Reivew: Hot Fuzz

By Ben Sweeney

Director Edgar Wright recently said that he and writing partner Simon Pegg revealed the title of their new film Hot Fuzz too early. The script had yet to be written but already the internet was clamoring for a buddy cop film from the creators of Shaun of the Dead (and the amazing BBC sitcom Spaced). He said he felt pressured to deliver this unrealized film and almost abandoned the idea. Thankfully he didn’t. Hot Fuzz delivers on all of the hype and promise built up around the fantastically silly title.

Nick Frost, Simon Pegg and cohorts in Hot Fuzz

At a recent advance screening Wright described the mood of Hot Fuzz as “Agatha Christie being ridden roughly from behind by Michael Bay.” The film does for police action films what Shaun of the Dead did for zombie flicks and romantic comedies; parodying the source material while simultaneously glorifying and reveling in a deep love for it. Hot Fuzz is equal parts comedy and action flick and neither characteristic falls short of the mark.

The film begins with a montage describing Sergeant Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) as a by the book, zero tolerance, London super cop. He is so good that he makes the rest of the force look bad in comparison, so his superiors (Bill Nighy, Martin Freeman, and Steve Coogan in the first of many cameos by some of England’s top comedic actors) transfer him to the sleepy country village of Sanford to get him out of the way. There he is partnered with Danny Butterman (Nick Frost, also of Shaun of the Dead and Spaced), the bumbling son of the local police chief (Jim Broadbent), and meets the rest of Sanford’s finest. The local police force is completely inactive and totally ambivalent to minor infractions like underage drinking and public urination. He immediately shakes things up and ends up arresting half the town on his first night only to be stymied by the chief’s insistence that a good talking to and maybe some ice cream can solve any problem.

Sanford’s police force is a jumble of great characters but the highlight of Angel’s new colleagues are the Andys (played by Paddy Considine and Rafe Spall), a pair of inspectors who live to antagonize Angel and Danny with juvenile taunts and practical jokes. The mustachioed pair steal every scene they’re in and provide some great comedic interactions with our heroes. Sanford is also populated with a large cast made up of some great genre icons like Billie Whitelaw (The Omen), Edward Woodward (The Wicker Man), Paul Freeman (Raiders of the Lost Ark), and the amazing Timothy Dalton. Dalton plays the overly sinister supermarket owner and is terrifically funny in all of his scenes.

From here the film follows typical buddy cop formula as Angel and Danny learn to work together and become friends while trying to decipher the mysterious deaths of some of the village’s prominent citizens. While the mystery and action pieces are more than effective, this journey from ill suited partners to good friends is the real heart of the movie. The characters are up there with all those iconic duos we all know and love: Riggs and Murtaugh, Tango & Cash, Die Hard and Carl Winslow. Danny is obsessed with the very action movies Hot Fuzz pays tribute to (especially Point Break and Bad Boys II and many of the movie’s homages come from these two films) and his idea of police work is firmly imbedded in their world. He shows Angel that sometimes the rules need to be broken.

If there is one thing Hot Fuzz has going for it before its release, it’s hype. Shaun of the Dead was an instant cult classic in every way and its rabid fan base has been clamoring for its follow-up. I always get nervous when expectations get this high. I can safely say, however, that Hot Fuzz not only meets the expectations, it surpasses them. I’m going out on a limb here (and I should probably wait till I’ve seen it again to make such audacious claims) but Wright, Pegg, and Frost just might have one-upped themselves. We’ll see.

Review: The Hoax

By Emma Carroll

I’ll admit, in some ways I am not the best person to be discussing The Hoax. I know very little about politics in general, let alone the politics of the early 1970’s during the Nixon administration. I know the gist of things involving Nixon’s impeachment and the Watergate scandal but details are another thing all together. I had never heard of Clifford Irving before and I was unaware that this movie is based on his book. And everything I know about Howard Hughes is from the movie Aviator. In fact, when I left the theater I had to call my father to ask him if all of this really happened. I went into this movie totally blind. However, if you look at it from the opposite perspective, this makes me the perfect person to discuss this film, as it’s own entity, just as it is.

