Hot Fuzz

Started by modage, March 08, 2005, 12:52:12 PM

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modage

SO HAPPY right now.

ATTN: NYC
Film Comment Selects
Hot Fuzz
April 10: 8:30

Screening followed by an onstage conversation with director Edgar Wright and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

Tickets are $20 for Film Society members and $25 for the general public. Admission includes a complimentary ticket to the 6pm screening of Electra Glide in Blue.
http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/hotfuzz.html
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Kal

It was a huge success already opening in Europe... so I think they will seriously consider doing a wide release here.

modage

i think you hate any british comedy that crosses over to america.  except maybe monty python or faulty towers.  true?
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

grand theft sparrow

Come on, mod.  Garam's review was exactly what I was hoping it would be.  I'm more excited than ever and you should be too!

Just don't tell him Peep Show is available on DVD here.

modage

thought so.  thanks!

Peep Show is in my Queue so you have done your work.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

MacGuffin

Hot Fuzztivals Are Coming!

Hot Fuzz, the hit action comedy from the U.K., is headed your way! Writer/director Edgar Wright, writer/star Simon Pegg, and star Nick Frost (the whole team from Shaun of the Dead) are coming to the U.S. -- armed with rare theatrical prints and showings of some Cop Movie classics, plus a sneak peek at their own Hot Fuzz (weeks in advance of its April 20th release in the U.S. from Rogue Pictures). Hot Fuzztivals will be held in select cities (see below), with the Hot Fuzz gang on hand for Q&As. Here come the FUZZ!

WASHINGTON DC
Date: Friday, March 23
Details: A screening of Die Hard followed by HOT FUZZ with Q & A featuring Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Location: Arlington Cinema N Drafthouse, 2903 Columbia Pike, Arlington VA
For more information or to get tickets, please contact: Mike Jesson at mjesson@alliedadvpub.com

BOSTON
Date: Friday, March 16 - Thursday, March 29
Details: Hot Fuzztival Boston will run over the course of 10 days, with the highlight being HOT FUZZ (3/25) with Q & A to follow featuring Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Additional screenings include The French Connection and Dirty Harry (3/16 & 3/17), Lethal Weapon (3/18), Hard-Boiled (3/19 & 3/20), The Super Cops (3/21), Electra Glide In Blue (3/26), Bullitt (3/27), Dead and Buried & The Hidden (3/28), and Infernal Affairs (3/29).
Location: The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA
For more information or to get tickets, please contact: Phyllis Mercurio at pmercurio@alliedadvpub.com

CHICAGO
Date: Sunday, March 25 - Monday, March 26
Details: Hot Fuzztival Chicago will run over the course of two days with screenings of To Live & Die in L.A., Infernal Affairs, and Point Break on Sunday, March 25 at the Brew & View theatre.
On Monday, March 26th HOT FUZZ will screen at the AMC River East followed by Q&A with Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Locations: Brew & View theatre, 3145 N. Sheffield in Chicago; AMC River East, 322 East Illinois, Chicago 60611
For more information or to get tickets, please contact: Lara Golubowski at lara@thaweb.com

ATLANTA
Date: Monday, March 26 - Wednesday, March 28
Details: Hot Fuzztival Atlanta will run over the course of three evenings with screenings of LA Confidential (3/26), Bad Boys II (3/27) followed by HOT FUZZ (3/28) with Q & A to follow featuring Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Locations: Palace Theatre, 1049 Ponce de Leon Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30306
For more information or to get tickets, please contact: Marci Miller mmiller@alliedadvpub.com

SAN FRANCISCO
Date: Tuesday, March 27 - Tuesday, April 3
Details: Hot Fuzztival San Francisco will run over the course of four evenings with screenings of Point Break (3/27), Training Day (3/28), L.A. Confidential (3/29) followed by HOT FUZZ (4/3) with Q & A featuring Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Locations: Landmark Lumiere Theater, 1572 California Street, San Francisco; Landmark Embarcadero Center Cinemas, One Embarcadero Center, San Francisco; Landmark Clay Theater, 2261 Fillmore Street, San Francisco
For more information or to get tickets, please contact: John Weaver at jweaver@thaweb.com

