HOT FUZZ

[Ghoul]

mislim da nemamo spec. topik o ovom upcumming masterpisu (šta, neko sumnja?), a pošto mu se premijera bliži, raste i anticipation.

naročito posle ovog texta:

Fango just heard from a lucky viewer who got a sneak peek at HOT FUZZ, the new film by writer/director Edgar Wright and writer/star Simon Pegg, the twisted British geniuses behind the fave zombie comedy SHAUN OF THE DEAD. Though not a genre pic, the buddy-cop laugher FUZZ sounds like it has plenty of splattery fun to offer SHAUN fans: "I went to a test screening of HOT FUZZ here in New York [Long Island] three weeks ago," our source says. "Edgar Wright was there and some of the audience members recognized him and said hi, and he was happy to say hi back. The new movie is so funny because he and Simon Pegg have set their sights on an even more mayhem-y genre than zombie movies. And aside from cars crashing and bullets flying, HOT FUZZ has lots of gore! Real gore, not just cop-movie gore. So if you all thought they'd go PG-13 on this, no way!

"Pegg and [SHAUN co-star] Nick Frost are again a great team, and wait till you see some of the cool veteran actors who are in this movie. My friend who was there—who also really liked the movie—filled me in afterward on who some of them were, and there are a couple of big names who you really have to look fast for—or at. Hey, no spoilers, OK. The movie rocked, and if you liked SHAUN OF THE DEAD, don't worry; there is no sophomore jinx here." Rogue currently has FUZZ set for a spring U.S. release (no longer March 9, as previously reported; it hits UK screens February 16)

[crippled_avenger]

vrhunsko geekovanje

http://dobanevinosti.blogspot.com/2007/01/hot-fuzztival.html

[crippled_avenger]

Objavljen raspored Hot Fuzztivala:
Point Break
Bad Boys II
Brannigan
Hot Fuzztival Double-Bill: Hot Fuzz & The Super Cops
The Super Cops
Sudden Impact
Electra Glide in Blue
Man on Fire
True Romance
Hard-Boiled
Danny Butterman's Double-Bill: Point Break & Bad Boys II

[crippled_avenger]

Ovde mozete naci Edgarove komentare za svaki od najavljenih naslova:

http://dobanevinosti.blogspot.com/2007/01/hot-fuzztival.html

[crippled_avenger]

Get Ready... The HOT FUZZ Blitz Is About To Begin!!

Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here.

I'm gonna cut to the chase: I've seen it, and it is fucking good.

I'm not going to write my review yet. I'm going to see the film a few more times before I do that. It's opening just after Valentine's Day... if you live in the UK. February 16th. That's not too far off.

But for Americans, the film isn't until April 13th.

And when it arrives, it's going to be a limited release to start.

Now, by limited, I'm not sure what they mean. Could be 30 screens. Could be 800 screens. Could be anything inbetween. And I'm not sure what the plans are for possible expansion, but I'm guessing if the film becomes a hit, they'll roll it out wider. Or at least, I hope that's the plan.

SHAUN OF THE DEAD is a favorite of mine. My first viewing of it was a total surprise. I loved SPACED, and I thought the title of the film was clever, but making the jump from the 30 minute form to a full-length feature isn't always an automatic slam-dunk.

And I confess... I think Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg are preposterously cool people. Edgar's a genuine film fanatic, a great storyteller. I've had several opportunities to hang out with him, and our conversations are never specifically about his films. Sure, when I saw him in London this trip, one of the main topics of conversation was HOT FUZZ, but in discussing that film, you have no choice but to discuss everything that's all mixed up in the movie's DNA. This isn't parody; it's too rich, too character-driven, and too heartfelt for that. Edgar Wright speaks fluent movie-geek, and his films do, too. There's a shorthand here, the way he uses clever twists on familiar forms to underline a moment or to make an ironic point, and talking to him and Simon together, I get the feeling they're going to be doing this for a long, long time.

Let's see how Universal does at getting the word out in the US. Rogue's got the movie... now let's see them sell it. This isn't a niche genre film like a zombie comedy... this is a mainstream action film that just happens to be funny as shit. Part of the way they're going to try to sell it is by putting Edgar, Simon, and Nick Frost (the secret weapon of this film) in front of people as much as possible. I probably spent four hours with Edgar over two days, and about an hour with Nick and Simon, and even at the end of a long day of junketing, trying to unwind in a bar, there's this great easy chemistry between them that just kept me rolling.

Here's an example of what I mean by putting the guys in front of people. I got this press release for this upcoming chat event:


Chat LIVE with Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost!

ATTENTION ALL HOT FUZZ FANS -- here's your chance to get the inside scoop on all things Hot Fuzz!

Log on at the Working Title site on Monday, January 29th at 10:00 AM US Pacific / 1:00 PM US Eastern / 18:00 PM GMT to join a live web chat with the team behind Hot Fuzz.

Come armed with your best questions and wittiest insight!

Official Site

U.S. Trailer

QuickTime High

QuickTime Low

Windows Media High

Windows Media Low

Official Synopsis: Hot Fuzz is the action-packed new comedy from the makers of the hit movie Shaun of the Dead. With the same razor-sharp combination of humor and attention to detail they used to breathe new life into the undead, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright have set their sights on Action Movies for their next uniquely funny vision.

Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is the finest cop London has to offer, with an arrest record 400% higher than any other officer on the force. He's so good, he makes everyone else look bad. As a result, Angel's superiors send him to a place where his talents won't be quite so embarrassing -- the sleepy and seemingly crime-free village of Sandford .

Once there, he is partnered with the well-meaning but overeager police officer Danny Butterman (Nick Frost). The son of amiable Police Chief Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent), Danny is a huge action movie fan and believes his new big-city partner might just be a real-life "bad boy," and his chance to experience the life of gunfights and car chases he so longs for. Angel is quick to dismiss this as childish fantasy and Danny's puppy-like enthusiasm only adds to Angel's growing frustration.

However, as a series of grisly accidents rocks the village, Angel is convinced that Sandford is not what it seems and as the intrigue deepens, Danny's dreams of explosive, high-octane, car-chasing, gunfighting, all-out action seem more and more like a reality.

It's time for these small-town cops to break out some big-city justice.

Written by Pegg and director Edgar Wright, Hot Fuzz reteams Pegg and Frost alongside a killer cast. In addition to Oscar winner Jim Broadbent, the stellar lineup of talent includes Paddy Considine (In America), Steve Coogan (Night at the Museum), Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights), Martin Freeman (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), Paul Freeman (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Bill Nighy (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest), Lucy Punch (The Class), Anne Reid (The Mother), Billie Whitelaw (The Omen), Stuart Wilson (The Mask of Zorro), Edward Woodward (The Equalizer), and plenty of surprises!



You should log on for the chat. And I hope Working Title.com allows them to go out unfiltered. When we saw them after their first day at their London junket, they were laughing about a comment that got censored from a podcast they were interviewed for.

Simon could barely stop laughing as he said, "They asked each of us to describe ourselves in two words. Nick's answer was 'massive cunt.'"

You can't put a filter on these guys. That's half the fun. Nick's even more of a joy as Danny Butterman than he was as Ed, and he seems to be in rare form in person as well. You only get chemistry like this among old friends, people who are totally at ease with each other.

You can also find a new high-def version of the trailer online at the Apple site right here.

Right now, I don't know how I feel about this film in comparison to SHAUN OF THE DEAD, but I think it's at least as good. For the moment, I look forward to seeing it and discussing it further in the months ahead.

[crippled_avenger]

EMPIRE:

Hot Fuzz (TBC)


Watch The Trailer (View all trailers and clips)



Plot
PC Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is London's best policeman. In fact, he's so good that his superiors 'promote' him to a sleepy village where he can't make them look bad. But as the locals start getting bumped off, it seems the village is not so sleepy after all.

Empire Review
It's a tricky thing, a cult hit. How do you follow it up? Do you ride the hype, go Hollywood and risk being called a sell-out? Or stay small and potentially confine yourself to 'Also Out' columns for the rest of your days? The Shaun Of The Dead team has aimed for a point precisely between the two, and if they haven't quite hit the bullseye, they've come extremely close.

Hot Fuzz has a much harder job to do than Shaun. Zombies overrunning the suburbs and being fought off by a pair of layabouts armed only with arrested development and on-demand flatulence is an obviously ripe idea. Big-city policeman gets sent to the leafy land of cream teas and women's institutes? It all sounds a bit too Heartbeat to get the heart racing. Fuzz never quite achieves the boundless creativity of Shaun, but Wright and Pegg throw every joke they have at the concept until they tickle the audience into giddy submission.

The vast share of the appeal is down to the laidback chemistry between Pegg and Frost. After almost a decade together they're clearly so comfortable in each other's presence that they feel no need to fight for the punchline, making them terrific company for two hours. It's initially strange to see eternal pratfaller Pegg playing the straight man, and the first 20 minutes pass slightly sluggishly as we're introduced to his Nicholas Angel, the kind of humourless jobsworth you'd studiously avoid at the office party. Alone he's a bit of an irritating do-gooder, but once he meets bumpkin officer PC Danny Butterman (Frost), his dull stoicism becomes the perfect comic foil for Frost, who effortlessly trundles off with the show.

Danny is an endearing, pie-eyed, sugared-up puppy of a man, packed tightly with one-liners that you'll be quoting long after your friends have stopped speaking to you because you won't shut the hell up.

Wright and Pegg's talent with incidental character quirks extends to the rest of the villagers; they may be archetypes, but they're very funny archetypes. Paddy Considine and Rafe Spall get a lot of mileage out of relatively little screen time as a pair of bellicose inspectors; Anne Reid turns a single vocal tic into one of the film's best scenes and Timothy Dalton is so sneeringly, uproariously suspicious that he might as well be twirling his moustache, stroking a white cat and ending all his lines with "Mwa-ha-ha". We could go on, but word counts forbid.

Wright is not just in this for the comedy, however; he wants to be an action director too. He's certainly far from a slouch in this department, but by boldly referencing the films of Michael Bay, Tony Scott and Kathryn Bigelow he's setting himself a high benchmark — okay, maybe marginally less so with Bigelow. He strikes a confident balance between the laughs and stunts, and his action hits have plenty of bang and flashy editing, but he does lack the ultra-cool 'I wish I was that guy' moments that mark out a great action set-piece. Yet if Hot Fuzz can only boast of being a good action movie, it is confidently a great comedy.

Verdict
Even without the inspired idea of Shaun Of The Dead it's an easy match for laughs, and marks Nick Frost as a vital part of this team's appeal. The boys (now in blue) have done it again.


Reviewer: Olly Richards

[crippled_avenger]

Hrpa komentara stigla na AICN

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/31473

[crippled_avenger]

HOT FUZZ-TIVAL w/ Edgar Wright & Nick Frost live!
Theater: Alamo Downtown
 
Director: Edgar Wright
Rating: R

Age Policy: 18 and up; Children 6 and up will be allowed only with a parent or guardian. No children under the age of 6 will be allowed.

Rogue Pictures, Ain't it Cool News & Fantastic Fest present the Cinema Under the Influence Series:
HOT FUZZTIVAL!
We couldn't be any more psyched about an event than we are about this one. In addition to an all-day and all-night marathon of classic cop movies, we'll also have director Edgar Wright and funniest-man-in-the-universe Nick Frost in the house! And to cap off the whole event, we'll have a special sneak preview screening of their new film HOT FUZZ, which does for the cop movie what their earlier SHAUN OF THE DEAD did for zombie movies.

The classic cop-movie lineup preceding HOT FUZZ including four of Edgar's favorite cop films :

ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE
He's A Good Cop. On A Big Bike. On A Bad Road. Robert Blake stars as a very short Arizona motorcycle cop who becomes a very short homicide detective, as the moral compass of his fellow officers, and seemingly the whole world, spins out of control. Possibly the oddest cop movie ever made, and one of the most stunning.

SUDDEN IMPACT
Clint Eastwood vaulted "Dirty" Harry Callahan from icon to Demigod of Brutality with the most action-crammed entry in the series. See Harry and his impossibly enormous gun commit endless crimes in the name of the law, including homicide, murder, manslaughter, killing, assassination and many many more...all at a frantic, merciless pace that leaves no room for pesky obstacles like humanity or motivation. And if that's not enough, see Harry punch a female villain square in the kisser. Holy crow!

FREEBIE AND THE BEAN James Caan and Alan Arkin are the two most likable fascist cops in the whole history of the cop movie. This film, by action director extraordinaire Richard Rush, features some of the most buck wild chase scenes you'll ever see, and a patented downbeat 70s ending that further confounds expectations.

POLICE STORY 2
A whiplash-inducing Jackie Chan knockout! Multiple car chases, eyeball-peeling stunts and nigh-mortal injuries explode on screen. Consider it a complete primer to the most ass-kicking forms of police justice. Featuring self-destructive feats that Landed Jackie in the ER, and early daredevilry by Maggie Cheung.

ADVANCE TICKETS ON SALE TUESDAY, FEB. 13th at 12:00 NOON FOR FANTASTIC FEST BADGEHOLDERS ONLY ($38 Special, limit 2 tickets per badgeholder) - BUY YOUR FANTASTIC FEST BADGES STARTING FEB. 6th at WWW.FANTASTICFEST.COM
THESE TICKETS ADMIT YOU INTO OUR COP MARATHON AND GET YOU COMPLIMENTARY, PRIORITY SEATING TO SEE HOT FUZZ!

REGULAR TICKETS ON SALE TO THE PUBLIC TUESDAY, FEB. 20th AT 12:00 NOON ($45)

Be sure to check out the HOT FUZZ TRAILER
and Join the Fuzz HERE

HOT FUZZ OPENS APRIL 13TH!

View Other Celebrity Guests Screenings

Showings (click on a show time to buy tickets):  Saturday, March 31
12:00 Noon

[crippled_avenger]

Hot Fuzz (2007)
Reviewed by Jamie Russell
Updated 12 February 2007


Woo, woo it's the sound of the police: straight after bashing the undead in Shaun, Simon Pegg tools up for Hot Fuzz, a criminally funny cop movie parody that plays like Bad Boys II meets Midsomer Murders (and we mean that as a compliment). Pegg stars as top London rozzer Nicholas Angel, transferred to a sleepy Somerset village by his jealous colleagues. It's supposed to be an easy gig, but pretty soon the city plod's up to his helmet in murder...

Keeping the genre-busting humour of Shaun - just without the zombies - Hot Fuzz is described as "a British Shane Black movie". They're not kidding - 20 minutes of heavily stylised, slow-mo gun porn sees Nicholas and partner Danny (Nick Frost) - "Crockett and Tubby" - turn the village into a smoking wreck. Yet that's just the finale of a movie that's happiest (and funniest) bouncing off British staples like TV detectives, hoodie-wearing yoofs and country ways.

"A MOVIE YOU'LL WANT TO SEE AGAIN"

True, it's not nearly as dead-on as instant classic Shaun, its cop movie targets a little too soft, too easy. And yes, it needs trimming, a turgid second half too self-indulgent for its own good. But it's a movie you'll still want to see again, if only to get all the mini-jokes: throwaway little gems like Frost's "Judge Judy and executioner" gag. It's refreshingly British comedy (it even has a shootout in Somerfield supermarket!) and after watching this, Point Break will never seem the same again. Look out Hollywood: the Fuzz are coming.

Hot Fuzz is released in UK cinemas on 14th February 2007.

[crippled_avenger]

Novi trejler. navodno sjekao ga je Edgar Wright a muziku je pisao Robert Rodriguez

http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/hotfuzz/empire/InternetSpotV3large.php

[Kastor]

Novi trejler. navodno sjekao ga je Edgar Wright a muziku je pisao Robert Rodriguez

http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/hotfuzz/empire/InternetSpotV3large.php

Novi trejler (za razliku od starog) nije vredan gledanja.

[crippled_avenger]

Slazem se... Nisu se bas pretrgli...

[crippled_avenger]

Ova kritika nudi neke uzbudljive reference...

LONDON PART II! Moriarty Reviews HOT FUZZ!!

I'm going to tell you why I think HOT FUZZ is an instant classic, and why I think it represents a significant step forward for Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost, but first, can we talk for a moment about the word "parody"?

HOT FUZZ is not a parody film. What Wright and Pegg do as writers and what Wright does as a director is not parody. I think there are a few episodes of SPACED where they sacrifice character to go for the joke, but just a few. SPACED was where they got to hone their comic sensibilities, and in SHAUN OF THE DEAD, they came out swinging. What they do is write character-driven comedy that is told in fluent film geek. They absolutely know the genre they're working in, and they know that you know the genre, too. Parody is when you regurgitate a scene from a film for the purpose of making the audience say, "Oh, yeah, I recognize that." I think the early Z-A-Z stuff like AIRPLANE! and TOP SECRET! and POLICE SQUAD! managed to transcend the genre, and I think SOUTH PARK does a bit of parody and a bit of satire, and they walk the line really well, but for the most part, the parody films that have clogged our theaters like unflushable turds for the past decade or so are just awful, artless things. Unfunny. One reference after another with no regard for context or character or emotion or anything except, "Oh, yeah, I recognize that."

