This celebration of things Simon Pegg [IMDB] (not Simon Pegg’s thing) starts with this 2012 dark comedy. Pegg plays Jack, an unstable author who’s spent the better part of a year researching Victorian serial killers for a new book. He began the project simply to lose the stigma of his unexpected success as a children’s author, but his obsession has led to intense paranoia. When his agent arranges a meeting with an American film producer, his already fragile grip on reality snaps.
Simon Pegg is all flavors of awesome. He’s known for smart, layered stories that reward multiple viewings and, from all available evidence, a hell of good guy.
Both me and Edgar [Wright] are firm believers in never underestimating or talking down to an audience, and giving an audience something to do, to give them something which is entirely up to them to enter into the film and find these hidden things and whatever.
Just because, “why not?” (and because I noticed that I had several of his films queued), I’m going to celebrate his work with a series of reviews. Being a fan, I’ve already reviewed a few of his movies:
Paul: An underrated, often forgotten ode to fandom, conspiracy and doing the right thing. Starring and written by Pegg and his hetero life partner, Nick Frost.
Star Trek: Into Darkness: I loathed this, but I don’t blame Pegg in the least. I blame Damon Lindelof for… everything.
The Box Trolls: LAIKA’s sublime stop-motion wizardry made ever so slightly better for including Pegg’s voice.
We also end our annual Easter zombie festival, Boiled Eggs and Brain Eaters, with the utter perfection that is Shaun of the Dead. This may be the film that immortalized him, but an impressive collection of cameos and voice work along with performances in venerable properties like Doctor Who, Star Wars and, of course, Star Trek cemented him firmly as geek royalty.
Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. It’s basically a license to proudly emote on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult. Being a geek is extremely liberating.
I hope you’ll join me here over the next week or so for this impromptu Peggapalooza! (I was going to call it “Pegging Movies”, but Google convinced me not to do that.)
Similar to 2011’s excellent “The Lie” [My Review], this explores how the pressures of life can sometimes force good people to make poor choices and, ultimately, how they deal with the consequences. Here, snarky, unpopular high-schooler Norman (Dan Byrd [IMDB]), has recently dealt with the death of his mother and is now watching his father (Richard Jenkins [IMDB]) succumb painfully to stomach cancer. When berated by a schoolmate about his recent flakiness, he blurts out that he has cancer.
Apparently, there’s this game that’s got like, dragons and swords and hobbits and stuff. You play with other people and you, like, kill all the stuff. Mr. T told me all about it. Anyway, this game is pretty old, but, like, people still play it, so they made a movie.
This is the third film in the contiguous DC cinematic universe. It follows Man of Steel [My Review] and Batman v. Superman [My Review]. I enjoyed the first for its careful initial character development, but recognized its many flaws. I bemoaned the fact that character development was forgotten in the vapid, overwrought follow-up. Both left fans wanting more and Suicide Squad with every chance to be the first truly great entry in the series.
The “sharks in places that aren’t the ocean” genre has been woefully under served lately. Sure, we have enough “Sharknado” movies to field a Little League team, but purists rightfully scoff at these periodic, vacuous money grabs. They know that real “sharks in places that aren’t the ocean” movies have something more, something truer. They have heart.
Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s 1988 graphic novel, “The Killing Joke” was considered the quintessential Joker story of the modern era. It became the definitive origin story of the character and starkly highlighted the depths of his depravity. More importantly, it delved more deeply than ever before into the dark, codependent relationship between Batman and the Joker. It remains, nearly thirty years later, one of the most influential stories in all of comics.
[This is the 600th movie review that I’ve posted. Hooray for arbitrary large, round numbers!]
This is a sequel to the 2013 blockbuster “Olympus has Fallen” [My Review]. That review summarized the movie as, “Action fans will find a lot to like but unfortunately it lacks the soul to make it truly great.” This entry in the increasingly unlikely series could be summed up in much the same way.
Films have toyed with first person perspectives for decades, usually only in small doses. Thrillers show us what the killer sees while horror and sci-fi let us stalk the heroes through heavily filtered monster-vision. Heat-vision, night-vision, x-ray-vision, robot-vision and whatever-vision have all been simulated time and again. It’s an effective gimmick, but can it carry an entire film?
Fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan stories have a rough row to hoe with modern interpretations of the character. Johnny Weissmuller’s [IMDB] primitive portrayal in the 1930’s set specific, but utterly incorrect, expectations of a grunting man-brute. A characterization that’s since been parroted repeatedly by hollywood.
“A Fantastic Fear of Everything” on IMDB
Simon Pegg is all flavors of awesome. He’s known for smart, layered stories that reward multiple viewings and, from all available evidence, a hell of good guy.
“Warcraft” on IMDB
“The Legend of Tarzan” on IMDB