Movies! Fido and Hot Fuzz .. and one I'm not going to see...
wow, getting into work twenty minutes early gives me the chance to finally post about the 2 movies we saw last week...
First up: FIDO - a Canadian zombie movie. (link to the wiki).
Now I have to admit to a pretty big bias against Canadian commercial movies (English ones anyway). Growing up, Canadian productions, meant Hollywood-alike movies done on a $100k budget. In the last few years though Canprods have gotten better. I quite enjoyed movies like Ginger Snaps. Anyway... zombie movie... how could i resist? We also got to see it at the renovated Royal Theatre up the street. It's a pretty good movie, I have to say. It won't be released in the USA til the summer though.
The premise behind it has The Dead rising up after a "cloud of space spoors" have passed over the earth. Luckily for the world, A Corporation has Saved The Day: ZomCom (I know you thought I was going to say something like uunet/worldcom/mci/verizon or bellcanada). They've figured out a way to control the Zombies - not eliminate them - but control them enough to make them into slaves. Carrie-Anne Moss steals the show as far as I am concerned. Billy Connolly makes a fantastic Zombie who emotes with his eyes.
Worth seeing.
Next: HOT FUZZ
We had to go see this opening night. The theatre was packed and loved pretty much every second of it, if the applause and laughter was any indication. Probably one of the best movies I'll get to see this year. Yeah.. there'll be 28 Weeks Later, there'll be Pirates of The Caribbean 3, and a few others... but this.. was just great. Its a wonderful homage to Cop movies. It parodies clichés used in many other action movies with pure respect. Even if you've never seen: Bad Boys 2, Point Break or a Clint Eastwood movie, you'll probably appreciate it. I found the accents sometimes a bit boggling, and it was a bit uneven in parts.. but it was still one of the best movies I've seen in ages.
It stars the guys from Shaun of the Dead - Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have teamed up with the same director, Edgar Wright. Hie thee hence and go see... in the theatres where you can appreciate the Bang-Bang. I understand it was released with an R-rating in the USA? Probably for a few OMG scenes that made me gasp and laugh cause i gasped.
Worth seeing twice in the theatres.
----
In an unrelated note I think I've figured out why I have NO interest in seeing "Grindhouse".
Those who know me might think: hey, action, SF kinda elements (if you think of the woman-with-a-gun-for-a-leg might be considered a cyborg), Zombies! This would be right up Zero's alley.
Nope.
I see the trailers and felt sick. Actually nauseated.
Anyway, while surfing around I ran into a reference of "Exploitation Films" - a term I didn't really know. (okay, so i'm not up on my Film 101). So nothing to do but google it up. Under this genre we get: blaxploitation, shock films, sexploitation (semi-hardcore porn), end-of-days films etc. Then we get the ones that are tied into the horror aspect:
zombie films*... cannibal films.. splatter films.
It took me a few minutes to sort through the emotions I feel when I see the trailers... the word "exploitation" sums it up pretty well. I see the occasional trailer for it and feel manipulated.
Exploitation films... as being defined in wiki as "Films made with little or no attention to quality or artistic merit but with an eye to a quick profit, usually via high-pressure sales and promotion techniques emphasizing some sensational aspect of the product". Now, having seen the GrindHouse trailers I can see that it probably has "artistic merit" and certainly doesn't appear cheap. I understand there's even some attempts to recreate the grain and film quality of some of the old movies.
It looks slick.... shiny, glossy violence mixed in with sexualized leather wearing women... and you know.. zombies. It has high-speed chase scenes - which I usually like too - in a Dodge Challenger! And there looks to be a Dodge Charger too... damn. You'd really think I'd see this movie. sigh. Edgar Wright (see above) even did one of the trailers. bigger sigh.
But what turns me off: there's an aestheticization of violence in this film (films - as Grindhouse is a "double feature"). The violent glamorization of the women, their surreality and evident enjoyment of the brutality, stops me cold. I read the synopsis of the movie... and the twisted revenge aspects - make me shake my head.
Anyway. It's not-fair I know to discuss a movie I've not seen.
Oh well.
I'm happy to discuss why I'll never see it.
Maybe it's supposed to be funny but the film's graphic and comical violence just won't do it for me.
----------------
*the over the top kind where the zombies are the slobbering, lumbering, corpse-screwing dead. Gallons of blood and buckets of gore. The kind of Horror movies I really don't like.
