Here are the choice parts of the report:
This year is apparently marked the very first complaint received about the 1970 classic The Railway Children:
I presume , as with scenes of smoking in older films, that The Railway Children is now going to get an advice warning about 'archaic scenes of railway trespassing'!The correspondent was concerned that children may be encouraged to play on railway tracks as a result of seeing the film. While aware of the real dangers of such behaviour, the BBFC judged that it was very unlikely that The Railway Children would promote such dangerous activity.The Railway Children is set in the Edwardian period and trains and access to railway property are very different today. The film also demonstrates the potential harm to children if proper care is not taken.
The Three Stooges, predictably, got a lot of pre-edits before being submitted for classification ("These sequences included the use of a vegetable peeler on a man’s head, a cheese grater on a man’s foot, hair tongs on a woman’s tongue and a man’s head being placed in a microwave. There was also a line of dialogue about teaching children to play with matches."). Taken 2 and Jack Reacher were both edited for 12A certificates.
The 1990's Total Recall got reclassified down from an 18 to a 15 rating this year (similar to the way that The Terminator had been a decade or so ago).
Gremlins got reclassified down from a 15 to a 12A rating, while Jaws got reclassified up from PG to 12A (because "the scenes of sustained threat, bloody injury during and after shark attacks, nudity, and marijuana smoking were difficult to reconcile with the PG Guidelines.")
American History X, I.D., Lisa And The Devil, Twin Peaks – Fire Walk With Me and The Octagon all got reclassified down from 18 to 15 certificates on home video.
Ken Loach ran into trouble again with swearing on The Angel's Share: "...multiple uses of very strong language, several of which were aggressive or which occurred within an aggressive or violent context, exceeded what was allowable at 15. The distributor chose to dub out eight uses of very strong language in order to achieve a 15 classification for cinema release,although one aggressive use and some other non aggressive uses were retained. For the DVD release the distributor reinstated the language cut from the cinema version and the film was subsequently passed 18."
However The Paperboy passed by unscathed despite the way that it: "...also contains an unusual scene in which a woman urinates on a man who has been stung by jellyfish as she claims that this will neutralise the poison. This scene establishes a narrative point and occurs within the context of someone trying to save a friend’s life". So as long as you are friends and think it will save their life, pee away!
Similarly Zero Dark Thirty was passed uncut because: "American operatives are portrayed torturing prisoners for information, including the use of ‘waterboarding’. These scenes are based on real accounts and were classified 15."
Oliver Stone's Savages was apparently edited for a 15 certificate in theatres and then got an uncut 18 rated DVD release.
On The Road was released uncut despite frequent scenes of drug use because: "Although some of the characters who use drugs are glamorous and attractive, there is no instructional detail and the drug use reflects the characters’ lifestyles, as well as the period in which the film is set. Much of the drug use is also dated, especially the misuse of Benzedrine, which is no longer available in the form shown."
Rob Roy had its Tim Roth/Jessica Lange rape scene reinstated for its Blu ray release (it was cut down in all previous releases).
Chinese films Legendary Amazons and Sacrifice (the Chen Kaige film) as well as South Korean films My Way and War of the Arrows were all edited for horse falls on home video submission.
No films were outright rejected this year though a number (such as the grindhouse-style biker gang film Dear God No!) were cut.