Anna, Look!

this review contains spoilers for the final season of OITNB. I've left it quite long after the show dropped before posting this review, in the hope that fans of the show have caught up by now!


The final season of OITNB had a lot of loose plot strands to tie up, including Taystee being given a life sentence for a murder she didn't commit; how Piper acclimatises to life on the outside, whilst her wife Alex is still incarcerated; and Daya being the prison's chief drug pusher, whilst her mother supplies the drugs and her boyfriend, the Head Guard, sneaks them in.

This is a lot to juggle as it is, but OITNB's scope has never been anything less than ambitious, and in keeping with topical issues, the prison has freed up space to house detainees who are on the precipice of being deported. Two of said detainees include Maritza and Blanca, inmates who had been released in previous seasons.

As mentioned in part 1 of this blog, Playtest, the median episode, scored a solid 8 out of ten. Thus, the nine episodes I am running through today are all 8.5s or more, a testament to the general strength of Charlie Brooker’s dark, twisted, but constantly thought-provoking series.

09. USS Callister

Black Mirror does Star Trek in this epic take on fanboys, nostalgia, and when you weaponise your interests for less than salubrious purposes.

Necklace: a gift

Speaking of film/TV characters' influences on my sartorial choices, when I now go clothes shopping, I seek to emulate the styles of certain sharply-dressed women. Alicia Florrick from The Good Wife and Rachel Zane from Suits are the two at the top of my list.

And, having recently watched the enjoyably soapy A Simple Favour, I am absolutely living for Blake Lively in menswear...

Charlie Brooker's anthology TV show Black Mirror is one of a kind. A dystopian envisioning of all kinds of scenarios in the future if we grow too dependent on technology, most of the episodes highlight the detrimental effects of tech, although a few episodes confound you with their sunny, optimistic outlook on how inventions and gadgets may not only complement, but enhance our lives.

My brother and I have been watching Black Mirror all Summer, and, having now caught up with all four seasons, here are my personal rankings of all 19 episodes in order of preference.

(Note: my nine favourite episodes will be discussed in an upcoming blog. I've split this run-down into two blogs, otherwise one post would be way too text-heavy).

I finished reading Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects this week. The book has been turned into an 8-part HBO miniseries, and although I’m yet to watch it, it had very much been on my radar due to the expert way it had been marketed: ‘From the director of Big Little Lies, from the producers of Get Out, from the author of Gone Girl, and starring Amy Adams’. Any semi-cineliterate individual will know that that is a killer recipe for success.

‘Killer’ being the operative word. The plot revolves around a journalist, Camille Preaker (Amy Adams), who returns to her stifling Missouri hometown to investigate the disappearance of two young girls in the town. Having a tonne of baggage herself, including strained relationships with her frosty mother, the investigation causes Camille to revisit some of her demons, including the death of her beloved sister Marian, a death she never got over.

Since its release last March, 13 Reasons Why, the Netflix adaptation of Jay Asher’s novel, chronicling why High School student Hannah Baker took her own life, was met with controversy. Many people felt the show glamorised suicide, not least in the way Hannah made 13 cassette recordings with a reason and person named on each tape, to be listened to by the people who contributed to her decision to commit suicide. In season 1, the characters named on the tape, unsurprisingly, were wracked with guilt and recriminations over who was ‘most’ culpable, flew between the accused.

^^ Title a very tenuous reference to ‘Guns and Ships’ from the Hamilton soundtrack, which I am absolutely obsessed with!

So, whenever I go to HMV to buy something, I spend way more time in store than necessary, due to my natural inclination for turning every DVD around so I can read the BBFC short insight on the back. Here are a few points of interest from the last time I went:

Whatever one's thoughts on the show and how dangerously close it sails to romanticising suicide, I have to admit that, drama-wise, it is certainly compelling to watch. Episode 9, 'Tape 5, side A' contained a rather unsavoury sexual assault of one of Hannah's friends, and was rated 18.

I e-mailed the BBFC querying why this episode was an 18, as, horrible as it was to watch, an episode of Orange is the New Black featured Pennsatucky getting raped not once but twice, by two different men, and was only a 15:

This is by far the most complete response they've given to me (for reference, see these two emails I sent them last year: un et deux). 

I would just quibble with their saying depictions of rape at 15 'must be discreet', mind, because Wind River, a 15, showed the naked buttocks of the victim when she was being assaulted, which I would say was even worse than showing the attacker's bum. But I CBA to e-mail them; e-mailing back and forth about sexual violence is not my favourite thing to do with my spare time!

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Remember how perturbed I was to see a full stop where there ought to have been a comma in Get Out's BBFC short insight? Well, checking the back of the DVD, I was happy to see they removed that error for DVD distribution:



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For more film rating nerdiness click here!

What stood out for me is that the short insight, for the four things in the film that render it 12A-worthy, each feature a different adjective:

- sustained threat (as was used in the short insight for Nolan's The Dark Knight, still by far the most complained about movie in recent years to the BBFC)

My Sex and the City season 5 DVD featured one of those old school-style BBFC boxes which I would argue was downright incorrect:

A show called 'Sex and the City' which revolves around the sex lives of four women contains infrequent sex references?? And just sex references, but no sex scenes?