DALLAS
Date: Thursday, March 29
Details: A screening of Bad Boys II followed by HOT FUZZ with Q & A to follow featuring Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Location: AMC Northpark 15, 8687 N. Central Expressway, Dallas
For more information or to get tickets, please contact: Sally Smolenski at ssmolensi@moroch.com

AUSTIN
Date: Saturday, March 31
Details: Screenings of Police Story 2, Freebie & The Bean, Sudden Impact and Electra Glide In Blue followed by HOT FUZZ with Q & A to follow featuring Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Location: Alamo Drafthouse Downtown, 409 Colorado Street, Austin
For more information or to get tickets, please contact: Lawrence Wilczewski at lwilczewski@moroch.com

SEATTLE
Date: Monday, April 2
Details: A screening of Bullitt followed by HOT FUZZ with Q & A to follow with Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Location: Landmark Varsity Theater, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle
For more information or to get tickets, please contact: Amanda Bedell at abedell@thaweb.com

LOS ANGELES
Date: Saturday, April 7 - Series starts at 6:00 PM
Details: A screening of HOT FUZZ followed by a Q&A featuring Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost; as well as screenings of Hard Boiled and Point Break.
Location: The Aero Theater, 1328 Montana Avenue (at 14th Street), Santa Monica, CA.
Tickets are $10 general, $8 Student/Senior, $7 AC members and will be on sale at Fandango.com, for more information visit www.americancinematheque.com

NEW YORK
Date: Tuesday, April 10
Details: A screening of Electra Glide in Blue introduced by Edgar Wright followed by HOT FUZZ with Q & A featuring with Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Location: Film Society of Lincoln Center/Walter Reade Theater - 70 Lincoln Center Plaza
For more information or to get tickets, please visit: www.filmlinc.com
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

modage

Interview With Edgar Wright
Source: IGN

'Hot Fuzz', the cop-shop follow-up to the cult smash Shaun of the Dead, is nearing its theatrical release in Australia, with the US soon to follow. On the recent publicity circuit around Australia, we caught up with director Edgar Wright and picked his brain on the experience of making his latest flick. We managed to extract some juicy facts on the eventual DVD release of 'Hot Fuzz', as well as his thoughts on violence and film classification, roping in big-ticket stars and how he hopes to one-up the Hollywood producers at their own game.

IGN: How did you get into filmmaking? And from where did 'Hot Fuzz' evolve?

Edgar Wright: I used to make amateur films when I was a teenager. My dad gave my brother a Super 8 camera, and we were both interested in films and animation - my brother was really good at animation - so we started to make shorts on Super 8. All of the shorts I used to make were really silly and quite kind of spoofish and stuff. Then I won a competition on a BBC TV show and I won a video camera, which I otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford.

I just started kind of making longer films. Through sort of the ages of 14 to 20 I just kept making my little pastiches and stuff. And it had the same sort of humour as 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz', in a way - but much more spoofy and silly. I used to make westerns and superhero films, and I made a cop film when I was 18, which was a weird kind of dry-run for 'Hot Fuzz' - which might be on the DVD. It would be pretty funny to see a teenage cop film.

IGN: Did you have to cut much from 'Hot Fuzz', in terms of whole scenes?


Edgar Wright: Ah yeah, actually. Half-an-hour's worth of stuff. A couple of whole scenes, but usually the deletings are like trims, where we nipped bits out of scenes all the way through. When we finished the first cut of the film, we were like two hours 20 minutes long, and we cut it down to two-and-a-quarter, and two-and-five minutes - and we got it down to two hours. It's that kind of process - both for jokes, but also for clarity and stuff. I'd much rather things be at their own pace and all the transitions work and the whole thing is slick.

