Remember Me (and my country's classification issues).

Me after watching Timothée Chalamet's fantastic musical skills in Call Me By Your Name!

I watched Pixar's latest creation, Coco, on Friday, and was utterly charmed by it. Funny, colourful, inventive, and featuring an exquisite score and some moments that had my eyes flooding with tears, it's a return to form after some phoned-in sequels (Finding Dory, Cars 3).

With regards to Coco's certificate, it got a PG in the UK, as it also did in Ireland and America. What was interesting about this rating, however, is that in the three countries, it got the PG for different reasons.

UK: mild threat, violence
Ireland: mild scary scenes
USA: thematic elements

As a film which unashamedly wore its heart on its sleeve, I was sobbing throughout Coco, even the tamer scenes (such as Miguel being told he wasn't allowed to play the guitar), so the thematic elements were definitely felt by me.

However, Pixar's last great film, Inside Out, also had some thematic content, yet got a U/G in the UK and Ireland, despite getting a PG in America. I guess this shows the MPAA are more sensitive to themes than their transatlantic cousins.

The Irish have a point about the scary scenes, although the skeletons in Coco were quickly shown to be sources of comedy rather than fear. The lack of mentioning any kind of frightening scenes or threat in the MPAA's short insight shows that the UK and Ireland are more sensitive on these matters.

Whilst threat and scary scenes are closely related, 'scary scenes' doesn't fully fall under the 'threat' umbrella for the BBFC, as shown by some films flagging both issues in their short insight, such as Disney's Big Hero 6: - 

Without giving the plot away, the description of 'violence' that is elucidated upon in the BBFCinsight is not violence in the sense that one may be used to seeing in films, such as kicks, punches or stabbing. I guess this shows the BBFC perceive any form of harm being carried out as 'violence', even if visually, it does not register in the same way that an attack would. /vagueness so as to not give spoilers

So, out of those three, which country's explanation of Coco's PG-rating do you think most pertinent, and, if none of them, what would you have written instead? 

For more film rating nerdiness, check out my archives here!

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It's the Screen Actor Guild Awards this evening, so I thought I'd do my yearly thing of trying to predict them! Last year I only got 3/5, incorrectly predicting Casey Affleck (Denzel Washington won) and Moonlight for Ensemble (Hidden Figures won). I'm going for some rather No Guts No Glory predictions today, so I'll be happy to even match that 60%!

Actor: Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour (second guess: Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name)

Actress: Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (second guess: Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird)

Supporting Actor: Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project (second guess: Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)

Supporting Actress: Allison Janney, I, Tonya (second guess: Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird)

Ensemble: Lady Bird (second guess: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)