10 Lessons Learned from the 2017 BBFC Annual Report

I’ve waited long and hard, but Christmas for Emma has arrived! The BBFC Annual Report for 2017 dropped today, and here are the ten main takeaways I got from consuming it!

01. Emma knows her BBFC

Just as I’d predicted in my anticipation blog, the film which got the most complaints to the BBFC last year was Logan. 

Battle of the Sex Scenes

This blog is rated 12A for moderate sex references.

Despite the BBFC constantly palming me off with less-than-satisfactory templated e-mails of little substance whenever I pose them a query, I always seem to come back for more.

Perhaps this is because my brain is so film classification-geared, that I’m hungry to have movie discourse of any kind, and the BBFC did act on my Call Me by Your Name e-mail earlier this year, showing that they are receptive to suggestions, once in a blue moon.

My most recent e-mail to them was about Battle of the Sexes, rated 12A for infrequent moderate sex. The oh-so-informative extended insight reads:

In one scene, two women have sex; however, there is no strong detail.

Second-guessing the films that the BBFC got the most complaints in 2017

This blog is rated 15 for references to child abuse and strong sex references.

The BBFC drop their Annual Reports around July every year, where they discuss all facets of their guidelines and the film classification process in the UK. I await these reports with the same eagerness I await the Oscars with, and I think it's fun to try and predict which titles cause the BBFC the most complaints every year!

15 rated films with male-to-female usages of the c-word

This blog is rated 15 for implied very strong language and descriptions of domestic violence and brutality.

About twice a year, I’ll curiosity-watch a film purely because Mark Kermode has gone in on it in his reviews. Last year, I watched Ron Howard’s The Dilemma for this precise reason, and Kermode was right; it was a tonal mess with jokes that went down like a lead balloon.

My 25 Favourite Performances of 2017

My final post commemorating the cinematic year that was 2017 is my favourite: the acting!

This list is judged from two factors: acting quality, and my heavy, unrepentant sense of favouritism. I like to think that I wouldn’t put a bad performance on the list, but it would also be inaccurate to claim every performance listed was one of the 25 best acting performances of 2017 (for example, I’d have a hard time arguing that Gal Gadot was better in Wonder Woman than Emma Stone in Battle of the Sexes, say).

Warning: the following blog under the cut is gif heavy! (To paraphrase Hamilton, ‘We rendezvous with Rochambeau, consolidate their GIFS!’)

25. Will Poulter as ‘Krauss’ in Detroit

Fun fact: one of my friends works in the same building as Poulter's father (who's a very big dog in his field of science). Thus, whenever I see the BAFTA Rising Star winner in a film, I feel like we're mates (by three degrees of separation, but still. 😂)

Film review: DUNKIRK (Christopher Nolan, 2017)

I tried to write a review of Dunkirk without using the vernacular 'twink', or slagging off Cokehead Delevingne. Did I succeed? Read on to find out...

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The evacuation of 400,000 British men from Northern France during World War II is depicted from three viewpoints: that of the Allied soldiers on the beach, the civilians who bought them back to Britain in their personal boats, and the pilots caught trying to protect the soldiers from German attack overhead. Three time scales are employed in the film; we follow the soldiers for a week, the civilians for one day and the pilots for an hour, as their arcs converge to one pivotal moment.

My Favourite Films of 2017 [5 to 1]

Part one here!

05. The Florida Project

The less affluent underbelly of Disneyland Florida’s sunny surroundings is depicted with affection and humanity by Sean Baker, who follows 6-year-old Moonee through her adventures at the bright lilac motel where she lives with her mother.

No Country for Young Men

Dunkirk 2: The Frenchman Rises - where Tommy goes back for Gibson, rescues him, and the two celebrate being evacuated by going to a LA Dodgers game. Absolutely love that Barnard is wearing Ray-bans in this photo!

Over the Easter weekend, when I wasn't watching my club lose miserably to Spurs, I was making the most of the poll function on Instagram, to investigate one of life's most important, unanswered questions:

Just who is the hottest actor in Dunkirk?

My Favourite Films of 2017 [10 – 6]

Now that I’ve got the substantial snark out of the way, it’s time to honour the good stuff! Part 1 and part 2 of my favourite films of 2016, if you were wondering what my taste in films is like!

These following five movies constitute the bright sparks of 2017: the movies that bought a smile to my face, made me feel passionately, or triggered deep philosophical thoughts in my otherwise pretty one-track mind (nah, let’s be fair to myself, two-track. In that I think about Fionn Whitehead and Aneurin Barnard).

10. Wonder Woman

After the dross that was Batman vs Superman and Suicide Squad (which, despite me giving 7.5/10 initially after watching it, I’ve realised after reflection that the jukebox-style soundtrack and Viola Davis playing a red wine-drinking, steak-eating HBIC papered over a whole litany of flaws), the DCEU finally get it right.

The Worst Acting Performances of 2017 [5 to 1]

Emma’s shade-throwing at bad acting continues! Read 10 to 6 here. I like to think I was relatively measured in my snark before. As we’re now onto the bottom five, I can’t promise to be so kind! Ehehe.

05. Johnny Depp, Murder on the Orient Express

As the sketchy art dealer Ratchett, Depp’s character is killed off early on, leaving Kenneth Branagh’s sleuth the rest of the film to piece together whodunit. The Johnny Depp of old, the Depp we saw in Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one, not the 34897 laboured sequels after), Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands would have seized this role with aplomb and made an indelible impression in his limited screen time.

The Worst Acting Performances of 2017 [10 - 6]

Now that awards season is all wrapped up, it’s time for this blog to slowly wave goodbye to 2017 and start looking ahead to the 2018 cinematic year! As part of that slow wave goodbye, I will celebrate the best and worst of 2017 according to me! 