When I say that Wright and Pegg are great screenwriters, it's because I think they've managed to take the things they did well in SHAUN and do them again, and I think they've actually fixed what they needed to fix, structural issues that sort of deflate SHAUN for some of the third act. The HOT FUZZ script reminds me of the early work of Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis, and that is not a comparison I make lightly. I love the scripts for I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND and USED CARS and 1941 and, especially, BACK TO THE FUTURE. The scripts those guys wrote as a team were remarkable machines, and I would say that HOT FUZZ is Wright/Pegg's USED CARS, a blisteringly funny film that wants nothing more than to entertain. HOT FUZZ is certainly not a film for young audiences. This is not a kid's film. It is profane at times, and surprisingly violent. And that's a good thing. HOT FUZZ has some raunch to it, but it's never juvenile.

By now, you know the set-up. Pegg plays Nick Angel, the best cop in London. He's so good that he is "promoted" right out of town, to a small village called Sandford, where nothing ever happens. That's where he meets Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), his new partner, who also happens to be a maniac for cop movies of all sorts. When accidents start to pile up in the village, Angel is convinced that they aren't accidents at all, and he's determined to crack what he believes may be the biggest case of his career.

It's no more nonsensical than the typical Hollywood action movie set-up, and part of the pleasure of it is just how quickly things get moving. It's a very silly set-up, sure, but part of the pleasure of that first sequence is seeing Steve Coogan, Martin Freeman, and Bill Nighy play a scene together. And as far as getting Angel all the way out to Sandford, it's handled so well in a quick series of shots that the movie is off and running just about the time people are going to get fully settled into their chairs. No time is wasted. Every scene gives you bits of information that pay off somewhere else in the movie.

Which isn't to say that this is a movie that's all about plot. The script spends just as much time setting up character as it does setting up the story, and if this film has any great strength, it's how rich the entire supporting cast of characters is. The script does a great job of setting up pretty much each and every person in Sandford. Some of them get a lot of screentime, some only get a few scenes, but it feels like a real community. This is one of those films that plays different the first time you see it than it does the second time, and that's because you spend most of your first viewing trying to piece together the film's central mystery. The second time through, it's fun to watch the villain of the film play off of Pegg and Frost, and you pick up a number of details in the performances that become even funnier. Wright packed Sandford with a number of great English character actors. Hell, just inside the police station, you've got Olivia Colman (who was so funny on both PEEP SHOW and GREEN WING), the brilliant Bill Bailey (who I first flipped for on BLACK BOOKS) playing a really strange and wonderful role, Tim Barlow, and the always-great Jim Broadbent as Nick Frost's father, the Chief Inspector for Sandford.

Special note has to be made, though, of The Andys, a pair of detectives. I've never really thought of Paddy Considine as a comedic actor. The two films of his where he's knocked me out lately were DEAD MAN'S SHOES and IN AMERICA, neither one of which I'd describe as "hilarious." Seeing him play off of Rafe Spall here, I am now convinced that Considine is capable of anything. The two of them steal almost every moment they're onscreen, no easy feat when you've got a cast this good around them.

Then you've got the rest of the village, peopled with actors like David Bradley, Adam Buxton (of THE ADAM & JOE SHOW, which you should seek out if you've never heard of it), Paul "Belloq" Freeman, Anne Reid, Billie Whitelaw (the nanny from THE OMEN), Stuart Wilson, and, in one of the film's slyest jokes, Edward Woodward. Again... not one of them is wasted. I especially love Timothy Dalton in this film. Dalton's always underrated, especially by Bond fans, and he attacks his role in this film with gusto. He makes me laugh doing things as simple as offering someone a biscuit or jogging. It's the sort of performance that should lead to a lot more work for him if there's any justice. I'm surprised by how spry he is, and how forceful his personality is in the film, and I'm sure at least part of that is because of just how much fun the role is.

Of course, the heart and soul of the film is the relationship between Pegg and Frost, and here's where they both really prove themselves as actors. They're not just playing Shaun and Ed in cop uniforms. Instead, they both create new characters here. Pegg was such a great dedicated slacker in SPACED and SHAUN that it's a bit of a shock to see him play a buttoned-down hardass like Nick Angel. Frost is far sweeter here as Danny than he was as Ed, and that childlike quality is what makes Danny the center of the film. There's a turn at the start of the third act that actually shocked and scared me because of how invested I was in Frost's work, and the fact that I fell for it is an indicator of just how well he vanishes into the role. Both of them have grown enormously as performers over the last few years, and their rapport is the sort of thing that directors dream of. You can't create chemistry like this... it either happens naturally, or you're just out of luck.

Last note on the cast of the film: there are two Oscar winners who show up in the film in secret roles. I picked one of them out immediately, but only spotted the other one when I saw the film the second time. I'm not going to tell you who they are or where they are because that would ruin the fun. I'll just tell you to keep your eyes peeled, because IMDb isn't going to help you. You'll have to get this one on your own.

Now, obviously this is a riff on action movies. You see that new poster with all the fire on it, and that great new tag line ("They're Bad Boys. They're Lethal Weapons. They're Hot Fuzz.") and you know immediately what the archetypes are that they're playing with in this film. Like I said... don't expect any sort of direct parody here. Instead, these guys have digested every action film they've ever seen and they've spit back out something that speaks fluent action movie. I think this may be why this film ends up making more money in the US than SHAUN did; not everyone here speaks zombie movie, but action movies are in our blood.

When the action does finally kick in, primarily during the third act of the film, it works incredibly well. Wright understands the geography of staging an action scene in an innate way, and he also knows how to maximize the impact of every beat. He doesn't have the budget of a Bruckheimer movie to play with, but he makes up for that with invention and with energy. For much of act two, though, the movie builds like a horror film, and there's one beat in particular that puts me in mind of early Peter Jackson, a gleefully gory sequence that got screams out of the audience both times I saw the film. It's that fine line which the film walks so well that makes me think this is a classic of sorts. It's a rare movie that straddles genres and manages to satisfy fully as both.

There's so much in the film that makes me giddy, but I don't want to give things away. After all, it may be opening in the UK this week, but we won't see the film here in the US until this April. It's going to be tough to keep spoilers to a minimum, especially involving the resolution to the mystery, but I'll certainly do my best. I can mention the great score by David Arnold, which occasionally quotes other action films and which also features a few cues written by Robert Rodriguez. I can mention the razor-sharp editing that further refines the style Wright's been polishing since the beginning of SPACED. He does venture into Tony Scott territory a bit here, but only in a few moments, and only to sarcastic effect. When you see where he uses the MAN ON FIRE/DOMINO Avidfart freakout, it's a pretty wicked indictment of the effect in general. I can mention the way both POINT BREAK and BAD BOYS II inform this film specifically, and the way the latent homoeroticism of cop films is played perfectly here.

I'm sure we'll have more to say about HOT FUZZ between now and the release in the US, but for now, I'm envious of viewers in the UK who get to see it as many times as they want starting this weekend. Between this and David Fincher's astonishing ZODIAC, 2007 is off to one hell of a start for me as a viewer. Hopefully I'll have my review of that one ready a little later this week.

For now, let's just say that HOT FUZZ has set the bar very high for the year ahead, and I'm looking forward to seeing who manages to rise to the challenge.

[crippled_avenger]

'Fuzz' is a Valentine for Universal
Decision to move comedy's release pays off
By ADAM DAWTREYBERLIN — Edgar Wright's cop spoof "Hot Fuzz" may seem like an unlikely date movie, but Universal's late decision to move its U.K. release date forward one day to catch the Valentine's Day business paid off in spectacular fashion.
On Feb. 14 alone, Working Title's "Hot Fuzz" grossed $1.76 million on 500 screens.

By way of comparison, that's 50% more than "Bridget Jones' Diary" managed on its first day, and almost double the figure U was projecting internally for the first two days.

U and Working Title pushed the Valentine's Day factor hard in its last spurt of advertising.

As a parody and homage to heavily male-skewed pics such as "Bad Boys II" and "Point Break," "Hot Fuzz" is very much a boys' movie, so the distrib targeted its posters saucily at wives and girlfriends, with the line: "This Valentine's Day, give him what he wants: Hot Fuzz. Cop off in cinemas Feb. 14."

The first day's figure puts "Hot Fuzz" on course for an $8 million opening weekend.

[Kastor]

Pegg poredi Amer. i Brit. humor (svestan da Hot fuzz treba da zaradi i u Americi   )

What are you laughing at?
(Saturday February 10, 2007 The Guardian)
It's the oldest jibe in the book: 'Americans just don't get irony.' But they do, argues comedian Simon Pegg - our national senses of humour have more in common than we like to think

You could spend a lot of time exploring the differences between British and American comedy only to reach the conclusion that, ironically, they're pretty much the same. Back when director Edgar Wright and myself were writing our debut feature, Shaun Of The Dead, we were certainly banking on a comic universality in the story of a suburban waster battling the living dead. We had every confidence that the humour would translate. Indeed, we made only one subtle dialogue adjustment during the writing process, changing the word "pissed" to "drunk", so as to avoid any confusion between the conditions of being munted and mardy. The film went on to enjoy surprising success in the US, suggesting that surmounting the supposed gulf between our respective senses of humour requires nothing more than a light skip.


When it comes to humour, however, there is one cultural myth that just won't die. You hear it all the time from self-appointed social commentators sat astride high horses, dressed as knights who say, "Ni". They don't get it. They never had it. They don't know what it is and, ironically, they don't want it anyway. That's right: "Americans don't do irony." This isn't strictly true. Although it is true that we British do use irony a little more often than our special friends in the US. It's like the kettle to us: it's always on, whistling slyly in the corner of our daily interactions. To Americans, however, it's more like a nice teapot, something to be used when the occasion demands it. This is why an ironic comment will sometimes be met with a perplexed smile by an unwary American. Take this exchange that took place between two friends of mine, one British (B), the other American (A):
B: "I had to go to my grandad's funeral last week."

A: "Sorry to hear that."

B: "Don't be. It was the first time he ever paid for the drinks."

A: "I see."

Now, my American friend was being neither thick nor obtuse here; he simply didn't immediately register the need to bury emotion under humour. This tendency is also apparent in our differing use of disclaimers. When Americans use irony, they will often immediately qualify it as being so, with a jovial "just kidding", even if the statement is outrageous and plainly ironic. For instance...

A: "If you don't come out tonight, I'm going to have you shot... just kidding."

Of course, being America, this might be true, because they do all own guns and use them on a regular basis (just kidding). Americans can fully appreciate irony. They just don't feel entirely comfortable using it on each other, in case it causes damage. A bit like how we feel about guns.

It's not so much about having a different sense of humour as a different approach to life. More demonstrative than we are, Americans are not embarrassed by their emotions. They clap louder, cheer harder and empathise more unconditionally. It's an openness that always leaves me feeling slightly guilty and apologetic when American personalities appear on British chat shows and find their jokes and stories met with titters, not guffaws, or their achievements met with silent appreciation, rather than claps and yelps. We don't like them any less, we just aren't inclined to give that much of ourselves away. Meanwhile, as a Brit on an American chat show, it's difficult to endure prolonged whooping without intense, red-faced smirking.

Of course, it's the mainstream output of our respective entertainment industries that tends to shape our general opinion of each other. Ask the average American what they perceive British comedy to be and you will most likely be quoted shows such as Benny Hill and Are You Being Served? (although, thanks to BBC America, this is beginning to change). The fan demographic for both shows is markedly more diverse than in their country of origin. This is probably due to their parochial peculiarity, rather than the quality of the comedy (although both shows had their moments) and perhaps explains why the American audience took to Shaun Of The Dead with such affection. A refusal to occupy that transatlantic middle ground that sometimes scuppers British films intent on appealing in America means that the film plays as resolutely British. That approach does risk certain social and cultural references being lost in translation. But not many. The only joke in Shaun Of The Dead that never got a laugh in the States was Ed's request for a Cornetto ice cream at 8am on a Sunday morning. Overall, the cast's understated reserve in the face of flesh-eating zombies just added another layer of amusement for American viewers.

When it comes to their mainstream, America's emotional openness has often given way to a sentimentality that jars with our more guarded and cynical outlook. This is why the initially enjoyable Happy Days became blighted by saccharine lessons in family values, as Henry Winkler's originally subversive Fonzie was mercilessly appropriated by the middle-class American family, castrated by Marion Ross's Mrs Cunningham and forced to sit on it (although it's interesting to note that in outtakes from the series, Winkler and Ross would often play out an irresistible sexual tension between them with stolen gropes and kisses, solely for the enjoyment of the live studio audience, hinting at darker, more interesting themes than the show itself ever tackled). Generally speaking, sentimentality isn't easy for us. It makes us nervous and uncomfortable. We become edgy and dismissive of these brazen displays of emotion.

As the global village conurbates, however, our emotional habits are shifting. We are easing towards a slight liberation from our national inhibitions - although hopefully not losing them completely. Our uptightness is, after all, a huge part of our charm. The sitcom Friends, for instance, a show often dismissed by the cynical as "cheesy" or "schmaltzy" - and certainly capable of being both - was wholeheartedly adopted by the British public. So much so that two years after its final episode, a day barely passes without its inclusion in the schedules. Could it be any more ubiquitous?

I hated Friends when it first aired. The very title was anathema to me. It immediately evoked the embarrassing, droopy-eyed longings of the sickeningly hug-happy new American youth. The thought of all that togetherness, untempered by ironic undermining, made my skin crawl. Yet it drew me in. Due to a fine ensemble cast and some genuinely funny scriptwriting ("You're over me? When were you under me?"), Friends was readily accessible, even to us closed-off Brits. In fact, it arguably even opened us up a little. I certainly went from sneery to teary at Ross and Rachel's passionate, reconciliatory smooch. This moment might actually hold the key to a middle ground between British and American humour, specifically when it comes to heartfelt, emotional expression. The British aren't against it; we just believe it comes at a price. The success of the emotional climax in that particular scene is due entirely to the comedy preceding it. Ross's perm, Monica's fat suit, Rachel's nose all go toward setting the tone for the payoff, which the audience wholeheartedly accept. The sentiment is a reward, rather than a device to engender a sympathy laugh or, worse, a big, soppy, "Awww".

This device works in the best situation comedy on both sides of the Atlantic. The difference is perhaps simply that the average American is prepared to accept it sooner. Still, who could deny Del Boy a tearful pat of Grandad's chair, after his Keaton-worthy tumble through the wine bar? Or scoff at the field of poppies that fills the screen at the close of Blackadder Goes Forth? Similarly, Hawkeye's breakdown in the final M*A*S*H or Sam's switching off the lights of the Cheers bar for the last time both suggest we are prepared to take our comedy with a side of emotional drama. So perhaps we're not so dissimilar, after all.

One of the best exponents of worthy sentiment is a show that could easily be argued to be the greatest sitcom the US has ever produced. A razor-sharp, joyously dumb and potentially endless treatise on the American family and its suburban environment, The Simpsons is a remarkable show in that, in what is essentially a children's medium, it has established itself as a constant and often highly critical reflection of America itself. Hiding its subversiveness in bright colours and absurd situations, it has made satirical comment on virtually every aspect of America, rehearsing ideas that are at times positively "un-American". Yet at the same time the show exudes an enormous warmth and sentimentality, and holds at its heart great positivity about the linchpin of the American dream: the family. George Bush Snr once declared that Americans should be more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons. Simpsons' creator Matt Groening responded, saying, "Hey, the Simpsons are just like the Waltons. Both families are praying for the end of the Depression."

Scratch the surface of US comedic output and you will find many more such gems. Shows such as Arrested Development, Family Guy, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Larry Sanders Show all display a highly sophisticated sense of irony. But it's not just the more subversive end of comedy that disproves the myth: Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, Futurama, Seinfeld, M*A*S*H (despite being wounded by canned laughter), Roseanne, Frasier, My Name Is Earl, to name a few, have all made an impact on America's popular consciousness. The Office is a perfect example of how edgier comedy can work on a grand scale on both sides of the Atlantic. The British and American versions have their own cultural and emotional specificities, but both work as painful satires on a lifestyle familiar to millions of Britons and Americans alike.

