SHAUN OF THE DEAD/HOT FUZZ (Edgar Wright) Rating: NNNNN
At first glance, the films of Edgar Wright are expertly crafted genre pastiches – but only at first glance.
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Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz – both co-written by Wright with his star, Simon Pegg – aren’t pastiches at all, but perfectly calibrated contributions to their specific genres. And they’re both at the Bloor Saturday, with Wright himself on hand to present them.
Shaun (7 pm) isn’t just a romantic comedy with zombies, but one of the definitive films of this decade, an allegory about growing up that finds Pegg’s Shaun evolving from sluggish man-child to dynamic adult over the course of the undead plague, leaving his family and oafish best friend (Nick Frost) behind. Well, mostly.
Wright and Pegg’s next collaboration, Hot Fuzz (9:30 pm), takes the outsized buddy cop genre perfected by producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Joel Silver and dumps it in a sleepy English village, where transplanted London supercop Pegg and his complacent, movie-loving partner (Frost again) discover a sinister conspiracy behind a rash of accidental deaths.
Fuzz may not be quite as resonant as Shaun – the genre just doesn’t have the same gravity – but it’s a hell of a lot of fun just the same.
As a special treat, Wright will also be screening “an uncut version” of the brilliant spoof trailer he created for Grindhouse. If someone tells you to go for popcorn between movies… don’t.
Saturday (Feburary 28) at the Bloor Cinema.
