How to make a real parody, not package pop culture regurgitation into commodity

Rating: 9/10 (4 May 2007)

Genre parody is running rampant currently, probably because Hollywood is so out of ideas at this point that they've gone down to the level of making fun of their own crap with even more crap that basically every year we get another slew of pop culture regurgitation in the form of Genre Movie and kids films like Shrek, Happily N'Ever After, and Hoodwinked to make sure nothing worth seeing doesn't have its hilarious counterpart. That is why we need people like Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright.
The thing about Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz is that both of them manage to make fun of, respect, AND transcend their own genres. Shaun of the Dead isn't just a funny reworking of zombie horror flicks, its a damn good zombie horror flick in its own right, and also breaks new ground with the genre. The exact same thing is true with Hot Fuzz. Where any sarcastic Hollywood genre satire would try to show how dumb a clichÃ© is by making it even more outrageous, Edgar Wright simply has the characters say, "But that would create a lot of paperwork." Where a lesser parody would make an obvious twist as a nod to obvious twists, Simon Pegg finds out that the motivations for the recent crimes is really much simpler.
But beyond that, these films are good films, removed from genre, in their own right. Hot Fuzz uses a style of quick-cut editing to match the ridiculous quick-cut editing that's become popular in such ridiculous nonsensical films as Domino and Walking Tall, but they don't over extend it to show how ridiculous it can get... rather, they learn something about the form and most importantly make the editing extremely, extremely good. Hot Fuzz has quick saturated action film editing, but it does it in a way that leads the eye gracefully through the action, thus one upping every other bad action flick being ground out by Hollywood.
But the best part is that these films don't need prior knowledge of other films in order to get the joke. A more underhanded reason so many Scary Movie sequels keep coming out is that they directly make fun of recent horror films one-to-one, meaning one must actually see those terrible movies in order to get the jokes. Hot Fuzz stands alone. Even if you haven't seen Bad Boys II or Point Break, you can still follow this movie because it has engaging and colorful characters, good action, and most importantly--CREATIVITY. And even though it provides constant nods to pop culture, it also has its own quirky form of English humor to basically make everybody laugh. Not only does Hot Fuzz transcend buddy cop movies and slasher flicks (with a hint of Westerns, too!), it also transcends spoof genre. Take that, Hollywood! I figured Shaun of the Dead was a one-time deal, but now I hope Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright continue to craft even more genres into actually skillful and fun movies for years to come.
--PolarisDiB