The Hoax as I mentioned is based on the book by the same name by Clifford Irving. As it turns out, Irving was a great con man, though that is not clear in the film. His person is re-created by Richard Gere (Chicago), who does a wonderful job playing two characters: Irving and Irving’s vision of Howard Hughes. The Hoax is actually an autobiographical depiction of Irving’s attempt to con the publishing giant McGraw-Hill into believing that he had been contacted by reclusive multi-millionaire Howard Hughes to contract Irving to write his autobiography before he died – an endeavor that ultimately landed him in prison for 14 months. In essence, the idea of this is entirely unbelievable. Howard Hughes had not contacted anyone by anything other than memo, and no one outside of his own close trusted staff. But that in fact was what made Irving’s scheme plausible. Hughes would not be available to comment in person either for or against Irving’s story, so all Irving had to do was imitate him, in writing and in voice. He enlisted the help of his best friend and author, Richard Suskind (Alfred Molina) in his machinations, along with his wife Edith, played by Marcia Gay Harden.

As his ruse progressed he eventually found himself becoming Hughes. He played the part while recording pieces of the man’s life story onto audiotape, dressing like him and even drawing a mustache on his face while he spoke as if he were Hughes himself. Irving referred to Mr. Hughes as Howard like they were old pals, though not even Hughes’ most trusted associates used anything other than his surname. Irving even began to believe his own forgery so much that he started having hallucinations.

On another plot level, and what interested me most (and also confused me most!), was how everything involved in the development of Irving’s book tied into the politics of the time. The film takes place during the final months of the Nixon administration. As Irving is building his story, in the background the country is in turmoil. I will not go in to detail in case the reader does not know the historical facts. But the revelation at the end of the film is quite the shocker! It was this that had me leaving the theater asking, “are these events real?”

But I haven’t yet said how I felt about this movie. As someone who was ignorant to the facts, I was enthralled. Richard Gere brought a real life to the character, true or not. I do love conspiracies, and that is what this was. The story itself was of course fascinating, and the acting and direction made the truth of it seem both real and fanciful at the same time. After all, unbelievable reality of these events is the stuff movies are made of.

Review: Disturbia

By Penina Wiesman

Let's get one thing straight. To redo an Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece, you need to possess the guts and skill worthy of such a task. The former is easy to come by in Hollywood. The latter, not so much. As a remake of Hitchcock's much parodied Rear Window, Disturbia is equally amateurish on both counts.

Sarah Roemer and Shia LaBeouf in Disturbia
The basic storyline is the same. Man confined to his home entertains himself by peeping at his neighbors and their private lives, until one day, he sees one of them commit an atrocious crime. Everyone around him refuses to believe him, chalking his suspicions up to isolation-induced paranoia, which forces him to take matters into his own hands. Disturbia dunks this classic plot in the fountain of privileged-yet-troubled youth. Instead of Jimmy Stewart's broken leg due to journalistic bravado, Kale (whose similarly unfortunate real name, Shia LeBeouf, is also related to cuisine) is a suburban teenager under house arrest for a rather unheroic assault against one of his teachers. As an additional punishment (in case you were wondering what could be worse for a teenager than being stuck at home all summer long), his mother takes away his xbox and itunes, and literally cuts off his cable supply. All he has left now is a bedroom the size of my whole apartment and enough high-tech surveillance equipment to be in an unmarked van across the street. I think maybe there's a tear in my eye, but it's just from the stench of entitlement.

Further attempts to jazz up the movie for the young and the hormonal adds banal teenage conflict and unnecessary violence that are perfect for an adolescent audience, but painful for the rest of humanity. In typical teen-movie fashion, Kale notices the family moving in next door have a hot (of course) teen-aged daughter Ashley (Sarah Roemer), Disturbia's take on the Hitchcock Blonde. Kale and his doofus sidekick Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) watch Ashley like a couple of ten-year olds who just figured out how to access the blocked cable channels. Ashley herself spends her time doing yoga in a skimpy outfit with the blinds wide open, and swimming in the back yard in an even skimpier bikini. The trio's biggest problems (aside from the killer living one yard over) involve teen-age identity woes, house party drama, and feuds with the neighborhood preteens. There should be a rating for a film like this, pandering exclusively to the teen-angst set. Maybe something like DB-19 (Don't Bother if over the age of 19).

Aside from a few moments of anxiety, Disturbia is unimpressive in just about every way. Don't misunderstand me: the movie's plot is smooth (although that's mostly due to Hitchcock's material), and it has some well-timed tension, plus the requisite creepy soundtrack. Thankfully, this wasn't The Covenant. However, instead of the usual whirlwind of ideas warring in my head when leaving the theater, this time there was nothing. There wasn't even the residue of an entertaining scene or a noteworthy line. I had even forgotten the title. I had to look it up when I got home. It's as if director D. J. Caruso had used his movie to suck my synapses dry. Disturbia not only left me with no mental fodder, it also managed to remove all presence of itself in my brain.

