10 things I learnt from the 2016 BBFC Annual Report

So, after waiting, and waiting, and waiting, the BBFC Annual Report for 2016 dropped! Here it is, and having pored over it, here are my major takeaways from reading it!

01. I guessed those complaints pretty much spot-on

I’m glad my many hours of wasting time watching films purely for BBFC research purposes (such as Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry), poring over BBFC minutes and lurking who complains to their Twitter account has paid off, because my prognostications for the films that would cause them the most complaints were even better than my Oscar predictions (and the Oscar goes to…. La La Land! No, Moonlight! #stillgloating).

Interesting BBFC Short Insights.

In case you thought I was done talking crap about the BBFC and Jonah Hill with my blog post on Saturday, you were quite mistaken, thank you very much.

Having the BBFC app installed on my phone means I can eat up commutes by entering my favourite film stars’ names into the search box and pedantically spot things that are amiss, such as:

I've never seen a U-rated film with strong language, just saying. Or just being a pedantic cnut. (It's not an 18-rated use of the c-word if you call yourself it).

A few other screenshots from the app I have sitting around on my phone feature short insight that was, for one reason or another, quite eye-watering:

Not everyday you see that in a line of insight!

The insight for Blue Velvet, which turns 30 this year, is a curious artefact because it shows how crucial it is to include an 'and' between the 'sex' and 'violence', else you'll get the first classification issue, something else altogether: sexual violence.

What's interesting about Blue Velvet's 18 certificate is that practically all the 18-rated content is due to Dennis Hopper's nightmarishly scary Frank Booth. He pillages, mutilates, rapes, and also, is the only character in the film to utter the f-word. And he says it a lot, especially when someone asks for an alcoholic beverage he doesn't agree with. (Spoiler alert: he's not a fan of this drink).

Although I despise this pretentious film, (it's in my bottom 10 of all-time), I think Hopper was absolutely magnificent as Frank Booth, giving an iconic performance as one of the most memorable movie villains of all time. 

I mean, you can see why I identify with him: one's a foul-mouthed, perverted psychopath.

The other's a figment of David Lynch's imagination.

Continuing with BBFC short insights of films in my bottom 10 of all time; this Bible-bashing movie be my second most despised film ever, second only to American Hustle. 

It was bloated and boring A F, and the BBFC aren't wrong with their short insight. It certainly does contain potentially dangerous behaviour: you could potentially fall asleep from boredom and never wake up as a result of watching this snorefest.

On the topic of 'potentially dangerous behaviour' as a classification issue, The Secret World of Alex Mack, which is a kid's show, getting a 15 might seem odd, especially as it has a GP (the olden version of the PG) from the MPAA. I haven't seen this show but given it's about a kid for kids, I'd imagine PG is correct, generally.

But the BBFC have one issue of contention which gets them extremely anxious and trigger-happy to up-rate, that doesn't seem to be shared with other viewing boards across the world, and that's the perilous practice of a child hiding in a tumble dryer, particularly if such an act isn't demonstrated to have negative consequences.

That's precisely why this show's a 15 (I only know this from reading around). Because Alex does exactly that in one of the episodes and the action is not only presented to be dangerous, but fun and whimsical. An impressionable kid watching this might draw the wrong conclusions from watching Alex do so and try it out from themselves.

On several of the BBFC podcasts, they've discussed how every year, some children crawl into tumble driers, their parents don't know they're in there, and the kid dies. It's not a high proportion of children, but still, a life is still a life, and as such, I completely empathise with the BBFC's justification for rating a kid's show with PG content 15. They're just being responsible. If only they exercised such responsibility when rating Sausage Party, isn't it.

There's a line between being being responsible and being a nanny-state, however. 18 for dangerous car stunts? Seems a bit harsh.

This is the extended insight for a movie called, Oliver, Stoned, which is an 18 purely for marijuana use.

This isn't just draconian but also inconsistent, given movies with some pretty graphic depictions of harder drugs have been passed 15 (off the top of my head, I'm thinking  Candy, Wild, War Dogs, Get Him to the Greek, but there's really loads of 15-rated titles with depictions of heroin or cocaine use).

It's only MJ in this movie and it got an 18! Evidently, the BBFC really don't like glamorisation of drugs, even soft ones.

This 18-rated film, a very good adaptation of my favourite novel, thoroughly earns its 18 certificate. The BBFC insight is detailed, bordering on spoilerish, though, no?

Another insight line that is detailed to the point of giving away the plot...

And again! With Nobody Knows and Cracks, I don't see why they couldn't have just used 'mature themes' in both instances.

Another short insight that is almost too prescriptive.

I'm not sure if this is more of a line of insight, or a value judgement about the quality of the film?! What one man may judge to be 'irresponsible behaviour' might seem like just good fun to a more immature individual like me.

As with Mr Bean's Holiday, this feels closer to a line you'd expect in a review rather than a description of what to expect in terms of content.

'Historical cigarette advertising', lol.

The last issue I'll talk about is a turn of phrase which, thanks to the BBFC's employment in short insights, I absolutely adore: 'emotional intensity'. I'm a fairly emotional person (I cried from beginning to end at Kubo and the Two Strings), so my default setting is 'mild emotional' intensity'...

.... although when I'm on the blob, this line is more accurate.

Not to be confused with Martin Scorsese's upcoming film, this is one extremely detailed and specific PG classification issue, eh?

'Drawings of explicit sex'. 😳

I started with a bit of BBFC bantz about one of my favourite actors, so, only fair I end with some banter about one of my least favourite actresses (if you can call her that).

