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With a collage of wit, action, comedy and horror, Hot Fuzz is a funtastic spoof of a genre known for its over-the-top behavior, 22 April 2007
Author: diac228 (diac1987@netscape.net) from Orlando, Florida
The average American knows what an American action film is. It usually consists of throwaway plots, buddy/partner relationships, pointless sex scenes, amazing amounts of profanity, explosions, and more explosions. Of course, it gets dabbed from time to time with humor and some random romance story that has little correlation with the main plot. Of course, not ALL action films fall into this, but most do. It is a genre that has really good films (The Rock, Con Air, Die Hard, Speed, The Rundown), really bad films (Bad Boys II, Lethal Weapon 4, 2 Fast 2 Furious) and then some that are just downright ugly (Beverly Hills Cop 3, Double Team, Biker Boyz, Simon Sez). Now, we have the British creative staff behind the cult classic Shawn of the Dead providing us with their take on the genre that has garnished a lot of money but has established itself with a reputation of being mere mindless popcorn entertainment. What winds up happening is exactly like what happened with Shawn of the Dead: the spoof/satire/homage to the genre its portraying winds up becoming one of the best of its kind, better than most released recently.
Hot Fuzz excels as an action film because of its funny build-up, its quite intriguing story, its ability to stay on track, excellent chemistry amongst the actors, and of course, plenty of gruesome action to sink your teeth into. Carrying the formula that propelled Shawn of the Dead, Hot Fuzz entertains you, throws you off with its plot twists, and then has you on the edge of your seat when the action picks up. It does not contain any romance or pointless sex scenes, but that's instead replaced by a dosage of horror and mystery. The pacing is fast and furious, and refuses to slow down. The references come flying (some obvious, some vague) from all directions, and then it even ends like an action film—so plug in the ears if you don't like a lot of noise.
In this over-the-top spoof, we follow Nicholas Angel, (Simon Pegg) a top-notch police officer that is re-assigned because he is making everyone else look bad. That was pretty much established right from the beginning of the film. Next thing you know, he is in a rather secluded, clean, and seemingly happy town by the name of Sandford. Right from the get go Nicholas seems to be a bit paranoid and creeped-out about the mannerisms of the town, as he tries to teach the dim-witted but reliable partner Danny Butterman (Nick Frost). Angel's suspicious rises as a series of accidents hamper the town. Nonetheless, despite the overwhelming evidence and logic he uses, the rest of the police department isn't convinced.
Following the same choppy-edited quick cuts from Shawn of the Dead, Edgar Wright does a fantastic job keeping the speed of the film fast, while leaving plenty of details, Easter eggs, and hints as to what is going to happen next. Adding to his fantastic direction are the funny visuals that can be seen in the background as the subjects in front of the camera engage in conversation. But even with the hints intact, you still don't know where the story is going, and that is thanks to the writing staff (Pegg, again, and Wright…again). Hot Fuzz is actually a lot less predictable than Shawn of the Dead—its also not as funny, but much more action-oriented.
We have quite a talented staff in Hot Fuzz that extends from the creative staff to the actors. Besides the hilarious and likable Pegg and Frost, we also have Bill Nighy, Timothy Dalton, Paul Freeman, Stuart Wilson, and the Oscar-winner Jim Broadbent. While you may not know these names as well as the major Hollywood actors of today, just know that you won't get the typical stomach-churning acting present in the average action film. Hot Fuzz spends most of the movie building up using comical scenes, moments of suspense and terror; and then blows the doors down in the final moments. With a long, funny, yet satisfying shootout, a grand car chase, a tense final fight, and explosions left and right, the third act more than makes for its lack of gunfire and pyrotechnics in the first two parts of the movie.
Bottom Line: While referencing and giving nods to Die Hard, Point Break, Bad Boys, Lethal Weapon, and other superb action flicks, Hot Fuzz becomes among the better action flicks in recent memory. With a plot that actually works, characters are actually dimensional, and with content that is actually smart, this film is over-the-top, gory, but maintains the quality whether blood is spewing onto the screen or not. It may require multiple viewings to actually catch all the references, but with a film this good, you won't mind. It is funny and out-of-control. The British team behind Shawn of the Dead does it again; only this time hopefully more Americans will take notice of an emerging quality force across the Atlantic Ocean. Here comes the Fuzz.
