Second-guessing which films got the BBFC the most complaints in 2019

This blog is rated 15 for strong sex references and descriptions of violence.

After years of releasing their annual reports every July, 2018's BBFC annual report was instead released in late May. As I really love testing my BBFC senses on a yearly basis, to see how good I am at reading the general public's perception of what BBFC ratings for films ought to be, I thought I'd guess which films got them the most complaints in 2019!

Note, when I refer to a '2019 release', this actually means any film that came out in cinemas in the UK in 2019. So The Favourite, although a 2018 film by American release dates (and eligible for the 2019 Oscars and BAFTAs for that precise reason), didn't hit UK cinemas until January 2019, and is thus a 'UK 2019 release'. 

My guesses:

01. Joker

10 Prettiest Ladies in a 2009 Film

My archives of eye candy lists by year are here, if you want to inspect my taste in guys and gals holistically!

10. Léa Seydoux, Inglourious Basterds 

09. Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air

My 10 Favourite Performances in an 18-Rated Movie.

I watched The Canyons this week, a Kickstarter-funded movie about the sexual jealousy and betrayal between a hedonistic movie producer and his glamorous girlfriend (Lindsay Lohan). The fact that the film was low-budget was apparent in the shoddy production value, lazy script and daytime TV-esque performances, but Lindsay Lohan was genuinely brilliant, even more so if you consider she had to deliver laughably bad lines and make them plausible. The high quality of her performance jarred with everything else about the film, which was extremely cheap and trashy, but at least it inspired me to do another list: favourite 18-rated performances.

Certain directors seem to be drawn to darker content than others, so it's no surprise that this list features multiple entries from films from three directors: two Fincher-directed performances (both fierce women who like a bit of revenge), two Quentin Tarantino-directed performances, and three Martin Scorsese directed-performances. But not the two seminal Robert de Niro turns (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) that you might expect to see.

Very honourable mentions: Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves, Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds, Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York, Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Vol. 1  and Pulp Fiction, Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet (another spirit animal of mine. I jest. Or do I?), Lindsay Lohan in The Canyons, Léa Seydoux in Blue is the Warmest Colour, Leonardo DiCaprio in The Depahted, Dominique Swain in Lolita and Jonah Hill in The Wolf of Wall Street (heard he gets his penis out in a pool party scene or something).

10. Ray Liotta, Goodfellas

1990. director: Martin Scorsese. Rated 18 for strong violence.

09. Bel Powley, Diary of a Teenage Girl

2015. director: Marielle Heller. Rated 18 for strong sex.

08. Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 

2011. director: David Fincher. Rated 18 for strong sexual violence and sex.

07. Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street 

2013. director: Martin Scorsese. Rated 18 for very strong language, strong sex and hard drug use.

06. Sharon Stone, Casino

1995. director: Martin Scorsese. Rated 18 for strong violence. Not like a Scorsese film to have strong violence, now is it?

05. Mélanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds

2009. director: Quentin Tarantino. Rated 18 for strong bloody violence.

I idolised her back in 2010, and I still idolise her now. Au revoir, Shoshanna!

04. Michael Madsen, Reservoir Dogs

1992. director: Quentin Tarantino. Rated 18 for strong bloody violence, torture, strong language & sex references 

03. Kevin Spacey, American Beauty

1999. director: Sam Mendes. Rated 18 for strong language, once very strong, strong sex, violence & drug use 

It's interesting I had Dominque Swain as Dolores 'Lolita' Haze in my honourable mentions list, for this film, one of my top 15 of all-time, has heavy Lolita overtones running throughout. Even Kevin Spacey's character's name, Lester Burnham, is an anagram of 'Humbert Learns'.

And the top two, which was an absolute no-brainer...

02. Adèle Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Colour

2013.  director: Abdellatif Kechiche. Rated 18 for strong sex and very strong language.

01. Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl

2014. director: David Fincher. Rated 18 for strong bloody violence and very strong language.

Surprise!

The Friday Five.

Five things that make me happy
01. My birthday presents
02. Melanie Lauren't fierceness in Inglourious Basterds. I'm still not over it.

03. This week's Madonna-inspired episode of Glee. It was terrific.

04. Being a poser with my Lolita sunglasses
05. hai 

I can hear the sound of violins long before it begins.

Downloads available for the three Princess and the Frog tracks.

01. Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word (Blue ft. Elton John)
All throughout March, I was on a bit of a Blue kick, and downloaded all of their albums to relive my early teen years, wherein I would frequently dance around the living room to their songs. Whilst Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word probably isn’t my all-time favourite of their’s (that’s probably You Make Me Wanna), I love how amazing Blue sound with Elton John, as well as the truth behind the lyrics.

02. Ma Belle Evangeline (The Princess and the Frog soundtrack) download
This song is completely and utterly adorable, and, for me, sums up the cuteness of The Princess and the Frog, plus the theme of the song is used later, in a minor key. It’s just lovely.

03. Fly By (Blue)
Haha, more Blue. The music video for this song makes me chuckle quite a lot, because of the way the men think they have swagger.