IGN: One thing we noticed during our viewing is that the pacing is better in 'Hot Fuzz', than in 'Shaun of the Dead'.

Edgar Wright: Yeah, yeah - It's interesting, because for some, the ending [of 'Shaun of the Dead' ] kind of polarised some people. The critical response has been really good, but some of the 'negative' things was that it had "too many endings" - have they never seen any action films? Have they never seen 'Con Air'? Or 'Speed'? 'Die Hard With a Vengeance'? All those action films where we were thinking, "Hang on a minute... did they really need to do that?" - 'Bad Boys II' being the most classic example. After the two-hour-mark has already gone past, somebody says, "Let's go to Cuba!" Yeah. Let's decamp to Cuba... It's almost like there's a bonus episode at the end of the film. It should be called 'Bad Boys II-and-a-half'!

What I always felt when I watched 'Shaun of the Dead'' is that it was a bit more compromised than 'Hot Fuzz' in terms of it was a low budget. The original action at the end of 'Shaun of the Dead' was supposed to have a lot more going on, but because of budget and time constraints, we didn't film it. With 'Shaun', I was really pleased with it, but I always felt like it hit its high-point in the middle - with 'Hot Fuzz', we wanted it to hit its high-point at the end, so it goes increasingly insane.

IGN: It does take a right-turn, halfway though the film, that nobody was really expecting.

Edgar Wright: Kind of; but it was a slow-burn sort of the whole way through. All the signs are there. I mean, I hope when people watch it a second or third time, they spot all of the foreshadowing. Even things that seemed nice in characters - who are on the surface very wholesome - are actually predicting things that are going to happen later. We like having a running-gag, similar to Shaun; the unlucky characters who kind of predict their own doom. So you have lines like, "Oh, we haven't got long..." and a cut to a scene of wham! Or a lady closing up her shop, saying, "Oh! I was just about to pop off," and whoomph.

IGN: You've made the jump from TV to film - which isn't always easy to do. Why did you move across to cinema?

Edgar Wright: Well, I wouldn't really class 'A Fistful of Fingers' as a film! (laughs!)

It's shot on film, but the stuff I did on TV is much more... ah, well, I did that film when I was 20 and it was powered along by naivety - like this naive energy. When I edited A Fist Full of Fingers, I wasn't that happy with it. And I got really, really depressed because I realised I'd committed something to film. This was permanent; and I was thinking, "Shit" you know. "What have I done? This is there forever now." But I did well enough out of it - I got my agent out of it, I got my first TV gig. Unlike the Coen brothers, Sam Raimi or Tarrantino, who knocked their first ones out of the park, I felt like doing that first film was a stumble. Doing TV was like going to college.

IGN: Was there ever any pressure from Working Title to tone down the violence - which is excellent and deeply satisfying - particularly the church spire impaling sequence!

Edgar Wright: There wasn't actually. I must admit, when I was editing it I suddenly started to panic and thought we were going to get a higher rating. I think if there had been a ratings-issue, then maybe we'd cut it - if we'd gotten an 18+ rating, we'd definitely be under pressure to cut it - but we got passed with a 15. For my money, for a film that features two uses of the word 'c%$!', somebody's head getting ker-splattered, somebody else getting impaled, somebody else getting stabbed - multiple nasty blows and stuff - I think it's pretty good going! The censors are going easy for once!

IGN: Part of 'Hot Fuzz''s charm, like 'Shaun' before it, is its "Englishness". Is it hard to translate that kind of culture and humour into something for your average American?

Edgar Wright: We'll maybe for non-English speaking audiences. Some of the dialogue stuff gets lost. I think Australia, New Zealand, The States, Canada - I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think that, from what I've seen in terms of audiences here and in The States, they totally get it. I mean, nobody wants to see a standardised version of 'Amelie', do they? They want it to be as French as it can possibly be. The joke here though, which confuses the issue even further is, 'Hot Fuzz' is on one hand incredibly British, and yet, on the other hand is trying to be American. So in the last half of the film, it goes more and more into Bruckheimer-mode.

