from the morgue

Hot Fuzz Was Great

Well, unsurprisingly, the Hot Fuzz NZ premiere was a delight. Peter Jackson said he respected the guys because they made movies for the right reasons. Simon Pegg gave a shout-out to the gig he'd done ten years before in the tiny Bats theatre over the road. Nick Frost said coming here had given him a chance to see a sister in Auckland, who he hadn't seen for 20 years. Edgar Wright said that the Embassy theatre was lovely and that was the whole reason why they were there.

There were doughnuts. They were crazy. I ate one and then felt full for the next 24 hours.

And, somehow, only 300 of the 400 free tickets went. The word just didn't get around very far, it seemed. I met Jonathan P, who was co-ordinating the whole thing, the following night and he acknowledged that they were still learning how powerful the online word-of-mouth thing is.

Speaking of meetings, I ran into Tom of WellUrban, meaning that once again I have a real-world acquaintance with everyone on my blogroll. Ha! (Although rumour has it another blogger on the list at right spotted Mr Beard later that evening, but was too shy to make his acquaintance...)

The movie itself was loads of fun. I was impressed by how tight the material was - sometimes you'd have gag + setup + payoff + character revelation + plot advancement all in the same four-word line. The economy and pace of it was great. Structurally it was a bit wonky, not quite sustaining its energy through the middle, but once it worked its way through to the climax, man, that climax delivered. Timothy Dalton was a delight, as well.

Anyone know who played Janine?