04. Stephen (Ke$ha)
Right, I don’t actually like Ke$ha one bit. I think she looks like she has lice, and she really can’t sing. That said, I do think Stephen is an extremely likeable song, and a decent counterpart to Taylor Swift’s Hey Stephen.

05. Du bout des lèvres (Mélanie Laurent)
In addition to being beautiful, a stunning actress and one of the coolest women in Hollywood, Laurent continues to stun me by singing too! I don’t know any French so if anyone fancies translating the lyrics for me, that’d be greatly appreciated, but even if the meaning’s completely lost in translation, it still sounds pretty.

06. The Swan (Camille Saint-Saëns)
Standard. Saint-Saëns seems to be me classical composer du jour recently, as I’ve also been listening to Danse Macabre a lot since last night’s episode of Jonathan Creek. But The Swan is absolutely gorgeous.

07. Down in New Orleans (The Princess and the Frog soundtrack) download
Yeah, I like The Princess and the Frog soundtrack.

08. Chelsea Hotel (Leonard Cohen)
So many lines in this song actually make my heart pang from the level of beauty. “Giving me head on the unmade bed” and “You told me again that you preferred handsome men / but for me you would make an exception” come to mind. Regina Spektor captured the beauty of the song in her own cover. Both rock.

Speaking of Chelsea (ha, see what I did there?SEE?!), I did the BBC online predictors for the remaining fixtures, and... it doesn't look good for my team D:


Admittedly, I am being super-pessimistic, but I can just see us fudging up against Liverpool and Spurs. Hence the Surrey Reds getting another title. Wah.


09. Something Kinda Oooh (Girls Aloud)
Just a fun, sexy, amusing song. Stupidly catchy, and Cheryl, Kimberley and Nadine are all awesomesauce.

10. Almost There (The Princess and the Frog soundtrack) download
*sings along*

--

Finally, if you fancy learning Chinese, nothing's better than this cribsheet:


:P

My Top 10 Performances of 2009.

Last year's list 'cos I know you're dying to see it.

Runners up:

Diane Kruger in Inglourious Basterds, Mario Bello in Downloading Nancy, Mia Wasikowska in That Evening Sun


Rupert Grint in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Nisreen Faour in Amreeka, Robert Downey Jr in Sherlock Holmes














BUNGBUNGBUNG <3

(I want his linguistic skills. That's a bingo!)


Captures Brian Clough's arrogance and hubris wonderfully.


Intelligent, swaggerous, deep, beautiful and effortless chic. There's your Tarantino leading lady.

Emmabung's Top 10 Girlcrushes.

10. Diane Kruger
I'd always known Mrs. Kruger was a pretty face, but it wasn't until Inglourious Basterds last year that I realised, she can act too! She always looks priceless on the red carpet and can rock just about every single kind of look. Bonus points: she's fluent in German.

09. Rihanna

She sings tonnes of my favourite songs, is great at dancing and has gorgeous eyes. I ♥ Rihanna!

08. Romola Garai

I've always been a fan of Garai, but has really made me appreciate just how completely to-die-for she is!

07. Uma Thurman

The second of three Tarantino babes in my list, which tells me that even though the director is a a little on the self-preening side, he sure can coax great performances out of pretty performers.

06. Skins girls: Megan Prescott, Kathryn Prescott, Kaya Scodelario, Lily Loveless and Lisa Backwell

They're all just so pretty! All of them apart from Lily are always *younger* than me (and Lily's only two days older), which is about 56 different kinds of depressing. :P

04. Melanie Laurent

A new entrant! Inglourious Basterds was my favourite film of 2009 and a lot of that owed to the sheer coolness and je ne sais quoi of Melanie Laurent's Shosanna, easily one of the fiercest women in film. The only blonde in the top 5, her yellow hair, piercing eyes and amazing bone structure render her one of the most gorgeous women I've ever seen, and I'm digging her style too.

03. Leighton Meester

Last year's #1 girlcrush has fallen two spots, but that doesn't mean I don't still luff Leighton to death. I actually loved her little attempt at "rapping" on Good Girls Go Bad, and Blair Waldorf is the fiercest girl evar. Hence Leighton = also fierce.

02. Evangeline Lilly

I haven't seen Lost for quite a while, but Evangeline is still extremely high up on my girlcrush list because her beauty, the freckled, dimpled kind, isn't easily forgotten! Even her name is beautiful!

01. Emily Blunt

Oh, she's just complete perfection. ♥ A talented and versatile actress, a real lady with a stunningly rah West London accent, and every time I've seen her she's just exuded class in her outfits and general demeanor. To me, Emmy Blunt's like one of those girls at secondary school who's awesomeness I was always intimidated by, and could never summon the confidence to talk to, and hence only admired from afar. Beautiful!

Serious. WHY am I straight?!??!?!?

Film review: INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (Quentin Tarantino, 2009).

It opens with a beautiful Spanish guitar spin on Beethoven's Für Elise by Morricone and ends with an epic a cinematic shoot-out as you're likely to see. In between, we have plucky female plotting, scalping of Nazi soldiers, close-ups of strudels, feet fondling and a whole babel of languages. It can only be Tarantino.