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I agree, it is the exhibitors that decided what trailers go on to what. Most theatres try to put on trailers that would interest the audience seeing any given show. If they don't, their are just being stupid in my opinion.

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On our posters it has a brief explanation why each movie is rated the way it is, it might say " M Recommended for mature audiences. High level coarse language. Low level violence. Adult themes. Medium level sex scenes." It does then give the person some idea what they are in for.

By a quirk of British law, these certificates do not have legal force for cinema exhibition. By law, cinemas only have to have a licence from the local government authority (e.g. town or city council). However, almost all such authorities make it a condition of the license that the BBFC certificates are observed, e.g. no under 15s admitted to a 15-cert film. This law dates back to 1909 - the law which brought in the licence system was designed to ensure that cinemas took adequate precautions against nitrate fires, and that they could be closed down if they didn't. But local authorities then started using this law to impose censorship (e.g. 'if you show violent films to under 15s, then we'll take away your licence') and so the BBFC was founded in 1913 to try and standardise the chaos, i.e. to end the situation whereby a film could be banned in one town but shown in the next one. To this day, however, the BBFC remains a self-financing, self-regulating body (although its decisions do have legal force for home video classification).

So if I showed 'Crash' to a load of schoolkids in a cinema, I wouldn't actually be breaking any law!

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With regard to trailers, our classification board rate the trailers as well as the films. Generally the trailer receives the same rating as the film. A traile cannot run with a lower rated film (eg R18+ cannot run with an M rated film). Trailer can receive exceptions which allows them to run with a film that is classified one step lower (eg M trailer, PG film).

It is up to the cinemas to enforce this. Lets face it, we are the ones who put the trailers in. We are the one who are responsible for checking suitability of content.

Same goes for ads as well. I was recently in the situation where I was being asked to run a Club X ad with Big Mommas House. Sorry, no can do was the answer to the advertising company.

Frank.

Frank,

Do you know this for certain? I have never heard that the board censors the trailers. If that is the case, why can't we run what we want to run with what? The trailers are the same version as the US on the most part and they get a 'all audiences' rating also for the most part although the tag at the head does state the movie's real censorship also.

The censor issue with trailers here is so undefined that it might as well not exist. It only does exist because a few years back some dip at a multiplex in Sydney decided that running a trailer for Ghost (complete with Patrick Swayzee's covered in blood) would be the ideal trailer to run with the latest Disney film.

Sheesh!

If we could get a 'this film has been classified for all audiences...the feature has been classified...' etc tag intead of those stupid things that are on there now, we would be able to advertise films to their group audiences (eg: action movies) instead of having to just match them because of their ratings.

The only reason they get a run at my theatre is so I can show off how clean they are thanks to Filmguard.

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My guess is... of course it would! The MPAA wants as many films as possible to submit to the MPAA system (and, don't they have to pay the MPAA to give them a rating too?). Power and money, fellas. Those two words will answer most of your questions.

Why are politicians suddenly having trouble with movies during this election season? I mean, they're holding hearings to find out about test audiences for Judge Dredd? It's a 5 year-old movie which was a bomb in the United States. Why couldn't they have been outraged last summer when kids were seeing There's Something About Mary and South Park? After all, those were popular movies with teenagers and those movies tried to break new boundaries for bad taste in R-rated movies. But, no... the politicians didn't get too upset until they saw a toss-up election on the horizon.

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Yes, the green band trailers are supposed to be approved for all audiences... including G, I suppose. But because of the pressure being put on Hollywood right now, some are saying they won't advertise R-rated films by putting trailers for them in front of G or PG-rated features. So... this goes beyond the green band seal of approval.

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