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HOT! FUZZ!
Monday, 30 April 2007 07:22 amYou know me, sucker for self-consciousness. Give me any sort of text with a component of irony, postmodernism, intertextual reference or self-aware genre play, and I dissolve into a happy puddle of academic fangirliness. Especially if they're being meta about pop cultural wossnames. Therefore, it follows as the night the day that I heart Simon Pegg quite a lot. Spaced is simply all joy in the geeky reference department. Shaun of the Dead, now that I've finally forced myself to sit through all the bloody bits with entrails, is similarly self-conscious about its icky genre roots, offering affectionate recontextualisation which plays the zombie bit more or less dead serious against more character-based comedy and social satire.
Hot Fuzz was therefore something of a blissful experience - in fact, it had me helplessly giggling with the opening shot. As an affectionate parody of and homage to buddy action flicks, it's marvellous, playing entertaining games both with incongruity - American-style big-gun policing relocated to a sleepy British village - and with that peculiarly British ploy of simply extending a motif so far beyond the logical point where you'd think it had to stop, the original conceit is almost out of sight. (I associate this mostly with the Goon Show, actually, and certain moods of Monty Python. It always makes me very happy). The film is self-conscious on almost every level, not the least in Simon Pegg's hitherto unexpected ability to play dead against type. For a geeky slacker he does a darned good driven/intense, all the more effective because his previous roles lurk in the background, grinning.
The first part of the film is pretty darned good fun, playing nicely off the predictable/incongruous tension, and with a pleasantly reticent wit in its editing - I do like a movie which has the confidence to jump about a bit without feeling the need to spell out all the connections. Also, swan! However, the thing becomes deliriously, wonderfully funny about twenty minutes before the end, when it suddenly takes off in a mad, impossible, over-the-top direction which makes perfect sense in paradigm, but also made me spend those few seconds when I could think for giggling going "OMG! they're actually doing this for real! OMG!"
Dammit. Just writing this has made me want to go and see it again. Definitely one for the DVD collection, I'm sure there are bits I missed first time round. I may have to watch all of Spaced again first, I'm sure there are more references than I picked up. Darn.
More linkery, because that seems to be the deal at the moment, and also I promised jo. These are courtesy of The Very Short List, an exceedingly cool idea I nicked from Patroclus.
Hot Fuzz was therefore something of a blissful experience - in fact, it had me helplessly giggling with the opening shot. As an affectionate parody of and homage to buddy action flicks, it's marvellous, playing entertaining games both with incongruity - American-style big-gun policing relocated to a sleepy British village - and with that peculiarly British ploy of simply extending a motif so far beyond the logical point where you'd think it had to stop, the original conceit is almost out of sight. (I associate this mostly with the Goon Show, actually, and certain moods of Monty Python. It always makes me very happy). The film is self-conscious on almost every level, not the least in Simon Pegg's hitherto unexpected ability to play dead against type. For a geeky slacker he does a darned good driven/intense, all the more effective because his previous roles lurk in the background, grinning.
The first part of the film is pretty darned good fun, playing nicely off the predictable/incongruous tension, and with a pleasantly reticent wit in its editing - I do like a movie which has the confidence to jump about a bit without feeling the need to spell out all the connections. Also, swan! However, the thing becomes deliriously, wonderfully funny about twenty minutes before the end, when it suddenly takes off in a mad, impossible, over-the-top direction which makes perfect sense in paradigm, but also made me spend those few seconds when I could think for giggling going "OMG! they're actually doing this for real! OMG!"
Dammit. Just writing this has made me want to go and see it again. Definitely one for the DVD collection, I'm sure there are bits I missed first time round. I may have to watch all of Spaced again first, I'm sure there are more references than I picked up. Darn.
More linkery, because that seems to be the deal at the moment, and also I promised jo. These are courtesy of The Very Short List, an exceedingly cool idea I nicked from Patroclus.
- Denis Darzacq. He makes people float, in some of the most heartbreakingly beautiful urban photos I've ever seen.
- Sophe Lux. One of their reviewers identifies their sound as "Hyperliterate indie rock Victoriana", thank you for pushing my buttons. The music is operatic, textured, slightly glam and incredibly OTT. Hooked.
- Also, now that I have discovered the happy time-waster that is listening to odd bands on MySpace, The Fratellis. Tuneful, energetic, whimsical Scottish indie rock. "Whistle for the Choir" is currently my favourite track of the year, slightly superceding Belle & Sebastian. (What's with the Scottish thing, anyway?). This neatly brings this post full circle, since the Fratellis actually pop up on the Hot Fuzz soundtrack. It's all connected.
 | Bunny Threat Level: bleah. |