Hey, so here's the deal. Last March I had this funny foot surgery which was good for me because a) I got my foot fixed, b) I had sick time off from work and got to watch a lot of movies all day, and c) well, point B covers this subset as well, because like I said, I got to watch a lot of movies!
Beautiful, but...? Worth seeing more than once, but something about it left me listless.
It's one of those movies I revisit once, sometimes twice, a year in order to keep up with it's peppery dialogue and happy-making performances. I could marry either Cary Grant or James Stewart in this picture. Yes, either one will do.
Impossibly, impossibly crazy premise for a movie, and yet, there it is, this delicious relic of Reagan's intense influence on the American public. Really, Matthew Broderick? You really knew how to hack into the most top-secret government nuclear arms launcher? And really, they couldn't figure it out that you were doing it? Even had trouble tracking you down in your dull suburban home? Really? Ah, well. Broderick is still a doll, as is his lady Ally Sheedy, and as I see it, any movie with Dabney Coleman cast is worth seeing. It was also a little strange to see WarGames in the full-length version, uninterrupted by commercials--that's the only way I saw it before as a kid, when it ran as the Saturday afternoon movie on secondary stations. Scary stuff for a seven year old.
On a bright, beautiful 35mm print dripping with saturated red color. Red coats on the kids skipping across the school grounds. Red lipstick on the ladies. Red books and other set accents that look as heavy as oil on canvas. I say, quite a cinema send-off before my surgery just days later. Thanks, Nicholas Ray, you're awesome!
Showed a clip of this to my students during our final class period of the quarter. It had been at least a couple or three years since I've seen it, and upon catching up with a few reviews that bemoan its abstract storytelling, it is plain to me this kids' picture is about as cut-and-dry a narrative as you can get. It's there in every sequence, and very easy to follow. And imagine this, none of the animation cells were drawn on a computer. Huh. I love you, Pixar and Dreamworks, but Miyazaki is my bread and butter.
The general consensus at my class screening: no consensus. Half found it boring and an empty show of technical achievement, the other half were sympathetic to its feeling and engagement of Russian history. Naturally I fall into the latter camp. As always, I found it emotionally enthralling and heart wrenching as we watched the final moments of the crowd exiting the palace, knowing full well those characters are marching off to their deaths; the memories of whom to be graced only now as they're brought back to life in this one seamless moment. It strikes me as the utmost privilege to have had the chance to experience this movie, there in the depths of the Hermitage where few have shared face-to-face, uninterrupted intimacy with the museum's collection. And our nameless lead character, steeped in sublime mystery? Dear man, take my hand and keep guiding me forever...
Scratch another Johnnie To off the list! I know this is his big film, but personally I much prefer the minor Sparrow (2008).
Ick. Ick. Ick. If I believed Ryan Gosling's character, with all of his education, strong family ties, functional relationships, and strong work ethic could ever possibly be as hard off in a drug haze as he is, well, we might have an okay movie. But as it is, we do not. I can't talk about this movie anymore because I reject it's premise. Also, it's not the movie to watch when you're trying to calm yourself the night before surgery.
Caught up with this one again for the first time.
Remember when you saw Disney's Aladdin in 8th grade and thought it was fun and funny and full of neat special effects that seemed to heighten your odd attraction to the nonexistent lead character, the animated "street rat" Aladdin? Yeah, it's not like that anymore. Now it's an Americanized, homogenized version of some un-named place in the Middle East with white skinned characters. Who understand Robin Williams's spastic outbursts of American pop-culture references, too? Yes.
Yep. Watched it again. First quote that comes to mind as I type right now: "I'm right in the middle of something, Ray!"
This is a good movie! A pleasant surprise. See it for some easy watching, and nice performances too.
Alan Dwan western that is mostly boring. I don't even remember what it's about.
Remember how I said I was going to watch more French New Wave films? Well, la te da, here you go: Truffaut's Jules et Jim is one to live by. It's too bad it took me as long as it did to see it, but now that I finally have I can say in all seriousness, it has changed my entire outlook on life. A movie about life and living! Curiosity and play! Whenever I am blue I'll know what to watch. The Criterion commentary track with Robert Stam and Dudley Andrew is also a wonderful chat to be privy to.
