While I mostly pretend to be a calm, cool, collected Londoner, every once in a blue moon I think it's fun to take advantage of some of the more cheesier fare the city has to offer. I'm usually exposed to this on a regular basis, what with living smack in the middle of Zone 1. I manage to mostly ignore promotional events and celebrity hoopla. But there was one occasion coming up that I simply could not resist. When I realized that I hadn't been looking forward to seeing a movie this much since Lord of the Rings was first announced to be in production, I thought, "sod it" and marched off to Leicester Square to see the premiere celebrations of Hot Fuzz.

At the Vue Cinema:



The "red" carpet:



Nick Frost and Simon Pegg:



It was a bizarre situation, with people actually screaming. I thought that it was an alright time, until it started pouring down rain. I did get my collector's edition DVD of Spaced signed by Edgar Wright, Pegg, and Jessica Stevenson (who was so incredibly lovely). I also nicked one of the promotional cardboard posters as a souvenir. This began my actual favorite part of the evening.

On the London Underground, as I imagine any public transport in any large city, people ignore you. They bump into you, knock you over, jostle you, rush by you, and talk on their phones loudly in front of you. I always thought you'd have to actually be on fire for any one traveler to notice you. This turns out not to be the case: one only has to walk around with a giant Hot Fuzz poster. People were grinning and nodding at me all the way home. I don't know if this condition is particular to Hot Fuzz specifically (although not overly well known, they have received a lot of publicity lately; Pegg and especially Frost do seem to have this "regular guys made good" air about them, and I could see how locals would love to see two of their own raze Hollywood in the name of Britain) or any movie posters in general. I recommend you try it sometime.


Update:
Now I have seen the movie, and I loved it. I laughed through all 124 minutes. (Disclaimer: I laugh at everything.) The guys that I saw it with seemed to approve of the reviews that it's getting: it's not better than Shaun of the Dead (but really, who honestly thought they could top it?) yet it's still going to be miles better than anything coming to the cinema for months. This was confirmed to me Monday morning when whilst exchanging weekend stories a mate looked up at me wistfully and said, "You got to see Hot Fuzz? My girlfriend forced me to Music and Lyrics. It was beyond rubbish."