It was a great zombie movie that was also a very, very funny movie. If you can remember back to 2004, it was being advertised as "a romantic comedy with zombies." Which is a joke, sure, but it also happens to be accurate. Romero is a genius (which is a fair thing to think, because he is), and want to do honor to his canon. It's a goddamn homage, it is, made by people who think that George A. It's the easiest thing in the world to call it a zombie parody, but it is most definitely not. It's instructive to really think about Shaun of the Dead. But why is it funny? Is it because it makes fun of cop movies for being stupid? No. It's a movie that is literally, painfully funny, insofar as I occasionally laughed so hard that I thought my chest was about to collapse. Consider Young Frankenstein, created by a man with boundless love for the Universal horror movies then consider Date Movie, made by soulless studio hacks who apparently watch a lot of trailers.Īnd lastly, consider Hot Fuzz, a comic riff on high-octane cop movies made by the creative team behind 2004's Shaun of the Dead. It comes out of deep affection, and encyclopedic knowledge of the thing that is being parodied. I share this story because it speaks to an important truth: successful parody does not come out of superiority. And that is how we produced a short film that I still believe is the finest project I've ever been involved with in any capacity. Yes, I think the New Wave is my favorite film movement. The three of us exchanged glances.you know what, that actually sounds about right. If you're going to do this, it has to be because you love the New Wave it must be your favorite film style of all time. The Voice of Reason, in the body of a wizened old grad student, advised us: don't do this because you think the New Wave is stupid, or silly. All of it terribly heady stuff, even to reasonably educated film buffs like ourselves. We were film students, you must understand it had been only six months since our entire class had seen Masculin-féminin and clips from Sans soleil. My team of bright young things came upon the brilliant idea of parodying the French New Wave, of all damn things. Myself and a couple dozen other Northwestern University sophomores were in the midst of our first film production class, thrashing about for ideas.
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