67 - Shaun of the Dead (Blu-ray)

    I had been looking forward to seeing Shaun of the Dead back when it came out.  Cathy and I went to see it, and there were about four or five other people in the theater.  I don't know if anyone else seemed to get the number of references the movie made to other, classic zombie movies.

    The plot of the movie is simply that Shaun has been trying to get his life together, despite his slacker friend.  A zombie outbreak provides Shaun with an opportunity to sort out his relationships and take charge of his life.

    Much like with Hot Fuzz, I knew that I liked the movie the first time I saw it.  But I had no idea how much I liked it.  While I like the subject matter of Shaun of the Dead more than Hot Fuzz, I think Hot Fuzz is the superior movie.
    First, the script.  Edgar Wright, along with Simon Pegg (it's hard to tell how much work they each did) wrote a script filled with tiny, amusing moments.  When those moments get called back later on, they feel so much funnier than they were the first time.  The repetition of many of these small things ("Big dogs can't look up") really help to make the viewer feel closer to these guys.  There are also very surreal moments.  The sequence that stands out to me is when Shaun's cast runs into Yvonne's cast.  The bit has every character mirrored with a counterpart.  It's hard to tell if this means anything, but it's just wonderfully strange.
    Second, the editing is so massively crucial to the movie.  Everything lines up into these thrilling beats, where we get to see trivial sequences reduced down to some core shots.  We don't waste time.  It puts a rhythm to the movie that makes everything play perfectly.

    If I have any complaints about the movie, it's that the shift in tone for the last act feels a bit unusual.  This hasn't bothered me since the first time I saw it.

    It's also wonderful to see Lucy Davis and Martin Freeman, both from The Office, appearing in this.