Shaun Of The Dead ( * * * )
"The only thing That Will Redeem Mankind is cooperation!" So says Shaun to an ever-dwindling group of zombie-movie survivors in Shaun Of The Dead, a comedy written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, directed by Wright and starring Pegg. It's a formula movie in every sense, mixing romance formulas with horror movie formulas with comedy formulas until the mix is so frothy you're not sure what the hell you're looking at, except that it's pretty good, whatever it is.
The Acting: Top notch, BBC-trained cast. Compared to most American actors, actors who paid their dues in the BBC are Shakespearean by contrast. Fortunately, Shaun of the Dead doesn't suffer from piss-poor BBC TV production values. A lot of Brit TV personalities joined in, as there are almost 10 "himself/herself"s in the credits. Oh, and the dude and the chick from The Office are in it.
The Story: You really can't go wrong with a zombie story, especially one in which the populace is so drained of life that the main character is oblivious to the fact that there are zombies for a fourth or fifth of the film. And the twist at the end, well...let's just say that you'll never think of the word "fundead" the same way again.
The Direction: More restrained than Sam Raimi, more dynamic than Danny Boyle. Pitch-perfect, now that I think about it. The zombies are like the Gielguds of zombie films--my favorite is the "drunk girl" who they meet first. But fuck it, it's still in theatres--go judge for yourself, if you can find a theatre with a minimum of cell phones/pagers/babies/T.A.-A.'s.
Overall: Simon Pegg is a hero that we can all, unfortunately, identify with. A 29-year-old working in a dead-end retail job with only a tenous hold on his girlfriend and an obnoxious friend everyone else hates who spends all of his free time playing video games and drinking beer...actually, having said that, there are aspects of his life I find enviable. Still, I would characterize this movie as being Tarantino-esque in two ways, both good. There is a humorous Reservoir Dogs homage for one, and for another it reminded me of Pulp Fiction in that the scenes that I enjoyed seem to go on longer than they needed have, and the scenes I didn't enjoy went by blessedly quickly. And there was no scene as bad as the Butch/Fabienne scene, where she talked about getting a big pot belly. Jesus Christ.
Zombie movies ultimately cash in on our desire to kill people without societal consquences by creating a situation where if you don't kill someone it actually hurts society. The zombies have nothing to do with the equation: zombie movies are murder fantasies, straight up. The zombies themselves bite you, like animals, and half the fun is clubbing them to death like baby seals or shooting them like rabid dogs. Many weapons are used in Shaun of the Dead, including old LPs, cricket bats, an ornamental rifle, a drainage pipe (still in the ground, no less), machine guns, booze and fire. Fortunately for the humor of the film, wits is not one of the weapons.
Tredekka Rules:
The Acting: Top notch, BBC-trained cast. Compared to most American actors, actors who paid their dues in the BBC are Shakespearean by contrast. Fortunately, Shaun of the Dead doesn't suffer from piss-poor BBC TV production values. A lot of Brit TV personalities joined in, as there are almost 10 "himself/herself"s in the credits. Oh, and the dude and the chick from The Office are in it.
The Story: You really can't go wrong with a zombie story, especially one in which the populace is so drained of life that the main character is oblivious to the fact that there are zombies for a fourth or fifth of the film. And the twist at the end, well...let's just say that you'll never think of the word "fundead" the same way again.
The Direction: More restrained than Sam Raimi, more dynamic than Danny Boyle. Pitch-perfect, now that I think about it. The zombies are like the Gielguds of zombie films--my favorite is the "drunk girl" who they meet first. But fuck it, it's still in theatres--go judge for yourself, if you can find a theatre with a minimum of cell phones/pagers/babies/T.A.-A.'s.
Overall: Simon Pegg is a hero that we can all, unfortunately, identify with. A 29-year-old working in a dead-end retail job with only a tenous hold on his girlfriend and an obnoxious friend everyone else hates who spends all of his free time playing video games and drinking beer...actually, having said that, there are aspects of his life I find enviable. Still, I would characterize this movie as being Tarantino-esque in two ways, both good. There is a humorous Reservoir Dogs homage for one, and for another it reminded me of Pulp Fiction in that the scenes that I enjoyed seem to go on longer than they needed have, and the scenes I didn't enjoy went by blessedly quickly. And there was no scene as bad as the Butch/Fabienne scene, where she talked about getting a big pot belly. Jesus Christ.
Zombie movies ultimately cash in on our desire to kill people without societal consquences by creating a situation where if you don't kill someone it actually hurts society. The zombies have nothing to do with the equation: zombie movies are murder fantasies, straight up. The zombies themselves bite you, like animals, and half the fun is clubbing them to death like baby seals or shooting them like rabid dogs. Many weapons are used in Shaun of the Dead, including old LPs, cricket bats, an ornamental rifle, a drainage pipe (still in the ground, no less), machine guns, booze and fire. Fortunately for the humor of the film, wits is not one of the weapons.
Tredekka Rules:
- Rule 4: Sweet Actor Bonus--Martin Freeman, +1 point.
- Rule 5: Spitting = Good Acting. (By extension, so does slobbering all over yourself as a zombie) +1 point.
- Rule 7 (NEW RULE): Cameo By Human Intestines. +1 point.
Tredekka Score: ( * * * )
posted by Tredekka at 1:51 PM
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