With the whole "Americans don't do irony" thing cleared up and consigned to the dustbin/garbage pail of passive/aggressive international preconception, we come to mine and Edgar Wright's latest filmic effort, Hot Fuzz. A film that we hope surfs the wave of subtle difference between our two countries, until it crashes red and frothy on to both shores. As if Tony Scott were to guest-helm an episode of Heartbeat, Hot Fuzz takes the most shamelessly histrionic excesses of American cinema and smashes them into that conservative and profoundly territorial enclave of Britishness, the country village, never once faltering in the assumption that everyone out there will understand. After all, we may all be different, but we're all capable of getting the same joke. In a world beset by prejudice and difference, how ironic is that?

[crippled_avenger]

Edgar Wright, a man I adore as much as one can in a strictly heterosexual way, is out doing the promotional rounds for his latest work of genius - British action comedy "Hot Fuzz".

Hitting the big time thanks to "Spaced" and "Shaun of the Dead", two bits of Pommie genius the studios have thankfully not yet tried to turn into a pilot or remake for next year, Wright is not surprisingly in demand around town.

So whilst out promoting 'The Fuzz', Wright tells IGN and Teletext that up next for him is "Them", what's described as "a conspiracy comedy about one woman's journey to unmask the secret rulers of the world". Wright has teamed up with Mike White to co-write the screenplay on that one.

The adaptation of the comic "Ant-Man" apparently "is in a bit of a holding pattern" as it undergoes script revisions. "We're figuring things out with the script and we haven't initiated casting. Ant-Man went through several changes so we might too."

He still plans to team up with Sean O'Malley on "Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life", and he's already scheming further films with Simon Pegg. Pegg himself floated one idea - "We should make a really good drama - that would really surprise people! We could do something like Nil By Mouth, a really serious, gritty film".

[crippled_avenger]

Obozavam ove hladnokrvne, poslovne, Variety kritike

Hot Fuzz
(U.K.-U.S.)
By DEREK ELLEY
'Shaun of the Dead' stars Nick Frost, left, and Simon Pegg reteam in British crime-movie spoof 'Hot Fuzz,' written and directed by Edgar Wright.

A Universal (in U.K.)/Rogue Pictures (in U.S.) release of a Universal Pictures presentation in association with StudioCanal of a Working Title production in association with Big Talk Prods. Produced by Nira Park, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner. Executive producer, Natascha Wharton. Directed by Edgar Wright. Screenplay, Wright, Simon Pegg.

Sgt. Nicholas Angel - Simon Pegg
PC Danny Butterman - Nick Frost
Inspector Frank Butterman - Jim Broadbent
DS Andy Andy Wainwright - Paddy Considine
Simon Skinner - Timothy Dalton
Joyce Cooper - Billie Whitelaw
Tom Weaver - Edward Woodward
DS Andy Cartwright - Rafe Spall
PC Doris Thatcher - Olivia Colman
Rev. Philip Shooter - Paul Freeman

A by-the-book top cop and his bozo sidekick uncover murder and mayhem in a picturesque English village in "Hot Fuzz," a straight-faced British spoof of everything from Yank crimers and slasher pics to Agatha Christie whodunits and homoerotic U.S. buddy movies. Third theatrical feature by young English helmer Edgar Wright, teaming again with "Shaun of the Dead" actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, comes up with a sustained genre parody that's equally funny but (maybe in deference to the genre) much more pumped up.
Pic opened huge in Blighty, taking $11.5 million in its first five days, with no signs of running out of gas. Limited U.S. release is set for Apr. 20 via Rogue Pictures.

Aside from Pegg (again co-scripting) and Frost, his colleagues on the cult TV comedy series "Spaced" (1999-2001), Wright has assembled a roll call of well-known character actors, including Bill Nighy and Steve Coogan in cameos, an almost unrecognizable Billie Whitelaw as a hotelier and vets Edward Woodward, Timothy Dalton and Jim Broadbent as village folk. Recognition factor is part of the joke -- as is the multitude of comic references in the dialogue (some strictly British, others more international) -- but the pic's fast pacing and general targets should ensure a warm welcome beyond U.K. shores.

In a zappy intro, we meet dedicated cop Nicholas Angel (Pegg), whose idea of an evening's entertainment is watering his Japanese peace lily. Humorless Angel is so good at everything he does (with an arrest rate 400% higher than that of any other cop) that his superiors (Martin Freeman, Coogan, Nighy) elevate him to sergeant but also exile him to the West Country village of Sandford to stop him from showing them up.

The local cop shop is run by chummy Inspector Frank Butterman (Broadbent), and the two detectives (Paddy Considine, Rafe Spall) are leering idiots who wouldn't know a crime if it bit them on the ass. Angel gets everyone's backs up his first night by arresting all the under-18s in the local pub and hauling in for drunk driving a slob called Danny (Frost), who turns out to be Butterman's son and Andy's future partner.

The sly comedy, paragraphed at regular intervals by machine-gun editing inserts, moseys along in a style similar to "Shaun of the Dead" for the first hour, though without the laid-back, couch-potato tone that reflected that movie's characters. Pegg is very good at this kind of double-take humor sans the double take, and his chemistry with Frost (which later morphs into a parody of buddy movies) seems effortless.

A plot of sorts hoves into view at the halfway mark as a figure in Grim Reaper garb begins killing the villagers, starting with an obnoxious lawyer and then fanning out to include a businessman, a florist and a local journo. Decorated with gallons of spurting blood, the murders -- the last of which is hilariously spectacular -- prep the ground for the third act, in which Sandford becomes the unlikely stage for bullet ballets and screeching car chases as Angel and Danny lay bare the truth.

Some may miss the bumbling humor and 100% English tone of "Shaun," which was painfully exact in hitting its targets. "Fuzz" is much slicker and more international in feel, and in its final reels, it doesn't know when to quit. Pic could easily lose 15 minutes from its two-hour running time.

Still, there are few dull patches, largely thanks to a cast that seems to be having a ball and, more importantly, communicates that via Wright's script and direction. Broadbent and Dalton are especially good as Angel's hail-fellow-well-met superior and oily No. 1 suspect.

Production values are fine, with flavorsome use of the village of Wells, Somerset, standing in for the fictional Sandford; Jess Hall's widescreen lensing and Chris Dickens' smart editing proving smooth partners. Color temperatures on print caught were not ideal, ranging from warm and reddish to cold and steely. David Arnold's brash score hits the Stateside genre mark.

Camera (color, widescreen), Jess Hall; editor, Chris Dickens; music, David Arnold; production designer, Marcus Rowland; costume designer, Annie Hardinge; sound (Dolby Digital), Richard Flynn, Julian Slater; visual effects supervisor, Richard Briscoe; assistant director, Mike Elliott; casting, Nina Gold. Reviewed at UCI Sutton 6, Surrey, U.K., Feb. 19, 2007. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 120 MIN.



With: Martin Freeman, Bill Nighy, Steve Coogan, Bill Bailey, Julia Deakin, Kenneth Cranham, Patricia Franklin, Anne Reid, Stuart Wilson, Peter Wright, Kevin Eldon, Karl Johnson.

[crippled_avenger]

Nick Frost and Simon Pegg have been making British audiences laugh for years first on the small screen before their breakthrough hit satire Shaun of the Dead. Now the pair reteam in the much anticipated action comedy Hot Fuzz, which parodies cop movies, Village of the Damned and Jerry Brukheimer. Pegg also co-wrote the script. The pair were in top form when they spoke to Paul Fischer.

Question: Another day talking about this movie; does it get tiring?

Nick Frost: The 51st straight day. No, we never get tired; we love our film and we love selling it.

Question: What was more challenging, Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz?

Simon Pegg: They were challenging in different ways, physically Hot Fuzz was more challenging than Shaun of the Dead because it was just a bigger deal. There was more demand on us physically and there was a lot of running around; and the daily strain was tough, wasn't it, Nick?

Nick Frost: Yeah, it was; when the three of us do a film, we all have a tremendous work ethic. And I have to explain to my girlfriend, 'I am Edgar's now for four months.' And it's literally that -

Simon Pegg: You're mine forever.

Nick Frost: And I'm yours forever. But you're working from half five till 9 every day, six days a week for four months, three months; you just have to prepare that you're not going to see your cat for that.

Question: Was there any pressure to getting the follow-up written?

Simon Pegg: Oh yeah, the pressure is from entirely home; we bring the pressure ourselves and didn't want to disappoint anyone and come across as a one-trick pony. We wanted to do it again and do it bigger and better, so that pressure was more of a positive thing.

Question: Are you your worst critic?

Simon Pegg: No, Christopher Tookey in The Daily Mail is our worst critic. No, absolutely; we want to make something that we'd want to watch, and that goes for every aspect of the film in terms of the purses - we always wanted to make it look like something we'd want to go and see. We start worrying if it starts to become something other than that.

Question: How has your relationship grown over the years?

Simon Pegg: I feel less responsible for Nick these days. At first, I felt I introduced him into acting and I felt very protective of him when we were doing Spaced together.

Nick Frost: I'd catch you off set like that -

Simon Pegg: Watching in the monitor. But now I don't need to. Now -

Nick Frost: You can say good.

Simon Pegg: Grounded. I wouldn't go that far. Now, he's matured so much, I can gladly not be at work when - I don't have to protect him anymore. But our working relationship is the same as ever, the same as daily life.

Question: Did you do research with cops?

Simon Pegg: Yeah.

Question: In the city or in the countryside?

Simon Pegg: Both.

Question: What's the best single piece of advice you got?

Nick Frost: Don't get shot.

Simon Pegg: It was interesting because in the city, it's very different the way they're policing the city - in terms of there's a lot of proactive crime. There's a lot of mugging and street crime; whereas in the countryside, it gets a bit more insidious and it's more alcohol related and more domestic crimes, bored kids. And there's less police officers in the country; there's 250 people for every square - no, there's nine cops for every 250 square miles in the country, and nine cops for every one square mile in the city. So there's far more personnel in the city. But then they're dealing with stuff that's far more immediate than the country. The whole idea that Angel throws those kids out of the pub was supposed to show that he gets that wrong; the whole point of that is he then has to go and arrest all of them and book all of them for being drunk and disorderly. The reason they're in the pub is to stop the police from - and they do that in the countryside, the younger kids.

Question: Is there any Angel in you?

Simon Pegg: In me? Not at all, I'm not anything like Angel. I'm more like Tim or Shaun, Angel's like a machine.

Question: He grows as a result.

Simon Pegg: Maybe in terms of his sort of ambition or his resolve; but he's got a lot of - the thing about Angel is he's not like Dirty Harry, he's not like a renegade, or even a quasi-fascist or liberal. He's the perfect policeman, he just doesn't know how to slow it down.

Question: What's it like having dolls of yourself from Shaun of the Dead?

Nick Frost: It's insane, I talk.

Question: You've got a 12-inch, too.

Simon Pegg: Yeah, I saw it, the 12-inch doll. I walked past the Forbidden Planet in Dublin and saw it in the window; I said, 'Hold on, no one sent me one of these. I should have one.'

Question: Was it odd buying your own doll?

Simon Pegg: I didn't have to pay for it; he said, 'You shouldn't have to buy this.' And so he gave it to me.

Question: Would you want to work independently from each other?

Nick Frost: We do; we've probably done more apart than we do together, what we do as the three.

Question: What are you doing now?

Simon Pegg: We're writing a film together here for the autumn.

Question: You two are writing?

Simon Pegg: Yeah, and I think Edgar is going to direct, or produce or script supervise.

Question: Can you talk about it?

Simon Pegg: Not really.

Question: Is it a comedy?

Simon Pegg: Yeah, but we just don't want to talk about it.

Question: Would you play Americans or British?

Nick Frost: British.

Question: Is that the TV series?

Simon Pegg: No, that's the TV series we shot years ago, but then someone made a story about it in the press, but I don't know why that story got made up.

Nick Frost: It's the oddest story to make up.

Simon Pegg: I know, you might as well I was having an affair with Nick.

Nick Frost: Why is that so odd?

Simon Pegg: That would be more interesting, that could be a sitcom.

Question: You wrote the film across America? Where did you go?

Simon Pegg: We just went across the mid-west America, and the film will probably take on that journey.

Nick Frost: It was an eight day drive.

Question: How was it?

Simon Pegg: It was great, we picked up a very shiny RV here in LA, and we returned it seven days later f*cked up.

Nick Frost: Cause when you hit loads and loads of snow, it was knackered. I think the official diagnosis was that its brain had broken. The on-board computer had gone down. We drove across Nevada and Utah and Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado.

Question: What did you discover?

Nick Frost: That Nevada is big and empty.

Simon Pegg: America is very big.

Nick Frost: There were two days when we drove across Nevada where we actually felt fairly suicidal cause we hadn't seen - it's massive, and you don't see anything. You drive on one two-lane black top for 80 miles and you can see it stretching; you get to the end of it, and you see a little hump and you think, 'Ah, that's it, great. What's next?' And then there's another -

Question: What were you aware of about the characters in Hot Fuzz?

Simon Pegg: They go on - with Shaun of the Dead, you have a story of a man learning to take responsibility; in Hot Fuzz, he's learning to let it go. I think it's a sweet relationship in the heart of it, and Danny and Angel kind of complete each other in that sort of way. Angel brings to Danny this sort of adventure he wants, and Danny brings to Angel this sort of humility and humanity; he teaches him how to be a person under the machine. I think that's quite sweet, the heart of all the pyrotechnics and the bomb-basters, there's a little romance, which is quite nice.

Question: Did you learn anything?

Simon Pegg: Yeah, it's ok to watch firework displays.

Question: And Bad Boys 2 and Point Break.

Nick Frost: It's fun to watch Bad Boys 2 - but then you have to watch Run, Lola, Run or Let Partimore Strain???? right after.

Simon Pegg: Basically what we're saying is, there's a place for a spectacle - dumb fun is ok. And sometimes, you do have to switch off that big melon of yours and enjoy yourself.

Question: What inspires you guys to write?

Simon Pegg: What does inspire us?

Nick Frost: He inspires me.

Simon Pegg: awwww.

Nick Frost: But yeah, he does inspire me; I know it sounds a bit wanky.

Question: Friendship plays a big part in your movies -

Simon Pegg: It's a bit of a rip-off, isn't it really?

Nick Frost: I'd like us to play enemies.

Question: Would you ever consider having something like that?

Nick Frost: We'd still have that chemistry as enemies.

Simon Pegg: But then, we wouldn't be able to share as much screen time together; it'd only be in the final battle that we come together.

Nick Frost: Well -

Simon Pegg: A red baron. That's the best part of it cause we get to make films and hang out for three months.

Nick Frost: We'd still get to hang out; I'd come down to set.

Question: What was it like getting into that full blown action stuff?

Nick Frost: It was great fun, wasn't it?

Simon Pegg: Oh, it was a joy every day coming into work and jump off things, shooting; it doesn't get more fun than that.

Question: Is it fantasy come to life?

Simon Pegg: Oh, absolutely. Firing off two 'nines' while sleeping through the day.

Question: What music plays through your head?

Simon Pegg: Well, for now, it'll be the theme to Hot Fuzz; it's amazing. David Arnold's music is great.

Nick Frost: Mine is hard house, very hard house.

Simon Pegg: For me, it's sort of John Williams style, big orchestra, dramatic sort of music, that's what I have in my grommets.

Question: How different is your relationship as writers than as actors?

Nick Frost: We've written together before.

Simon Pegg: Yeah, we have.

Nick Frost: And other than the aborted sitcom. I'm going to say the process is quite organic, which actually means we're a bit lazy. We do what Edgar and Simon do; we just sit there in an office and thrash it out line by line, and it's not always as easy as it looks.

Simon Pegg: We've written two things; we've written La Triviata, the episodes of that which didn't show up because Shaun of the Dead showed up and took us in a different direction. And we also wrote a sitcom called Magnetic Park, which was a lost classic.

Nick Frost: It was too expensive.

Simon Pegg: It was about two park keepers, who took care of a little park in London - but once you walked into the park, it was the size of Snowdonia.

Nick Frost: It was small.

Simon Pegg: There were lots of mythological creatures there, and they had a low-speed chase with a giant tortoise.

Question: When did you write this?

Simon Pegg: Years ago; it was just after Spaced.

Question: Would you ever take it off the shelf?

Nick Frost: It's unmakable. They told it to R&R when we wrote it about firing a rifle at a tortoise, it bounced off into a tree, and a lion falls out of the tree - they didn't know how to stage it. But sometimes we'll go into work and we'll write a cracky joke and we'll take the rest of the day off, watch a film. Edgar and Simon are quite different; Edgar's the real taskmaster in it, and you'll sit and hammer it out all day.

Question: Was it different shooting the Grindhouse trailer?

