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Review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son
Reviews
Hot Fuzz
Laughs and piles of bodies
By
BRETT MICHEL
|
April 18, 2007
HOT FUZZ
3.0
Stars
VIDEO: Watch the trailer for
Hot Fuzz
.
Director Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, the writers behind 2004’s zombie spoof
Shaun of the Dead
, turn their attention to the living in this unholy offspring of Old Blighty and Hollywood: picture Agatha Christie buggered by Michael Bay, with (old-school) Peter Jackson administering lube. When his superiors (Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan, and Bill Nighy in the first of many choice cameos) grow tired of his making the rest of the force “look bad,” London supercop Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is “promoted” to the crime-free country village of Sandford. Not there one night, he’s already arrested a drunken oaf: action-movie buff Danny Butterman (
Shaun
’s Nick Frost), son of the police chief (Jim Broadbent) –– and Angel’s new partner. After a series of “accidents” starts to claim township lives, Nick suspects Sandford isn’t such a sleepy burg. The film is bit long, but Wright’s staccato edits embody Bay’s bombast, with the laughs piling up faster than the bodies.
Related
:
Interview: Simon Pegg
,
Toys are us
,
Review: Transformers
,
More
Interview: Simon Pegg
Thirty-eight-year-old British actor Simon Pegg’s US star has been on the rise since his zombie-movie parody Shaun of the Dead shuffled into multiplexes back in 2004.
Toys are us
Transformers is a movie in disguise.
Review: Transformers
Revenge of the Fallen has already achieved at least one Hollywood first: it's the only major movie I know of to be released without press notes.
Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street
The last of the ’80s horror icons to be murdered by producer Michael Bay’s “re-imaginings,” Freddy Krueger was the one least in need of a makeover.
Staging Strider
Frodo sings! And for that matter, so do Aragorn, Arwen Evenstar, the pitiful Gollem, and some 55 inhabitants of Middle-earth in the world premiere of the musical The Lord of the Rings .
Review: Lord of the Rings: Conquest
First, panic — "This can't possibly be this awful, can it?" — and then the sinking realization that, yes, Conquest really is that bad.
Cinema of suffering
Film, like most arts, tries to turn misery into entertainment.
Inchworm
Michael Bay's raging ID presents:
Review: The Lovely Bones
When it comes to immortality and the afterlife, movies tend to get sticky.
Lite at the end of the tunnel?
If you had enough of the end of the world with 2012 , you might be relieved when it comes to 2010.
Prodigy
By the time this goes to press, Prodigy will be roughly 10 books and 2000 push-ups deep into the three-and-change prison term he picked up last year for illegal gun possession.
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[
02/17
]
Festival Ballet Providence presents UP CLOSE ON HOPE
@ Black Box Theater
[
02/17
]
"Dana Levin: A Classical Realist In the 21st Century," an exhibit of paintings
@ Bert Gallery
[
02/17
]
Mary Poppins
@ Providence Performing Arts Center
ARTICLES BY BRETT MICHEL
REVIEW: THIS MEANS WAR
| February 16, 2012
What promises to be a modern Jules and Jim (until you realize it's directed by a 43-year-old who calls himself "McG") quickly devolves into Spy vs. Spy territory, only with incompetently staged and edited action and little of that ol' Mad magazine zing.
REVIEW: THE VIRAL FACTOR
| January 17, 2012
Made for a modest budget of $17 million — and feeling like it (who needs convincing explosions in an action movie?), Dante Lam's latest still gets the job done from a run-and-gun standpoint.
REVIEW: EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE
| January 17, 2012
Too soon? For Stephen Daldry's 9/11 drama, the right time is "never."
REVIEW: THE DIVIDE
| January 10, 2012
Many a teleplay for The Twilight Zone threatened atomic Armageddon, and though Frontier(s) director Xavier Gens nukes New York in the opening shots of his latest thriller, he finds more inspiration in the horrors of human nature as seen in the old TV show's episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street."
REVIEW: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL
| December 20, 2011
Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) returns to the screen in dramatic fashion as new teammate Jane (Paula Patton) and the returning Benji (Simon Pegg) break him out of a Russian prison.
See all articles by:
BRETT MICHEL
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