The James Bond films, like the books on which they are based, have always pushed the boundaries of acceptable portraits of sex and violence.  Documents from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) show how for Thunderball they reviewed the script, recommending many changes if the film was to achieve ...
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Uncle and Aaron invited me back to drink Hoegaarden and discuss the movie Air Force One.  This typically chaotic discussion focused on how the Air Force rewrote parts of the film in exchange for their support, why Hoegaarden reminds me of happy times, and how terrorists open locked doors on ...
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Nightcrawler is one of those rare films that is beautifully written, very well executed and is about something that actually matters.  It tells the story of Lou Bloom, a young man in poverty-struck Los Angeles who gets into nightcrawling - filming violent crimes and accidents and selling the footage to ...
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Why do we censor films?  Intuitively we all know the answer to this question - because there are some things we don't want to see on the screen.  In this episode we examine film censorship, focusing primarily on the treatment of cinematic violence by the MPAA and BBFC.  Using Walter ...
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Roar is a truly unique piece of cinema, possibly the most dangerous and brave and crazy film ever made.   This week I take a look at this fascinating production which took 11 years to make, cost over $15 million and put most of its cast and crew in the hospital.  ...
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The Battle of Algiers was a groundbreaking film when it came out in 1966, not just for its depiction of the Algerian War against French occupation but for its quasi-documentary realism and its morally neutral approach, showing both sides committing atrocities.  Because of this realism it is a cinematic training ...
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Robbie Martin is our final guest for this season as we dissect the 2012 docudrama Zero Dark Thirty. We discussed the difficulty in defining what kind of film this is - somewhere between a spy thriller, a documentary and a dry European art house movie. We get into the well-documented ...
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The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) recently published its annual report, which details complaints against various movies including Spectre, Kingsman and Minions.  As is so often the case, sex and violence were the focus of the complaints, leading the BBFC to explain why they had allowed these scenes into ...
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