Hot Fuzz-y wuzzies



Great, great, great flick. Plot summaries are lame, so I’m just going to fellate the filmmakers here, skip it if that bores you. Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost are guys I will pledge to buy unlimited beers for from now until the end of time. I could be living in a box with a jar of pennies as my last monetary possession and if these boys showed up, I would gladly use every last thin cent for their intoxication.

First of all, I would have agreed with this sentiment after seeing Shaun of the Dead- I wouldn’t have gone to the next-level hyperbole, but that movie gets nothing but love from me. The moment it became an on-pain-of-death oath was the invocation of Chinatown in Hot Fuzz. The second my brain processed it, laughed out loud (yes, I’m the annoying person behind you) only to be met with complete silence. From what I could tell, no one else in the theater got it or thought it was so clearly goddamned hilarious. Sure there was much laughing at the many action-love-fest lines, Bad Boys camera spins, Unforgiven main street reaction CUs and etcs, but not Chinatown?! It was an unmitigated moment of awesome. So Ed, Nick and Simon- you guys will always have a unlimited pint on credit with me.

It should be noted- I love good, fun over the top cheese for the sake of cheese. It’s a product of my childhood enjoyment of movies where I would see something impossible and not know it was impossible. The wonder, the innocence of movies, goddammit! That’s what it’s all about. This is just as important to me as delivering a message, making critical and important observations of humanity and culture, and all the wonderful things that movies do and why I love them. I appreciate reviewing History’s greatest tragedies and recognizing the emotions those sorts of films stir in me. And I like deconstucting an insanely complex metaphor as much as the next girl.

But I like watching shit blow the fuck up, too.

This is why I love Edgar Wright and Co, because they geniunely understand this sentiment and make films accordingly. And yeah, there’s a streak of bitch in me that likes getting jokes no one else does, but I try not to be obnoxious about it. I’m sure I fail spectacularly. But I’m not alone, and if you can appreciate any of this, then there should be plenty about Hot Fuzz that you’ll enjoy and I demand you watch it, blog about it, fucking whatever to raise these boys’ stock in the film industry (and I don’t even know if it’s even all that low, but where ever it is, it needs to be higher) because this is the stuff I want to see more of. And if you have a problem with that, I may have to kill you.

So much love.

ETA: Yes, I totally went out and bought a Peace lily.

Digital ac- dammit I need more coffee.



Yes, I’m fickle! All right?! You have no right to indict me for that! I did have some thoughts written for the Blog-o-thon and I had full good intentions of posting it, but time, she laughs at me.  I consider it a great victory that I already got my Nicholl and Austin packets mailed, BEFORE May even! And- AND! I’m outlining the new script, so take your superior timely blog updates and shaddup already. (I’m looking at you Unk and your 5 extensive, helpful posts in 6 days).

Speaking of the Unknown Screenwriter, his info about the Google Notebook is spot on- intuitive and excellent for outlining. Even the collabrative potential is kinda rad. I’m taking notes off the old yellow legal and throwing them into a notebook and it’s not even excrutiating or anything. Oh, Googles, you make my internets more than just comics and pr0n.

Speaking of internets, I got a Live Journal crossposter installed, so the old LJ may not be so comatose- although since the blog in general isn’t always crack and amphetamines, I can’t promise anything.

Meanwhile work has come along and forced me to wrap this up. If you’re bored and looking for something to do join Last.fm and be my friend!

See you on Tralfamadore…



Sad news greeted me this morning in the form of Mr. Kurt Vonnegut’s reported death. KV’s always represented to me, if not a level of genius to aspire to (because 1- I won’t even suggest I’m capable of any genius and 2- genius is a word I only feel comfortable assigning to cartoon coyotes), the exemplary nature and potential of calling yourself a writer. You live a life, you tell stories and you do it well. That is something to aspire to.

And because I do, I write.

And because there’s so much I’ve gained from his writing and commentary, (and because it’s my website and ‘whatevah! I do what I want!’) I want to post the rules for storytelling from KV:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Common sense- have respect for your reader. Anticipate the vermin. I think it’s useful applied to screenwriting or any writing. They remind me quite a bit of Mark Twain’s list of nineteen rules governing literary art from Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences , which isn’t surprising- but I’d do well to follow them both a little closer.

But as to KV, as to the loss of him and the sadness left behind, many will echo the sentiment. They will praise his profound and moving works. They will celebrate his most inestimable humanism. Some will discover. But above all we are moved by the kindness of what Vonnegut has shared.

So, it is with right and warrant that we belabor the obvious- read his books! His essays! Scour the tubes for TV appearances and speeches. Enjoy the fact, as I do, that there was at one time on this planet a man named Kurt Vonnegut who shared his distinct insight on humanity- the condition, humor and fragility of it. Revel that you shared a space of time with this man and perhaps then you can take comfort in knowing your understanding, kindness and humanity were furthered by this man. That’s what Kurt Vonnegut was to me.

So it goes.

mooseic



Hah! I just got John from KEXP to play Hendrix- All Along the Watchtower. Cylons!