IGN: You didn't approach Bruckheimer, did you, with this?

Edgar Wright: No, but I want him to see it! I keep saying to them, "You have to show him!" And Tony Scott. And Joel Silver. I want them to see it. Shane Black saw it and he loved it; he actually issued a press statement saying, "On behalf of the nation, I demand a sequel!"

IGN: 'Hot Fuzz'' has an outstanding cast. How did you go about sourcing the number of quality actors? Is it a tight-knit community over there?

Edgar Wright: Some people came to us - Jim Broadbent and Paddy Constantine approached us, saying how much they loved 'Shaun' and how they wanted to work with us in the future. As such, you start writing roles with them in mind. Then there are others who you write with them in mind, such as Edward Woodward and Stuart Wilson and Timothy Dalton. And you kind of think, "Well, they'd be our first choice," and we were lucky enough to get them.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost Talk Fuzz

Source: IGN

For fans of UK comedy, some series stand head and shoulders above their rivals. 'Fawlty Towers' was one; 'Monty Python' another. Recently, 'Spaced' joined those ranks, recognised with BAFTAs and a multitude of loyal fans. Series co-writer and star Simon Pegg, with co-star Nick Frost, used their exposure from this seminal show to leap into films in a big and gory way with 'Shaun of the Dead'.

Now, on the cusp of international glory with their second hit-to-be, 'Hot Fuzz', we sat down with the pair who were pleasingly candid in their discussion of the industry, their approaches to acting, love for comic book writer Garth Ennis and what lies ahead for their "trilogy-that-isn't." You can read our interview with the director, Edgar Wright, here.

IGN: How long have you two and Edgar Wright been working together now? Where did you first work together?

Simon Pegg: For Edgar, he was always going to get into films. For him, I think ''Spaced'' was kind of a proving-ground. I was writing it with Jessica and Edgar was script-editing it, so he had an input and I always would consider him to be the third writer of the show. Obviously, a huge part of his personality was the aesthetic of it as well.

My first job with Edgar with ten years ago, on a show called 'Asylum', which was on the Paramount comedy channel back at home. I was working on another show six days a week and doing 'Asylum' on Sundays - and I hated it, because it was taking up all my private time. And I was working with this guy who seemed like such a stickler for detail. And when I eventually saw 'Asylum', I kind of realised exactly why Edgar was like this; because he was just inordinately talented. When we came to write 'Spaced' a year later, Edgar was the first person I thought of. He was the only person I knew could possibly interpret what we were going to write.

He eats and sleeps and breathes film - and has done since he was young. I think it's no surprise that he's been adopted by the likes of Peter Jackson and Quentin Tarantino because I think they see something of themselves in him. They're film fans who became filmmakers.

IGN: What is it like, shifting into film and out of television? Is it a totally different experience? Has it changed your perspective of the entertainment industry?

Nick Frost: For us, it hasn't changed. It's always been the three of us and our producer; we're in the same office. It's as it has been for us for 10 years.

Simon Pegg: And we're just about to move office, actually - which will be strange - because it will feel different. We're just getting some better premises I think, but the feeling when we're all together is that it's just the same. When you walk out onto a red carpet and everyone is going a bit mad, it can be a bit overwhelming.

Nick Frost: It's been a bit odd as well; it's happened a couple of times where we'll come out of a hotel in New York and there are people waiting for our autographs - like we're Take That or Ringo Starr or something!

IGN: Is it surprising how well 'Shaun of the Dead' was received by American and Australian/ non-British audiences?