Here's one from the Czech New Wave that's been sitting on the queue for ages. It's beautiful.
A really sweet coworker, also a movie buff, lent me his DVD copy of this horror flick, even offered to let me keep it he had watched it so many times. Nice gesture to be sure, so it was a melancholy exchange when I finally returned the DVD to him at his cubicle--I didn't think it was scary! Yes, there were moments of anticipation that gave me a few starts, but in sum total, meh.
This movie is incredible. You watch Pablo Picasso paint pictures magically before your eyes. There is one wonderful moment when he's in conversation with director Henri-Georges Clouzot, and he emphasizes his frustration with the condensation of real time into film time: "It bothers me that they see only ten minutes. That took me five hours."
Bogart and Cagney at their finest. Love the dialogue in this movie--swift! The weight of these two actors sitting in a two-shot is almost too heavy and breathtaking for words.
This movie is great. Melodramatic and expressionistic--mwah!
As part of the French New Wave New Year's resolution. Beautiful.
Oh, snap! This is the best western I've seen in ages. Otto Preminger is, how do you say it...? Otto Preminger is the shit!
The kick-off of my G.W. Pabst movie marathon! I put all available Pabst films on my Netflix queue, and as of this writing, am about through with them all (there aren't many, so it wasn't very hard). Secrets is another prime example of how clearly the film medium had matured by the time of sound's introduction and has basically not changed since.
I loved you, too. A few awkward moments a la SNL skit gone on too long, but funny! I did wish for more Joe Lo Truglio. But I'm tempted to say this was Favreau's best role yet, he was fantastic.
I don't know how to impart on you my overwhelming attraction to Alain Delon. Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, this film with almost no dialogue, showing the dreary side of Paris (unlike earlier Godard and Truffaut pics), is a new favorite.
I have not watched this since the film school days! A screening was long overdue, and my, did my memory fudge so many of the movie's scenes. I had almost completely forgotten how little of it was presented in moving images; just a long series of stills instead. A short and sweet refresher to gear me up for the Chris Marker marathon I've been trying to start up.
This might be my favorite movie ever made. Phrases like "amnesia of the future" stream everywhere. I love that!
It wasn't fair to this movie that I watched it right after Marker's masterpiece, Sans Soleil, but it is definitely one of the better "mumblecore" movies. Actress Kathryn Aselton is one of its greatest assets.
Louise Brooks! More about her here.
From the Dardennes brothers. Man do I love Paris-set pictures, there's such energy--gritty energy, yes--but a kind of movement you just don't see in American movies. Also, the bonus materials included a nice interview with the brothers.
Speaking of Ronald Reagan (a la WarGames), here he is again in another dull Alan Dwan picture. Who's that strawberry blond dame next to him at right? Barbara Stanwyck--hurrah! Sadly, the fact that Ms. Stanwyck holds a part in this film is really the only redeeming quality it possesses. This was also at a time when Stanwyck's career was winding down and the woman had to take what she could get. She's still as strong and bright as ever, and is clearly putting above par here.
I asked my Italian friend if he could understand the dialect spoken in this movie, and he said no. That made me feel better, because even though I don't speak Italian I am trying to learn the basics, and I didn't either. This is besides the point. I'm ready to see more politically-charged pics like this from Italy. We need to see how this country has changed since the original era of Neorealism, but it seems there aren't a great many films out there in the ether that show this. Correct me if I am wrong, please!
Again, more French New Wave grist for the 2009 resolution mill. Haven't read much about it yet--was it made as a sequel to Pierrot Le Fou? They're so similar.
Playing for two nights only at the Gene Siskel Film Center, it was of the utmost urgency that I see this film from director Olivier Assayas. It ran as part of the Film Center's nicely curated European Union Film Festival, Assayas's film being the crown jewel of the event. I loved this movie from start to finish right up until now this second; I seem to carry it with me everywhere, in all of it's light, lovely meditations on life and the inevitability of death.
Sometimes I think I like this movie better on paper than I do in practice. I feel at odds with the characters' unrelenting inarticulateness, to the point of confusion at times. But it can't be denied that this movie from director Joe Swanberg--aka King of Mumblecore--is speaking to and thus helping define a generation. Now here's something I am over the moon about: its opening credit sequence! It's really good!