The BBFC examiners for season 5 must have switched off for the entire boxset and just (lazily) churned out a report at the end.

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More BBFC nerdiness here.

I spotted this arrangement in my local charity shop a few weeks ago, and greatly applaud the craftsmanship to arrange the films by BBFC rating!

Whilst perusing charity stores and DVD exchange shops, I noticed this on the back of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air DVD boxsets:

What was noteworthy about these two were that they flagged 'mild sex references', yet 12s are usually 12s due to moderate reasons! Bizarre.

Because I'm a stickler for random BBFC trivia, here are more 12s with mild reasons flagged in the short insight. I will update as and when I come across new ones.

This review is my entry to Phyllis Loves Classic Movies’s fabulous Cary Grant blogathon, where every entry is a celebration of the man’s varied and illustrious CV. Head on over there to read about all the films he’s been in!

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Tom Winston (Grant), a recently widowed father of three young kids, and Cinzia Zaccardi (Sophia Loren), the aristocratic daughter of an Italian count who plays childminder to the kids, find unlikely love (and a whole lot of miscommunication) in Melville Shavelson’s gentle 50s comedy.

6 members of the French upper-middle class find that their best-laid plans to dine together are repeatedly and frustratingly scuppered, whether it be due to misunderstanding over the date, French army officers inviting themselves to their meal or suddenly getting arrested. Some of the most bizarre scenarios are revealed to be dream sequences in Luis Buñuel's Oscar winner of Best foreign film.

From the outset, the characters at the centre of Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie are an attractive, urbane bunch, who converse on the finer things in life are of good scruples. But the audience's perceptions are quickly shattered. One casually deals drugs whilst bedding his mate's missus. A couple, the Sénéchals, shimmy out of the window to have sex in the garden whilst ignoring their guests.

Buñuel obviously had a rollicking good time exposing the false dichotomy between the bourgeois and the proletariat that they so smugly like to compare themselves to, and for the most part, his film is enthralling to follow. A little more clarity of focus might have rendered this a more complete watch; some of the dream sequences are nested within dreams of other characters, but finding this out merely adds to the confusion rather than answering any narrative questions.

It's highly probable that the many and varied sequences in Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie wasn't supposed to make sense to the audience, and that the true interpretation of the movie is to be teased out on repeat viewings. If the watcher is to be merely amused and entertained,  then, Buñuel has certainly accomplished his goal. He sends the middle class up with far more flair and nuance than he poked fun of Christianity in La Voie lactée, not least because the vignettes in that film depicted characters that felt strawman-ish, whereas in Charme discret the funny parts are generally underscored by truth.

Surreal touches pepper the film. Fernando Rey (Tristana, That Obscure Object of Desire) is a diplomat for a fictional south American country, the Republic of Miranda, but, like the equally fabricated TV towns of Pawnee in Parks and Rec and Agrestic in Weeds, the country is evoked with such detail when characters discuss it, that the audience could easily believe it were a real place. A maid, played by an actress who couldn't be a day over 30, nonchalantly declares she's in her 50s, and no-one bats an eyelid. And, when hearing his wife is in his best friend's bedroom, the culprit coolly tells him to go wait in his car, and his missus will be out later.

In between displays of the director's signature playful dramatic irony, Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie juxtaposes some disturbing imagery. These arresting scenes of corpses haunting various people now look a tad outdated by 21st century cinema's tendency to depict gore on a hyper-realistic level, but it's because they're so out of the blue and jarring with the rest of the film's comedic tone that they manage to retain power.

Overall, Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie should be approached with caution; its wacky exposition and unconcern with tying up the plot won't be to everyone's tastes. But if you stick with it, it's a truly surprising movie, that will tickle and unnerve you in equal measure, and as a thesis on the power of dreams, it's a hell of a lot more gripping than Christopher Nolan's overrated Inception.

7.5/10

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This review marks my seventh of the eight DVDs in the Luis Buñuel boxset. Read my reviews of the other films I've seen of his here.

Slight disparities between a rating awarded to a movie by the BBFC, and the IFCO, their Irish counterpart, is nothing new. After all, Irish and British sensibilities aren't identical. 

So, for example, When Marnie Was There was a PG in Ireland (as it was in the States), and a U over here. Eddie the Eagle was a 12A in Ireland and a PG over here. Irrational Man was a 15A (the Irish equivalent of a 'soft' 15) in Ireland and a 12A over here. High-Rise was a 16 in Ireland for cinematic release and an 18 on DVD (the Irish don't have a 16 on DVD), whereas it was a 15 over here. Bad Grandpa was an 18 in Ireland and a 15 over here.

On the flipside, films that the Irish have been more permissive with include Belle, a PG in Ireland and the States, and a 12A over here (the scene that got the film its 12A rating pertained to Tom Felton aka Draco Malfoy, being villainous). The Shallows was a 12A in Ireland and a 15 (absurdly) over here. And Gone Girl, an 18 over here, was a 16 in Ireland for cinematic release and then 15 on DVD.

In all of these instances, what is noticeable is that the difference in rating is by one BBFC rating (i.e. one increment between U, PG, 12A, 15, 18).

So imagine my surprise when I opened up my season 2 DVD of The Vicar of Dibley, and spotted this: