HOT FUZZ
HOT FUZZ
April 10 2007, Regal Pioneer Place Cinema
OK, let me get this out of the way first - I waited how many fucking years for this?!
Anyway. That's over now and it's on to the love. SIMON PEGG I LOVE YOU. I do. So much. With his writing crony Edgar Wright, Mr. Pegg has brought us two brilliant parodies of beloved film genres - in SHAUN OF THE DEAD they skewered and homaged the zombie flick, and HOT FUZZ does the same thing with the cop buddy movie. Unnnnnfortunately, HOT FUZZ is no SHAUN OF THE DEAD: I say this so that you can receive HOT FUZZ with open arms and not go into it thinking that it's going to completely change the way you see the world. Then again, I have a feeling that it just gets better the more you watch it; I rarely see a movie this insanely detail-oriented, and so very many of the gags are almost off-screen, part of the scenery, part of the soundtrack, or so specifically British that I know I didn't come close to getting all of the funny. And I got a whole fucking lot of it. It also helps if you've seen some of the dumber action movies of the last 15 years, specifically POINT BREAK and BAD BOYS II, both specifically noted as primary texts within the story and excerpted within. If you know those two films by heart, you will be in hysterics. Also helpful: THE WICKER MAN, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, GODZILLA anything, HARD BOILED, SUPERCOP, and of course SHAUN OF THE DEAD...
I don't think I have the energy tonight to go into more than a glancing description of the plot - Sergeant Nicholas Angel (Pegg), a London driven perfectionist ultra-cop hard man, starts out the movie being dumped by his girlfriend (sound familiar?) and then gets transferred to a weensy, boring country village, Sandford, which has a preternaturally low crime rate, and he hates every second of it. He desperately looks for crimes to pursue, but his fellow police are lazy, lackadaisical, and dismissive of everything he tries to do; everyone is fake-friendly, but the only really friendly person is his doughy, stupid partner Danny (the lovable ultimate sidekick Nick Frost). When a grisly double murder occurs under suspicious circumstances, Angel... well, he gets suspicious. Too bad no one cares. Oh, but they will care. Oh boy, will they.
It's a cavalcade of UK stars: the first five minutes lay Steve Coogan, Martin Freeman, and Bill Nighy on you in rapid succession (and see if you can spot Cate Blanchett; I totally, totally didn't at all - or for that matter, Peter Jackson!). They get joined by such luminaries as Paddy Considine, Bill Bailey (my beloved Manny from Black Books), Edward Woodward, Jim Broadbent, and Timothy motherfucking Dalton. I'm sure that if you're English, the rest of the primary cast is also of that "holy shit HIM/HER TOO!?" variety.
But... as I had hinted... there are some problems. I won't go into them here; suffice it to say that you should stick around, and maybe have something alcoholic to drink, during the first hour or so of the movie, because it gets better. A lot better. But... it's no SHAUN. And I waited how many years? Then again, HOT FUZZ is so insanely detailed that I now understand why it took them so long to make it. And it really does have one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in my life EVER and I want to get it, especially if they got all the songs that are in the movie onto it. And I want to take Simon Pegg home and wrap him in a blanket and feed him soup, and then have him kill somebody for me.
I was going to tag this as "wait for DVD", but I've changed my mind. See it in the theater, if only to support it financially. Then get the DVD and watch it over and over again; that's my plan.
April 10 2007, Regal Pioneer Place Cinema
OK, let me get this out of the way first - I waited how many fucking years for this?!
Anyway. That's over now and it's on to the love. SIMON PEGG I LOVE YOU. I do. So much. With his writing crony Edgar Wright, Mr. Pegg has brought us two brilliant parodies of beloved film genres - in SHAUN OF THE DEAD they skewered and homaged the zombie flick, and HOT FUZZ does the same thing with the cop buddy movie. Unnnnnfortunately, HOT FUZZ is no SHAUN OF THE DEAD: I say this so that you can receive HOT FUZZ with open arms and not go into it thinking that it's going to completely change the way you see the world. Then again, I have a feeling that it just gets better the more you watch it; I rarely see a movie this insanely detail-oriented, and so very many of the gags are almost off-screen, part of the scenery, part of the soundtrack, or so specifically British that I know I didn't come close to getting all of the funny. And I got a whole fucking lot of it. It also helps if you've seen some of the dumber action movies of the last 15 years, specifically POINT BREAK and BAD BOYS II, both specifically noted as primary texts within the story and excerpted within. If you know those two films by heart, you will be in hysterics. Also helpful: THE WICKER MAN, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, GODZILLA anything, HARD BOILED, SUPERCOP, and of course SHAUN OF THE DEAD...
I don't think I have the energy tonight to go into more than a glancing description of the plot - Sergeant Nicholas Angel (Pegg), a London driven perfectionist ultra-cop hard man, starts out the movie being dumped by his girlfriend (sound familiar?) and then gets transferred to a weensy, boring country village, Sandford, which has a preternaturally low crime rate, and he hates every second of it. He desperately looks for crimes to pursue, but his fellow police are lazy, lackadaisical, and dismissive of everything he tries to do; everyone is fake-friendly, but the only really friendly person is his doughy, stupid partner Danny (the lovable ultimate sidekick Nick Frost). When a grisly double murder occurs under suspicious circumstances, Angel... well, he gets suspicious. Too bad no one cares. Oh, but they will care. Oh boy, will they.
It's a cavalcade of UK stars: the first five minutes lay Steve Coogan, Martin Freeman, and Bill Nighy on you in rapid succession (and see if you can spot Cate Blanchett; I totally, totally didn't at all - or for that matter, Peter Jackson!). They get joined by such luminaries as Paddy Considine, Bill Bailey (my beloved Manny from Black Books), Edward Woodward, Jim Broadbent, and Timothy motherfucking Dalton. I'm sure that if you're English, the rest of the primary cast is also of that "holy shit HIM/HER TOO!?" variety.
But... as I had hinted... there are some problems. I won't go into them here; suffice it to say that you should stick around, and maybe have something alcoholic to drink, during the first hour or so of the movie, because it gets better. A lot better. But... it's no SHAUN. And I waited how many years? Then again, HOT FUZZ is so insanely detailed that I now understand why it took them so long to make it. And it really does have one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in my life EVER and I want to get it, especially if they got all the songs that are in the movie onto it. And I want to take Simon Pegg home and wrap him in a blanket and feed him soup, and then have him kill somebody for me.
I was going to tag this as "wait for DVD", but I've changed my mind. See it in the theater, if only to support it financially. Then get the DVD and watch it over and over again; that's my plan.