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Showing posts with label Edgar Wright. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edgar Wright. Show all posts

Friday, August 11, 2017

Cinema of Cool

Baby Driver (2017,  Edgar Wright)

Black Shades. Music. Fast cars. Heist. Cool gangsters. Smooth talkers. Attitude. More music. Extremely intelligent sounding dialogues. Money. A girl, always a girl. For a change, some coffee.

xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017, D.J. Caruso)

Neymar. Cool stunt, all for a soccer game. Extremely intelligent sounding dialogues. More cool stunts. Money. Lots of weapons. Exotic locales. For a change, an international cast, featuring Deepika Padukone, Donnie Yen and Tony Jaa. Of course, the father of coolness, Mr. Samuel L. Jackson is there as well.

The Fate of the Furious (2017,  F. Gary Gray)

Bigger cast, increasing with each film. Of course, fast cars. Exotic locales. Weapons. Loud explosions. Women and Men with attitude. Like last few films, all about a family.

John Wick 2 (2017,  Chad Stahelski)

Quality suits. Tailored expensive fabric. Cool lighting. Atmosphere. Weapons. Bullets, lot of bullets. Blood. Attitude. Money. Expensive tastes. Characters made to appear extremely intelligent. For extreme coolness, the presence of Morpheus to exchange some witty dialogue with Neo. For a change, it is Neo who offers the choice to Morpheus.


Four completely different movies yet all united by their ability to claim ample room in a multiplex. Of course, these four have to pounce on whatever space remains after the Super hero movies have come and gone.

All four vary in their quality. Baby Driver is the most refined of this group and has the acclaim of many critics while John Wick has its fans. The Fast and Furious movies have their admirers as well.

Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk is also a refined film, albeit a video game/war movie hybrid.

All these films drip with style yet are hollow in their core. Once the layers of style are removed, there isn't any substance.

This is cinema now. It sure ain’t dead but these movies are certainly trying very hard to kill it.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Hot Spoof

Hot Fuzz (2007, Director Edgar Wright): Rating 9/10

This spoof on adrenaline movies ends up being an adrenaline rush itself. Just pure fun! Hot Fuzz wisely incorporates concepts & scenes from multiple Hollywood flicks into a humorous story about crime in a small town British village. Overall, the concept of crime & small town cops reminded me of the hilarious Swedish film Kopps but Hot Fuzz is a different film. Kopps was a comedy where small town policemen commit crime in order to save their jobs. While Hot Fuzz is a spoof and the crime committed in the film is just another borrowed element beautifully woven into the story. On one hand, one can enjoy this movie by itself. On the other hand, it is also enjoyable to watch the jabs taken at other movies. For example, camera angles and action scenes from Bad Boys and a dramatic music beat from the The Matrix. The acting is spot-on with delightful cameos by Steve Coogan, Stephen Merchant & Bill Nighy. Time well spent!!