Simon Pegg: I kind of hoped that it would travel. We were resolutely British about it because we didn't think people would appreciate being patronised. You don't want to try to be trans-Atlantic or try to appeal to everybody. It was always our rule with 'Spaced' - if you're specific, you'll find there are a lot of people who feel the same way. If you try to generalise, you'll lose everybody. It was a nice validation of that risk; that did play well abroad.

IGN: And did that success make it easier to get support behind 'Hot Fuzz'? Will it perform even better, since half the film is a straight-up Hollywood-style action flick? Albeit, with a unique twist.

Simon Pegg: I think they'll get it. I think the Americans will get it. What we were doing was sort of adopting an American tradition in a way. And around the world, people will get it because we all consume that tradition - but in America, I think it'll be most keenly felt.

It's nice to think that that kind of fan-base we've built up throughout our TV stuff and 'Shaun of the Dead' will vote with their feet, if you will, to go and see 'Hot Fuzz'.

But I'm really glad we moved away from 'The 300' [in The States], because that would've killed it. It would've pushed us over a cliff! Of course, 'The 300' is amazing because the slow-motion is exactly what a fan would do with a remote control. You'd just be slowing it down and speeding it up and slowing it down, because it is spectacular visually. Frank Miller has done very well out of his adaptations - Alan Moore seems to be very unlucky.

IGN: Actually, this raises an interesting tangential question - well-known comic book author Garth Ennis, of Preacher fame, has created a character based on your likeness for his series, 'The Boys'. Were you involved there? Or is this just eerie coincidence?

Simon Pegg: Darick Robertson, who's the artist on 'The Boys', he was a fan of 'Spaced'. When he was coming up with the conceptual designs for Wee Hughie he based it on me. And it was before 'Shaun of the Dead' hit and suddenly my profile went big in America and I had to sign a contract saying I wouldn't sue because of likeness rights! He copied pictures of me, and in some images I can see what photos he's taken it from.

I love Garth Ennis - I'm a great 'Preacher' fan, so what I'm doing at the moment is I'm going to write the forward for the trade paperback of The Boys.

IGN: No kidding! And what are your thoughts on the 'Preacher' HBO miniseries?

Simon Pegg: It'd be great to play Cassidy or something like that.

IGN: Have you been approached?

Simon Pegg: I don't know if they're doing that - I mean, they're big comic books, I'd like to be a part of it. I think it would be a shame to have to water it down for television or film, because it is so, so over-the-top. I put the rumour out there a long time ago that I was interested in playing 'Rorschach' in 'Watchmen', just because, with Land of the Dead, me and Edgar put the rumour out that we were in, and that's how we were in it! By putting the rumour out - and it came true!

Well, Nick and I, we did a thing on our last American tour, decided to spread a rumour just to see how quickly it got back to us. So Nick and I and Edgar said that we were doing an adaptation of the British cartoon 'Danger Mouse' and it got back to us two days later! And then, people who were producing the DVD collector's version of 'Danger Mouse' approached us to revoice two new cartoons! Talk about self-fulfilling prophesies!

IGN: Nick, you've played a few of the 'bumbling' sidekick roles - is this kind of your preference? Or would you like to see a bit of a role-reversal between the two of you some time?

Nick Frost: Well, my personal view on it is that I'd hate people to get bored with the dynamic. I think that's something we'd look at, yeah.

Simon Pegg: I guess the next thing we do, there will be a difference. In the same way that 'Nicholas Angel' is different to 'Shaun' and also from 'Tim' in 'Spaced'. I had that sort of criticism levelled at me after 'Shaun of the Dead' where up to that point I'd really only played slacker guys. So it was important with 'Hot Fuzz' to write a character that was so far from those.


IGN: And was this more uptight, straight-laced character harder to perform? Particularly when standing next to Nick, who's probably pulling faces?


