Saturday, April 21, 2007

"This shit just got real."



You haven't gone to see Hot Fuzz yet, have you? Well, I enjoyed it.

One thing (not a spoiler): the theme of gun violence might not be all that funny this week, not even in parody form.

I remember when Independence Day came out; I watched it on a hot, summer's Independence Day in DC. It was the first showing, and the crowd was rowdy. We cheered at the screen to see New York, LA, and DC being obliterated by the alien death ray.

A few years later in 2002, I sat in a theater watching The Sum of All Fears, in which Baltimore gets nuked. This time, there was no cheering, no enthusiasm, just dread. The difference? Why September 11th 2001 was the difference. Spectacular mass destruction was no longer an effect to cheer for; it was something we had all imagined.

Similarly, Hot Fuzz' satire of gun-porn may read a little differently in audiences' minds the post-Blacksburg world. It's too bad, because as a parody of action flicks, Hot Fuzz shows a pretty brilliant analysis of the genre.






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