About time for another blog entry I feel, something today spe­ci­fi­cally focu­sed on the lovely new chan­ges made by the BBFC (film clas­si­fi­ca­tion com­pany in Bri­tain) and the First bus com­pany in Bris­tol, England.

A few months back I watched one of this year’s grea­test films, Bat­man Begins. I tho­roughly enjo­yed the fea­ture and plan to see it again with my girl­friend at a local IMAX thea­tre. Howe­ver, during the more vio­lent and scary aspects of the film my thoughts deba­ted the choice of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. In Bri­tain, Bat­man Begins has been rated with the fairly recently crea­ted 12A cer­ti­fi­cate (after the Spider-man vio­lence debacle).

Chil­dren under the age of 12 will be able to see a ‘12A’ film at the cinema if they are accom­pa­nied by a per­son of 18 years or over. The adult must watch the film with the child or chil­dren and not just pay for the tic­ket.

This means that a six year old would be allo­wed in to watch this film. A nag­ging child des­pe­ra­tely wan­ting to see the latest super hero flick would be the most likely can­di­date. Howe­ver, if I were a parent there would be some sce­nes I would just not want my child to see. For ins­tance the sca­rec­row and drug indu­ced hallu­ci­na­tions. Most of the vio­lence and battle sce­nes con­sis­ted mostly of quick camera chan­ges and flashes and these didn’t bother me. It was more the frigh­te­ning aspects and the­mes that some of my twenty something friends were afraid of that bothe­red me. Intro­du­cing drug indu­ced para­noia and scary hallu­ci­na­tions to a young child could really scar(e) them and keep them up at night. I ques­tio­ned why a sim­ple 12 rating was not used, anyone over the age of 12 would love this movie. Had this film been relea­sed in the early nine­ties a 15 cer­ti­fi­cate would be guaranteed.

I have now retur­ned from seeing the latest War of the Worlds adap­ta­tion by Spiel­berg. There were no vio­lent sce­nes, bad lan­guage or sex acts in this movie and there were fan­tas­tic spe­cial effects, com­bine this with Spiel­berg and a 12A rating and you’d think this would be a per­fect movie for a group of eight year old’s and a birth­day party. In fact it was a simi­lar com­bi­na­tion that led me to take my girl­friend on a date to see this flick. We sett­led down with our Fanta and cho­co­late but­tons hoping for another fan­tas­tic sum­mer block­bus­ter. We were gra­vely disap­poin­ted (the ending… seriously wtf, Spiel­berg you douche). I’d read inter­views that tal­ked about how ‘berg would con­cen­trate on the human and dra­ma­tic aspects of an alien inva­sion and he did exactly that. There may be some spoi­lers below, so don’t read on if you are afraid of me rui­ning moments. Dys­func­tio­nal fami­lies, a lazy yet loving father, dis­traught chil­dren faced with death on a mas­sive scale, ima­ges of mul­ti­ple dead bodies flo­wing down a river, humans being tur­ned to dust, crazy luna­tic hitch hikers fran­ti­cally attac­king the only wor­king car resul­ting in gun shots and mur­der, insa­nity and mur­der for sur­vi­val, boo­ming sirens and shud­der­some aliens, humans being ground into fer­ti­li­zer and spra­yed across fields, com­plete hope­less­ness, fear and death. These were the the­mes of the movie that were inc­re­dibly rea­lis­tic and terrif­ying, such that my twenty year old date cowe­red behind her hands for much of the second half of the movie. I was shoc­ked at the bru­tal rea­lity of parts of the movie and if this was the aim of Spiel­berg then I applaud him in his suc­cess (although all those narrow esca­pes were ridi­cu­lous). Once again my thoughts tur­ned to the rating of this movie. It was 12A. If I were a parent there would be no way I would ever let my son or daugh­ter watch this movie, even if they were over 12. The the­mes in this motion pic­ture are simply things an eight year old should not be con­fron­ted with in the search for enter­tain­ment. What were the BBFC thin­king? A film cer­ti­fi­cate should be a guide to parents and in this country also a gover­ned res­tric­tion. Five years ago this movie would have been a 15 or even 18 cer­ti­fi­cate yet today a six year old can see this with his igno­rant misin­for­med parents. By the time I am a parent I’m going to have to watch all the films they might want to see befo­rehand just in case they are not sui­ta­ble. Wha­te­ver hap­pe­ned to standards?

BBFC and the 12A certificate

Moving on, to another note enti­rely. Today I tra­ve­lled into Bris­tol city cen­tre to enjoy the day in town. In lac­king means of trans­por­ta­tion we deci­ded to take the “First” bus (bad­ger line). It used to cost £3 for a sin­gle during rush hour and £2 off peak. Howe­ver since June 28th pri­ces have gone up. Now off peak tra­vel costs us £3.60 each and a mas­sive £5 return. A 40 minute bus jour­ney into town and back for two costs us £10. Com­pa­ring this to the bus I take to uni­ver­sity which takes 50 minu­tes and costs £1.80 return (each) during peak periods and the coach tic­kets to Lon­don (return) that cost £16.50 then you see that this price is extor­tio­nate. Where a short trip to the next suburb used to cost £1 it now costs three. No won­der peo­ple don’t want to use public transport.

I’m done, stick a fork in me. (Why doesn’t blog­ger create £ signs without the anno­ying A-hat before it?)