8 Responses to ““Shot Me In the Heart” video”

1. 

   Mouth

   March 18th, 2010 at 10:57 pm

   Good stuff, no matter the reason behind its being posted here.

   That guy can wail. Good instrumental accompaniment, too. I don’t have the ability to make such intense eye contact with the womenfolk. I’m jealous of the guy with the mic. Until he gets shot. Then I’m no longer jealous.

2. 

   Great Unwashed

   March 19th, 2010 at 1:21 am

   Top tune

3. 

   Blitzkrieg

   March 19th, 2010 at 11:12 am

   Question for you, Vern. And I swear I’m not being a smarmy know-it-all, I’m just genuinely curious.

   How come you’re not into the Pegg/Wright satire/spoofs like HOT FUZZ and SHAUN OF THE DEAD, but are totally head over heels for BLACK DYNAMITE? Don’t they theoretically fall into all the same “Do you want to listen to “Weird Al” Yankovic or do you want to listen to real music?” traps of their sub-genre?

4. 

   MattmanBegins

   March 19th, 2010 at 7:53 pm

   For some reason, the prominent credit of “CATERING” made me laugh. But it seems like it could have been an elaborate enough shoot to have warranted a break for meal time. Heck, if it gives me an ounce of Adrian Younge’s soul, I’ll be all WHEN HARRY MET SALLY and say “I’ll have what he’s having.” Yes, I went there.

   Anyway, that was pretty dope. Send them on tour with some people from Daptone Records and you’ll have a brand new concert sensation. Forget Sasquatch!, I want SOULsquatch!

5. 

   telf

   March 20th, 2010 at 12:49 pm

   Blitzkrieg, I can’t speak for Vern but here’s my take. The Pegg/Wright flicks seem more about the creator’s sensibilities and quirks that genre homage fidelity.

   I like “Shaun” fine and think it’s a really funny movie (It was also shot where I lived for almost a decade, Crouch End, so that’s nice). But I’m only a medium zombie movie fan – so I don’t have a particularly strong referential base to draw from as regards any genre specific tropes or jokes in the movie beyond the obvious.

   However, I am a big action movie fan. For me Hot Fuzz was an almost total failure. The shooting style, the story (a strange, almost horror/slasher structure with robed figures committing gruesome murders), the characters, the casting of Pegg as the least convincing action hero ever (and that wasn’t presented as a joke, he supposed to be completely awesome and putting his colleagues to shame) all combine to demonstrate that they were almost completely incapable of capturing the style and feel of the classics of action cinema.

   Don’t get me wrong – there’s still funny, effective stuff in both movies. But they don’t (particularly in the case of HF) nail the feel of the filmatistic worlds they are trying to evoke or sincerely deliver the satisfactions we expect from a good example of the respective genres all whilst making us laugh and reminding us how much we love the movies they’re spoofing.

   But that’s just me. I loved Spaced, which wasn’t tethered to any specific genre or style.

6. 

   Outlaw Vern

   March 20th, 2010 at 1:19 pm

   Good question, Blitzkrieg. I’ve wondered about it myself. First of all, I do like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, I just don’t love them the way alot of people I know do. I think for me the biggest difference between those and Black Dynamite is what Telf hit on – Black Dynamite so perfectly captures the look, sound and feel of the actual movies that at a glance it could be mistaken for the real thing. The Edgar Wright movies are more like some normal guys getting ahold of some cameras and referencing a type of movie they like. And with Hot Fuzz I was a little thrown off the way it was this action movie tribute but also turned into a Wicker Man thing. I didn’t really understand the connection there.

   But also I think it has to do with what they’re referencing. With Shaun it’s specifically referencing Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, three movies I have watched over and over again and consider masterpieces. Black Dynamite is referencing a broad genre that includes movies I love and consider great, movies I like parts of but have long stretches of boring, and movies that are actually pretty bad but I like the vibe of. And in fact it’s more specifically showing a love for the later shoddier blaxploitation movies, not the higher end ones. So for me although it’s a funny parody it also plays as a more powerful version of that type of movie, taking all the badass attitude, music, action and style and freebasing it into a more potent form.

   The action scenes in Hot Fuzz are funny, but they don’t compare to the ones in the ’80s and ’90s movies they’re referencing. The fights in Black Dynamite are actually on par with many of Jim Kelly’s and way better than some of the other blaxploitation movies that have martial arts.

   So I think that’s why I see a difference in my mind, but it’s all a personal preference, I’m not saying that makes Black Dynamite better. Anyway I should watch Shaun again one of these days.

7. 

   Blitzkrieg

   March 22nd, 2010 at 5:52 pm

   Good points, Vern. BD does have a bit of the ol’ Tarantino-esque “In trying to pay homage to the movies I loved as a kid I accidentally made a movie much better than any of those movies” syndrome. It’s almost a spoofy KILL BILL.

8. 

   Sam Cleveland

   March 23rd, 2010 at 5:49 pm

   Hi Vern, we emailed four or five years back and swapped music recommendations / nice vibes etc.

   if you like WP you MUST acquire ‘still dreaming’… a compilation of rarities put together by the mag’s editor, who DJs as Monk One. based on your taste, there’s no way it won’t make your top three or four discs of all time. lee oskar (harmonicas from war) is on there, the wild style soundtrack band, sammy davis jr with basie, umm… some other obscuro gold.