Shaun of the Dead

Okay, so here we go with the Simon Pegg/Edgar Wright film that started off the whole shebang. Shaun of the Dead, that classic film that everyone and their mother owns (well my mom likes it in any case) truly is a spectacular romantic spoof about zombies. Let’s see if I can remember back to the first time I watched it…

Back when I first laid eyes on this film, I’m pretty sure I had no idea who Simon Pegg was. I hadn’t seen Spaced (not until much later) and I was woefully unaware of what hilarious

A wonderful cast doing it on the night.

antics lay before me in this film. Leave it to the British to be so damn clever that they turn a zombie movie into one of the funniest films of the last 10 years (soon to be followed by Hot Fuzz). The first in what hopes to be a trilogy entitled “The Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy” (every film so far has featured a Cornetto), I laughed hysterically (or at least I think I did back in 2004) to Shaun of the Dead.

A lot of the zombies in the film are shown in other scenes, and are fans of Spaced or just happened to be around the time of shooting.

Fantastic plot ensuing. Shaun (Simon Pegg) has an average life with a girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield) who expects a bit more from their relationship. Ed (Nick Frost) lives in a shared flat with Shaun and their dickish roommate Pete (Peter Serafinowicz), and every night ends at the Winchester pub. After Shaun was supposed to finally arrange a nice night out, he messes up after a scrambled day at work, and Liz breaks it off with him. Planning on doing anything to get her back, Shaun and Ed wake up the next day to a zombie apocalypse. Guess things’ll be a bit more complicated than planned.

Let’s start with the filming. This movie, which, in my adolescence I thought was directed by Simon Pegg, was creatively done by Edgar Wright. With the combined writing and direction powers of

See, it’s gotta be good, she’s smiling.

Wright/Pegg, there’s nothing they couldn’t do. This movie uses interesting and dramatic quick cuts, ominously toned music at ironic parts, and comedic timing within the camera angles and cuts. It does mean a lot for a camera’s direction and cinematography to dictate the pacing and comedy of a film. This one has that. You’ll see the same thing in Hot Fuzz (a more action-y edge) and Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs The World (a review I did a while ago).

That’s some classic Nighy right there.

The cast is also full of a bunch of wonderful British actors. Of course there’s the Simon Pegg/ Nick Frost bromance/friendship duo. It’s the only couple in Hollywood that I would consciously ship together despite just being two men who are friends. You have Dylan Moran, star of Black Books and the recently reviewed A Film With Me in It. This Irish actor plays the dick and four eyes, David. But he’s a lot more than that and shows up in other Simon Pegg vehicles. I give this guy his props, he’s damn funny. There’s Lucy Davis who plays the slightly slow failed actress, Dianne. Most British comedy fans will know of her from the UK’s Office as Dawn, one of my favorites (I currently worship Ricky Gervais).  There’s Bill Nighy, POTC’s Davy Jones and Underworld’s head vamp and one of my mom’s favorite British actors. A cameo is made by Rafe Spall, son of Timothy Spall as Noel, one of Shaun’s co-workers at the tech shop. He’s slimmed down a bit for other roles and most recently

The Wright stuff.

appeared in Prometheus (you gotta check him out, he’s going places).

This movie’s just a great watch and gets better every time you watch it with inside jokes and new groups of friends tuning in. (At least in my experience.) There’s nothing wrong with it, and it delivers on the horror fan and comedy fan that both dwell within me. If you’re any sort of a geek and love sci-fi/video games/movies/fantasy, this movie is for you. It’s a cricket bat to the head and worth all the injuries. 9.3 out of 10.

American Psycho 2: Patrick Bateman Is Shamed…

I am glad to hear the author of American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis, disowned this film. This film is trash. Being a gigantic fan of Mary Harron’s American Psycho, I went into this one knowing it wasn’t going to be as good as the first. But I had to idea how bad this was going to be. I was in for 90 minutes of comedic pain. This movie does in fact shame Patrick Bateman and his legacy.

So what should I say about this movie? Well, Mila Kunis is average. I’ve never expected much out of her from any film, so I’m never disappointed. Oh well… As for playing the

Wow, threatening…

psychotic main character who will ironically do anything to get into Quantico for criminal profiling? Oh how funny that is… When you see a movie and William Shatner is a better actor than a lot of the other people? That’s emotionally disturbing.

The plot. Rachel Newman (Mila Kunis) is taken on a special date with her babysitter. It’s Patrick Bateman, and you can bet it’s not Christian Bale. They got a toolish looking Cro-Magnon man to take the role of his stunt double or some shit. Rachel stabs him and this is the point that she decides she wants to kill other serial killers. What a rational and normal turning point for a 12 year old child. Let me also remind you the terror and gore in this movie is below par. Below humanly realistic levels. It’s SyFy $2,000 budget cheesy. Sickening in itself.

Giving the best actor in the film a back rub…

Now at a prestigious psychology school, Rachel plans to do anything to get to be Prof. Starkman’s (William Shatner) teaching assistant. She has 3 other competitors, so what do you think she does? Obviously asks them out to a diplomatic dinner or lets her grades do the talking. No, she kills them. Blandly. Thus becoming what she wanted to fight. How sad.

