Shaun of the Dead
SHAUN OF THE DEAD
Regal Quaker Crossing (Orchard Park, NY)
4:45pm Monday 11/1/04
Matinee $6.00
Aud 14
Movie: I have a tendency over the past five years to come out of a movie not decidedly liking or disliking a film. This bothers me greatly. When this started to happen it would send me into a place where I would naively mistake this feeling for dislike but I've since learned that it places me in a good analytical place to make judgments based less on emotional aftermath than careful consideration.
So it's a good thing that I was exposed to this movie multiple times because it is, in fact, amazing. Since coming out of the first viewing I must have seen this movie roughly a dozen times considering how jam packed the DVD was with extras. I can now honestly say that this is one of my top 5 favorite movies.
The editing is top notch, Edgar Wright (the director) having been in school around the time that computer based, non-linear, editing systems were revolutionizing the way people cut movies together is a master of using cuts to convey emotion and style. He tells a story how he wants to tell it.
Unfortunately this tends to make some directors lazy when it comes to the visuals of a movie, but thankfully not here, the choice of lenses and medium shot/ closeups send the visual comedy through in the way a lesser movie might have missed.
Without the tremendous talent of the writers/actors (Wright having co-wrote the first of his "Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy" with star Simon Pegg) the film wouldn't have been as layered either. Each character that comes on screen has an entire backstory woven into sometimes a single line of dialogue and the characters never feel like disposable horror cliches. The duo also seems to enjoy putting power in the hands of those that typically don't wield it in these types of films as our heroes are functional stoners and yet they are trumped by the power of the man's girlfriend. Not to mention it's nice to have some honest emotion in these types of movies every now and again.
Experience: This was my first ever visit to Quaker Crossing, and it wasn't a good one. Just something about the place always makes me feel like I am on the outside of myself looking in, some of the larger theaters inside also tend to have that feeling of being in a long warehouse with high ceilings and you are almost looking through a long tunnel at the screen. Leaves me unsettled sometimes.
Not that I needed any help to get that way. My best friend at the time had been slipping, the past months he had squandered everything good and decent in his life as he started to feel he wanted more in his life. Not more in the sense of wanting to appreciate what one has and work for better circumstances, but more for the sense of just having more. Unfortunately as he now has learned, "more" never satisfies, unless you earn it. The mind naturally wanders sometimes, but never should you make life decisions based on it.
In any event this was the last time our group spent any time together in more than small factions, my friend's decisions brought us all to a darker place for some time, and for his sake hopefully he can someday recover and turn it into something positive like the rest of us have.