Simon Pegg: Yeah, that was different; I came in and sat in make-up for three and a half hours, and then was in front of the camera for about ten minutes, and that was it. Cause with a trailer, all you do is shoot the money shots; Nick, you had a bit longer?

Nick Frost: Yeah, I was there for a few hours. But these things, you kind of get roped into them, and you don't know what to expect, and then you're standing in your underpants covered in mud and there's loads of people watching you.

Simon Pegg: You liked it, didn't you?

Nick Frost: I did.

Question: What is the rehearsal process like for you two?

Simon Pegg: We read the scenes out; we rehearse the scenes, and if anything comes to mind, like for instance when Angel is pursuing the shoplifter. I asked Danny why he didn't tell me he knew him, and he tells me he couldn't see his face - he added, 'Well, I'm not made of eyes.' Which Nick said, and we all sat around and laughed at; that happens a few times. The whole Danny doing the (spitting) thing; that was written in the script, but Nick came up with the 'Jog on' line to kind of - west country expression to kind of, politely say, 'go away.'

Question: Did you think Shaun of the Dead would become so popular?

Simon Pegg: I don't know what we thought when we were shooting it; we just wanted to get it made. There's a lot of heart in that film, and made by people who know what they're talking about, in terms of the genre. As I've said, we make films for ourselves, and it just happens there are a lot of people like us everywhere who just love film and love detail, and get a kick out of comedy. I guess it kind of struck a cord with people.

Nick Frost: There's a lot of people who like Shaun out there, and when you go to University or you're this 20-year-old man, there's a lot of exports to be made. And there's a lot of people who liked Shaun who are nothing like autors and stuff; we hear that most - 'It really touched us because I know someone who's a bit like Ed.'

Question: Do you want to work in the States?

Nick Frost: Yeah, I like LA, and I like the States. But, as an actor, you don't have to live in the States to come make films, cause not as many films are made here in LA. Chances are if you move here, you'll have to move somewhere else to make another one. But at our core, we're British filmmakers and we're doing ok so far making films. We're going to shoot this movie here in the fall.

Question: Is there a studio behind it?

Simon Pegg: It's Working Title again and Universal?

Question: Any word from Kathryn Bigelow or Michael Bay about what they think about the movie?

Simon Pegg: I'd like Kathryn Bigelow to see it and Michael Bay; we've heard from Shane Black, who really loved it. He's one of the guys who inspired us, and he's a great writer.

Nick Frost: I want Will Smith to see it.

Simon Pegg: Yeah, I love Will Smith. Keanu -

Question: They all had to sign permission.

Nick Frost: Yeah, they did.

Simon Pegg: Yeah, they had to sign their likenesses away.

Nick Frost: Good on them!

Simon Pegg: Absolutely. Yeah, I'd love those people to see it. I can't say I'm as much a Michael Bay fan as I am a George Romero fan by any means, so getting George's nod for Shaun of the Dead was an enormous thrill.

Nick Frost: It was like being honored by the zombie pope.

Simon Pegg: Exactly, and then being there it was fun.

Question: Do you want Danny and Angel dolls?

Simon Pegg: I think there's a lot of potential for it

Nick Frost: Hell yeah!

Simon Pegg: The falling through the glass with the guns, the arsenal.

Question: How was it to get on the set with the other character actors?

Simon Pegg: It was great, just amazing people. Jim Broadbent approached us after Shaun of the Dead, as did Paddy Considine, who's a brilliant actor. Everyone else, we just got the script out to; Timothy Dalton and his son had seen Shaun of the Dead here in LA and really liked it. He's amazing in it. Billie Whitelaw's son, we used his flat in Shaun of the Dead, so the script came to his mom, he said, 'You should do this one.'

Question: Even though she's retired.

Simon Pegg: Yeah, she came out of retirement, bless her. Edward Woodward, he's great; he just read it and loved it.

Question: I didn't know he was still working.

Simon Pegg: He's not really, he works a lot less than he used to.

Nick Frost: I don't think he'll do many more.

Simon Pegg: He said, 'This will probably be the last thing I ever do.' And then he cropped up on a massive BBC TV series a few weeks later. But he's amazing, he's hilarious in this, unrelenting.

Question: What about Edward Woodward?

Simon Pegg: He's just a star; what he turned down, we would read him. He turned down a role in The Wicker Man remake - probably the right thing to do. But he did Hot Fuzz, which is essentially, at the heart of it, inspired by that film. The Wicker Man was the last film that had a British officer at its center.

Question: And a naked Britt Eckland.

Simon Pegg: Which we didn't have unfortunately. There was no room for naked women in Hot Fuzz; it says it. We did have a kind of love story; obviously, Angel has his ex-girlfriend and she says, 'Until you find someone you care about more than your job, you won't be able to switch off.' And then he does, but it's Danny. We did have a female actress.

Question: So it's gay subtext.

Simon Pegg: Oh yeah, totally. There was a character called Vicky, who we excised in the end because we realized the real romance was here. Not only did we lose the female character, but we gave Danny all her lines.

Question: Did you actually go on ride-alongs with the cops?

Simon Pegg: Yeah, we did. Nick, you were involved in a low-speed tractor chase.

Nick Frost: Yeah, some junkie nicked a tractor and got behind the wheel - never got more than 8 mile an hour, pretty thrilling. It's odd when you're with a cop and he pulls over a suspected burglar, cause you think, and you're standing next to him and you're talking to him. You're thinking, 'If he runs now, than I have to get a hold of him.' It's odd, you get an odd flutter; it may be a man thing.

Question: Did you do a lot of traveling for promoting this movie?

Nick Frost: Let's just put it this way, I have my BA executive silver card.

[crippled_avenger]

Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here. Where to begin...

Over the course of two days, I got to spend some quality time with three men who have made me laugh harder than just about anyone else in recent years. If you only knew their British television show "Spaced" and the feature debut SHAUN OF THE DEAD, you'd be good to go. But their latest project, the hyper-intensive cop actioner HOT FUZZ is sheer perfection. I'm talking about director/co-writer Edgar Wright, co-writer/star Simon Pegg and actor/sidekick extraordinaire Nick Frost. I was lucky enough to host the Chicago premiere of HOT FUZZ last Monday, and to sit down for a proper interview with the three the following afternoon.

Since my time with them was all-too brief, I tried not to re-ask questions from the Q&A the night before. Some of the details they revealed from the night before that you might find interesting include specs on the British vs. U.S. DVD features. Wright seemed to think the British release would be a two-disc set; the U.S. would only have a single disc. Edgar and Simon already have an idea for their next film together, but don't want to give any details for the simple reason that they might change their mind or come up with a better idea. They say they painted themselves into a corner during their press tour for SHAUN by telling everyone one that cop films would be the targets of their next film without having written single word of the script.

A small note two about the interview: in order to make sure every Chicago-area member of the press got a chance to talk to the guys, we had to do the interviews in pairs. Fortunately, I was paired with a guy whose questions are consistently almost as good as mine--Brian Tallerico of ugo.com. Where possible, I tried to distinguish all of the voices in the room, but there were five people, three of whom love to talk over each other. But I feel confident my attributions are right. I hope the humor and level of entertainment these guys provided us comes through. In the last years, both Harry and Quint have interviewed some combination of these three lads, so they know and like our work almost as much as we love their accomplishments.

Enjoy...









Edgar Wright: Did you stick around and watch it again last night?



Capone: Oh yes. It's definitely the kind of film that requires repeat viewing.

Simon Pegg: Absolutely.

Brian Tallerico: Did you guys watch it last night with the crowd?

C: They went to T.J. Clarke's [a bar and grill near the movie theatre where the HOT FUZZ screening took place].



SP: The only time we get to eat or "be" is when the film is on.

BT: Have you seen it with an audience?

SP: Yeah, yeah. A few times

EW: It's the same as with SHAUN, we couldn't watch it with an audience every single showing or Q&A event. We've seen it with an audience definitely, and we usually try to come back in time for certain bits, for the granny scene, for the last 15 minutes.



C: I guess the obvious first question is, How did you get all of these cool people in your movie? In addition to the carry-over cool people you had in SHAUN...

SP: I think it's because of the last one. If this had been our first film, we never would have managed to gather that cast. SHAUN OF THE DEAD was a handy calling card to have, and I think it made people keen to read the HOT FUZZ script and to collaborate. Because of SHAUN OF THE DEAD, Jim Broadbent and Paddy Considine both came to us and asked, "Would you be interested in working together?" To which the answer was, "Duh!"

EW: When you see comedy films, there is a temptation with the older actors to put them with broader comedy actors or stand up comics or an SNL-kind of person. With SHAUN OF THE DEAD, to have someone like Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton, like proper British acting institutions, it definitely inspires us. But this time around, because of the nature of the story, Simon's character is entering a complete other world, we have full license within the town of Sanford and its people to have an enormous killer ensemble. There is logic with that as well, but most of the comedic actors are playing the police service members, and the real British legends are playing the villagers in Sanford. Beyond that, a lot of people within the village--without giving too much away--have genre connotations. Even more specifically, they've been baddies in other films. So we definitely had fun with the casting and it was a great thing, like a dream or something.



C: I spoke with Bill Nighy a couple months ago, and we talked about the work he did with you. He made it quite clear that he would do anything you wanted him to do. Is there something about the way you work or the way you write that inspires that kind of fierce loyalty?

EW: That's nice. There was one review that said something really nice about the film and I really appreciated it, that given that HOT FUZZ has something like 50 speaking parts, it's amazing how generous the script is in giving funny lines to everybody. I certainly hope I pulled it off, because we really tried, to balance a 50-strong ensemble and make sure everybody has a killer moment. The film is kind of like Simon versus the scene-stealers. Attack of the Scene Stealers! from every fucking angle, beginning with this man here [points to Nick]. I think that's what people like, that with our writing, hopefully we're quite generous with the material. It's not like Simon and Nick are completely running the show. Everybody gets good stuff to do.

[Edgar notices an apple on the table that Nick has been fiddling with] What have you done to this apple? It's like you've ritually desecrated it.

SP: Low-level mutilation. It does look a little ritualized...

Nick Frost: I put these bits of metal right in, and then I realized that someone who came to clear the room might want to eat that half. So I re-emerged them.

SP: You're saving lives.

EW: It's like a biohazard.

BT: Let's start at the beginning: Why action movies?

EW: Aside from them obviously being a favorite genre and a genre I have loved, both action films and cop films, because there are no British action films. And no, James Bond does not count, because James Bond is never in the fucking UK. He's in the Bahamas. And it's not British money anyway, as much as everybody claims, Oh, the great British film of James Bond. No, Sony. There is no equivalent of these films, and there are definitely no cop action films. For the last 30 years, no cop films at all. In the '70s, there are only about three or four films you could name with a cop in the lead.



C: Aren't they all procedural dramas?

EW: There are not that many of those, and what there are are TV shows. There are even very few procedural films, weirdly. Nearly all the British crime films are gangster films.

SP: Then you get a film like THE OFFENSE [1972, starring Sean Connery, directed by Sidney Lumet], which is very procedural, but there's a lot of TV, loads of TV. It's more "Prime Suspect," "Touch of Frost," cracking a case over a long period of time. And it's never about gunfights and car chases.

NF: There's a psychological profiler brought in, that kind of thing.

SP: Yeah, yeah.

EW: You would find that the depiction of British cops would be that they were comic relief in other films or completely corrupt.

SP: They'd be the ones holding up the tape to allow the detectives walk under to get to the crime scene.

EW: So our idea was to portray them as corrupt, then bumbling, then they kick ass. The kick ass bit has been conspicuously left out for the whole of British cinema.



C: Do you think it has anything to do with--and correct me if I'm wrong because my knowledge of British police structure is a little weak--the fact that the police can't carry guns?

EW: That has everything to do with it. The gun is the number one icon of film. How many films revolve around the fact that people have guns? Seventy-five percent, if not more. That's why there are loads of gangster films because gangsters have guns. British bobbies with guns, in reality, maybe we have armed response teams, we do have armed officers. But the average beat cop does not have a gun. You have to call to get guns. I think sadly that will probably change within the next five years, because things are getting really bad, gun violence.

SP: I don't know. The whole things of having a side arm, of having this thing on your belt, we've resolutely stayed away from that. I think you do get an emotional reaction when you see someone with a gun because they really do have the power to kill you. You don't know who they are but they do, even if it's someone in a uniform who is supposed to be there to protect and serve. They have armed officers in Greece and Italy, fairly peaceful places...

NF: Sweden.

EW: Lapland [laughs]

SP: They're mad there. [laughs]

NF: Police have been killed and murdered, but as many police get stabbed to death as shot to death, but you don't see the police carrying knives.

SP: Apart from Machete Force.

NF: Apart from those who carry machetes. I think a lot of the crime at the moment is gangster on gangster and drug on drug. Touch wood, if more officers were to get shot, I think things would change, but at the moment the crime is between the baddies.

SP: It makes that thin blue line a lot less oppressive in a way. A lot of the cops we met in the countryside in our research were beat policemen who had been out there walking the same beat for 30 years, they knew everybody. And part of the functionality was being friendly and part of the community. But the minute you give that policeman a gun, the whole balance of power shifts and changes, and I think that's what they're worried about in the UK.

EW: To go back to you question, I think that's why there aren't any British cop films. The potential for on-screen muscle and bad-assery is zero. So when we first pitched the film to Working Title, they asked us, "Are they uniformed cops?" And I said, yeah. And they said, "But they're so uncool on screen." And I said, that's exactly why we should go for it.

SP: It seemed like a great central joke, in a way, not that the police in the country are a joke, but the notion they're bad-asses.

BT: Right, what you guys are talking about, the community cop. Taking what is considered a very American aesthetic of POINT BREAK and BAD BOYS 2, bigger, louder, faster and grafting it onto that is the main concept of the film.

EW: That's it. That's the whole thing.

BT: So why POINT BREAK and BAD BOYS 2?

EW: Because they are the quintessential popcorn films, in the sense that they are very unpretentious, kind of favoring spectacle over everything else pretty much. They're just big dumb entertainment. That's why we picked those two. They aren't the two best cop films of all time; they completely hit the button with a particular thing. POINT BREAK is brilliantly directed, wildly implausible both intentionally and unintentionally. BAD BOYS 2 is the naughty FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, the most expensive on-screen carnage you've ever seen.

SP: Almost disgusting.

EW: Disgustingly expensive!

SP: If there is a message in HOT FUZZ, it's about that kind of entertainment, which is pretty much tantamount to fireworks going off--intellectually it's a light show--and there's nothing wrong with that. Just because it doesn't have an nutritional value doesn't mean it shouldn't exist, as long as you temper it with watching good cinema. As long as there's high art, there can be always be low culture, and you can enjoy it.

EW: That's basically what Danny [Nick's character] is saying to Nicholas Angel [Simon's character] when he says he can't switch off, and Danny says, "I can show you how to switch off." The central message of the film is that it becomes a sort of tribute to those dumb popcorn films. And as the film goes on, it gets less and less articulate. If you notice, in the last 20 minutes it becomes monosybalic...

SP: It's "Monosyllabic."

EW: I keep saying it wrong. Monosyllabic. If you notice, HOT FUZZ for the first 90 minutes is incredibly wordy and very, very dense. By the end, Nicholas Angel is going, "Idea." [laughs] It totally boils down to Marvel Comics dialog, think bubble dialog.

SP: I even post-synced all of that as well, so it added more punch.

EW: After Nicholas sees the DVDs in the bargain bin in the gas station, from that point on Simon's performance is totally ADR. If you watch it again, it's the line where he goes, "This is something I have to do myself." From that point on, it's all dubbed all the way, just to make it sound a bit more like COBRA.

SP: People have been really coming down on the dumbing down thing, and we thought we'd defend it.



C: Once you decided this was the genre you were going to tackle and you immersed yourselves in how many cop films...?

EW: We worked it out that it was 138.



C: And were they all American films?

EW: No, it was a bit of everything. And it wasn't just cop action films. We watched all the usual suspects and then all the bad ones as well. So we were very okay with DIRTY HARRY, FRENCH CONNECTION, BULLIT, SERPICO, then all the DIE HARD, LETHAL WEAPON ones. Neither of us were totally okay with Seagal and Chuck Norris, but we are now. We had to spend an afternoon watching OUT FOR JUSTICE, which isn't entirely unentertaining.

SP: We watched a lot of films about small communities as well, DEAD AND BURIED, WICKER MAN.

EW: In and afternoon, we might watch a double bill of LOCAL HERO and DEAD AND BURIED.



C: HOT FUZZ reminds me a lot of WICKER MAN in certain places.

SP: It was at the top of the pile of 138. It was number 1. We're big fans of that film anyway, and as a curio really and a brilliant movie, it's a strange sort of musical in a way. With a wonderful, wonderful central performance from Edward Woodward, who is the grandfather of Nicholas Angel really, this fastidious, absolute by-the-book, humorous, blowhard spoilsport almost. Except there's no Danny.

