Simon's Movie Reviews

If a movie is made by filmmakers who hardcore genre fans, odds are those filmmakers are going to make sure fans like them are pleased. Thus the success of Shaun of the Dead (2004) is explained. Horror comedies can be a hard sell, and a British horror comedy even more so, but since co-writers Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg are both fans of George A. Romero’s Dead trilogy, they were going to honour the genre while having loads of fun. Fortunately for the audience, the result was a new zombie classic that was so good it earned Pegg and his frequent co-star Nick Frost cameos on Romero’s Land of the Dead . Before the movie came out Wright the director and co-stars Pegg and Frost had already made a name for themselves in the U.K with the sitcom Spaced , but it was Shaun of the Dead that put their names on the map. It was also the beginning of their Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, named after a running joke about the British ice cream product and its supposed effect as a hangover cure. ...

It seems to me that some of the best, or at least the most enthusiastic, filmmakers are film buffs themselves. Quentin Tarantino could tell you who did the lighting on every Western ever made and Martin Scorsese knows film preservation like Carl Sagan knows about outer space. British writers Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright know their zombie movies, hence the making of “Shaun of the Dead” in 2004. Since they also methodically watched action movie ever made, they teamed up again in 2007 for “Hot Fuzz,” which referenced everything from “Point Break” to “Bad Boys II.” I saw this movie with the perfect crowd for a movie made by action movie fans: other movie fans. It was part of a double feature organized by the film club at the University of Sherbrooke, and of course the other film was “Shaun of the Dead.” I am pretty sure somebody cheered when Nick Frost opens a door to reveal a room full of DVDs. Lets face it, if you’re not a movie nerd, it doesn’t seems like a very good idea...