I was not expecting that.

Considering what they did for SHAWN OF THE DEAD, I’m thinking, Holy crap.

It was SHAWN OF THE DEAD meets LETHAL WEAPON, right in the middle.

When exactly was there extreme cult activity and gore in either of those? I know SHAWN OF THE DEAD was a zombie movie, but that was mild! Compared to the tower-crushing kershmutz of the one guy?

Lip smacking delicious. What is it that met HOT FUZZ? What is it that HOT FUZZ is?

That’s a good question.

I think it was the funniest most surprising who-dunnit I have seen, period.

I’d half agree with that.

You’d half agree?

Only because you said it was the most surprising. The whole time I half expected most of what happened. I mean, when I saw it, I wasn’t surprised, I just kind of went, oh, that makes sense. Hilarious.

I don’t believe you.

You’d almost think M. Night Shyamalan had something to do with this movie. What I’d like to know is, were they actually trying to make a comedy, or did they actually want to make a hard core cop movie and they just happened to put some comedy in it?

Obviously they set up his character from the beginning, quite solidly, which provided an excellent backdrop for the character’s growth throughout the story.

But that’s what I like about his character, too. It wasn’t, "Gosh I hate the situation I’m in," and through some kind of montage he learns to fit in, rather it was, he already fit in, he was just really upset about it. But then found consolation in certain things, found a best friend, came to appreciate that there was a crapload of action, here…

I wonder if those guys have done other movies, before SHAWN OF THE DEAD.

They’ve got a lot of talent, so I wonder if they’ve been doing this for a while. But it was the same kind of thing in SHAWN OF THE DEAD: one of them was the more serious, the other was more laid back, just having a good time.

You broke the code. Now we can make a movie that good.Why is it you suppose the same guys are in a movie by the same guys?

I can only assume that’s just what they do, and these guys have a crapload of movies over in England that haven’t come over here, and that’s just what they’re known for.

Or they’re quickly becoming known for.

Okay, to recap, over achieving cop gets transferred as a cruel abuse of power, stuffed into a small town, where he’s supposed to disappear, and he refuses to stop overachieving, to the point where things go horribly, horribly right for the audience.

What’s funny is, as a character, he started off strong, and wanted to keep going strong, but the other characters were trying to force him to undevelop, to regress to the point where he would fit in with them. (He already fit in.)(We have different definitions of fitting in, accept it.)

And the trick was, who was driving it? Do you see it coming, who the mastermind was?

Good actors, though, that’s for sure. Unlike a lot of today’s blockbusters, I thought a lot of the actors in this action-comedy were better than some actors who are supposed to be drama-action.

Yeah, take that kid from the new die hard movie, the one that looks like the Mac computer in the commercials. I don’t think he’s a good actor. I think he has a look and he has a sound, and that’s it.

I think that’s the majority of Hollywood.

“Whoa.” “Ah’ll be bahk.”

Goddamn, Keanu.

Just goes to show that the entertainment industry is slowly leaving North America. We’re getting sick and tired of the ineptitude of them all, and we’re starting to look at what other countries are doing.

Like Bollywood, the steroid-child of the entertainment world. But this is why they need to hire better writers, like us. And bring the writing business back to this country.

True, but I’ve read your stories, Mark, and you’re nowhere near formulaic enough to appeal to a wide enough range of people to do well enough at the box office (Editor’s note: Tylor had to take a breath in the middle of this sentence) to produce, and there doesn’t seem much room for merchandising, so… Screw Hollywood, man.

Oh, they can bite me; I’m in for indie films.

Wha? Oh, you don’t mean India, you mean independent. Unfortunately, there’s something to be said for location and special effects, which Hollywood has, and a lot of the time, that’s the draw.

Just need better advertisers. I do that too.

Yeah, and of course there’s always that audience element that screws it up too, those stupid chattery girls, who won’t go see the movie unless there’s some hot Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, or Brad Pitt in it.

The one’s that are always going, Ooh, lookit, lookit! (Tylor’s note: Mark actually said this with a squeaky high voice.)

That’s the same girl who will stand up during a Jack Black movie and say, "This movie sucks," to which I reply, "Then leave."

But this movie did not suck.

No it did not, it’s the first movie I’ve seen in a long time that even after I got home, I still didn’t think about anything I’d want to change about it. It was really well put together.

It was awesome. It was definitely worth the price of admission.

It was even worth the fact that we had to drive around ALL of Edmonton, looking for a showtime we could actually get into.

I seriously experienced the range of emotions: surprise, compassion, hilarity.

Believe it or not, lust.

Lust isn’t an emotion.

Neither is hilarity.

…And high octane thrill!

Of course. I like how they did the ending. Aftermath, something funny--Oh wait, it’s dramatic again!

At no point here did I go, "Come on already, get to the point!"

Yeah, they kind of had really good timing on that, where just about the time you want them to get to the point, they do. It’s nice, because whereas with Hollywood, they find a dead horse and try to resuscitate it, these guys took their broken-leg horses and quickly put them down.

What?

You know the expression, beating a dead horse? Which means you just keep going, when it’s over?

Where are their dead horses?

It’s an expression.

No, “THEIR” dead horses, not “THERE” dead horses. Where are the dead horses that they have simply avoided kicking?

You mean in the movie?

Mm-hmm.

Well, that’s what I’m stating, I was using metaphor, turning the entire movie into a race horse, whereas the movie starts out good, and that’s the start of the track, and the horse starts running. Now, as long as the horse keeps running, it’s a good movie. Now, in Hollywood, the horse will break its leg, and they’ll keep going, and granted, the horse with the broken leg is still alive, it’s still breathing, it can survive, but then if you continue to try to ride it, it will die quickly, which is what Hollywood does. Then the horse dies, and they beat on it for awhile. And then when they realize the horse is no longer alive, they try to resuscitate it, so that they can continue beating it. In this movie, they stopped at the broken leg.

I don’t think they broke the horse’s leg.

You have a very good point. They got off the horse before the leg even broke.

And there was actually a horse in there.

Yeah, there was, wasn’t there? That was awesome. Kinda meandered off screen there, didn’t it?

Yeah, where did the horse go? Where did it come from, for that matter?

Did we really wanna question that?

Nope