Movie Review: Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Shaun of the Dead (2004) co-written and directed by Edgar Wright

Slacker Shaun lives a boring and repetitive existence. He wakes up, has a chat with his even-more-of-a-slacker flatmate Ed, goes to the local convenience store for a soda, and heads off to work. After work, he hangs out at his favorite pub, The Winchester. Shaun's girlfriend Liz is tired of the routine and finally dumps him. Shaun also has trouble with his mum, who remarried when Shaun was twelve. Shaun has never gotten on well with his step-dad, who is constantly badgering him. Meanwhile, the zombie apocalypse starts in the background. After the dumping, Shaun and Ed go to The Winchester to get drunk and commiserate over Shaun's losses. Back at the flat, Shaun writes himself a note before passing out. The next day, the same routine starts and Shaun doesn't realize people aren't acting the same. By the time he gets back from the store, he and Ed realize things are amiss. Shaun sees his note telling himself to get Liz back and go visit his mum. He realizes this is the opportunity to turn his life around by actually doing something. Anything.

The movie's simple premise allows for a lot of creativity in storytelling. The movie has a lot of visual repetitions and call backs that are funny and show changes in the characters and situations. Shaun winds up improvising a lot of his plan along the way with comic results. The movie also has enough drama in moments where it needs it (like when loved ones need to be killed) to feel well-rounded. Since it is a zombie film with overtones of George Romero, the gore is strongly R-rated. The movie also has a very British feel to it, with pragmatism and propriety clashing in interesting and comical ways. The mash-up of romantic comedy and zombie horror works surprisingly well.

Highly recommended, as long as you can stand some serious gore.

This movie was discussed way back on episode 20 of A Good Story is Hard to Find.

Movie Review:The World's End (2013)

The World's End (2013) directed by Edgar Wright

Part of my on-going catch-up with last summer's films (i.e. Pacific Rim, World War Z, Much Ado About Nothing, Evil Dead, Man of Steel). I would have seen this in England but we left for America just as it opened. We came back two weeks later and it had already left the local theatres. It didn't open in America till a few months later.

The World's End is the third movie in the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy that began with Shaun of the Dead and continued with Hot Fuzz. The movies share the same director, writers, and stars but not the same narrative or characters. Thematically, they share the modern man's problem of growing up in a world that doesn't require him to mature.

In this film, Gary King (Simon Pegg) gets his friends back together to re-do a home-town pub crawl that they had attempted back in school. Gary is a bit of a wreck and a bit of a "lad" as they say in England. He likes to have a good time (mostly drink too much) and doesn't really care about other people so much. He likes to argue and will keep arguing until he wins, usually by wearing out the patience of the other person. He's trapped in adolescence, almost as if the pub crawl was his gateway out of childishness and he never made it through. The other guys have moved on to middle-class white-collar jobs and lives.

Going back to their home town, the lads discover things still look the same (all twelve pubs are still there) but things have changed. The first pub has been taken over by a larger company that owns a lot of "local" pubs which furnished the pubs the same inside. The pubs still have the local name and maybe the same staff but they offer pre-fab menus and national-brand lagers, not local dishes and ales from nearby breweries (living in England, I can verify this phenomena). The lads discuss the old times and how things have changed and how they've moved on. The movie is a fairly interesting character driven comedy to this point.

Then the big reveal happens. If you don't want to be spoiled (which may have already happened if you've seen trailers or reviews or, indeed, already watched the film), stop reading now. The twist is that the townspeople have been replaced with robotic versions of themselves. The lads find out in one of the pub's toilets where a big fight breaks out between them and some local lads. The robots' injuries reveal their true nature. They leak blue oil when they are damaged. Almost the whole town has been taken over by a larger organization with presumably nefarious plans. Gary convinces the guys they have to complete the pub crawl so as not to draw attention to themselves, thus allowing them to escape at the end of the night. His arguing skills win the day and they try to make it through the pubs and the night without too much bloodshed or oilshed.

Thematically this is a wonderful idea but the execution doesn't quite work. In the toilet fight, all of the sudden, in addition to robot locals, viewers have to buy into these middle-aged white-collar guys having amazing fighting skills. A bit too much comes out of left field at the same time. I found the rest of the film not as convincing or interesting as the beginning of the film, even though plenty of interesting things happen along the way. And it was still funny to the end, just not as strong as the other two films in the trilogy.

