Hot Fuzz, The Edukators

I'll start with the movie I liked a little less, which was The Edukators. It was good, in a talky, slightly annoying and very German way. This is a story about three young people, Jule-who is a waitress earning very little money and who needs every penny to pay the owner of a Mercedes she wrecked on the Autobahn-she didn't have any insurance and the owner wants the money for his car. There there's her boyfriend Hans and his friend Peter. Peter is a revolutionary of a sort. The kind who passionately believes in equality and that the rich will (and deserve to) pay for their guilt. They aren't violent though-they really just want to warn the rich that their time is up, so all they do is break into mansions, re-arrange the furniture and leaves messages on the walls that say things like "Your time of plenty is coming to an end".
They aren't willing to do anything to really bring about that end-until Jule convinces them to pay a visit to her creditor-and they kidnap him. This part is entertaining, because the man they kidnap believed himself to be a revolutionary in his youth so he very much goes along with their beliefs and ideas and they're a little surprised by this. They end up eventually letting him go, but not before he has written a letter releasing Jule from her debt to him. Peter and Hans get over their irritation with each other over not including each other in what they were thinking (no fighting over Jule, which is interesting as she sleeping with both of them but they're all fine with that). The end is particularly interesting because as it turns out, the businessman (who you believe when he discusses politics and revolution with them) has turned them into the police. The police break into Jule's old apartment, but the three of them aren't there anymore-they've moved on-but they did leave a note on the wall saying "Some People Never Change". So who actually got educated? The trio did learn something and so did the businessman but I'm pretty sure none of them liked what they learned-that you can talk a good game but not change is disheartening to all of them, I think. Maybe not-maybe the businessman didn't really care and Jule, Peter and Hans can go on educating people. I did like this movie-it was talky in a very German way (which reminded me a bit of Wings of Desire a German movie from the 80's which I loved) but it was very smart in a very earnest kind of way.
The other movie was Hot Fuzz-and I loved this movie. It was flat-out hilarious, with many allusions to other movies-some very straightforward and others not. This movie is an homage to the Bruckheimer/Bay sorts of action movies (which I REALLY dislike) but it's so much smarter and clever-Bruckheimer could learn a lot from these guys. Hot Fuzz is the story of Sergeant Nicholas Angel, who gets sent from London out to the boonies because his arrest record is so good he's making the other policemen look bad. The cameos by Martin Freeman and Bill Nighy in the scene are classic:
Angel "You can't make me go away"
Nighy: "Yes, I can, I'm the Chief Inspector.

He ends up in the village of Sandford, where things are not what they seem. The crime rate is really low, the accident rate is high and he has an idiot policeman working with him-a man who loves Bad Boys II and Point Break (I admit that I've never seen these movies, although I have seen a million scenes from them. I could just never buy Keanu Reeves as a policeman or Patrick Swayze as a master Thief named Bohdi, which I thought was meant to sound "deep" and instead was just stupid). And then bizarre accidents start happening-and no one wants to investigate but him...and his partner who is really hoping for some action like in Bad Boys II-and he gets it. This movie has some terrific actors in it, in large and small parts. Simon Pegg, last seen as a total slacker fighting zombies in Shaun of the Dead and Nick Frost as his partner Danny Butterman are hilarious. But Timothy Dalton is in too, and so is Edward Woodward (I LOVE him-The Equalizer was a great show-and a precursor to this type of movie), Billie Whitelaw, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine (as a detective who never takes off his aviator shades even in the pouring rain while holding an umbrella). It has action scenes galore-but in a very self-aware mode, which pays homage to its forerunners and also gently mocks them. I will say that my favorite line (which no one else laughed at, haven't they seen Chinatown?) was "Forget it Nick-it's Sandford". You don't have to be a fan of action movies to appreciate this movie-and it helps if you aren't. It was almost indecent how entertaining I found it.

I'm reading the sequel to the Berlin Noir trilogy by Philip Kerr and it's very good. I'll report more later on it.