With a constantly running inner dialogue and cliche puns and lines, Mila Kunis attempts to embody a emotionless corpse. She accomplishes the emotionless thing. She’s not that good of an actress. She just looks good on camera. There’s a constant soundtrack overpowering the movie with some lighthearted

Thanks to whoever made this picture.

Lifetime channel “I’m beating my wife and it’s a dark secret” soundtrack. It’s awful, ruining any chance of a proper slasher scene.

There is no semblance of reality in a film that claims the opposite of American Psycho 1. First of all, I can’t call this American Psycho 2, so I’ll call this Psycho B.S. : The Movie No One Should See. Good running title. The police are terrible with missing person’s reports. The bumble around and allow Mila Kunis to kill in broad daylight. She chokes out this dude with a condom. How many B.S. flags do I need to raise? She leaves dead bodies lying around and has a rotting corpse in her closet. She would’ve been caught after attempting the first one. She’s in a COLLEGE DORM. There are people everywhere who would figure something is up. Everyone in this film is stupid.

Damn straight.

But what can I expect from a movie directed by Morgan J. Freeman. He’s the dude creating/directing all the 16 and Pregnant episodes. He’s perpetuating a idea that it’s cool to get pregnant in high school to be on T.V. Those girls don’t need attention, they need to be placed in boxes. That show is a what not to do when it comes to sex or anything of the sort when it comes to living. I don’t feel bad for them or Freeman’s work. It’s all shit.

Basically, don’t watch this movie. It is a travesty to American Psycho and horror movies everywhere. Case closed. 0 out of 10.

A Film With Me In It

Leave it to the Irish to create such a dark and twistedly funny take on Final Destination meets the saddest of all losers who has to deal with it. A Film With Me In It is the story of Mark (Mark Doherty, writer and brother of co-star David O’Doherty) and how his career as an actor is really never going to take off. This gives an ironic sense to the title of the movie, based around an actor I’ve never heard of and a lot of my readers may have never heard of. From the very beginning, Mark Doherty’s acting comes off as quiet and reclusive, mixed with a hell of a lot of timidity. Mix this with the violent actions of the film and you have one of the funniest U.K. films I’ve ever seen.

A little more about Mark, the character. He lives in a small flat with his old arsed dog, and his completely catatonic brother in a wheelchair,

Mark, the fall guy.

David (David O’Doherty, his actual brother, as I’ve already said. The O’ makes all the difference). Being an actual comedian, it’s funny to see him not be able to say a damn thing throughout the whole film. Residing with him in his small and rundown flat is his girlfriend, Sally (Amy Huberman). She’s sick of everything that needs to be repaired and basically wants to leave Mark. Living in the same building is Mark’s alcoholic and gambling addict friend, Pierce (Dylan Moran). Fulfilling his role as the stereotypical Irishman, he’ll go out and drink, try and become a playwright, and end up at the races.

This may look familiar to another film…

Mark’s apartment is a deathtrap. The lights barely work. The window to the garden is a pair of slapped knuckles waiting to happen. Everything wobbles and creaks no matter what they try and do. And their landlord, Jack (Keith Allen) refuses to help repair anything until the rent is paid. With Mark being an out of work actor, there’s not a witch’s teat in Hell that he can ever scrape up enough dough to even fix the light bulb eerily flashing in the kitchen.

And that’s where things start to become a problem. A rising body count and a lot of individuals sticking their noses in where they don’t belong causes Mark and his “accomplice” Pierce to have to create a scenario in which all of  these “sequential accidents” cannot be blamed on the two of them. With a quick wit and a lot of dark comedy that comes from body removal, these two dig themselves a grave. Can they even get out?

That silly O’Doherty doesn’t get to say a thing.

I sincerely loved this movie. I was laughing constantly at Dylan Moran’s lines of sarcastic pessimism and Mark’s inability to respond in any way. There are a lot of tragic things that happen in this movie, and its almost hard to laugh at some of them. The measures these two have to go to is well beyond absurd. It comes up to the point of downright cruel. But what the two get out of it is a great script and some ideas that could potentially make them criminals for life.

And there was such an eclectic cast in this film! There are the Doherty/O’Doherty brothers, one of whom is a comedian. The other, more of a sick joke comedian. Even Dylan Moran is a comedian. Keith Allen has done everything from music to movies, stand up, and writing. Aisling O’Sullivan is a renowned Irish actress that takes the part of the sweet small town policewoman (AKA Garda). Round that out with a sneak appearance by Jonathan Rhys Meyers and you have yourself a wonderful little cast of simple comedy.

There’s some serious criminal activity going down.

This movie is dark. And I’m talking pitch black. There’s death, dismemberment, and not a heavy tear shed for anyone but the dog. A man down on his luck and it gets so much worse is hard to watch onscreen, especially when he just takes it. You need some sort of silver lining for a character like that. Well don’t you fret, there is one. And it may be the best little shiny cloud you’ll see all year. I was thoroughly wrapped up in this movie and its characters to the point where I would give anything for them to get away with it. If you wanna know what happens, you should definitely watch this film. You might find yourself loving it as much as I did. Although, this movie wasn’t one with me in it. 9.7 out of 10.

 

 

 

And here’s a little taste of what you’re getting into.