David Morse in Disturbia
The beauty of Hitchcock was that he was able to keep us on the edge of our seats without graphic depictions of violence, sex, or nudity. Sure, he toed the line a bit, but he was still shackled by the puritan production code that restricted all theatrical releases in those days, which is what made his skill so sharp. But today's desensitized youth demand their entertainment to be mindless and handed to them on a silver platter. This is one of the few places where Disturbia succeeds.

The worst feeling in every twenty-something's life is when she realizes she's not on the pulse of youth culture anymore. Sitting in the darkened theater watching Disturbia, that feeling overtook me. I felt closer to Kale's mom Julie (Carrie-Ann Moss, sans the leather jumpsuit and sunglasses) than any of the other characters, silently cheering when she cut her son's cable wire (you gotta teach them youngsters discipline!). My favorite part (according to my notes) was when Ashley used the word “gnarly,” mostly because it was slang that I recognized from my own totally awesome youth. The bottom line was I was too old to be watching this movie. If you're young, full of hormones, and like you're movies so easy to digest you need Immodium, you will most likely enjoy Disturbia. However, if you left the high school social sphere more than five years ago, DB.

Exclusive Photo: Winona Ryder in The Ten

A little something for all of you to have a look at. Here's Winona Ryder as Kelly, along with her friend Gary, in the forthcoming comedy The Ten.



The Ten will premiere in the New England area on April 28th at the Boston Independent Film Festival. Click here for details.

Review: Knocked Up

By Emma Carroll

Although Knocked Up is hilariously funny, the entire movie I felt like something wasn’t quite right. I was laughing but the laughs didn’t feel like the jovial laugh that I got from There’s Something About Mary or Euro Trip. The thing is, the subject matter of Knocked Up is incredibly serious. This movie makes light of a situation that is not funny to be in. The writers accomplished this feat quite well, but deep down, while the audience is laughing, there’s a little twinge in your heart where the viewer realizes how awful it would be to land in Alison’s dilemma.

Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogan in Knocked Up
“Marriage is just an unfunny, never-ending version of Everybody Loves Raymond.” The writing for Knocked Up was truly fabulous. There were so many one-liners that should become classic quotes. It is the story of Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl of Grey’s Anatomy) who has a great job and a happy life. Until she meets stoner/pretend website designer Ben Stone (Seth Rogan of 40 Year Old Virgin) one night in a bar and, drunkenly, ends up sleeping with him – unprotected. She finds out how really mismatched they are the next morning; however, the result of this one-night-stand is growing inside of her.

When she finds out she is pregnant and decides to keep the baby, she calls Ben, who is determined to help her raise the child. From this point they try to build a relationship together. Meanwhile, Alison is living with her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann, 40 Year Old Virgin), and watching her marriage with husband Pete (Paul Rudd, Friends) deteriorate.

One thing that I must warn viewers about, there is some graphic footage that I don’t think anyone wants to see in a movie. I don’t want to give too much away but be prepared for “TMI” near the end of the movie, and not just once.

Every step of the way this movie is funny. Of course there was the obvious hilarity of Ben’s stoner friends, but I thought Paul Rudd’s subtler comedy was much more enticing. Most of the funniest lines were his. When it comes to comedy, Knocked Up trumped its predecessor 40 Year Old Virgin. I know there are probably some Virgin fans out there who are going to yell at me for saying that, but I definitely laughed way more during Knocked Up. However, despite the belly shaking laughs, I continued to feel mildly uncomfortable throughout the film. I realized post-viewing this discomfort was due the seriousness of the situation and the struggles between both couples. My laughs were light, loud and appropriate, but they were lacking in spirit. I could hear this in the laughs of others as well. Still, the writers avoided letting things get too dramatic and added the timely joke to lighten things up.

Knocked Up is a hard movie to grade. On the one hand it was spectacularly funny, but on the other, the subject matter tainted the comedy somewhat. It was a difficult endeavor for the writers to undertake, and yet, I feel that they were successful in making people laugh at a situation that is anything but funny. The question there becomes whether or not it is a tasteful result. I say it is. The actors and direction made the action very real, perhaps why there is that undercurrent of discomfort. The humor was fit in well with the every day trials of the characters. I did find it difficult to think that a girl like Katherine Heigl would ever go for a guy like Seth Rogan, even if she were drunk – but I suppose stranger things have happened. Nonetheless, the production team was successful in making this story lifelike, yet funny without being overly crass, despite the final sequence. However, I don’t recommend it for the older crowd. This is definitely a college age to mid-to-late 20’s type of movie. I give it a B average for all of its ups and downs.