by Thom Yee

The World’s End images courtesy of Universal Pictures and Focus Features

I like British stuff.  British cars, British landmarks… even British people.  There’s just something about their fundamental sensibilities, a mix of pride, integrity and understanding combined with an over-developed sense of perversion.  Now that’s pretty easy to say having not grown up there and having never visited, but everything British I’ve been exposed to — whether it was the Daniel Craig James Bonds, football hooligans, Warren Ellis, or even Top Gear — all seemed to have a certain wit (even if it didn’t need to), a certain understanding that there’s always more under the surface and that that’s where everything important is.  When it comes to British comedy, it’s not about landing jokes, it’s about hiding something funny in everything you say and the certain understanding that the only audiences worth pursuing are the ones picking up what you’re putting down.  It’s not about fast-paced wisecracks or sophistication (and in many ways it’s the polar opposite of those), it’s the winking notion that you only really recognize if you get it.  That moment at the end when you lay your soul bare to the only person you’ve ever really cared about, and all they say, all they have to say is, “I know.”

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by Grace Crawford

Images courtesy of StudioCanal, Working Title Films, Big Talk Productions, and Universal Pictures.

I watch a lot of American Dad. I think it’s because, when my day is over and I’m home from work, I don’t want to do any more writing. I just want to sit down, turn off my brain, and watch some stupid cartoons. And that’s what American Dad, along with every other show backed by Seth MacFarlane, is about: turning off your brain to watch something that will almost certainly make you dumber. Maybe it’s because it’s American. (Probably not.) Maybe it’s because it’s a cartoon. (But that’s about 50-50 odds.) Maybe it’s because it’s MacFarlane. (Almost certainly. You never see these problems with Matt Groening.)

And I have yet to see these problems with British comedy.

There are more than a few people who wonder why I love the Brits so much. They drink a lot of tea. They have silly accents. They produce some of the world’s finest writing and entertainment. And they have a queen, who is just adorable and who I want to call Nanna Lizzie, like, just so bad. You don’t even know. (As I’m Canadian, I could probably be beheaded for that, so I really hope she’s not one of our readers. On the off chance she is, hello, ma’am. I love your hats. Quite fetching.)

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by Thom Yee

Shaun of the Dead images courtesy of Rogue Pictures

As much as our popular conceptions of zombies come from 1968 and George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, the zombie has existed in one form or another since the Bronze Age of man.  These days, people talk about zombies like they’re some sort of fad, a phenomenon that can most easily be traced back to late 2010 when The Walking Dead (the TV show) started gaining attention on an international level, but I don’t feel like zombies are ever going to go away like the vampire fad.  The thing that separates them from their horror contemporaries in popular media is that zombies never really had to sell out.  There’s an inherent strength in the concept that transcends the need for short-sighted, ruinous contemporizing like sparkling in sunlight or… I don’t actually know anything else about Twilight.

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by Grace Crawford

All Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging images courtesy of Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount Pictures.

I’m actually super impressed with you at the moment. Yes, you, dear reader. Know why? Because you willingly (or maybe you were coerced; I really don’t know how you ended up on our site in the first place) clicked on a link that almost certainly had the words “thongs” and “snogging” in it, even though you most likely had no idea who Angus was. (He’s a cat.) And I think that shows courage on your part, because you’re bracing yourself for the inevitable wave of tampons and estrogen that’s about to rain down on your head.

Well, fear not, dear reader. I fully intend for this to be the only romantic comedy I ever review. And if, by some wild stretch of the imagination, I end up gushing on about some Ryan Gosling piece six months from now, I give you permission to say nasty things in the comments section. (But not too mean, please; I’m a delicate flower and I cry easily.)

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