rexphantom

Shaun of the Dead is a rad little movie. I'm a big fan of taking genre stuff and doing it well--Shaun does that with zombie movies, Kill Bill did with samurai flicks, Planetary does it with superheroes, and Michael Chabon and McSweeney's did an entire anthology of excellent genre fiction.

I just saw it, so it's still rolling around in my head. It's a bit of a genre-bender on it's own--it's a comedy, but it lets itself be dramatic. Kevin Smith tried the same thing with Dogma, but with lousy results. He also had a different kind of cast, though--I don't care how well he gets on with Ben Affleck, the fellow just isn't a very good actor. In everything he's in, he's just Ben Affleck Acting Badly. But in Shaun it all works very well--probably because the comedy isn't over the top. The comedy comes from the situations, not from jokes. Well, that's not entirely true--there are jokes, but they're allowed to happen organically and not inserted as such. I don't know if that makes sense or not.

If anyone is a fan of zombie movies and the new wave of British comedy (things like the Office--and it certainly is a joy to see Tim show up for a second), this picture is a really good time.