EW: He's the villain in the film, that's the thing. That's the thing the remake completely fucking missed the point of. What we loved about the original WICKER MAN--and there's an element of this in HOT FUZZ--is that the cult, they are kind of in the right. Within their religion, they are entirely justified as far as they're concerned. They aren't portrayed particularly...even though it's the quintessential creepy village film, from their point of view, they're right and Edward Woodward is wrong, and he dies for that. I love that about it. And that's where the remake loses it immediately; it plays it overtly creepy. Apart from the fact that if you have a character that's allergic to bees, don't go to an island that makes honey. There's a bit at the beginning where he's looking at a website for the island...the fact that Summerisle has a website is weird enough, the fact that the website logo is a fucking bee should be enough to convince any man who is fatally allergic to bees to not go there.

The thing that put me off immediately, and I love Nicholas Cage and Neil LaBute, but I read an interview with Neil LaBute and he was saying that the original was very dated and there were some things he was not going to retain, like the music score in the original film is really lame, and I was like "Aghhh!" That's one of my favorite soundtracks ever, you fucking idiot.



C: Obviously with SHAUN OF THE DEAD, the person you wanted to most impress was George Romero. Are there certain filmmakers or certain actors, you were hoping you would like to see the film and feel somehow honored?

EW: I would love Tony Scott to see the film. The people who've seen it already. Obviously, Quentin [Tarantino] and Robert [Rodriguez] have seen it. Shane Black came to see it in L.A., which I was really excited about. And I met him between SHAUN and this, and I told him we were writing this. He asked, "What's next?" And I said, "Well, funny you should say that. We're writing a LETHAL WEAPON-esque cop film." And he said, "Ah, get out of here." I said, Honestly, the film probably would not exist without some of your films. He's a very modest man, and he played it all down. I'd love Joel Silver and Jerry Bruckheimer to see it, to see what they make of it. I hope that they would see that it was affectionate. With SHAUN OF THE DEAD, obviously, it was a very specific love letter to one film, and this is a bit wider. Hey, I want fucking Clint Eastwood to see it. I doubt he'll ever watch it.

SP: [to Nick] You were trying to impress Catherine Keener, weren't you?

NF: Yeah, just cuz she's cute.



C: Were they are actors who's reactions you're curious about?

NF: I want Will to see it.

SP: Will Smith, yeah.

EW: And Keanu Reeves.

SP: I worked with Thandie Newton recently [on RUN, FAT BOY, RUN] and she was going out to do press for PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, and said to her, "Tell Will Smith that he's in our movie." And I haven't spoken to her since she got back, because I think he'd really appreciate it, as would Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves and Martin Lawrence, who also get noticed in the film. I'd kind of like Robert Patrick to see it, because I based Nicholas almost entirely on him in TERMINATOR 2.

EW: I'd like Clint Eastwood to see it but I worry that Clint would think there were more cuts in the film than his entire output.

SP: [in his best Eastwood impersonation] I'd probably be really pissed off. Too much editing in that film. Too much hard work on my eyes.

NF: What about Clyde the Monkey? [everybody laughs]

SP: And in the next film as a closer, he could do an impression of Nick and the whole thing would come together in a wonderful circular end.

EW: I'd like William Friedkin to see the film or any of the great cop directors.

NF: I'd like Paris Hilton to see it.

EW: You'd like the Bang Bros. guys to see it, wouldn't you Nick?

NF: Yeah, I'd like my mom to see it.

SP: I saw a thing in the National Enquirer, it was a "Spotted..." thing, and it said "Spotted...Paris Hilton in Malibu Beach going in to see SHAUNT OF THE DEAD."

EW: Really?!

NF: She was probably going in to use the toilet.

SP: Or use the film as a toilet.



C: The key element in most of the film you're referencing here is their homo-eroticism. Thank you for not downplaying that in HOT FUZZ. There were a few scenes in the film where I thought you guys were going to start making out.

NF: That's because I look at his lips.



C: I thought that was more a drunk person's thing, although that scene on the couch you are drunk. But if you're drunk and you watch someone's mouth, you can understand better what they're saying.

NF: It's a body language thing. If you're talking to a woman and she's looking at your lips that means she wants you to kiss her. [Nick repositions himself on the couch next to Simon] We sat like this and that, that shape is very seductive shape.



C: I know in that scene you're slightly slouched, so he's over you looking down.

EW: That's the shot that cracks me up. The line that seals it is just before that outside the house where Nick goes, "Well, this is me." The end of the first date. [laughs]

SP: And then the promise of coffee. When we did it, obviously we knew what we were doing, but when we had the cast and crew around, the sphincters of the audience was clinching...

EW: And some of them relaxing.

SP: With the promise of, Oh my god they're actually going to kiss.

NF: I don't even remember shooting a kiss.

SP: There's one on tape.

EW: On the outtakes of the DVD, you'll see the ends of takes and sort of, Ugh [mimics kissing], just going for it. We said this last night, that in first draft of the script, there was a girlfriend character, which we then ditched but we gave all of her dialog to Danny.



C: Once Nick buys Danny flowers, I knew something was up.

EW: Exactly. I thought it was funny, we did a test screening in Long Island and there was one girl who really liked the film, and we asked, "What was the one thing you didn't like about the film?" And she said, "Sometimes the music and the scenes between the two guys was a bit faggy." That's exactly it. I said, That's the music from MAN ON FIRE.



BT: So what's next?

EW: Lots of thing in the pipeline. Simon and Nick are writing something together. Simon and I are writing something together. We all have separate projects as well. We're kind of keeping our cards close to our chest about what's the next in our work. The only link we can put to our films is the "Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy." The next film will have blood and ice cream, that a dead certainty. All the other variables will change.

NF: That's the box set title.

EW: "Three Flavors: Strawberry", "Three Flavors: Original." The next one will be Mint.



C: Will it be another genre that isn't typically tackled in British cinema, like zombies or cop action films?

EW: I don't know. Maybe. We like doing the genre films. That's how we approach it. But we hope that nobody thinks of us in the same breath as the makers of EPIC MOVIE and DATE MOVIE. It's not like we pull things out of a sorting hat and go, "Oh, Merchant-Ivory, let's do that." It's literally the films that we don't make in the UK, unfortunately. Unlike the '70s, there isn't a great tradition of British genre films anymore. And that's what we're trying to do, fly the flag for that.

NF: I think I've been lined up for the John Goodman biopic. [everybody laughs] Pass that rumor around.

EW: The Chris Farley story?

NF: Virtually any fat, dead comedian, I'm around to do that.



C: You said last night, that you'd finished another season of "Hyperdrive." They just played those on BBC America, so I finally got to see those.

NF: Oh yeah, great. Season 2 starts on the 21st of April.



C: Who knows when we'll get it here, but I'm sure they'll play it eventually.

NF: Sure.

SP: Did you enjoy it?



C: Absolutely.

SP: I really liked it. I just love seeing Nick commanding a spaceship. He's so fucking proud of it.

EW: And thanks for helping out with the Hot Fuzztival thing as well. I appreciate that. Nice to meet you finally.

[A round of "Cheers, mate." follows.]

Capone

[v0x23]

Ovo je sigurno najbolji film koji sam gledao od početka ove godine...

[Milosh]

Evo šta najveći retard među "kritičarima", Scott (boxofficemojo) Holleran kaže o filmu:

Burbank, California—The latest guns-and-gore spoof, Hot Fuzz, opens in 825 theaters this week, another of those rapid-fire pictures that sneers at values with nihilistic abandon, firing off bullets and one-liners, usually in the same instant, as heads pop off and blood goes spurting and it's all supposedly hilarious. The Virginia Tech massacre is a reminder that it isn't funny.

It's just a movie, not real life, goes the refrain whenever criticism is lodged at these mindless shock vehicles, and that point is obvious. But movies are a cultural indicator and similarities between this week's slaughter and the proliferation of perceptual-bound outbursts on screen—the equivalent of a middle finger at civilized society—are undeniable. Though it's early in sorting through the facts of what happened and why, the murderer's modus operandi clearly echoes a cross between a martyred terrorist video and a Kill Bill movie.

There may not be a causal connection—many people see this sniveling trash and don't kill people and not every mass murderer watches violent movies—but there is a link. Both have total contempt for life.

Hot Fuzz, which applies dry humor to the death-premise genre, is one of countless examples in this type of thing, from Saturday Night Live and Monty Python skits to South Park and Beavis and Butthead. Hot Fuzz adds a trigger-pumping leading man (dynamic Simon Pegg) who plays it straight. But it ultimately cracks the same, shopworn joke that limbs being blown off is a hoot.

A minimum of thirty-two people in Blacksburg, Virginia, were murdered in a siege that ranks as the worst shooting in U.S. history. The coordinated attack—pre-documented by the shooter and mailed to NBC—happened like a lot of what's playing in movie theaters. People who find that disgusting ought to stop and think about that the next time they pick which movie to see.

 

[Milosh]

Dok se ne overi Hot Fuzz (ko čeka bolju kopiju), kao fino 'predjelo' preporučujem, ne previše poznatu a vrlo zabavnu, australijsku komediju slične tematike i žanra, Bad Eggs.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312409/

[Tex Murphy]

Jao majčice...      

EDIT: Reakcija je naravno na onu "kritiku" gore a ne na link ka Bad Eggs.

[crippled_avenger]

From The TimesApril 26, 2007

How to crack Hollywood Ken Russell
Here's some hot news: Hot Fuzz did $5.8 million (£2.9 million) over its first weekend in the States. Which means it's probably made all its money back after just a couple of days' good business. How and why, I wonder? Whether it was financed by American dollars or English pounds, the pitch will have come first.

How do you sell a movie about the British constabulary in a couple of nervous lines to a board of hardheaded American businessmen? It's not easy. For instance it took me days of brainstorming and free associating to come up with the nine words that sold the men with the deep pockets the scary idea of financing a serious film about Tchaikovsky. As I stood before their desks, the three old studio presidents trembled at his very name. "What's the pitch?" they demanded in unison.

Boldly (recklessly), I replied: "It's about a nymphomaniac who falls in love with a homosexual."

They beamed. It was music to their ears. I ignored the one who said: "And we know just the guy who can write the music!"

Whatever the pitch – "Full Monty goes fuzzy?" "Starsky and Hutch go ballistic in Britain?" – it seems to have produced a similar miracle for Hot Fuzz. The director, Edgar Wright, got the money and made the movie. That it did well in this country is no surprise, but for Americans, apparently, the genius of Hot Fuzz is that it's a parody that doesn't require a knowledge of the genre being parodied – in this case the action film, from Point Break to Bad Boys II – to get the joke. It's not for nothing that Wright and his co-writer and star Simon Pegg have claimed to have sat through 138 action films. Sooner them than me.

That the brash streets of New York have been replaced by a balmy village in rural Gloucestershire (complete with snug pub and loveable yokels) is a further novelty that the collegiate crowd finds an extra bonus. It is being hailed as the lovechild of The Naked Gun and The Wicker Man.

American moviegoers like Britain, it seems. They particularly like their British film characters to appear as classic archetypes instantly recognisable to the American imagination. The bucolic farmer (Babe), the aristocrat looking for a working-class woman to redeem him (Bridget Jones's Diary; Love Actually). Growing up on BBC's Masterpiece Theatre has convinced them all that the British live in stately homes or in charmingly cleaned-up Thomas Hardy-like villages, and speak very, very clearly. Tourists like to see a London they've visited in The Queen, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and Bridget Jones: landmarks such as Big Ben, the Gherkin, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, the Eye.

Apparently, the distributors wisely targeted the freewheelin' college campuses for distribution. And the kids love everything about it – including an excess of blood and gore – apart from the overlong and slightly flat ending, for which the director may be blameless. Hollywood distributors have one all-consuming vice in common: a burning desire not to leave well alone. Particularly the grand finales.

Many of my own films have been snipped by the distributors. And, if one uncharacteristically benefited, another two definitely suffered in the process. The Boyfriend (1971) and The Devils (also 1971) were emasculated, while Crimes of Passion (1984) actually became more potent. The original version of this critique of middle-class America ended ambiguously with the philandering hero (Bobby, played by John Laughlin) and seductive heroine (Joanna, played by Kathleen Turner) gazing into each other's eyes over the corpse of a murderous cleric (Tony Perkins), followed by a slow fade out.

"So what happened next?" asked the top brass after a sneak preview in San Francisco. "Did he dump the broad and go back to his wife?"

"Does it matter?" I said. "I want to know and the audience wants to know," came the reply. "I calculate that box-office receipts will double if we take care of it. So take care of it." So the writer Barry Sandler and I worked it out. It was simple. Our movie started with Bobby at a group psychotherapy session discussing his rocky marriage, so we brought him back there for a final word. "If you're wondering whether I went back to my wife," he tells the group, "the answer's 'no' – Joanna and I went back to her place and f***** our brains out."

Now, if something like that works for your next pitch, Mr Wright, please, be my guest.

[Meho Krljic]

Heh... svođenje srži filma na pitch je s jedne strane divna zanatska alatka, ali s druge užasna umetnička nemeza... Ili se meni samo tako čini...

[crippled_avenger]

Uh, pitching je nauka. Imaš čitave knjige o tome, od kojih je meni najkorisnija bila Art Linsonova, pošto je najbolje definisala sve ono što je dobro & loše u kulturi pitchovanja.

Naime, pitchovanje sažima šta film nudi, i nema ama baš nikakvu estetsku vrednost. Međutim, ljudi i ne idu u bioskop da bi imali neko estetsko iskustvo već da bi videli neki sadržaj i pitch obično nudi upravo to.

Kada preporučuješ & pšrepričavaš film nekome usput ti ga u suštini pitchuješ.

Iz svojih oskudnih, ali ipak nekakvih iskustava sa holivudskim producentima, i to u rasponu od arty likova do Dream Worksa, pitch je uvek na tankoj liniji.

Naime, pitch uvek mora da sadrži nešto što je prepoznatljivo, kako bi producent bio siguran da postoji neka formula iza toga, i nešto što je originalno, kako bi mislio da je to ipak nešto novo i da ne radi neko generic smeće, ne zato što ne želi da ga radi, nego zato što mu onda ti ne trebaš jer će zvati majstora koji najbolje radi generic smeće.

A opet, s druge strane, pitch ne sme da bude prepametan, to jest mora da bude u nekoj nijansi nezaokružen kako bi producent mogao da ima input. Ti prosto moraš da mu zagolicaš maštu, da i on kao u tome učestvuje. E sad, naravno, treba mu zagolicati maštu u tom smislu da ti da on kao svoj input da ono što ti zapravo želiš, a ne da ode u nešto neočekivano i destruktivno.

Tako da je pitching jedna žešća psihološka igra.

[Meho Krljic]

Shvaćeno, shvaćeno. Čini mi se da je u svemu tome poseban nivo komplikacije to što tvoj pitch treba da navuče producenta a zatim da se relativno lako i jasno može pretvoriti u pitch koji će biti osnova prodaje. SLutim da jedan i drugi nisu isti a treba da nose istu poruku... U to ime, evo ceo jedan strip Jaya Pinkertona

(http://jaypinkerton.cracked.com)

[crippled_avenger]

Najluđa stvar je kada pitchuješ da se radi rewrite na nekom scenariju. I onda taktiziraš da predložiš sve izmene koje treba da se rade a da se producenti koji su dotle radili na tom scenariju ne osete kao budale koje su razvile loš scenario, a opet im treba predočiti da treba da se popravlja. To je ludilo.

I onda je stalno varijanta, this material is great, it just needs minor tweaks, pa onda dve strane sugestija...

Evo, sad baš kad bude DISTURBIA pokušaću da iskopam script notes koje sam radio kao pitch za director's polish kada je Srđan konkurisao da ga režira. To je najpodmuklije nešto što sam u životu napisao.

Mada, na kraju toliko su ga menjali, da je još jedan scenarista potpisan.

[Meho Krljic]

Užasi industrije... Pašću u depresiju ako nastaviš da pričaš  Ja uvek kad vidim potpisanih šest scenarista na filmu pokušavam da zamislim da to nije bilo 5 rewriteova originalnog skripta nego da su oni svi zajedno sedeli u nekom ugodnom holivudskom ofisu i uz kafu i krofne radili brejnstorminge i kuckali u laptop.. A znam da nije tako      

[crippled_avenger]

Što je najgore od svega, sada je to i kod nas postala praksa.