Parental advisory: Constant drinking (along with some driving); swearing; violent fights but the robots don't have gory damage done to them (though one does walk around with the top half of his head missing, which is played for laughs rather than horror); some conversations about sex and an extended scene of the lads making out with late-teen/early-twenties girls.

A Shipment From Home

Our "unaccompanied baggage" has finally arrived. We were told back in America that these last minute items would go much faster than our household goods, probably flying over and being available within two weeks of their departure. They left our home back on June 16, which according to most normal math means they would be returned to us in England by the Fourth of July. The shipping company stated that July 13 would be the latest we would receive the shipment.

Luckily, we did not put any July 4 celebrating gear into the shipment, because it finally came last Thursday, i.e. July 28 for those of you reading this blog in the far distant future. I guess the shippers really meant it would be available two weeks after the last date they gave us.

The bloke who delivered our "unaccompanied bags" was a very nice guy with almost too much accent for me to understand. We chatted a bit while he brought the boxes in. Some were slightly crushed but their contents were in fine shape. He was apologetic about it and hoped that our household goods shipment wasn't packed by the same company. I said it wasn't and silently hoped they did a better job.

Lucky at dice, unlucky in shipping

Other boxes were okay and contained some of the games we thought we'd like to play before our household stuff made it. In the box was Zombie Dice and Zombie Fluxx. The guy commented on it and I said that we were into zombies. He said we shared a passion. He owned the whole set of George Romero's zombie movies and we had a long and delightful conversation about it. He liked 28 Days Later but didn't care so much for 28 Weeks Later. More budget did not result in a better movie. Shaun of the Dead is a favorite for both of us and he told me about Simon Pegg's cameo as a zombie in one of Romero's most recent films.

The moving guy already has his zombie apocalypse plan. He has two friends who are doctors, another owns about fifteen shotguns, and another is a weaponsmith who can make extra bullets in a pinch. They have a place up in the Scottish highlands where they can hunker down and wait out the chaos. Plenty of sheep and other wildlife exist up there, so they should be set for food. Or at least meat.

The whole experience of receiving the baggage was pretty good, even if it came ridiculously late. At least we didn't have to schlep that stuff from apartment to hotel to cabin to home. The bad thing was I forgot to tell the mover about this blog, so I've lost another potential reader. Maybe he'll come with the household goods and I can rectify the situation.

Our household goods, i.e. the "slow" shipment, have already arrived in country and are passing through customs. Hopefully they be delivered in the next two weeks. Where have I heard that story before?

Zombie Job: Christmas Cookie Maker

Having recently re-watched Shaun of the Dead, I think every now and then about appropriate jobs for zombies. In case you haven't seen the movie and don't mind a pretty large spoiler (skip to the next paragraph if you don't want the end of the movie spoiled), at the end of the movie the zombies are integrated into society and given the sort of mindless jobs at which they would excel: collecting shopping carts from the parking lot, delivering newspapers to homes, playing wing man for video games.

One potential job that we tried out this weekend (and by "we" I mean my wife, my sister, and my niece): making Christmas cookies. Surely this is only seasonal work, but it would provide the next logical job after collecting the fall harvest and working at the Halloween haunted house. There are several steps to making the cookies.

The first step is making the cookie dough. This step requires some precision measurements and following the recipe in proper order, which may be too much for a mindless zombie. First problem is the lack of dexterity or coordination in measuring and mixing ingredients. Second is following proper order. Third is the concern for zombie bits getting mixed in. If you think finding a hair in your food is nasty, wait until your gingerbread man has an real finger! So this step is no good for zombies.

The second step is to bake the cookies. Cutting out fun shapes seems pretty easy. We had a little panic in our house when we couldn't find an oven mitt. Surely a zombie would have come in handy here. No worries about burns for the undead, right? Taking pans in and out of the oven aren't so hard. Someone would have to monitor when the cookies need to come out, of course.

The third step is to decorate the cookies, like so:

For this step, great results require a great eye, sense of style, and memory of what Christmas cookies are supposed to look like. The zombie decorator would never come up with these fabulous results:

The fourth step is handing out the cookies, which should be pretty easy for a zombie and always results in a satisfied customer:

That looks yummy!

Cookies taste much better than brains!

Her lips were turning blue, but only from the icing, we swear!

In conclusion, I don't think a zombie would be particular good as a Christmas cookie maker, but could serve much better as a sous-chef. A better seasonal job would be one of those Salvation Army bell ringers.