Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Yesterday we went to see Hot Fuzz at the cinema. It’s a harmless enough assumption when one heads to the cinema, that the transaction you engage in will be upheld at both ends. That is, I’ll watch the film, and they’ll show it.

My assessment of Hot Fuzz is thus: It starts off alright, it’s quite funny, if not Shaun-funny, then just as it’s about to get good it ends. It’s perhaps about 25 minutes too short.

At least, it’s 25 minutes too short if you’re foolish enough to go and see it at the Ealing Empire, who managed in 100% of cases (that were tested first-hand) to destroy their projection equipment, rendering it mute just as the final act begins. First there was a pop. Then it went silent. Then we kind of looked around confused as if to see if anything was going to be done about this. People started walking out. Employees started running in. After about 10 minutes of chaos, during which we saw the film run backwards and eventually replaced by adverts, it became clear things were buggered.

We were ushered into the ticket hall by an, er, usher, who was as astonished as us. “I wouldn’t,” she remarked, “have expected this to happen.” Downstairs the manager urged a man who wasn’t shouting at her to calm down. We were compensated with vouchers for free viewings, or told we could return for another showing this weekend. We stood on the pavement in the cold unsure what the protocol should be. These things happen, but we were quickly and fairly compensated. Should we be angry? Upset? Disappointed? I think bemusement prevailed in me, as it so often does. Ian got the bus home and Nikki and I walked back over the park.

This has been as especially long-winded way of saying “we went to the cinema and the projector broke.” To be honest I find it more interesting than it is because our expectations were completely upset. I’ll never take the cinema for granted again. At the start of a film there’s an Anti-Piracy Advert that shows you what watching a pirated film is like. Low quality picture, bad sound, that sort of thing. It encourages you to get the full cinema experience. A certain poetic irony, then, than in order to watch the last 25 minutes of this film, I downloaded us a camsync, the first time I’ve willingly watched one since I couldn’t fine anyone who’d go and see Attack of the Clones with me. Say what you want about piracy, it undeniably gets results.

Still, now I’ve seen the film, it’s fair to say that it’s the worst of the three Pegg/Wright collaborations. Not by much, but it’s not as funny as Spaced nor as well-written as Shaun. It’s definitely a 4 out of 5 film (assuming, like me, that you put Shaun as 5/5) and although I’ll be buying the DVD first chance I get, it’s hard to be overly enthusiastic when you’ve seen better from the same team. Still, the difference between Shaun and Hot Fuzz is the difference between my mansion having a red door or a blue door, where Ghost Rider would be settling for a normal sized house and The Simpsons or Transformers movie will be choosing which of two slums I’d prefer to be raped and murdered in. I’d gladly go and see Hot Fuzz again, if only those faulty cinemas would let me, or indeed, hadn’t driven me to download it, because now I can rewatch it when I like, for free.