Review: “Hot Fuzz”
Directed by: Edgar Wright
Produced by: Nira Park, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
Written by: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg
Edited by: Chris Dickens
Cinematography by: Jess Hall
Music by: David Arnold
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Dalton, Paddy Considine, Rafe Spall, Kevin Eldon, Olivia Colman, Karl Johnson, Bill Bailey, Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan, Bill Nighy
Year: 2007
(Review is very mildly spoilery, though you’d have to be a dolt not to catch on quickly or guess what’s going to happen. You’ve been warned, regardless!)
“Funny, but took a while to build up to the comedy. Honestly, it could’ve been a lot more ridiculous in its humor, but it wasn’t bad. Shaun still rocks, though.”
That’s the entirety of my 3-star Flixster/Rotten Tomatoes review, which I wrote years ago and recently rediscovered while preparing for this review. I remember the mindset that was informing this review. I had watched a few sneak peak clips back when IGN.com used to be my primary source for movie news, and those brief, minutes-long clips had set my expectations for the entirety of the film as being something more akin to Reno 911 in an English countryside than what the film actually turned out to be: a loving tribute to ridiculous buddy cop/crime films – as filtered through the English countryside. Read more…
Review: “Attack the Block”
Directed by: Joe Cornish
Produced by: Nira Park & James Wilson; Jenny Borgars, Will Clarke, Olivier Courson, Matthew Justice, Tessa Ross, and Edgar Wright (exec. producers)
Written by: Joe Cornish
Starring: John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, Alex Esmail, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard, Luke Treadaway, Jumayn Hunter, Nick Frost
Music By: Steven Price
Year: 2011
I’ve read several of the major publication reviews of this film on Rotten Tomatoes (not all of them, but several), and it seems as though the general consensus regarding Attack the Block among many of the reviewers is that the film is ultimately a B-film that they happened to have enjoyed. Many, including some of the more favorable reviews, are quick to point out the film is a “satire” of genre tropes and a film more concerned about pacing than plotting. Read more…