dylan moran – NZ Film Freak

Shaun of the Dead

Shaun of the Dead Poster

Director: Edgar Wright
Writers: Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg
Released: April 2004
Starring: Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis, Nick Frost, Dylan Moran, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton
—

The best black comedy of all time.

I have a weakness for zombie apocalypse movies anyway. However, this film has taken every zombie cliche` in the book and ends up pointing fun at themselves, which is hilarious!

The creators called it a “Rom Zom Com” aka a “Romantic Zombie Comedy” and the “perfect date film” because it has a heart line of a romantic comedy that happens to be set in a time where zombies are attacking the world.

It starts out with Shaun (Simon Pegg) and Shaun’s girlfriend Lizz (Kate Ashfield) at a bar on yet another date at the Winchester Pub, as Lizz bickers about how they never do anything different. The shot slowly widens to show, Lizz’s friends David and Di (Dylan Moran and Lucy Davis) and Shaun’s foul-mouthed best friend, Ed (Nick Frost). Of course, what better to change the monotonous situation than have their lives bombarded with the living dead!?

That’s what I like about the Wright-Pegg-Frost trio. Their ideas are crazy!
Yet they always work.

These zombies are the classic, lazy walker-types where unless you got trapped or are a really slow walker, you would probably not get caught, unlike the kind that is on the TV series The Walking Dead where they run when they are desperate. But these zombies imitate the world we live in – we wake up, go to work, come home again, miserable. So it does have a bit of a wake-up call feeling to it.

Edgar Wright’s signature fast pans, quick cuts and cut always were present which definitely suited the shocking humour and gruesome occurrences.

Another of my favourite things about this film is the parallels between the start and the ending. Such as the trolley boy collecting stray trolleys in the car park of a shopping centre with little enthusiasm. By the end, the remaining zombies are trained and take over the chore in an equally unenthusiastic way… I don’t know. I just find it amusing…

This is the best black comedy because, unlike some others I’ve seen of the same genre *cough* Zombieland *cough*, the comedy element runs through the entire film, not just random crucial parts. Shaun of the Dead make fun of the terrifying situation at every turn.

This is a must-have item in every film-watcher’s collection.

Jodie’s rating: 8/10

The Actors

Director: Conor McPherson
Writer: Neil Jordan
Released: 2003
Starring: Michael Caine, Dylan Moran, Lena Headey, Michael Gambon, Miranda Richardson, Michael McElhatton, Abigail Iversen, Aisling O’Sullivan, Ben Miller, Simon Delaney, Alvaro Lucchesi
—

The funniest movie I have seen in a very long time.

It’s intelligent-funny… Not happy-clappy, seen it before, recycled Hollywood shizz. With Dylan Moran playing the protagonist and the supporting act being Michael Caine, this concoction of pure awesome is sure to be a pleaser.

Surprisingly, this film is not well-known. But it is a film everybody would enjoy with its ironic plot line and an under-lying love story, which I am happy to say doesn’t take centre-stage regularly. Dylan Moran’s character, Thomas Quirk, is indeed a quirky guy who loosely calls himself an actor working in play with a fellow actor, Anthony O’Malley (Caine).

Dylan Moran undercover

O’Malley soon hears about a scheme going down in the local bar where
“a certain somebody owes money to another certain somebody, but they have never met”. He decides that Quirk does need to practice his acting skills and convinces Thomas to be the collecter whom the debtor has never met. Of course, how could something like that ever be as straight forward as it sounds!?

Dylan Moran’s disguises throughout this scheme are hilarious and you will be sure to be repeating and imitating the characters after! This script is so funny and its catch-phrases remind me of the film Juno.

The Actors Caine

Despite being an up-beat comedy, the camera work (particularly lighting) in many scenes are spot-on and very well done, so is the music. Now I really want to buy the soundtrack! The songs and compositions by Michael Nyman are spectacularly emotional and support the visuals very well.

It’s a film that merges the stage actors and improvisation actors which I thought was really clever and it gave the film a really unique twist.

I can’t believe the negative reviews I have found on this film… How? o.O I thought it was HILARIOUS and I watch it regularly.

Jodie’s rating: 8/10

I can’t find a trailer, so here’s a pretty funny scene where Dylan Moran is playing Thomas Quirk who is undercover as “Barreller”. Barreller accidentally gave the money to Quirk earlier on. Now, Quirk is pretending to be Barreller, confronting “Jock” who the money was supposed to go to… Ugh, don’t worry, it makes more sense in the film.