Somebody Notify Connie Willis

The protagonist of Connie Willis's novel Remake has a depressing sort of job: he uses computers to remove incidents of alcohol and tobacco consumption from classic Hollywood movies, in order to make them socially acceptable for broadcast on television. At the time the book was written (1995) this was a science-fictionally amusing idea.

This afternoon I was channel-surfing and came across a broadcast of Wonder Boys, the 2000 film of the Michael Chabon novel and a movie I liked even if nobody else did. The scene that was playing had a depressed Michael Douglas sitting on the ground with a lit cigarette.

And every time he drew the smoke up to his mouth, the screen blurred around it.

I don't like this movie, Mr. DeMille.