Saturday, February 16, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Wise Words
- I saw the following on the Quote of the Day feed:
- Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Give a fish a man, and he'll eat for weeks!
- Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka and Toshihiro Kawabata, Animal Crossing: Wild World, 2005
This one caught my eye too:
- Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Hot Fuzz: It's Not Quite Shaun of the Dead, but what is?
Last week, I finally got to see Hot Fuzz on DVD. I had been looking forward to seeing it since it came out, but I just hadn't gotten the chance. I was worried that it couldn't live up to Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's previous film, Shaun of the Dead.
I didn't think it was quite as good as Shaun of the Dead, but I wasn't disappointed either. Of course the premise isn't as promising as a comedy zombie film, but they did well with it. Sgt. Nicholas Angel is the pride of London's police force. He would correct me here, and say it should be called the police service because "force" sounds too violent according to current language guidelines. That, combined with having an arrest rate 400% higher than the rest of the department, is why they can't stand him. He is therefore transferred to Sandford, Gloucestershire. It's an idyllic country village with no crime, where he becomes the Hollywood staple: The Fish Out Of Water. If that were the only joke, the movie wouldn't be funny very long. Fortunately for the audience, Sandford isn't as quiet as it seems. Although the crime rate is low-to-nonexistent, there is an alarming number of fatal "accidents." It doesn't require Angel's supercop perception to realize that there's something wrong in the village. Are the villagers and local constabulary really that dimwitted, or are they hiding something? You can probably guess the answer to that, but I doubt that many people would guess what happens after Angel makes that determination.
Hot Fuzz is definitely worth a rental. If you're the type who likes to re-watch movies like this which have so many details that you can't catch them all the first time, it's worth buying.
I didn't think it was quite as good as Shaun of the Dead, but I wasn't disappointed either. Of course the premise isn't as promising as a comedy zombie film, but they did well with it. Sgt. Nicholas Angel is the pride of London's police force. He would correct me here, and say it should be called the police service because "force" sounds too violent according to current language guidelines. That, combined with having an arrest rate 400% higher than the rest of the department, is why they can't stand him. He is therefore transferred to Sandford, Gloucestershire. It's an idyllic country village with no crime, where he becomes the Hollywood staple: The Fish Out Of Water. If that were the only joke, the movie wouldn't be funny very long. Fortunately for the audience, Sandford isn't as quiet as it seems. Although the crime rate is low-to-nonexistent, there is an alarming number of fatal "accidents." It doesn't require Angel's supercop perception to realize that there's something wrong in the village. Are the villagers and local constabulary really that dimwitted, or are they hiding something? You can probably guess the answer to that, but I doubt that many people would guess what happens after Angel makes that determination.
Hot Fuzz is definitely worth a rental. If you're the type who likes to re-watch movies like this which have so many details that you can't catch them all the first time, it's worth buying.
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