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And shot at the Aero

jorencain wrote:A 3 minute film by the Coens, "World Cinema" is up on youtube. Pretty funny.

Thanks for the heads-up. Enjoyed this a lot! =D>

This is pretty pointless, but at least I learned that some people think Miller's Crossing is set in the south. Somehow.

HerrSchreck wrote:I watched Fargo the other day for the first time in a long time. Aside from how much the Peter Stormare "grismud" character reminded me of the killer from No Country, I went online to research what I thought were those grisly "true" murders... and found this.

Anybody know whether or not the whole "true story" aspect was totally bogus?

This is a very late reply, but in one featurette they said they wanted to make a film based on a true story but they did not know any good one so they made one up. This featurette is on the Blu-ray/DVD of Burn After Reading or No Country for Old Men, or A Serious Man. I don't remember.

I really have a feeling that Criterion will be releasing it here.

I really have a feeling they won't. I don't see the Coens as very attractive targets for them, as 1) there's virtually no chance of getting other Coen films, 2) the Coens are most likely not going to be very enthusiastic about creating extras, and 3) the lack of Barton Fink from the Fox set, which seems to be the primary (lone?) source for this speculation, can be pretty easily explained as "Fox not really giving a shit about it" - the other three films in the set almost certainly have massively wider market appeal.

Well if Criterion could get it, which very well may not be possible, I believe they said once on Facebook that they would love to release something by the Coens.

Brian C wrote:there's virtually no chance of getting other Coen films

Does this really matter all that much? I would think that the Coens are established enough at this point that the prospect of releasing a major film from them would appeal to Criterion even if it was going to be a one-off. I mean, they recently licensed Broadcast News from Fox despite it being unlikely that there's any more James Brooks on the way, and that seems like a more unconventional picture for them to be releasing than Barton Fink.

The bigger question is which one of those films merited an 18? I recall them all as pretty mild as far as their Rs went (and one PG-13 of course)

Big Lebowski handily earns its R, I'd say. It's placed 24th on this list, for one.

Really? All I remember from that one is some cursing and pedophilia jokes.

I don't think the UK ratings weigh as heavily on swears as the US, though, more on violence and sexual content, no?

Quick search shows Lebowski is indeed '18'

domino harvey wrote:I don't think the UK ratings weigh as heavily on swears as the US, though, more on violence and sexual content, no?

Interestingly (or not), in that list I posted previously, the comedy specials--where presumably language is the sole contributor to the rating--are sometimes rated 15 and sometimes 18. Those crazy Brits, who knows what they're thinking!

Maybe it's the nudity in the movie that earned it the 18? I vaguely remember some topless girls jumping on a trampoline at Jackie Treehorne's mansion.

The Big Lebowski was originally rated 18 in the UK. However, it seems Universal went to the trouble of having the film reclassified. The new rating is 15 with the details given as "Contains strong language and sex references".

I'd imagine it's more than a little to do with the frequent and the not exactly un-glorifying drug use, on top of the swears and nudity. There is certainly an over-sensitivity toward drugs and film in British culture (although More being re-released uncut displays another cloud of censorship that appears to be dwindelling). Throw into the mix the tightly wound British public when it comes to paedophilia and humour (re: Brass Eye Special and oft mentioned tabloid debacle) and there are more than a number of areas that I could have seen raising mild hell here.

Don't forget that while a British 18+ may technically be the equivalent of NC-17, it lacks the same stigma.

There is always the possibility that it may not the films themselves that have provoked the 18 rating (though the Big Lebowski being an 18 previously could mean that this is just a temp classification symbol for promotional artwork). Since the BBFC has to approve every piece of on-disc material there is always the possibility that the classification is higher due to material contained in deleted scenes, making of documentaries or (perhaps more rarely!) interviews. In those cases usually the BBFC box on the back of the DVD has a line under it stating that "Overall category raised to an 18 due to additional material being classified at a higher cert than the main feature [15]" (as it is with the Blu-ray disc of Tom Shankland's film The Children for example).

Although since we are talking about the Coen Brothers, extra material on the disc doesn't seem particularly likely!

swo17 wrote:Interestingly (or not), in that list I posted previously, the comedy specials--where presumably language is the sole contributor to the rating--are sometimes rated 15 and sometimes 18. Those crazy Brits, who knows what they're thinking!

The other thing that can contribute to the 18 is racist humour and aggressive use of the 'c' word. Perhaps the most extreme example of this would be the shows of Roy Chubby Brown.

bipP wrote:I'd imagine it's more than a little to do with the frequent and the not exactly un-glorifying drug use, on top of the swears and nudity. There is certainly an over-sensitivity toward drugs and film in British culture (although More being re-released uncut displays another cloud of censorship that appears to be dwindelling).

Plus this month The Panic In Needle Park has been released on DVD in the UK for the first time. That was another film that was banned at the time of release for its instructional drug use, then edited on video, before eventually being passed uncut in the early 2000s

colinr0380 wrote:Plus this month The Panic In Needle Park has been released on DVD in the UK for the first time. That was another film that was banned at the time of release for its instructional drug use, then edited on video, before eventually being passed uncut in the early 2000s

The Panic In Needle Park was first released on DVD in the UK about 10 years ago, albeit in a pan and scan version.

Although i doubt it's the case here, sometimes trailers on a disc can increase the classification. My blu of Valhalla Rising (otherwise 15) is rated 18 due to the trailer for the Danny Dyer opus before it (Football Factory possibly) in which he threatens to "smash the ring " off someone. What a gent.

Graham wrote:The Panic In Needle Park was first released on DVD in the UK about 10 years ago, albeit in a pan and scan version.

Ah, sorry! I must have missed the previous release. That must explain the reclassification in the early 2000s.

eerik wrote:Barton Fink is coming to Blu-ray from Univeral in UK.

Has anyone bought this? I'm curious as to how Barton Fink and Intolerable Cruelty look, and whether the Big Lebowski release is as DNR'd as the R1.