dylan moran Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I've never read Laurence Sterne's "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman," and apparently, that's no small feat anyhow. After all, Sterne's protagonist starts out just before his birth and spends his time describing so many tangents of his existence that the book ends by the time his life has barely begun.

But I was delighted by the approach with which director Michael Winterbottom and writer Frank Cottrell Boyce adapted the seemingly unfilmable novel -- by making a movie about making the movie, which itself never quite gets around to unfolding. Steve Coogan plays a version of himself who's trying to keep his supporting actor/co-lead down and his girlfriend and newborn happy, in addition to juggling the production and the press and the pressures that come with the shoot as a whole.

It's all so delightfully twisty and sly, and I suspect that it's very much keeping in spirit with Sterne's work. I'm not sure that I could pick one favorite scene (actually, maybe the bit where an exceptionally perky Gillian Anderson gets hired), but YouTube has cut my work out for me. There's only one full scene I can embed here, but it's as much a doozy as most, as Coogan acts like he's coping with a hot chestnut in his trousers, only to then try it with an actual hot chestnut (or did he?).

As for the entire movie -- which also stars Dylan Moran, Kelly Macdonald, Stephen Fry, Jeremy Northam, and Naomie Harris -- at least I can promise it'll only run about ninety minutes. Talk about making a long story short....

Watch the video after the jump

I can think of at least three movies in the coming two weeks that feature scenes that are strikingly out of tone with the film they're a respective part of and yet seemingly included as a means of getting people to tell their loved ones how ridiculous Bit X in Movie Y is. And so today's Cinematical Seven list will be an arbitrary, far from ultimate compilation of the most distractingly disgusting and supremely superfluous parts in recent movies. Sure, most of these are comedies, and yes, most of them seem to have been released from the year 2000 on, and as always, we welcome your comments below. Just make sure they're not too gross.

(Speaking of which, NSFW clips follow after the jump.)

I'm no horror buff, but I do love the zombies. Well, I love the idea of zombies. I'm not really that interested in watching all the low-budget zombie movies, all the Italian zombie movies, or all the non-Romero Living Dead movies. But it's funny, I was looking over Ryan's recent Cinematical Seven of reasons he doesn't care for zombie movies, and it dually serves as my own list of reasons I like zombie movies. Or at least those zombie movies that apply. Primarily, I like zombie movies for the first reason: the symbolism.

Shaun of the Dead may be a comedic zombie movie, and it may not have any political undertones or serious social commentary, as do Romero's films and other prominent examples of the genre, but it does permit a scholarly subtext reading nonetheless. And because I'm a scholarly sort of gent (or maybe really I just like to over-analyze everything), I'm going to take this opportunity to look at this deeper level of the movie. Sure, I could just write about why I think the movie is one of the most hilarious I've ever seen, but that would be boring; plus, I respect that some people don't have the same sense of humor as me.

Shaun's symbolism comes in the form of the romantic story. The movie, often referred to as a "rom zom com" (romantic zombie comedy), actually serves as a sort of cinematic relationship guide, comically instructing us about dealing with commitment issues. Look at the order in which the members of Shaun's party are killed (killed dead, not undead): #1: his stepfather (Bill Nighy); #2: his mum (Penelope Wilton); #3: the other guy who loves his girl (the underrated Dylan Moran, who must be seen in Run Fatboy Run); #4: his roommate (Peter Serafinowicz); and finally, #5: his immature best friend (Nick Frost). These are the people that have to die in order for Shaun (Simon Pegg) to devote his full attention to Liz (Kate Ashfield). In real, non-lethal terms, they are the people Shaun has to let go of before he can fully connect in a relationship.