Bjela je potpuno u tom fazonu. Napišeš scenario, onda ga on malo da Nikoli Pejakoviću, da ga ovaj pregleda, pa onda malo Ranko Božić, pa tako sto ljudi. I onda kad kažeš, "Ali, ovo nije nešto što Pejaković voli niti Božić razume!", Bjela kaže, "Znam, ali treba scenario da bude takav da se dopada i onima koji to ne vole i ne razumeju..."

Tu je najbolji bio Šotra. Bjela je IVKOVU SLAVU bio dao Miroslavu KAD PORASTEM BIĆU SEDAM I PO Momčiloviću da ga rewrituje i kad je Momčilo doneo draft, Šotra ga je odbio pošto je bio previše komedija. I kada ga je Bjela upitao, "Šta fali, to i treba da bude komedija...?", Šotra je izrekao svoju ultimativnu zen-misao,

"Ovaj momak suviše insistira na humoru. Publika voli moje filmove jer ja ni na čemu ne insistiram!"

I to je vrlo zanimljiva misao o kojoj sam dosta razmišljao i dan-danas razmišljam, pošto je na nekom okultnom nivou tačna.

Inače, druga ključna Šotrina zen-mudrost glasi, "Nikada ne daj scenaristi da radi drugu verziju teksta. On je već u prvoj verziji napisao ono što je znao!"

[Meho Krljic]

Ima tu štošta da se nauči, čak i od Šotre, vidim ja. Useless trivia: sa njegovim sinom sam išao u srednju školu...

[crippled_avenger]

ULTRA LOŽENJE!

http://dobanevinosti.blogspot.com/2007/04/edgar-wright-vs-shane-black.html

[crippled_avenger]

Interview: Edgar Wright for "Hot Fuzz"
By Paul Fischer
Monday, April 9th 2007 12:52PM
How do you top off too a runaway hit about zombies and independence aka Shaun of the Dead? Bring in the fuzz, the Hot Fuzz to be precise. The boys are at it again with this affectionate parody of the quintessential British cop movie with a heavy dose of Brukheimer thrown in for good measure, all under the frenetic direction of Edgar Wright. The director spoke to Paul Fischer.

Question: What kind of pressure is there to follow up on something like Shaun of the Dead? Did you feel that pressure on this?

Edgar Wright: I think it's good to have pressure on yourself. The worst crime is to get kind of really complacent. Me and Simon worked really hard on the script and we kind of beat ourselves up and we're very kind of hypercritical, and so it's good to have pressure. I mean it was weird in terms of when we made Shaun of the Dead. There wasn't really that much expectation about us making a film. There was from people who liked our TV show, but you know we could kind of do it under the radar and this time it was a bit different. Even just filming it on location was kind of interesting because you'd have people watching the entire time.

Question: You had more money yo spend on Hot Fuzz I presume?

Edgar Wright: Yeah, not as much as you would think though. I mean we had like double the budget of Shaun, but even double the budget of Shaun is still a tenth of what Miami Vice costs or Bad Boys II.

Question: What made you want to spoof a cop drama?

Edgar Wright: Me and Simon we always sort of shy away from using the 'S' word, spoof, I mean It's definitely got parody elements to it but unlike spoofs like Scary Movie, we see this as very much like a celebration, like an homage or a tribute to those films, a love letter. Not only am I a big fan of cop and action films, but also there's no precedent for it in the U.K. and so there just aren't any British cop films at all. There hasn't been one for 30 years or more even, so that really kind of was the inspiration. There've been far too many British gangster films and it was time to kind of let the British bobby be a bit more badass. A lot of 'b's in that sentence. [Laughs]

Question: Did you care that you're making a film that, even though it's going to be seen in America, didn't cater toward an American audience so much?

Edgar Wright: I have to say when we did Shaun of the Dead and we did the press tour for that here, it was incredibly encouraging in every city - be it like Detroit, Phoenix, Miami - they laughed in all the same places as they did in the U.K. and there was very little that got lost, so that was just encouraged me to write because I think as with all international filmmakers, why make something that's kind of transatlantic if you're making a British film, then it's a British film and you should kind of revel in that. I think people kind of like that aspect because I suppose for audiences over here it seems completely fresh. Nobody would want to watch that kind of standardized version of Amelie. Do you know what I mean? It's like you want to see like a really French film. The thing with Hot Fuzz is different from Shaun is I suppose the joke is on one hand it's very, very British, and then in the last half it starts to become really American and that was kind of the joke. The further it goes along, the more it starts to mutate into like a Bruckheimer film and that was the joke.

Question: How involved are Simon and Nick in not only the characters but the script, and once you're on set, how free do you let them be?

Edgar Wright: Well me and Simon write the script so we're co-writers. What we tend to do is we don't improvise on set at all because we know exactly who the actors are going to be. It's very easy to write for Nick because he's our best friend, so you can totally write what's going to be great coming out of his mouth. What we do is we finish the script and then the first person we show it to, apart from the producer, is Nick and then he kind of brings out some elements to it. I'd say he kind of has up to three zingers and the 'ho, ho, hmmm', they're like his kind of improvisations. But what we tend to do is then we rehearse, first with Simon and Nick, and then with all of the actors. We rehearse with pretty much all of the actors apart from maybe Bill and Martin and Steve in the first scene. Everybody else we rehearsed with. If there's kind of improvisations that come out of that that are really good, we then write them into the script, so then on the day it's completely locked down because we don't really have the time to kind of like... There are great comedies that do that kind of thing like Talladega Nights and like Forty Year Old Virgin where they just riff and riff and riff, but because of the way that Hot Fuzz is shot and because there's thriller and action elements to it as well, you can't just be improvising wildly all the time. But what we try to do by doing that rehearsal process which a lot of films don't do... it's quite unusual for films to rehearse which I find absolutely crazy because that's where you really nail it down.

Question: How did Timothy Dalton become involved?

Edgar Wright: We just approached him. When we were writing that character, we had in the description of his character 'a Timothy Dalton type' because we wanted somebody who looked way too handsome to be a supermarket manager. [Laughs] What was great this time is I think probably because it was actually relatively easy getting sort of the actors of the older generation because some of them are already fans of Shaun, like Jim Broadbent actually approached us and said that he'd love to work with us in the future and this is before we'd started writing. So you kind of have those kind of things where people like Paddy Considine or Jim Broadbent say 'What's the next film? Can I be in it?' When you're writing, you think, 'Hmmm, Jim Broadbent. Here's a part for you.' Timothy Dalton had seen Shaun of the Dead in L.A. with his son and loved it and so it was great. I think probably because in the last film, in Shaun of the Dead, what's been really nice with these two films is to be able to kind of cast older actors, who either have been brilliant comedians or just kind of like straight actors, and let them have fun with it. And in Shaun we had Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton. I think for the acting community in the U.K. that was sort of like breaking out of the box a little bit because the stuff we'd done before we'd worked with all the younger comedians and having two really respected actors and both giving really great performances and I think that put us in a good stead for Hot Fuzz because then there were people like Billy Whitelaw and Edward Woodward and Stuart Wilson, they were really up for being on board which was great.

Question: What about shooting the action sequences. There were some quite major set pieces in this movie. What kind of challenges did you face doing that and was it daunting to deal with that kind of stuff?

Edgar Wright: It was daunting in terms of the budget. Everything that I've done so far has had a bigger budget than the last, but I've never ever felt the benefit of the bigger budget because the ideas always exceed the budget. So we got double the money of Shaun of the Dead, however, the ambition of the film was like five times that. So that was tough and also partly the reason there aren't any British action films is because the weather is absolutely shit. [Laughs] And so filming outside and doing the big shootouts and stuff, you're completely captive to whatever the British weather throws at you. But we persevered and also with this one, what was really more essential was everything was on location. There were very, very few sound stage kind of days at all, so pretty much everything was on location which actually made it really fun. But like that shootout in the town square was shot without really having the roads closed off, so every shot you see, you've got to imagine that behind the camera there's like 50 old ladies and school children. It was really strange.

Question: So by the end when you do have that kind of mimicry of the Bruckheimer films, I was waiting for the shot where they look exactly like they do in Bad Boys II where the camera does a full 360 around it.

Edgar Wright: It does that.

Question: You do kind of do a pan, but it's not like a scene for scene type thing so...?

Edgar Wright: No, you know what we did, we did do it all in one shot but I couldn't resist kind of going so crazy with the edit. We did have a camera on a segue so, yeah, we did the sort of... We had a Steadycam on a segue spinning around, so we did do that shot.

Question: Have you got a call from Jerry yet?

Edgar Wright: No, but I hope he sees it. I'd really like Jerry Bruckheimer and Joel Silver to see the film. Shane Black has seen it, so that was good.

Question: Can you talk about your experience doing the Don't trailer in Grindhouse?

Edgar Wright: That was a blast. I actually finished it like a month ago or less than a month ago. It was absolutely crazy. It was the first one to be written and the last to be shot because I've been busy with Hot Fuzz. I think me and Eli [Roth]... I think Quentin [Tarantino] asked us together when we were in L.A., maybe like in 2005 when they were starting to prep Grindhouse, and Quentin asked me and Eli Roth if we'd do a trailer each and we're like 'Oh yeah, we're absolutely flattered and honored.' So I wrote it back in 2005, and I remember going for a drink with Quentin and acting it out for him and pitching it to him which is crazy, and then I heard that when they were talking to the Weinsteins about it that Quentin acted out my version of the trailer which is something I wish I could have that on tape. It's something I just want to see [imitates Quentin's voice] 'here's the deal, right?' I just want to see Quentin's version of the trailer. I had such a blast doing it, and I actually shot it the day before the prepping of Hot Fuzz in the U.K. I shot part of it and then the film came out and then I shot the rest of it sort of like the weekend after Hot Fuzz came out, so it was actually crazy and then I had like six days to finish the whole thing before going to Australia and New Zealand. I'm so pleased with that and it's got such a crazy... You know it's only 90 seconds long and it has like 30 actors in it.

Question: Do you have any idea where you'll go from here now having dealt with zombies and cops?

Edgar Wright: Having done Hot Fuzz and Grindhouse, I am going to take the next ten years off. [Laughs]

Question: The next ten years off? Are you sure? I don't think your fans will allow that to happen.

Edgar Wright: No, there's things in the pipeline. It's weird we've been asked this question so much on the tour and it's something that's kind of... It's ironic because it doesn't kind of come up like that and people kind of say, 'Ah, you've done zombies, you've done cops, what's next?' We think that both of them came about quite organically in a way like Shaun of the Dead, even though it was a zombie film, is essentially a film about turning 30 and having relationship issues and that's what it was about and living in north London. And in a weird, weird way, even though it's kind of ridiculous, Hot Fuzz is quite - it's not autobiographical, but it's quite personal because it's set in my home town and it's where I grew up. There's elements of that story, even the things with the neighborhood watch that are kind of like based on ... You know, my mom is a big conspiracy theorist and she used to be obsessed by the Freemasons, and she used to be obsessed when we had a planning commission and like an extension on our house got turned down and my mom was convinced it was the masons. You know, it was probably true. She was probably right. It just conjured up images of like... that you'd have these ancient rituals of like the lodge or the Freemasons sitting around going, [authoritative voice] 'Ah now, this person has an extension.' [Laughs] I'm sure that kind of thing happens, but I just thought this is so ridiculous that you'd have these kind of like ancient, secret sects that would put the kabbash on people's lives and extensions. [Laughs]

Question: The big reveal on that scene got the biggest reaction.

Edgar Wright: Oh that's cool. And it's funny because people say, 'Is that kind of like a Wicker Man reference?' and it's like, 'Well, no, it's like listening to my mum's conspiracy theories.' [Laughs]

Question: Is there a particular or favorite genre that you have a burning desire to do?

Edgar Wright: Well you know I'd like to do... the thing that we kind of do is we kind of make films that you just don't see in the U.K. - not to diss British cinema because there's lots of great British films - but we don't really make genre films anymore. So that what's fun for us is to kind of do things that people don't do. Obviously there's a great tradition of British horror films in the 50s, 60s and 70s, but there's actually no kind of cop films at all.

Question: Do you guys always work together or have you got offers as a stand alone director to make films in the Hollywood studios?

Edgar Wright: Yeah, absolutely. It's funny like sometimes in a kind of like this sort of... It annoys me sometimes back in London because I am sort of like developing some films here. In fact the next film might be something that's kind of like a proper American film. I remember somebody coming up to me at the working title party or something and kind of chastising me for doing a film in the States. And the thing that I said is I actually turned down five or six really big films here to do Hot Fuzz. I said I actually had the chance after Shaun of the Dead to do Hollywood films and instead I made the most British film I possibly could. So I took the person to task. [Laughs]

Question: Would you do a sequel to Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz?

Edgar Wright: I wouldn't do a sequel to Shaun of the Dead. It would be fun to do a sequel to Hot Fuzz, but the weird thing is it's kind of like both films, they kind of wrap up. You could do Further Adventures of Angel and Butterman, but the weird thing is that Simon's character has gone on such a journey and he's changed so much by the end, it would kind of be weird to do a second film where he's in the same mode that he ends up at. You know that's why the Matrix sequels don't work. When the end of the first film is your character becoming a god, where else can it go? The second one starts with like 'well, maybe he isn't a god. Okay, and now he is.' [Laughs] So when your character becomes omnipotent by the end of the first film, there is no where else to go. And I think the thing with Hot Fuzz is ...

Question: It's hot, right?

Edgar Wright: You know that's why the title of the film comes right at the end is because it hasn't become Hot Fuzz until the end credits. It's taken two hours to become Hot Fuzz. At the start it was just Lukewarm Fuzz and then it kind of ramps itself up in the last half an hour.

Question: Are there any actors you would like to work with that you haven't yet?

Edgar Wright: Yeah, I think sometimes the way that we approach casting is people that we either want to work with or people that we want to see in this kind of film or even actors that we haven't seen for a while and we really like. So that was great. You know Billie Whitelaw is actually retired and we kept getting told that no, Billie's retired, and we kept badgering to kind of get her in the film and eventually she... I had such a blast with her. She's fantastic, so fun. Yeah. So it's really like fun to kind of write these parts and then go after a Timothy Dalton or Paul Freeman and Stuart Wilson, I've been such a huge fan of Stuart Wilson, and you know I think he's really underrated in a way. He's such a chameleon that people don't even realize the films that he's in. He's been in so many films. So it's great. I don't know what other people - Alfred Molina, Gary Oldman, there's loads of great British actors that I'd like to work with.

Question: So Point Break, is that one of your favorite films? And Bad Boys II?

Edgar Wright: Yeah, and I like Bad Boys II as well. We didn't pick those two as objects of ridicule but they are kind of, and the reason we picked those two films is we thought Danny Butterman, those would be his two favorite films and they're kind of like... The reason we picked them is because it's kind of what Hot Fuzz eventually aspires to is being really like dumb popcorn fun, and I mean that as a compliment. You know both those films are about nothing except entertainment and spectacle and smashing things up. You can say whatever you like about Bad Boys II, but if you spend $130 million smashing cars up, it's going to be worth watching. [Laughs]

Question: Did you have to get the rights to or permission to use those movies?

Edgar Wright: You have to clear it, absolutely. In fact, you have to clear everything. Like with the Point Break clip, you have to get signatures from Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Patrick Swayze's stuntman. You have to get signatures even for the DVD covers. Probably the most expensive shot in the film bizarrely is the one with the DVD bargain bin at the end, because every single film that's on there - and we picked all of the films - they were very specific, all of the films - Out for Justice, Sudden Impact, Extreme Prejudice - you have to get the rights to all of those. So it always makes me laugh when the credits roll up at the end and part of it says 'Still from one tough bastard.' [Laughs] That always makes me laugh.

Question: But you saved money sticking Zombie Party in there.

Edgar Wright: Yes, absolutely.

Question: Has Keanu seen the end credits?

Edgar Wright: No, he hasn't. I hope he does though. We're trying to get him to come along to one of the screenings. I hope he does.

Question: He would laugh at that.

Edgar Wright: I would think so. It's a celebration of his finest moment. [Laughs] Oh I love that bit. It's great. It's great.

Question: Did you feel that Bad Boys II embodied that concept more than Bad Boys I?

Edgar Wright: Yeah, I think so. I kind of think that Bad Boys II is sort of the nineties version of Freebie and the Bean. It's totally like in the sixties you've got It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, seventies Freebie and the Bean, Eighties Blues Brothers, I'm not sure what the 90s one is, and Bad Boys II is the one for the 21st century when you have just huge fucking destruction. [Laughs] What would be the 90s one? That's bugging me. I'll have to think about that, work out my theory.

[crippled_avenger]

Pogledao sam HOT FUZZ.

I mogu reći da film lives up to the hype.

Štaviše, meni je film stilski čistiji od SHAUN OF THE DEAD pošto nema žanrovsko iskliznuće kao što SHAUN ima pri kraju.

