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Last night I was invited along to a screening of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a film with a trailer so filled with British ‘National Treasures’ that I nearly fell over myself with excitement. As someone who only falls over themselves once a week, this was no mean feat. I can’t tell you whether I liked the film or not, but I can bore you with something interesting* I noticed over at the BBFC. Just try to stop me.

The BBFC has rated The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel as 12A and in their consumer advice say that the film “contains strong language, moderate sex references and racist remarks.” I was surprised to see racist remarks highlighted as a reason parents may not want their children to see a film, though I’m not sure why as racism is of course vile and reprehensible. I’m not afraid to take a widely supported and uncontroversial stand.

Digging deeper, as only someone with too much time on their hands does, I found over at the Parents BBFC website guidelines for what sort of language the BBFC will allow at 12A:

Discriminatory language may be present but will not be endorsed by the work as a whole. Aggressive use of discriminatory language (for example homophobic or racist terms) is unlikely to be acceptable at ‘12’ or ‘12A’ unless it is clearly condemned.

So there you have it, you can only hear racist slurs which are not clearly condemned when you are at least 15 years old. I suppose the aim is to not expose the nation’s children to endless streams of fully endorsed racism until they are old enough to feel sufficiently outraged. Makes sense to me.

Interesting* also to note that American History X, a film about neo-Nazis and filled with racism so strong it borders on the unwatchable, has no mention of racism in its consumer advice from the BBFC. Hmm.

There you have it, a series of facts strung together into something almost resembling a coherent dialogue. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go and wrestle with the Oscar Nomination live-stream again.

*Debatable

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Consider this a sequel to when I called James Cameron a prick, these Camerons rile me right up. A report is to be released on Monday by Lord Smith reviewing the government’s film policy and David Cameron has spoken out ahead of its release and said the following:

“Our role, and that of the BFI, should be to support the sector in becoming even more dynamic and entrepreneurial, helping UK producers to make commercially successful pictures that rival the quality and impact of the best international productions.”

It is only appropriate to behave like the rest of the internet and focus on one part of what he said and extrapolate this beyond all recognition, making sure to ignore the fact that he was probably only saying what he had been advised to say and that he probably cares very little about what films we make. Cameron has annoyed me in the past so I’m happy to get subjective about this.

Let’s focus on that key phrase “commercially successful pictures” and bring in the fact that the BBC suggest that “Lord Smith is also expected to recommend developing an export strategy to increase the profits of British films”. To rile me up fully let’s hear from Julian Fellowes, screenwriter and contributor to Lord Smith’s report, who says:

“There has been the thinking in the past that public money should only go into films that can’t get any investment anywhere else. When you actually analyse that it means it should only go into films that nobody could conceivably want to see and there’s no logic in that – you want to make a film-friendly, audience-friendly industry.”

All of this suggests to me that too much emphasis is going to be put on the financial viability of a film, rather than the film’s quality, when it comes to deciding whether or not it deserves public funding. Britain has a reputation across the world for making quality films of substance rather than vapid, effects-laden blockbusters and to put this second to profitability is foolish and not really something a politician should be getting involved in. We’re talking about art not policy, and the mere idea of being able to predict a film’s future success is laughable.

I would actually argue against Julian Fellowes and say that the perfect reason for a film to receive public funding is that it is a film worth making, but is at risk of not receiving funding elsewhere. A mainstream British film with broad appeal can presumably find finance elsewhere so doesn’t need the BFI to help coax it to the big screen. Looking back at my Top 20 Films of 2011, eight films on the list are British films and of those only The King’s Speech can really be said to have set the international box office on fire. Other films such as Tyrannosaur, Attack the Block, Submarine and We Need to Talk About Kevin are examples of fine British cinema which showcase our talents without ever finding huge commercial success. I realise that not all of these films received public funding, but it does go to show that our finest productions may not be those bringing in the big money.

Julian Fellowes might not find the finer British fare to be something anybody “could conceivably want to see”, but for me these are the films we should be making and public funding should support this without so much as a sideways glance towards profitability or any other words which lead creatives away from their vision. The BFI has long been celebrating and protecting the history of British cinema and now that it is in charge of its future too, the BFI should not let return on investment get in the way of funding worthwhile projects.

My final point is simply that the highest grossing film of all time is Avatar by my arch nemesis James Cameron. I could not be more proud of the fact that Avatar is not British and hope we can continue to fund films which never use the word “unobtainium”.

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Earlier this year Felicity Jones made a very rash decision for a young actress on the rise; she left a big budget film in which she was the lead to honour her commitment to a play in an off-West End theatre. In July of 2011 Felicity Jones starred in the Donmar Warehouse production of Luise Miller and abandoned the role of Snow White in Mirror, Mirror. Surely this was a huge mistake?

Before we decide, why not take a peak at the new trailer for Mirror, Mirror:

So while Jones gained acclaim for her role in Luise Miller and buzz built over her role in Like Crazy, Lily Collins has taken over the role of Snow White in a film with a much derided trailer which pales in comparison to its rival Snow White and the Huntsman. In all honesty I can’t even bring myself to watch the entire trailer for Mirror, Mirror, but I doubt the final 30 seconds showcase any better footage than the rest.

Since making the best career choice of her acting life Jones has filmed a second film with Like Crazy director Drake Doremus opposite Guy Pearce and signed on to Warren Beatty’s Howard Hughes biopic. I will never question her decisions again.

If you fancy seeing what Felicity Jones would look like in the Snow White role, hover your mouse over the image at the top of this post (please do, it took me hours to do).

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Bond’s loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.

Expectations
With M’s past coming back into the present we are treated to flashbacks covering her career as a spy and ultimately Judi Dench tools up and joins Daniel Craig’s Bond on a mission. With years of experience under her belt, M teaches Bond some new tricks and in a gruesome torture scene shows that she has a looser moral code than 007.

When they have an old foe cornered, Bond’s life is threatened in a climactic showdown only to be rescued by M who displays some awesome martial arts skills, think Yoda in Attack of the Clones. Exhausted, Bond and M share a tender moment amongst the carnage as the credits roll.

Reality
M briefs Bond on the situation with a concerned look on her face. Throughout the film she follows his progress offering a few quips along the way, hopefully somehow topping “cunning linguist” from Tomorrow Never Dies. At the end she congratulates Bond with some cheeky banter before the credits roll.

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Body of Work is a new feature we’re going to be running here at Mild Concern, or more accurately a new feature consisting of more features consisting of reviews. Welcome to a post about some posts about yet more posts. In Inception, this is me drugging you on a plane.

It has become clear to me that in order to truly understand and appreciate modern cinema, for better or worse, it is important to understand everything that has come before it. How can we judge a remake without knowing what it is remaking?

To better understand the journey of film we can’t just rely on watching The Story of Film: An Odyssey, we need to get our hands dirty.

In Body of Work we will take a director, writer, actor or group of puppets and watch their entire output from start to finish. This will be a lot easier for some subjects than others but should be an enlightening process. You never know, we might uncover a few gems along the way.

We’ll introduce the first Body of Work tomorrow and see where it takes us. If nothing else this is going to be a great way of generating content in slow weeks.

I’ll pop buttons in the sidebar so the progress is easy to follow and the list of subjects will be below as soon as there are some to list.

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