The Essentials: The Films Of Edgar Wright

“The Sparks Brothers” (2021)
Music has always been a critical component of Wright’s films, but it’s never been the subject of one until “The Sparks Brothers,” in which the director takes his love of all things Sparks and gives audiences a loving, playful primer on where to start with one of the 20th century’s most prolific bands. Sparks are Russell and Ron Mael: shape-shifting, genre-defying musical innovators who, like Wright himself, are at once totally tongue-in-cheek, and also dead serious about what they do. Wright manages to cover the entirety of Sparks’ far-reaching catalogue in a little over two hours without skimping on fanboy trivia, and he invites a host of your favorite Very Cool People – Beck, New Order’s Gillian Gilbert, synth god Giorgio Moroder, and Jason Schwartzman, to name a few – to geek out on all things Sparks. What makes “The Sparks Brothers” so enchanting is that while it’s the director’s first documentary, it’s still very much an Edgar Wright picture – there’s even a transfixing stop-motion animated sequence that features the voice talents of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost – and the Maels themselves are delightful personalities, as odd, idiosyncratic, and compelling as the character’s in Wright’s fictional movies.

“Last Night In Soho” (2021)
His second film of 2021, though much of that due to pandemic delays and coincidental timing, Edgar Wright is always mashing up genres to create something unique and new, usually subverting the familiar with something wild and comedic. “Last Night In Soho,” however, is his first narrative feature in ages to not lean into comedy as much as he has in the past. Instead, ‘Soho’ leans into a mash-up of Wright’s tastes, much of it centered around the 1960s and ’70s sensibilities. Set in two time periods, present-day and 1960s Swinging Soho London, Wright dusts off his favorite Dusty Springfield and Petula Clark records for the latter period, and taps a lot of disparate ’60s and ’70s horror influences: Polanski‘s “Repulsion,” “Suspiria,” Argento, Mario Bava, and Italian Giallo, Hammer horror movies and more. A trippy and freaky psychological horror film (Nicolas Roeg‘s “Don’t Look Back” is another influence), ‘Soho’ features two excellent up-and-coming stars Thomasin McKenzie (“Jojo Rabbit“) and Anya Taylor-Joy, one as a naive, aspiring fashion student with mental health issues, the other an aspiring 1960s singer she begins to see in her dreams as if called to by the spirits. What ensues is hard to talk about without spoiling, but it sort of involves time travel, visions of the past, ghosts, female empowerment revenge, and a murder mystery. One can argue it bites off more than it can chew, but ‘Soho’ at the very least is super ambitious, amazing to look at and features one of the most choice soundtracks of the year. – Rodrigo Perez

HONORABLE MENTIONS // UNMADE PROJECTS // MUSIC VIDEO WORK 

Like many kids who eventually go on to become brilliant filmmakers, Edgar Wright started making short films on a Super 8 camera that he was given as a wee lad. “Dead Right” is a winner from Wright’s twilight years: a hard-boiled yet unmistakably goofy sendup of gritty ’70s drive-in cinema that is available as a bonus feature on the “Hot Fuzz” Blu-Ray/DVD; we haven’t seen Wright’s other big short from this period, the superhero riff “Carbolic Soap,” but how could anyone resist a title like that?

Wright’s unofficial film debut is the somewhat wonky Sergio Leone homage “A Fistful of Fingers,” whose title should have been a clue that Wright would go on to direct his own uniquely British, pub-friendly version of Leone’s Dollar Trilogy one day. Comedy-Westerns have always been a tough sell – there’s more “The Ridiculous 6’s” out there than “Blazing Saddles,’” unfortunately – but Wright’s movie lands somewhere in the vast gulf that separates those two aforementioned efforts, displaying bonafide visual wit and understanding of genre tropes long before his style had evolved to the place where it is today.

In addition to “Spaced,” Wright fans will want to make time to binge “Asylum” – a very funny six-episode miniseries set in a British psych ward – if they haven’t gotten around to it already. More than anything, the show acted as a platform for upstart U.K. standups like Simon Pegg, Adam Bloom, and Paul Tonkinson, but there’s enough of Wright’s DNA in the final product that it merits inclusion here.

Wright has gone on to establish friendships and working relationships with many other directors during his time in the business: he’s a close creative partner of “The Kid Who Would Be King” director Joe Cornish, having co-written Steven Spielberg’s terrific and underappreciated “Adventures Of Tintin” film with the guy, not to mention executive-producing Cornish’s tremendous directorial debut “Attack The Block,” which features Cornetto regular Nick Frost in a cheeky supporting role as a council flats drug dealer (Wright is also chums with “Kill List” filmmaker Ben Wheatley, and lent his name as an executive producer to the director’s macabre road movie, “Sightseers”). Wright also directed the most memorable fake trailer for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s ambitious throwback diptych “Grindhouse”: a tantalizing spot for a fictional haunted-house horror flick simply titled “Don’t” (as in, “if you’re thinking about opening that mysterious closet door… DON’T!”).

The saga of Wright’s very public departure from Marvel’s first “Ant-Man” film has been well-chronicled at this point at this point, but revisiting Peyton Reed’s serviceable superhero adventure in preparation for putting this list together, it’s hard not to yearn for what could have been, as there are enough leftover Wright motifs in the 2014 movie that it can’t help but feel like something of a toothless concession. Perhaps Wright will return to the tentpole sandbox one day – let’s hope he’s afforded significantly more creative control if and when he decides to make that move.

Wright is also a gifted director of music videos, which should be no surprise to anyone who’s seen one of his movies. Among our favorites are his video for Mint Royale’s “Blue Song,” his colorful, woodsy visualization of Pharrell Williams’ smooth nouveau R&B number “Gust Of Wind,” and the Alison Brie-assisted, Blue Man Group-inspired vid for Beck’s “Colors.” Wright is also a supportive friend who has made cameos in many of his pal’s movies: not only has he appeared in a pair of films directed by friend Garth Jennings (Wright played a teacher in “Son of Rambow,” and a goat in “Sing”), he also served as a zombie extra in George Romero’s “Land Of The Dead,” and also as a resistance soldier, opposite Joe Cornish, in Rian Johnson’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”

As for projects currently in the works: at the moment, Wright is still slated to re-team with “Scott Pilgrim” collaborator Michael Bacall for a remake of “The Running Man,” the Stephen King novel (previously made into a 1987 dystopian cult classic starring Arnold Schwarzenegger) about a game show where the contestants have to quite literally run for their lives. Even if it’s a remake of a movie adored by many, it’s nevertheless a project that cries out for Wright’s particular set of talents. Indeed, Wright has been attached to a number of fascinating-sounding projects over the years – an animated kid’s movie about shadows that’s still stuck in development hell, an adaptation of the sci-fi page-turner “Set My Heart To Five,” a high-stakes kidnapping thriller called “The Chain,” the end-of-times Y.A. item “Grasshopper Jungle,” a potential “Baby Driver” sequel – but as of writing this, it’s unclear as to whether or not any of these above-mentioned undertakings will ever actually see the light of day. Here’s to hoping!

“Last Night In Soho” sees a release on October 29 via Focus Features.