This is at the Covent Garden Odeon, and suggests that some opportunist under-15 year old kids are trying to sneak in, or try their luck with fake IDs in order to see Suicide Squad.

They'd do well to pay heed to the BBFC rating for Suicide Squad, tbh. Film was traumatising.

Cara Delevingne's twerking still gives me nightmares.

The Heineken Brewery (Amsterdam).

Continuing with the picspammage of my Amsterdam trip, here be some photos I took from the Heineken brewery!

Assuming my Resting Bitchface death-stare.

This was too cute... you ride a bicycle whilst singing along to the lyrics on screen, all the while being projected up onto the screen there!

The drink Heineken always makes me think of the scene in Blue Velvet when Dennis Hopper's deranged murderer rants about how much he hates it; 'Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!' But I, unlike Frank Booth, don't have quite such strong opinions against the drink.

Stirring the oats!

The tour guides gave us a seminar on how to drink Heineken properly!

Heineken adverts through the ages!

A  shirt signed by Jose Mourinho, haha

I find alcohol much more enthralling than I find old cars, so the Heineken experience was much to my approval. Towards the end they gave us a 4D tour, where you watch a film about the brewing process, and water actually sprays you, as if you're a hop particle, which was good fun. 

Also, for the ticket price of ‎€16 includes two small glasses of Heineken (in addition to the free one you get with the beer-tasting), so at the end of the tour, you can unwind in the friendly Heineken bar.

ALBUM REVIEW: Dangerous Woman (Ariana Grande)

From the first time I heard Ariana Grande’s collaboration with Iggy Azalea, ‘Problem’ in 2014, which, along with the film BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOUR, epitomised my feelings towards my a certain someone (#cryptic), I have been staunchly #TeamAri. The Italian-American songstress is great to look at, has fantastic vocal range, and effortlessly exudes sex appeal (the élan with which she peers up from her white Lolita sunglasses in the 'Bang Bang' music video is a kind of sultry swagger I can but only dream of). So it was with great excitement that I waited for Dangerous Woman, her third studio album, with. So much so, in fact, that I’m currently writing a female version of TRAINING DAY, and, have assigned it ‘Dangerous Woman’ as the film’s working title.

The album’s eponymous lead single is terrifically catchy. ‘Something about you, makes me wanna do things that I shouldn’t’, Ariana croons, whilst in the music video, she slinks around provocatively in lingerie, showing that she is well and truly through with the good girl image which she initially sported when she first became famous. If Yours Truly was clean!Ari, My Everything, with songs such as 'Love Me Harder' and 'Hands On Me' were suggestive-but-PG-13!Ari, then Dangerous Woman is full-on femme fatale, R-rated!Ari. And she’s not here to half-step. She’s owning it.

‘Side to Side’, Ariana’s third collaboration with Nicki Minaj, is probably their weakest so far, but it says a lot about the collective quality of the music these two women make together that it is still a more than solid 8/10 track. I loved the reggae vibe of the song, as well as the employment of Nicki’s verbal fireworks for the rapping, but I thought the actual lyrical quality of the rap was a bit weak, with practically every other line being an allusion to one of Nicki’s previous hits. By contrast, the employment of Macy Gray in ‘Leave Me Lonely’, one of the few melancholic songs on the album, works a treat, with Gray’s gravelly voice suiting the sombre words she’s singing perfectly.

As with her preceding two albums, the tracks I tend to enjoy more are the upbeat, funky ones. ‘Greedy’ tells the story of a woman’s high appetite for a certain something (spoiler alert: it’s not for food), and with electro-pop beats, a brass band, and best of all, her voice hitting stratospherically high notes, makes for a great musical party. ‘Everyday’ is very similarly thematically to ‘Greedy’ but the beats are more RnB-infused, demonstrating Grande’s musical versatility, and how her voice is so strong it crosses genres. The album’s only major misstep is ‘Sometimes’, a slow-moving guitar-led track which sounds like a lazy B-side that is just at odds with the musical flavour with the rest of the album.

The standout track of Dangerous Woman, for me, is ‘Let Me Love You’, an unashamedly saucy song in which Ariana Grande gets to put her vocals to their breathy best. (Some people aren’t such a big fan of the way she sounds out of breath when delivering her lyrics, but I really dig it). Lil Wayne’s rap on it is a good foil to her verses, and his bluntness in ‘I said girl you need a hot boy / she said you need to stop fucking with them thots boy’ evokes memories of his featuring credit on Kelly Rowland's 'Motivation', another brazen foray into smut where his rhyming was both irreverent and intelligent. Furthermore, the cavalier little nod to Beyonce’s ‘Irreplaceable’ when Grande asserts ‘I know they'll be coming from the right and the left, left, left’ shows she KNOWS she’s the ish. Arrogance among popstars is obviously a double-edged sword; you need to acknowledge the fact that you’re HBIC, but at the same time not become insufferable. Egotism is justified if it's merited. Within that lyric, we have the album in a microcosm: a woman discovering, nay, asserting her allure. In Ariana Grande’s case, it’s well-deserved.

Some music fans are perturbed that Ariana Grande, who despite being 22 old, still looks like a little kid, being so overtly sexual on Dangerous Woman. But, in her defence, she’s already had her squeaky clean period, and she’s over that. She gave us a hint of her more carnal instincts when she told us ‘she might have let you hold her hand at school, but Imma show you how to graduate’ and other such double entendres on her second album, but Queen Ari isn’t here for innuendo any more. To paraphrase Dennis Hopper in BLUE VELVET, "Ari wants to fuck". This pretty doe-eyed girl is blossoming into a dangerous woman. And her music has never sounded better as a result.

Grade: A