REVIEW: Grindhouse

Went to see Grindhouse on Saturday afternoon. Pretty full theater too. Although we did see some walkouts during Tarantino's segment. So how do I begin. Did I like it. Yes. Did I like one over the other? Yes. But that can always change with time. I liked Rodriguez's Planet Terror only because it reminded me more of the type of B-movies I used to go to more often than Tarantino's Death Proof. Planet Terror concerns a zombie plague in Texas and a band of a dozen or so peeps that try to escape and kill as many in their way in the process. It's just that simple! And that's what is so great about it too. If your into wacky characters and killin' some Zombies with gore aplenty then relax and have a good time. The score by Rodriguez and sax guru Johnny Reno (who has a small part) is my favorite part of the film. It's like a tribute score to all those rip off films of John Carpenter. So its a riff on rip off Carpenter scores. I really liked the way the film looks too. It has a beat to shit 80s color palette that reminded me most of Lucio Fulci films like The Beyond or one his oddball Space Gladiator films. The cast was great too. Freddy Rodriguez and Rose McGowan had good old fashioned b-movie chemistry. There are way too many tributes to certain horor and sci-fi movies to mention here. I'm sure someone somewhere has already made a website for pointing those out.

The fake trailers: There are four fake trailers: Machete was pretty funny and something that looked like it would be fun to watch. Rob Zombie's Werewolf Women of the SS was alright but felt altered (I think it was cut down for R-rating). Eli Roth's Thanksgiving trailer was alright but began to feel like it was too much for cheap jokes instead of a tribute to the genre. The best was Edgar Wright's Don't. That one cracked me up and really did feel like a genuine trailer from those days.

Tarantino's movie was unfortunately for me a tribute to a series of films I'm not so fond of. He really gets off on Jack Hill's chick flicks from the 70's like Switchblade Sisters. I think he likes more of the attitude of the girls in those movies, like a Pam Grier type. And the movie is pretty good, but I think it has the disservice of coming before Planet Terror which is everything Death Proof is not. Let's be honest Tarantino likes to hear himself talk thru his characters. And here he pushed my limits several times. I've read people ripping these scenes and some praising them. In my opinion I fall somewhere in the middle of those two camps. When the man is on he is on, but here he misses the mark to me. The idea of Death Proof is simple. An ex stunt driver, Mike played great by Kurt Russell likes to run over and kill people with his death proof stunt car. Then one day he comes across some stunt chicks that don't exactly agree with his sense of humor. The dialog scenes between the girls go on and on forever. The car chase is great, and i had hear going in that the chases compare with Bullitt and French Connection. Let me say right now, NO, THEY DON'T COME CLOSE. Not even a bit. But they are live my friends. No CG , just old fashioned car chases.

This film bombed badly over the weekend so much so that the producer and distributor are freaking out. Which brings me to my next point... If you set out to make two movies that are supposed to be like re-living the experience of the Grindhouse. Why spend close to 60 to 100 million dollars. If you took every grindhouse movie budget ever made and put them together, they would not equal that much. There were a lot of CG effects in Planet Terror that producers back then could only dream of. And then to make things worse they spent millions of dollars to then make them look like bad effects. Whats the point? Make a real Grindhouse movie.

having said all this, I did enjoy the experience and I'm glad they got to make it, I just which it was a bit more thought out. It feels like a vanity project gone awry in spots. I mean Rodriguez already makes big budget b movies, and QT made his grindhouse epic with Kill Bill, so this feels kind of late, but I welcome it in any incarnation it may come in.