First up: FIDO - a Canadian zombie movie. (link to the wiki).
Now I have to admit to a pretty big bias against Canadian commercial movies (English ones anyway). Growing up, Canadian productions, meant Hollywood-alike movies done on a $100k budget. In the last few years though Canprods have gotten better. I quite enjoyed movies like Ginger Snaps. Anyway... zombie movie... how could i resist? We also got to see it at the renovated Royal Theatre up the street. It's a pretty good movie, I have to say. It won't be released in the USA til the summer though.
The premise behind it has The Dead rising up after a "cloud of space spoors" have passed over the earth. Luckily for the world, A Corporation has Saved The Day: ZomCom (I know you thought I was going to say something like uunet/worldcom/mci/verizon or bellcanada). They've figured out a way to control the Zombies - not eliminate them - but control them enough to make them into slaves. Carrie-Anne Moss steals the show as far as I am concerned. Billy Connolly makes a fantastic Zombie who emotes with his eyes.
Worth seeing.
Next: HOT FUZZ
We had to go see this opening night. The theatre was packed and loved pretty much every second of it, if the applause and laughter was any indication. Probably one of the best movies I'll get to see this year. Yeah.. there'll be 28 Weeks Later, there'll be Pirates of The Caribbean 3, and a few others... but this.. was just great. Its a wonderful homage to Cop movies. It parodies clichés used in many other action movies with pure respect. Even if you've never seen: Bad Boys 2, Point Break or a Clint Eastwood movie, you'll probably appreciate it. I found the accents sometimes a bit boggling, and it was a bit uneven in parts.. but it was still one of the best movies I've seen in ages.
It stars the guys from Shaun of the Dead - Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have teamed up with the same director, Edgar Wright. Hie thee hence and go see... in the theatres where you can appreciate the Bang-Bang. I understand it was released with an R-rating in the USA? Probably for a few OMG scenes that made me gasp and laugh cause i gasped.
Worth seeing twice in the theatres.
----
In an unrelated note I think I've figured out why I have NO interest in seeing "Grindhouse".
Those who know me might think: hey, action, SF kinda elements (if you think of the woman-with-a-gun-for-a-leg might be considered a cyborg), Zombies! This would be right up Zero's alley.
Nope.
I see the trailers and felt sick. Actually nauseated.
Anyway, while surfing around I ran into a reference of "Exploitation Films" - a term I didn't really know. (okay, so i'm not up on my Film 101). So nothing to do but google it up. Under this genre we get: blaxploitation, shock films, sexploitation (semi-hardcore porn), end-of-days films etc. Then we get the ones that are tied into the horror aspect:
zombie films*... cannibal films.. splatter films.
It took me a few minutes to sort through the emotions I feel when I see the trailers... the word "exploitation" sums it up pretty well. I see the occasional trailer for it and feel manipulated.
Exploitation films... as being defined in wiki as "Films made with little or no attention to quality or artistic merit but with an eye to a quick profit, usually via high-pressure sales and promotion techniques emphasizing some sensational aspect of the product". Now, having seen the GrindHouse trailers I can see that it probably has "artistic merit" and certainly doesn't appear cheap. I understand there's even some attempts to recreate the grain and film quality of some of the old movies.
It looks slick.... shiny, glossy violence mixed in with sexualized leather wearing women... and you know.. zombies. It has high-speed chase scenes - which I usually like too - in a Dodge Challenger! And there looks to be a Dodge Charger too... damn. You'd really think I'd see this movie. sigh. Edgar Wright (see above) even did one of the trailers. bigger sigh.
But what turns me off: there's an aestheticization of violence in this film (films - as Grindhouse is a "double feature"). The violent glamorization of the women, their surreality and evident enjoyment of the brutality, stops me cold. I read the synopsis of the movie... and the twisted revenge aspects - make me shake my head.
Anyway. It's not-fair I know to discuss a movie I've not seen.
Oh well.
I'm happy to discuss why I'll never see it.
Maybe it's supposed to be funny but the film's graphic and comical violence just won't do it for me.
----------------
*the over the top kind where the zombies are the slobbering, lumbering, corpse-screwing dead. Gallons of blood and buckets of gore. The kind of Horror movies I really don't like.