Simon Pegg: It was the hardest thing I've ever done - to act - and not pull faces and be funny and be silly like I like to. When we write, I think it's fair to say we don't write selfishly. To quote the film, me and Edgar will think of "the greater good". For the comedy to work, you have to have this character who is almost like a humourless automaton, so that his reaction to 'Danny' and 'Sandford' works really well. If that means having to occupy that character, then that's what I'll do - for the good of the film.

Nick Frost: And it was quite a classic way of doing things, as well. The straight guy is always the central character and all the other weirdos just rotate around him.

Simon Pegg: There's an extra feature on the DVD which is just me pulling funny faces at the camera, because I would have these sort of little explosions after every take. I'd have to deliver everything like Mr. Spock, and then when Edgar would call cut, I would go "Hnnnghhh!" to rid myself of it!

IGN: After two genre flicks under your belts, what's the next step for you both? Sci-fi? A romantic period comedy? And is it fair to say that Edgar will be intrinsically involved?

Simon Pegg: We're all genre fans - and the reason we did a cop film and a zombie film is because we love those genres. It also happens that we're comedy writers, so we had to have our cake and eat it.

Nick and I are writing something together at the moment which has a sort of Sci-Fi edge, but it's not really a take on that genre - it's a comedy within it.

IGN: Is this for film?

Simon Pegg: Yeah, it is; and it's something we're gonna do and Edgar is going to be involved on a production-level - hopefully as a script-editor. Maybe not as a director; he's got other projects he wants to do in the interim.

But Edgar and myself, we started talking about our next project, which will be the third in the run of films that started with 'Shaun'. We made a mistake with 'Hot Fuzz', in that we came up with the idea very early on after 'Shaun of the Dead' - and the name. So when people asked what we were doing, we said 'It's 'Hot Fuzz'." And it became a thing; it became an entity before it was even written.

Nick Frost: It was 'birthed'.

Simon Pegg: Yeah, it was birthed before we'd even started writing it. People would be going, "So where's 'Hot Fuzz'?" And I'd be, "I dunno! We haven't even started writing!" So at this point, we've decided to say nothing about our next project until we're shooting it and it becomes unavoidable. That way, we won't be hassled to finish it.

Nick Frost: Then there's also that thing that, when we said 'Hot Fuzz' is coming out, people had to wait two years for it. If you don't say anything about it, then when you start shooting it's like, "It's called so-and-so and it's about this," and they only have to wait ten months for it.

Simon Pegg: I think, a great sort of metaphor that Nick uses is that you don't speak about a project until its had its 'three-month scan'. It's like having a baby. So with our new project, we're already writing it now and we're into it and have a story and characters and everything - and it has one of the greatest jokes we've ever written - but I can't tell you that. But we're going to keep a lid on it until we're shooting.

IGN: Well, in that case, I hope the birth goes well!


Simon Pegg: Thank you very much! Hopefully it won't be a C-section!

Nick Frost: See you after the first trimester!
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Ravi

Aw, come on, Garam, it wasn't that bad.  I saw it today and thought it was a really funny send-up of action films, with some Wicker Man thrown in for good measure.  I agree that Timothy Dalton and Paddy Considine were great.  Especially Dalton.  The other actors like Jim Broadbent were perhaps underused, but their presence in the film did not hurt the film, and in fact added to the credibility of their characters in the story.  If they were all a bunch of mugging amateurs it would have been annoying.  The ending was practically out of another film, but it was so much fun that it didn't matter.  Overall it didn't quite come together as well as SotD, but its nonetheless very funny.  Its definitely more of a parody movie than SotD, which was more a funny zombie movie than a parody of zombie movies.  Nothing wrong with that, but don't expect something else.

Weak2ndAct

*Sigh* What a confused film.  When did classic action movies have hooded axe-wielding villains?  The opening and the ending are more on par with the action genre, though what happened in the middle?  For what's supposed to be a send-up of the action genre, this was more of a bloody "Wicker Man" riff than anything.  Though I appreciate great kills (and the movie does have an amazing one), they feel like they belong in another film. 

