, if I’ve shelled out £24 for six cocktails, I want to maximise my returns by ordering the most expensive drinks. There were several which were £11.50 here, and the one which caught my attention was the ‘Chinese Cosmopolitan’. I’m Chinese, and I love Sex and the City, so that drink sang to me straight away.

Even more worryingly, they didn’t have lychee to make that drink, and they also conspicuously lacked the ingredients for several of the other drinks which cost £11.50. To not have the ingredients for one cocktail is bad enough, but for the waitress to continually tell me I couldn't have what I desired because they didn't have the components? Poor af.

In the end, Rebecca and I were able to find three drinks apiece that we liked, and here they are:

Review: Miss Selfridge Floral Printed Ruffle Dress

I treated myself to a bit of retail therapy on ASOS this week, and this was one of my buys. As you can see in the picture below, I wear the sleeves in a slightly different way, as I don't feel confident enough to bare my shoulders, haha:

I got the dress in size 10, and as you can see, it's a bit of a tight fit (I have to lie down sideways just to  be able to get the zip up!) If you're a bit bustier, it does tend to look a bit like you're 'spilling out' of the dress, and as such, it's only appropriate for evening attire, rather than wearing during the day (I work in a University). But the material is lovely, the floral print is gorgeous, and as you can see in the photos, the khaki colours bring out one's tan nicely.

8.5/10.