We shall start with the worst acting performances. Here was 2016’s worst performances list for reference. I unfortunately had to throw shade at Jesse Eisenberg, one of my favourite actors, in last year's Hall of Shame. I'm glad to report he reined his Lux Luthor in a lot in Justice League, and thus, avoids making the list a second year running. Phew!

10. Daisy Ridley, Murder on the Orient Express

Although the Star Wars actress is very pretty, has a nice screen presence and seems like a lovely person, she was far too lightweight in the role of Mary Debenham. The film is set in the 30s, and Ridley’s character is secretly having a relationship with Dr. Arbuthnot (Hamilton’s Leslie Odom, Jr). Such are the outdated attitudes of the time towards inter-racial dating, that Debenham and Arbuthnot have to keep this, as well as their involvement with the murder of Johnny Depp’s character on the train, under wraps.

Oscars Not Bad

The acting class of 2018 including two sparring partners Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The most predictable batch of winners in recent years, but hey, no Casey Affleck or Emma Stone in sight, so not as objectionable as last year!

Hot dang! I should have put a bet down yesterday, because, bar the short film categories, I got every feature length film category bang on! Ohai, sick predictions! This is by far the best showing I’ve had since creating this blog at the age of 15, and, I have to say, it feels pretty satisfying!

A Look Ahead to Best Original Screenplay

I watched Lady Bird yesterday, so I can analyse another Oscar category, woohoo! Read my analysis of Best Original Score here. Due to time constraints, this is probably the final category I’m gonna analyse before the ceremony, but, at least I discussed two fields this year, an improvement from last year by one.

A Look Ahead to Best Original Score

I’m at a much better position now than I was this time last year in terms of proportion of Oscar-nominated films viewed, and there are a fair few categories where I’ve seen all the nominees!

I sadly don’t have the time to analyse every category before Oscar night, but I will attempt the odd category, starting with Best Original Score.

My personal rankings, from least favourite to favourite, and a mark out of five, as I did with Best Supporting Actor last year.

05. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – Carter Burwell

Although I love Carter Burwell’s swooning scores usually (I maintain he deserved the win in 2016 for his romantic score for Carol and even his Twilight music is very underrated), his erratic, tonally jarring composition on Three Billboards encapsulates all of the film’s problems when whiplashing from devastating tragedy to LOL comedy in a matter of seconds.

A whole lot of DUNKIRK talk.

I’ve recently been losing a lot of time down the rabbit hole that is TV tropes, which outlines common storytelling devices, arcs and techniques employed in film and TV. It doesn’t just dissect the plot of films but the cast and credits as well, and one of their pages, ‘And Starring’, offered some food for thought.

Statistical Analysis of the 141 films I watched in 2017, with BBFC analysis.

Just like last year, when I put my hard-earned coding skills into practice by analysing all the marks I’d awarded every film I watched in 2016, I repeated the process again this year.

The arithmetic mean of the 141 films was 6.64, a fractional increase from last year, meaning that my discernment skills to have improved slightly. That being said, the lowest mark out of 10 I gave last year was a 2, whereas I gave 1/10 to two films this year, and zero out of 10 to one, Darren Aronofsky’s bloated stinker, mother!, which is the worst film I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and featured that movie ingredient that I am so averse to: Jennifer Lawrence screaming her head off.

The 10 Most Attractive Women in a 2017 Film.

For every new year that I do this, I’m going to mention whether there was any movement from the actress on the list in the previous year! I like doing these lists because it means that even when I watch films that ultimately irk me (like the almost unwatchably bad Song to Song), I don't regard it as a complete waste of time, because it all counts as research for the blog :)

I haven’t seen Blade Runner 2049, but had I, Ana de Armas would easily make the list and be a strong contender for first place. Her rosebud lips and big green eyes are out of this world! (I have a thing for green eyes. ohai Tim!)

10. Halle Berry, Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle (new entrant)

Thoughts on the 2018 Oscar Nominations

The Oscar nominations came out yesterday, and, in part because I post on an ‘Oscar Buzz’ Facebook group where the prize for correctly predicting as many categories as possible was a Dunkirk DVD, I actually put some welly into thinking through my predictions this year, rather than some really counter-logical guesses I made last year, purely because I hoped they’d happen (Taraji P. Henson for Best Actress, and Lucas Hedges’ scowling in Manchester by the Sea to not get nominated, etc).

There wasn’t a snub that riled me as much this year as last year when Amy Adams got overlooked for Arrival (yes, I'm still mad). What’s more, of the Best Picture nominees that I’ve seen, none irked me as much as Manchester by the Sea and Blah Blah Bland did, so, whilst there were films I disagreed to getting nominated on principle (like I, Tonya), overall, I really can’t complain! 🎬

Oscar nomination predictions, 2018.

The Oscar nominations come out tomorrow, and, as movie award commentary is one of the chief functions of my blog, I thought I’d predict them! The rankings are from most to least likely.

Saoirse Ronan and Beanie Feldstein (Jonah Hill's sister!) in Lady Bird

Best Film
01. The Shape of Water
02. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
03. Get Out
04. Dunkirk
05. Lady Bird
06. Call Me By Your Name
07. The Post

I forsee there being 7 nominees in Best Picture, but with the expanded Best Pic facilitating as many as 10 nominees, the extra predictions, should there be that many nominees...
08. Phantom Thread
09. The Florida Project
10. I, Tonya

I, Tonya has been performing very well with the Guilds (nominations for Producers Guild, at the WGA and Editing), but I'm hoping that what is ultimately a morally bankrupt movie which makes light of a woman complicit in her opponent having her kneecaps smashed in doesn't get enough #1 votes to make the Best Film shortlist!

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).