U ovom filmu, Wright uspeva da vrlo dosledno održi balans komedije i policijskog filma, gde komika proističe kako iz duhovitosti autora tako i iz ekonomisanja stvarnošću i žanrovskim konvencijama.

Wright i Pegg koriste stvarnost i žanr kao špil karata i svoje situacije stalno pozicioniraju u odnosu na neku od tih karti. Nekad uzmu žanrovsku situaciju i uporede je sa realističnim kontekstom i učine je smešnom, a već u sledećem trenutku uzmu neki potpuno realističan fenomen i propuste ga kroz filter žanra i učine ga apsurdnim. I to mešanje karata rade zaista maestralno, i čine HOT FUZZ jednom filmskom rubikovom kockom koja se zaista može gledati više puta.

Ono što je još važnije da Wright & Pegg, u principu ne izlaze u parodiju, da se ne koriste, ili se barem vrlo umereno koriste nekim ekstremnim & groteksnim zahvatima. Oni se suštinski kreću apsolutno unutar vrlo decentnih radnji i karakternih postavki, ali ih kroz promene konteksta čine urnebesnim.

U tom smislu HOT FUZZ je i vrlo plot-driven film, i na nekom nivou, mogu da zamislim čoveka koji nije gledao policijske filmove da ga percipira kao istinski zastrašujući triler.

Tome doprinose odlično režirane akcione scene, koje, za razliku od finala SHAUNa ne zaboravljaju da je ovde reč o komediji; kao i niz vrlo gory momenata koji su me prijatno iznenadili. Inače, setimo se da su glavni reditelji policijskog filma uglavnom došli iz horor miljea i da su kanonski 80s filmovi imali dosta gory momenata.

Naravno, ovaj film sakm percipirao i kao jasno ljubavno pismo Cripplu pošto se u filmu intenzivno referiše na moja dva najomiljenija filma POINT BREAK i BAD BOYS II, i prosto mi je neverovatna koindcidencija da Wright pogodi baš ova dva naslova, pošto mi je POINT BREAK najomiljeniji i najvažniji film u životu.

Britanski segment filma je naravno reperezentovan kroz celu SPACED/ SHAUN priču pegga i Frosta ali i kroz snmažnu tradiciju WICKER MANa koji je film obogatio autentičnom zaverom negativaca i dobrim villainima.

U svakom slučaju, čini mi se da ću se HOT FUZZu često vraćati ovih dana.

[Meho Krljic]

Unapred se radujem svom večerašnjem susretu sa piratebay-jem. To jest, ako nije u pitanju cam kopija?

[crippled_avenger]

Ne, rec je o DVD ripu u VCD formatu, s tim sto je na mojoj kopiji rezolucija mozda nesto niza nego inace, ali je stvarno dobra kopija.

[Meho Krljic]

VCD????  Pa ti ljudi su... nenormalni. No, dobro... barem je fajl mali...

[crippled_avenger]

Toliko sam čekao HOT FUZZ da sam istovremeno znao da će biti neki jebeni glitch kada ga budem nabavio, i juče mi ga daje drug i kreće, "Ali, pazi postoji jedan problem.." Da te citiram, u trenu sam krenuo da se nadimam od intelektualne superiornosti, samo sam klimnuo glavom i rekao, "Znam."

U pozadini su krenuli gudači.

Detalj diska u mojoj ruci.

Kamera je počela da se okreće oko nas.

Ceo fazon.

[Meho Krljic]

Dobro, geekovi su spremni da se sa problemima suoče frontalno, golim grudima i tako to... Glitchevi i problemi su sastavni deo potrebe da se bude prvi koji će o nečemu da ima mišljenje...

[zakk]

Hott Fuzz je izišo za sada u R5 varijanti :-/
mrzim te kvcd i slične varijante, prosto mi nije jasno čemu to... al ajde, očidgledno ima ciljnu publiku, čim ih guraju...

[---]

Pogledao sam HOT FUZZ.

nego, da pređemo na pikanterije.

meni se čini da, osim prema pomenutim žanrovskim kodovima, što je sve notorno ako se zna koncepcija filma, hot fuzz uspostavlja, kao i finčerov zodiac, interesantan odnos prema prljavom hariju. Naravno, i ova "polemika" je, skladu sa čitavim filmom, takođe data iz pozicije izokrenutog žanra.

aime, policajac nikolas ejndžel može da se gleda kao neka vrsta savremenog londonskog harija kalahana - on je bad boy cop, ali ne zato što ne ferma zakon pa sprovodi pravdu na svoju ruku, već baš zato što sve radi po zakonu.

ova prva praksa je, između ostalog, bila povod da se onomad prljavi hari proglašava "fašističkim filmom", dok u Hot Fuzzu, u invertnoj postavci, nikolas ejndžel biva proglašen fašistom zato što je najbolji đak i najbolji policajac. on je opterećen zakonom, i baš zato što je najbolji u njegovom sprovođenju - biva premešten na selo.

u tom odnosu između zakona, pravde i "finog momka" policajca koji ne pije, ne upotrebljava oružje i bavi se fizičkom kulturom, meni izgleda kako leži jedan novi pristup tim temama.

zašto sam ga uporedio sa Zodiacom? zato što kod finčera, za razliku od filma Sedam, ponovo "fini momci" insistiraju na zakonu, po cenu da serijski ubica prođe nekažnjeno. nema više drame koja postoji u završnoj sceni Sedmice, gde se pitaš da li će dejvid mils zaboraviti zakon, uzeti pravdu u svoje ruke i tako pustiti džona doa da trijumfuje. finčer očigledno i vrlo svesno polemiše sa zigelovim klasikom: u sceni u bioskopu, glavni detektiv dadiv toschi zgrožen i smoren prljavim harijem izlazi sa projekcije, sa prezirom gledajući film kao preteranu, infantilnu verziju sopstvenog policijskog slučaja.

dakle, i u "ozbiljnom" Zodiacu i "komičnom" Hot Fuzzu, heroji više nisu ledene kul teče i ujaci koji vitlaju naokolo magnumom i sprovode pravdu ubeđeni da "je zakon lud ako tako kaže". naravno, milijus i ćimino su napravili sjajan film od konflikta u koji hari upada kada se, u Magnum Forceu, susretne sa bandom motor-pandura koja se "bori protiv sistema" sličnim metodama, ali to je deo neke druge priče... deo ove priče je da zajednica, u finčerovom zodiacu, posle određenog vremena prestane da insistira na zakonu, dok joj u hot fuzzu previše zakona jednostavno ne treba.

ako sam sa ovom tezom na dobrom putu, onda je još interesantnije kakva je struktura moći u sandfordu, i šta proizilazi iz teme "većeg dobra".

prava pikanterija je oznaka 777 na epoleti nikolasa ejndžela, što je zgodno za ubacivanje kroulija u priču -  a to nije bez neke, jer se kabalistički sudar tri sedmice i tri šestice provlači kroz čitav film. ako se pogleda cela slika sandforda, i pronicljivo eksploatisanje horor motiva (kao i engleske detektivske priče, ali to samo uzgred), sukob OTO-ovske individualnosti sa satanističkom kolektivizacijom mi se čini zanimljiv za jedno čitanje Hot Fuzza iz ugla okultizma i numerologije.

[---]

s tim u vezi, pominjanje filma psi od slame u samom hot fuzzu (mislim dva puta, u vezi sa jednim lokalnim likom iz sandforda koji je glumio u psima od slame) je veoma zanimljivo.
kao što znamo, u psima od slame dastin hofman igra onog matematičara (danas bi se reklo geeka) koji poludi, "prepozna nasilje" u sebi kad mu naočare puknu, i pobije sve violentne džudže iz donjeg sela - a da bi sprečio linč, zakon gomile, tj uzimanje pravde u svoje ruke (i iz niza drugih razloga, ali oni sad nisu aktuelni).

veoma slična stvar se desi i u hot fuzzu, i mislim da su point brejk i bed bojz zanimljivi za samo tumačenje forme filma, koga interesuju te žanrovske reference, to geekovsko poigravanje kanonskim situacijama i režijskim vragolijama, ali mislim da je  film in essence mnogo više okrenut prljavom hariju i psima od slame.

i nešto mi govori da će prilikom tumačenja i kritike taj kontekst hot fuzza ostati po strani.

[crippled_avenger]

nego, da pređemo na pikanterije.

meni se čini da, osim prema pomenutim žanrovskim kodovima, što je sve notorno ako se zna koncepcija filma, hot fuzz uspostavlja, kao i finčerov zodiac, interesantan odnos prema prljavom hariju. Naravno, i ova "polemika" je, skladu sa čitavim filmom, takođe data iz pozicije izokrenutog žanra.

aime, policajac nikolas ejndžel može da se gleda kao neka vrsta savremenog londonskog harija kalahana - on je bad boy cop, ali ne zato što ne ferma zakon pa sprovodi pravdu na svoju ruku, već baš zato što sve radi po zakonu.

ova prva praksa je, između ostalog, bila povod da se onomad prljavi hari proglašava "fašističkim filmom", dok u Hot Fuzzu, u invertnoj postavci, nikolas ejndžel biva proglašen fašistom zato što je najbolji đak i najbolji policajac. on je opterećen zakonom, i baš zato što je najbolji u njegovom sprovođenju - biva premešten na selo.

u tom odnosu između zakona, pravde i "finog momka" policajca koji ne pije, ne upotrebljava oružje i bavi se fizičkom kulturom, meni izgleda kako leži jedan novi pristup tim temama.

zašto sam ga uporedio sa Zodiacom? zato što kod finčera, za razliku od filma Sedam, ponovo "fini momci" insistiraju na zakonu, po cenu da serijski ubica prođe nekažnjeno. nema više drame koja postoji u završnoj sceni Sedmice, gde se pitaš da li će dejvid mils zaboraviti zakon, uzeti pravdu u svoje ruke i tako pustiti džona doa da trijumfuje. finčer očigledno i vrlo svesno polemiše sa zigelovim klasikom: u sceni u bioskopu, glavni detektiv dadiv toschi zgrožen i smoren prljavim harijem izlazi sa projekcije, sa prezirom gledajući film kao preteranu, infantilnu verziju sopstvenog policijskog slučaja.

dakle, i u "ozbiljnom" Zodiacu i "komičnom" Hot Fuzzu, heroji više nisu ledene kul teče i ujaci koji vitlaju naokolo magnumom i sprovode pravdu ubeđeni da "je zakon lud ako tako kaže". naravno, milijus i ćimino su napravili sjajan film od konflikta u koji hari upada kada se, u Magnum Forceu, susretne sa bandom motor-pandura koja se "bori protiv sistema" sličnim metodama, ali to je deo neke druge priče... deo ove priče je da zajednica, u finčerovom zodiacu, posle određenog vremena prestane da insistira na zakonu, dok joj u hot fuzzu previše zakona jednostavno ne treba.

ako sam sa ovom tezom na dobrom putu, onda je još interesantnije kakva je struktura moći u sandfordu, i šta proizilazi iz teme "većeg dobra".

prava pikanterija je oznaka 777 na epoleti nikolasa ejndžela, što je zgodno za ubacivanje kroulija u priču -  a to nije bez neke, jer se kabalistički sudar tri sedmice i tri šestice provlači kroz čitav film. ako se pogleda cela slika sandforda, i pronicljivo eksploatisanje horor motiva (kao i engleske detektivske priče, ali to samo uzgred), sukob OTO-ovske individualnosti sa satanističkom kolektivizacijom mi se čini zanimljiv za jedno čitanje Hot Fuzza iz ugla okultizma i numerologije.

This is so like Mirko Stojković ...

U nozdrve mi se vraća miris linoleuma na FDU, želudac se grči pri pomisli na strašne kafe koje smo pili sve dok kapitalisti nisu napravili onaj mondenski kafić, ponovo je 2000. godina, ja sam brucoš, Slobodan Milošević još uvek nije izručen Hagu, još uvek se toliko ne insistira na Srebrenici, i sve je nekako lepše i pitomije, čak sam sklon tome da pomislim kako sam u tom fleš-beku nosio ogroman afro, ali ipak znam da nisam, pa to neću potezati.

[---]

a, reci, kako ti se sviđa ovo sa kroulijem i tri sedmice?

[Ghoul]

prava pikanterija je oznaka 777 na epoleti nikolasa ejndžela, što je zgodno za ubacivanje kroulija u priču -  a to nije bez neke, jer se kabalistički sudar tri sedmice i tri šestice provlači kroz čitav film. ako se pogleda cela slika sandforda, i pronicljivo eksploatisanje horor motiva (kao i engleske detektivske priče, ali to samo uzgred), sukob OTO-ovske individualnosti sa satanističkom kolektivizacijom mi se čini zanimljiv za jedno čitanje Hot Fuzza iz ugla okultizma i numerologije.

malo mi je sumnjivo ovo tumačenje: film još nisam gledo, ali u načelu, premisa da 666=satanizam=kolektivizam UOPŠTE ne stoji; satanizam (a naročito la vejev, mada se i svi ostali po ovom pitanju slažu), insistira na individualizmu, i to je jedan od većih razloga što satanisti ne mogu da istovremeno budu i fašisti; takođe mi je sumnjivo izjednačavanje broja 777 sa OTO-om...
mislim, zanimljivo ti je zapažanje, i ako ovi brojevi figuriraju u filmu, verovatno IMAJU neko značenje, ali ne verujem da je ono koje ti impliciraš.

[---]

ma ja, ghoule, pojma nemam ni o krouliju, ni o OTO-u, kao ni o satanizmu... a još manje o nekom značenju brojeva. ne znam ni ko je taj le vejev  
mislim, sad ozbiljno, u filmu je sve to zezanje, ti "satanisti" izgovaraju neku elementarnu deklinaciju imenice iz latinskog ispred, ne znam, voki-tokija.
mislim, super je u tome pronaći skriveno značenje, i baš bih voleo da pročitam nekog ko će to stručno da uradi, al' ja sam samo na brzinu izvalio neke teorije zavere, radi zabave.
isto ovo za finčera nisam izmislio, nego sam našao neka feministička čitanja kako će sad novi talas filma da dođe, inspirisan teorijom, i da je gotovo vreme nadrkanih vigilante mužjaka koji se bave pravdom u društvu uz pomoć pišmolja, nego je došlo vreme finih momaka koji podržavaju zakon.
i da ne bi bilo kako se vadim, izvol'te, iz gaj muviz magazina, hilerojus i pametnica kritika za Zodiac i Hot Fuzz od iste autorke:

"Zodiac": Harry Doesn't Live Here Anymore
By Lucia Bozzola, Mar 5, 2007

Sometimes the library is mightier than the .44 Magnum.

Ah, serial killers. Such a cinematic subject. All that murdering, all that investigating. You have clear heroes, villains, conflicts, and, when the plot starts to lag, you can always throw in another bloody homicide tableau. As an added bonus, real life provides some mighty tasty source material if you can't think of another creative way to link killings to the Bible or body part fetishes or family woes on your own. Real life also often provides a story complete with a Hollywood ending. Charles Manson, Son of Sam, Hillside Strangler, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Aileen Wuornos: all caught and convicted. The End. But what if you have a camera-ready killer who never gets caught?

David Fincher has one answer: you make a character study about the men who try for two decades to nail the killer. Don Siegel and writers Harry Julian Fink, Rita M. Fink, and Dean Riesner had another: you make a wish-fulfilling fiction about a rogue cop who won't stop until he kills the killer in 1971. Then again, considering that Dirty Harry first came into being during the Zodiac murder spree, and Zodiac makes its debut more than three decades after the fact, it's easier to forgive the former's flight of ideologically questionable fantasy. If you want to sell tickets, don't send the audience home certain that they're next on the murderer's list and there's no hope he'll ever be stopped. Now? With the prime suspect dead and the case long dormant, why not go back to just the facts, ma'am. It's the past. It's over. Fincher and his gang, however, still have a bone to pick with Dirty Harry's anti-Establishment fascist hero Harry Callahan.

Some critics have noted that the dialogue-heavy, stylistically dialed-down Zodiac is a "repudiation" of Fincher's career-making murder porn Se7en. Don't get me wrong. I liked Se7en, and not just because Gwyneth Paltrow's head ended up in a box. Nevertheless, the main attraction was the imaginatively grotesque murders devised by Kevin Spacey's even more grotesque Bible-thumper in a fabulously dank and shadowy Any City. In Zodiac, all of the murders happen early and horribly, but not quite as stylishly. Yes, we get up close and personal with Zodiac's knife work on the couple by Lake Berryessa, but that's not the reason that scene haunts my dreams. It's more the way Zodiac simply appears in broadest sunny daylight, and easily could be just another nature lover until he puts on his deceptively silly ninja disguise. And yes, Fincher does make one of his signature virtuoso gestures with the overhead shots following the doomed cab through the streets of San Francisco, but again, he doesn't linger as much over the gore. After these deaths, though, the film is two hours of conversation and neurotic obsession by a quartet of handsome distressed men. No wonder I loved it.

