Can’t wait to see Hot Fuzz? Nor can we, but the movie’s director, Edgar Wright has something rather neat planned to help ease the pain in the build-up to the release of the British cop-com on February 16: the Hot Fuzztival!
Yes, starting from February 3 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the Hot Fuzztival will showcase a run of grittysexycool cop movies that inspired Wright and Simon Pegg during the writing and making of Hot Fuzz.
The undoubted highlight of the mini-festival, programmed entirely by Wright, is the double bill of Hot Fuzz – the movie’s first paid UK screening – and Gordon Parks’ little-known minor classic, The Super Cops, on February 10, but the line-up is an Aladdin’s Cave of treasured cop movies, including Robert Blake in Electra Glide In Blue, John Woo’s Hard Boiled, Sudden Impact – the fourth in the Dirty Harry series and the only one to feature a farting dog – and John Wayne’s Brannigan, the movie he made to soothe his soul after turning down the role of Dirty Harry.
Then there’s the overt influences on Hot Fuzz, including a Danny Butterman double bill of Point Break and Bad Boys II – the movies directly referenced in Hot Fuzz, when Nick Frost’s character shows both movies to Simon Pegg’s Nicholas Angel – on February 9, while Tony Scott, one of Wright’s favourite action directors, is given his due with Man On Fire (although it’s, strictly speaking, not a cop movie) and True Romance (again, erm, not a cop movie) both running during the Fuzztival.
In fact, Tony Scott will be present at a Q&A moderated by Edgar Wright on Sunday February 4, while Wright will introduce many of the Fuzztival’s screenings in person (although, with most movies showing at least three times, he can’t be at every single one, for obvious reasons). It promises to be a cracking event with some buried gems, some bona fide classics and a smattering of guilty pleasures for you all to catch up on.
Ticket prices will vary, but we’re talking in the region of £8-10, while ICA members will receive discounts. Oh, and look out for Empire ticket giveaways in the not-too-distant future. For more information on the Fuzztival, including Wright’s knowledgeable notes on most of the movies involved, go to the ICA’s official website.