Are we living in a ‘Golden Age’ of offbeat British cinema?

British cinema has delivered us many iconic movies with a quirky edge, from ‘Trainspotting’ to ‘Submarine’, but are we currently in a golden age?

By Aimee Ferrier

British cinema has thrived in periods where it has produced memorable movies that have defined the country’s creativity and periods that we’d rather just forget. One thing is for certain, though: British filmmakers know how to make something a little offbeat. This is likely due to our emphasis on humour in almost every aspect of life and our never-too-serious attitude.

Thus, the comedy genre has always championed, even when the topics explored within these films are heavy-hitting and intense. As a result, many British films have blended serious drama and humour with an expert sensibility, resulting in some rather quirky and charming films.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, kitchen sink dramas emerged as a form of British social realism, with characters experiencing issues ranging from social discontent to interracial relationships. While there were certain movies from this era that were quite offbeat, like Billy Liar, the more lighthearted movies of the period, such as Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush and Joanna, reflected the eccentricity at the heart of British culture.

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Simon Pegg Says Another Movie with Edgar Wright Is a Given 

Simon Pegg says he and Nick Frost will make another movie with Edgar Wright when the timing is right.

simon-peggSimon Pegg is going to make a new movie with Edgar Wright, it’s just a matter of timing. Pegg and his buddy Nick Frost collaborated with Wright on the Cornetto Trilogy, which consists of Shaun of the DeadHot Fuzzand The World’s End.

The final entry was released in 2013 and virtually ever since, fans have wanted to know when the trio will work together again. Pegg doesn’t know exactly when that will be, but he promises that it’s an eventuality.

The problem is that all three of them have become quite busy in recent years. Simon Pegg has been acting in the newer Star Trek movies, among many other projects. Nick Frost has been part of Into The Badlands on AMC while also squeezing in a movie role here and there. Pegg and Frost have also started a production company and are releasing a new horror comedy together titled Slaughterhouse Rulez. Edgar Wright had his biggest success as a director with Baby Driver last year, with Sony hatching plans for a sequel. Still, Pegg insists in a recent interview that it’s not a matter of if but rather when they will make a new movie together. Here’s what he had to say about it.

Source: Simon Pegg Says Another Movie with Edgar Wright Is a Given – MovieWeb



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‘Hot Fuzz’ Is One of the Best Action Movies Ever, and It’s on Netflix


‘Hot Fuzz’ is one of the great action movies of all time. Seriously.

An Edgar Wright movie is instantly unmistakeable: He folds jokes, ADHD-infused editing, and innumerable loving pastiches into his films. Not a single frame or line of dialogue is frivolous. (And here, it’s easy to guess why he and Marvel Studios broke up long before he was able to realize his vision for Ant-Man.)

Since his film debut in 2004 with the horror-comedy Shaun of the Dead, Wright has helmed just four more films, including his first (and only) adaptation in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and last year’s triumphant quasi-musical Baby Driver. As sublime as his record is so far, his best remains Hot Fuzz, the second film in his “Blood and Ice Cream” trilogy. It’s streaming on Netflix right now, and you’d be a fool not to watch (or rewatch).

Hot Fuzz follows Sergeant Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) of the London Metropolitan Police Service, who is so good at his job that his superiors deem it necessary to relocate him to the English countryside, for fear of his individual accomplishments eclipsing the mission of the force as a whole. Angel is dumped unceremoniously into a small village called Sandford, a seemingly idyllic rural town in which the day-to-day police work mostly involves giving directions to bemused tourists, investigating some illegally-trimmed hedgerows, and chasing down a lost swan from a local farm. Stifled by his cheerfully oblivious Inspector, Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent) and the Inspector’s fuck-up policeman son, Danny (Nick Frost, of course), Angel finds himself a fish out of water in the slow-paced Eden of Sandford.

Until people start dying and don’t stop dying.

Suddenly, the people of Sandford are being dispatched with ruthless and gory efficiency by a mysterious entity in a hooded cloak. We know this, and of course it doesn’t take Angel long to suspect a pattern (we’re told time and time again Sandford hasn’t experienced a recorded murder in 20 years), but the rest of the town’s police force and its inhabitants balk at the idea of a serial killer on the loose, especially with the Village of the Year competition coming up. To that end, Angel forms a close alliance with Danny, a connoisseur of American action movies who one day yearns to “jump through the air while firing two guns and going ‘Aaaaaaaah!'”

Source: ‘Hot Fuzz’ Is One of the Best Action Movies Ever, and It’s on Netflix | GQ