Where are the stakeouts?  Where's the scene where the characters go undercover?  Where's the torture scene?

Stylistically, some of the editing made me nauseous.  I don't see the point of the ADD mugshot moments.  And the plot device that gets the guns in town could be the laziest writing ever committed to film. 

Though all that being said, I didn't hate the film.  It's like an A student turned in a C paper.  You just expect better.

pete

"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

RegularKarate

Weak's review fits that smug avatar so much.

I saw it again last Friday and it's still a pretty damn great movie.

polkablues

Quote from: Weak2ndAct on April 22, 2007, 12:06:21 AM
*Sigh* What a confused film.  When did classic action movies have hooded axe-wielding villains?  The opening and the ending are more on par with the action genre, though what happened in the middle?  For what's supposed to be a send-up of the action genre, this was more of a bloody "Wicker Man" riff than anything.  Though I appreciate great kills (and the movie does have an amazing one), they feel like they belong in another film. 

Where are the stakeouts?  Where's the scene where the characters go undercover?  Where's the torture scene?

This critique would make sense if the movie was meant to be a direct parody of those films, in the way that "Scary Movie" or "Airplane!" were.  But it's not.  So it doesn't.
My house, my rules, my coffee

SiliasRuby

Saw thos last night and had soo much fun. I had such a great time that early this morning, I wanted to know when the DVD was coming out. Well, in England, June 12th.
The Beatles know Jesus Christ has returned to Earth and is in Los Angeles.

When you are getting fucked by the big corporations remember to use a condom.

There was a FISH in the perkalater!!!

My Collection

ponceludon

I think it's inescapable to compare this to Shaun of the Dead because it's nearly the exact team who made both (unless I'm wrong, anyway), but I think I know why it's not QUITE as good.

I think the action genre, while rich and full of incredibly hilarious cliches that pretty much sets themselves up for gags, is not the same as the zombie genre. There seems to be a common thread among all zombie movies, sort of a set of rules for them that set them apart from all other kinds of horror, besides the fact that there are walking dead people. There's almost a community among aficionados who can quote everything from Night of the Living Dead to 28 Days Later. Action movies, however, are much more broad, and there are less rules for them. There's also a lot more that qualify as action. Therefore, there's less of a formula to play with.

But at the same time there are plenty of things that were hilarious in Hot Fuzz: slow motion gunfights, the bombastic music, the helicopter, car chases, cheesy one-liners, smug villains, etc etc. It doesn't have eeeeverything, but there is hardly room for it all in a standard 2-hour movie. There aren't any stakeouts or undercover missions, but there is a hell of a lot of stuff in it. Shaun of the Dead was able to put in nearly every cliche and reference to nearly every zombie movie because there's less to work with. That's all. It's less satisfying, I agree, but I thought it was a great effort.

That being said, it was kind of a waste of Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan and Bill Nighy.

john

I loved this film.

I don't think I could critically, or intellectually, dissect this film to validate my reaction to it - or argue with it's detractors.

I'm not even a fan of the rapid-fire, quick editing style most of the film parodies. To the effect that, even as satire, I'd presume it would get on my nerves. But this was exceptionally edited.

The best thing I've read about this film is from Harry Knowles Grindhouse review, where he said the only way to make that film more epically enjoyable would be to add Hot Fuzz and make a triple feature. So hopefully some drive-in or second-run theatre ends up putting these together for some reason.

After Shaun, the Don't trailer, and this... I really think Wright and Co. have a tremendous knowledge and love of these genres, and every niche in them. And, not only do they have the knowledge, they can actually execute it to great extent.

It's parody, but it's also not. Maybe it's cinema through osmosis, but it's definitely better than any spoof that has been dumped into theatres as of late.

Or...ever, in my opinion... as Kentucky Fried Movie, Airplane!, and the like never did much for me.
Maybe every day is Saturday morning.