Less noticed, however, is how those two hours of dialogue and obsession become a repudiation of Zodiac's first cinematic incarnation via the thinly disguised killer Scorpio in Dirty Harry. It isn't just the fictional "happy" ending that comes under fire, either. It's also the image of violent male potency embodied by Clint Eastwood's iconic Callahan. Now, Callahan does fall prey to the same soul-draining obsessiveness that seeps into Zodiac's investigators. There's a world of attitudinal difference between the jaunty delivery of his "Do you feel lucky" speech to a downed bank robber early on, and the way he angrily spits out the final "Well, do you, punk?" through clenched teeth at the denouement. But then he gets to blow away Scorpio because he had indeed fired only five shots prior with his .44 Magnum revolver. Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edward's police detectives Toschi and Armstrong, though, never get that satisfaction in Zodiac. Heck, they don't even get to pull their guns. We learn that Toschi's gun holster style inspired another icon of late 60s manhood Steve McQueen to wear his the same way in Bullitt, but we never see him actually use it. The only non-Zodiac man we do see fire a gun? Robert Downey Jr.'s fey, alcoholic crime reporter Paul Avery. At a firing range. Badly. Thus endeth the crime-solving efficacy of the most powerful handgun in the world.

This isn't to say that Zodiac is about how Toschi and Armstrong are hapless cops. They are effective in that they do (as far as anyone knows) identify and track down Zodiac. They even get to sit in a room with him and manfully fix him with that "we're on to you" stare that's repeated every week on the Law & Orders and CSIs. Yet they never bring him down because of, yep, Callahan's biggest pet peeve: bureaucracy. Evidence gets lost in the low-tech shuffle. Other jurisdictions want to protect their turfs. Still, Fincher and company make a point to show that even with those impediments, Toschi still won't be wild about Harry. For when Dirty Harry opens in San Francisco shortly after Toschi and Armstrong learn they can't arrest their man, Toschi happens to see it the same night as Avery's fellow Zodiac-fixated colleague, Jake Gyllenhaal's doe-eyed Robert Graysmith. When Graysmith tells Toschi how it ends, Toschi scoffs in disgust, "So much for due process." Toschi may not be all that broken up about Zodiac's rights, but he knows better than to become a vigilante.

Still, the movie doesn't end there. It could have, and some bladder-challenged people with the attention spans of gnats probably think it should have. But that would miss the point that starts percolating beneath the surface with the casual revelation that it's a married couple of professors who initially crack the Zodiac's cipher. It comes up again when Avery can't quite believe that shy cartoonist Graysmith's accurate insights into the case arise from his taste for library books and puzzles. It hovers around Avery's ability to root out salient facts that the police miss. And it comes to full fruition in the last third of the film when Graysmith takes Avery's dismissive comments to heart and decides to research the case himself. Yes. When cops can't do the job, then it's best to let the bookish, non-macho types take over—especially when the target believes he's smarter than any cop. Nerds of the world, unite! Toschi is rogue enough to do a Deep Throat and point Graysmith in the right direction (the vague resemblance of the San Francisco Chronicle's cinematic newsroom to the Washington Post's in All the President's Men: discuss) because he knows that Graysmith can do things he can't.

His investigation doesn't turn Graysmith into a Callahan, either. Granted, no one will ever mistake Gyllenhaal for a young Eastwood (whom we never see in Zodiac), but as Graysmith, he remains resolutely stooped, reserved, and prone to fits of fear and anguish. Reading is his weapon of choice. Paperwork and neurotic dedication get him farther than any guns or knives could. And in case we didn't notice that he's still a dweeb, Fincher throws in a scary red herring visit to an ominous...repertory film projectionist (oh, the chills) that ends with Graysmith fleeing out of a shadowy basement rather than trying to kick some ass with a movie canister. His gut impulse is flight, not fight. It's easy to see why. He has a powerful brain. Body? Not so much.

Some have complained that Zodiac ends with a diffused whimper instead of a bang. It seems like it could end with a bang when yet another police detective finally gets the only Zodiac survivor who saw the killer's face to pick that face out of a line-up in 1991. But then it's cut to end titles. Oh, boo. Yet, when said suspect drops dead of a heart attack before he can be arrested, how else is the movie supposed to end? Toschi bursts into the funeral home with guns blazing to arrest the corpse? Come on. Besides, it's already become crystal clear that such action is not what this movie is about, nor what this movie favors. In this vein, the real end is the second-to-last scene. Having done his homework to completion, being the good Eagle Scout puzzle-solver he is, Graysmith gets to do what Toschi and Armstrong had done a decade earlier. He gets to fix the prime suspect with that "I'm on to you" stare when he tracks him to his job at a hardware store. That stare may not be a .44 Magnum. But—unlike the stares from Toschi and Armstrong—it is enough to make the intellectually arrogant killer quake on the inside. He knows that the unassuming brainiac looking him in the eye has beaten him at his game. And he no longer feels that lucky.


"Hot Fuzz": Kicking Ass at the Pub
By Lucia Bozzola, Apr 24, 2007Haven't you always wanted to jump through the air while firing two guns?

Some time in the mid-to-late 1990s, I got it into my grad school brain that the action genre had entered its baroque/parody period. See, genres apparently go through four stages of evolution (rather like the five stages of grief, one might say). Depending upon which theoretical treatise one reads, those stages have different names, but they are essentially the same—and there are always four. Generic conventions are "created," then they reach their state of classical perfection (whatever that is), and then they become self-aware (rather like the Terminator machines or the Cylons, I suppose). Finally, the genre descends into a state of exaggeration and artifice brought on by the kind of thorough, irony-drenched self-consciousness often labeled post-modernism. That is the baroque/parody stage. Purists, formalists, and all sorts of other old school prigs usually sniff at this stage because the works in question don't take themselves seriously. They revel only in mocking surfaces and conventions. Even worse, they're fun. Nicolas Cage sarcastically ranting in The Rock about men running around shooting guns because they're trying to work out their father issues? Hilarious. Geena Davis strapping on her white figure skates to pursue the bad guys in The Long Kiss Goodnight? Even more hilarious. There's one little caveat about that fourth stage, though. The only place the genre has to go after that is death...or at least on hiatus.

Obviously, my news of the action film's death was premature. That's the problem with listening to theorists. They always forget details like, oh, the real world, Hollywood production decisions, and audience tastes. For as long as there are filmmakers like Michael Bay, Antoine Fuqua, John Woo, Michael Mann, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Wolfgang Petersen, Jan De Bont, Kathryn Bigelow, Mimi Leder, James Cameron, and producer godfather Jerry Bruckheimer around, oh yes, there will be action. Big, loud, explosive action. And it'll just keep getting bigger, louder, and explodier as long as the audience eats it up—and Will Smith keeps agreeing to star in it. That's fine by me, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to howl with joyous mirth when a couple of British blokes decide to lovingly take the piss out of the current excessive state of the genre.

I suppose one of the supreme jokes of Hot Fuzz is that it's a great action movie. This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with writer-director Edgar Wright, writer-star Simon Pegg, and co-star Nick Frost's prior collaboration Shaun of the Dead, a zombie movie send-up that's also a great zombie movie. Wright, Pegg, and Frost know the conventions as well as Frost's movie-mad village bobby Danny Butterman, and they move through their paces accordingly. Car chases: yes. Fistfights: yes. Two-fisted gun battles: yes, yes, and double-yes. Meaningful wearing of sleek sunglasses: of course. The climactic battle pitting Pegg's righteous cop Nicholas Angel and his soul partner Butterman against a quaint town of gun-toting senior citizens is as enthralling as anything Bruckheimer et al. have done. Angel and Butterman's arsenal is also just as impressive—and I'll bet Will Smith never got a timely assist from a badass swan.

Now, one critic has mused that perhaps Hot Fuzz won't be the phenomenon anywhere else that it was in Great Britain because that kind of onscreen mayhem is business as usual for Americans and globally dominant American filmmaking. True, but that doesn't mean that one of the movie's most humorous jabs at the Bruckheimer-Bay mode is meaningless in the context of an American movie theater. For Hot Fuzz brings to the surface what's hovering around the margins of Cage's mockery in The Rock, the ice skating Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight, and, since it's one of Butterman's faves, the coiffed beauties in Point Break. Action movies tend to be just as much about the "spectacular bodies" of their physically formidable male heroes as they are about spectacular firepower. Yet there's something about those bodies and their macho presentation that can also be kind of, well, ridiculous (300, anyone?). It isn't just that the relationships between the male cop buddies in these movies always carry more heat and emotion than their connections with the obligatory love interests (which Pegg and Frost sass quite beautifully). It's also the overwrought visuals afforded these Men Of Action. That low angle, slo-mo pan around Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in Bad Boys II as they rise to the occasion likens them to law enforcement gods, and it's as absurd as it is grand. Bay and his ilk arguably get away with such excesses because the bodies on display are equally strong and glorious (op. cit. Shooter, Mark Wahlberg). But not in Hot Fuzz.

The sly prologue tells us many things about our Angel. He's highly trained, dedicated, and effective to the point of embarrassing everyone else on the London force. He's also fit. But though Pegg/Angel may be many things, one thing he is not is extraordinarily buff and pretty. He's the furthest thing from Will Smith or Keanu Reeves—until Frost's Butterman makes his slack-jawed, beer-soaked entrance in the local pub, that is. Indeed, Wright cheekily emphasizes that Hot Fuzz will be a no-glamour zone when he keeps an unbilled Cate Blanchett wrapped in CSI scrubs, complete with face mask, for her entire scene. Nevertheless, Wright gives Pegg the same worshipful treatment as American action stars. We see him lying on his bed at night squeezing one of those hand/forearm strengthener thingies—because he just can't take a break—but his arms won't strike terror in anyone's heart. He adds the toothpick and the sunglasses when it's time to get real. He rides into town armed to the teeth and gets the same looks Clint Eastwood gets whenever he rides into town in his westerns, but you're not going to bump into Pegg and mistake him for Clint any time soon. Angel is stridently average-looking, and Butterman is also stridently average-looking—plus he has a girth that would send American action stars screaming to their trainers. We know the money shot of Angel and Butterman shooting guns while jumping through the air in slow motion is coming (because Butterman wants nothing more—except to fire into the air and scream like Keanu in Point Break). Yet, it's still indescribably hysterical when it occurs because these are not the kinds of bodies we usually see flying through the air shooting guns. Quite the opposite. The same goes for that low angle, slo-mo pan. These are not action gods—these are the ordinary guys knocking back pints down at the corner pub. Besides, Angel and Butterman aren't the only people in that town who can wield two guns at once. The grizzled Reverend Shooter has a couple up his sleeves...and beware the sweet-looking biddy on that bicycle. All of that deadly serious, manly action is officially a laff-riot.

The final, wall-shattering fistfight between Angel and Timothy Dalton's oily rich guy Skinner is the definitive nail in the macho god coffin, and not just because Dalton once played James Bond (although that is a hoot). Whereas the fights in the Bruckheimer-Bay milieu tend to destroy lots of real estate (because the heroes are just sooooo strong), this one lays waste to...a miniature village. Our average man can't tower over his adversary, but hey, anyone can tower over a miniature village. Therein lies the fantasy-fulfilling, gut-busting pleasure of Hot Fuzz. Given the right circumstances, anyone can jump through the air firing two pistols. Even if you're a diminutive blond man or an overweight movie nerd. Take that, Michael Bay.

[crippled_avenger]

Obviously, my news of the action film's death was premature. That's the problem with listening to theorists. They always forget details like, oh, the real world, Hollywood production decisions, and audience tastes. For as long as there are filmmakers like Michael Bay, Antoine Fuqua, John Woo, Michael Mann, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Wolfgang Petersen, Jan De Bont, Kathryn Bigelow, Mimi Leder, James Cameron, and producer godfather Jerry Bruckheimer around, oh yes, there will be action. Big, loud, explosive action. And it'll just keep getting bigger, louder, and explodier as long as the audience eats it up—and Will Smith keeps agreeing to star in it.

Očigledno je da je kritičarka debil, pošto ukoliko samo ovlaš pogledamo listu autora koje navodi videćemo da su oni koji su boldovani odavno potpuno van Holivuda a naročito ne rade velike akcione filmove za brukhaimerične producente. Da ovi obeleženi crvenom nikada nisu radili akcione filmove per se, no kritičarka verovatno misli da su disaster drama DEEP IMPACT ili PEACEMAKER ma koliko različiti dovoljni da sirotu Mimi uzdigne od hackera do nekog reditelja koji biva ima neku karakteristiku. O Mannovom bežanju od klasičnog akcijaša da i ne govorim.

Dakle, ova kritičarka zapravo ne zna na koju tačno vrstu filma Wright i Pegg referišu. Pošto bi, da zna, znala da oni govore zapravo o karakterističnim Don Simpson produkcijama, uostalom na BAD BOYS II je već dobrano pokojni Simpson čak i potpisan, iako se Bruckheimer odavno potpisuje solo, a još više referišu na Joela Silvera, ali hajde da kažem da je Silver i izašao iz Simpsonovog šinjela pošto su počeli zajedno u Paramountu.

Neverovatno je da među ovim skupom gde su skupljeni uglavnom atipični reditelji za ono što ona misli da hoće da napiše nije stavila Richarda Donnera, čoveka koji se satro radeći tu vrstu filmova, ili recimo Hilla.

[crippled_avenger]

Rečju, užasno me nervira generalizacija koja vlada kada se priđe akcionom filmu, ili što je još gore istinski nepažljivo praćenje nekih vrlo očiglednih nijansi koje tu postoje.

[---]

kažem ti ja da je to sve vrlo ozbiljno... nije mala stvar.
mene, rečju, kod ovakvih tumačenja (naročito ih je feministička teorija puna) nervira što se pravi neki tanak kompromis između, na jednoj strani, specijalizovanih, kao veoma upućenih rasprava oko produkcije, žanrovskih obrazaca, režije i tehnologije, i, na drugoj strani, generalizacija/kategorizacija/zanemarivanja nijansi.
meni je ovo potonje ok, i ja volim to da čitam, to je tradicionalna arogancija teorijskog/filozofskog pristupa filmu, jer teorija operiše kategorijama, i naučna, filmološka "specijalizacija" je ne interesuje, što je sasvim ol rajt i tu se uvek čine nepravde prema tebi, koji znaš razlike između akcijaša.
kolateralna šteta teorije, pa šta da mu radiš.
pri tom ne mislim na teoriju koja je nekakvo pisanje o filmskim rediteljima i njihovim opusima, ili da li je ovaj žanr proistekao iz onog žanra, ili da je onaj tip filma uticao na pojavu star vorsa. mislim na onaj visoki teorijski diskurs koji je upotrebljavao, recimo, delez kada je pisao o filmu, i tu nijanse između akcijaša nisu čak ni tema. dekonstrukcionisti digli nos, mi ostali se nerviramo zbog njihovog prezira, i svakom svoje.
ovo što je pokušala ova simpatična curica je nekakvo miksovanje svega toga koje se napelo od bombastične želje da razori i analizira mačizam interpretirajući "testosteronske filmove", i uvede temu popularnog anti-edip "slabog subjekta" u igru, što bi bilo dobro kad bi imalo otresitosti da odjebe te filmološke trice i kučine oko brukhajmera, parodiranja zapleta i koječega, i krene da obrazlaže ono što hoće da dokaže. mis'im, ta tela koja pucaju a nisu tela kao kod vila smita a taj kadar je isti ko kod majkl beja - papazjanija.
ja ne bih baš rekao da je ona debil, ali bih rekao da ima lijepu zamisao koju traljavo pokušava da uobliči.

[ginger toxiqo 2 gafotas]

...i ja sam pogledao HOT FUZZ...

..."I feel I should say something smart!!!"

...u međuvremenu, mogu samo da kažem da je HF nešto najbolje što sam pogledao u 2007.- savršena smeša profesionalizma, šarma, usresređenosti, vrhunske veštine, odličnog ritma, duhovitosti, funkcionalno primenjene pismenosti, hrabrosti i intratekstualnosti...

...film za dugotrajno divljenje i često repriziranje...još uvek nisam načisto koji mi je delić omiljen, mnoooooooooooooooooogo je toga divnog ovde...zbilja!!!

*****Momci iz HF su, nakon La Butteovog zločina protekle godine, vratli dostojanstvo uspomeni na prvobitni THE WICKER MAN...