Grindhouse

Rating: 4/5
Now playing: Galleria 6

Robert Rodriguez may be my favorite filmmaker. I love that he writes, shoots, edits and scores his movies himself; I love that he does this all outside of Hollywood on the cheap; I love that he quit the Director’s Guild of America when they wouldn’t allow him to give Frank Miller a directing credit on “Sin City;” and I LOVE that he funded his first movie, “El Mariachi,” by submitting himself to experimental drug tests. Unfortunately, I’m never completely in love with the movies he makes, for various reasons, but mostly because he’s never made one that really clicked into place. He makes trashy movies, which I can dig, but all of them end up being either over-long or poorly paced, resulting in a product that never quite lives up to its potential.

Ah, but Quentin Tarantino. There’s a guy who can make a movie that runs on all cylinders. He can take bizarre dialogue and often very poor acting and present it in a way that delivers on all its promises with a few surprises thrown in for good measure. I’m not a fan of QT’s shameless self-promotion (living on talk show couches, casting himself in his own movies, assuming that everyone thinks he’s the world’s best director) but the release of one of his movies is undeniably an event, while RR’s movies simply offer a fun night out. These two, however, share a kinship that runs deeper than their burgeoning friendship and mutual disdain for the Hollywood system. They share a lust for movies of all types and qualities and use their own movies to pay homage to those films that shaped their personalities. They constantly buck any and all trends without ever alienating their core audience, which comprises of a rare mix of college students and art house snobs.

And under these circumstances, this pair of outlaws has brought “Grindhouse” to the multiplex. This singular movie is in fact a double feature, a staple of chop-shop, inner-city movie houses and drive-in theaters which has disappeared in today’s world of multi-layered marketing campaigns and direct-to-DVD releases. “Grindhouse” is composed of Robert Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof,” with four previews for imaginary movies guest-directed by the likes of Eli Roth and Rob Zombie scattered before and between the two main attractions. There is something undeniably American about double features, and these movies pack in more sleaze and violence than a weekend in Vegas with R. Kelly and Russell Crowe. The filmmakers obviously understand this, as the films are being separated in foreign markets but shown in the states as one three-hour orgy of sex, gore and more. Overall, “Grindhouse” is an absolute success, a 21-gun salute to raunchy crap. The previews are especially tasty, featuring ads for an over-the-top revenge flick, “Machete;” a sex-obsessed classic slasher movie, “Thanksgiving;” and the ridiculous “Don’t,” which actually seems pretty realistic as a cheap ’70s terror film. But the cake is taken and violated by Rob Zombie’s title-says-it-all, “Werewolf Women of the SS.” The experiment works and I would love to see more filmmakers ditching the feature-length format for more creative takes on the movie-going experience.

It would be nice to see Grindhouse become a yearly event, with up-and-coming directors placing their works next to those of established ones taking a break from their more “legitimate” movies.

‘Planet Terror’

Rating: 4.5/5
Directed by: Robert Rodriguez
Starring: Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Naveen Andrews

The generically named first feature starts as every movie honestly should: a scantily clad, go-go dancing Rose McGowan grinding skillfully to a sax-heavy score that sounds almost rusty and totally trashy. The picture is grainy and frames skip as if the film were damaged, which it was, intentionally.
She plays Cherry (that sounds about right) a reluctant dancer with many useless skills who lives in a small Texas town, unknowingly very near to an abandoned army base where rebel army soldiers are testing a dangerous new chemical weapon. This gas, of course, turns almost everybody into boil-covered, pus-spewing zombies with a taste for human flesh.
Freddy Rodriguez is Wray, a drifter and Cherry’s ex that could lead the few survivors to freedom if only the sheriff would let him out of his handcuffs. Josh Brolin plays a fabulously sadistic local doctor whose wife has chosen the exact wrong night to leave him.
The true merit of the picture lies not in the ludicrous plot, thin characterizations or even the gimmicky visuals. “Planet Terror” succeeds because it wallows in the bile and blood and exploitation with joy and a light spirit.
While the situation becomes progressively grimmer for our heroes, the tone is always comic without ever betraying its horror movie roots. Rodriguez is without a doubt in his element here and has produced his most completely enjoyable movie. He moves us quickly from scene to scene, incorporating exposition when needed but glossing over the more complicated plot elements.
His cast is absolutely delicious, highlighted by Rose McGowan’s ’70s throwback performance and Michael Biehn as the in-over-his-head sheriff. His ability to tease us with cheap thrills that make us laugh is laudable and I especially appreciate that all of the best tricks are saved for the end.
The final action sequences are wonderfully rendered and the energy level is kept very high throughout. “Planet Terror” would be a workout if it weren’t so much fun.

‘Death Proof’

Rating: 3/5
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson, Zoe Bell

Quentin Tarantino has billed “Death Proof” as a slasher movie with a car instead of a knife, and if this were indeed his intention then I am sad to report that for the first time, Quentin Tarantino has completely failed.
There are no creepy thrills or cheap scares and there is too much characterization of the villain to fall into the genre but not enough to subvert it. I like to think, however, that his loosely plotted story centered on the sociopath Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), his death proof car and his bevy of buxom victims is much more complicated.
The slasher movie structure is arguably there as Mike stalks two sets of four girls resulting in a long (well-shot) chase sequence, but the movie is slowly paced and dialogue-heavy. Extremely dialogue-heavy, in fact. “Death Proof” seems to be less of an attempt by QT to resurrect the grindhouse spirit and more a virtual time machine to see what a low budget Tarantino movie made in the mid-’70s would have looked like. Unfortunately, this view into the past is not as pretty as one might have hoped.
“Death Proof” has two major flaws, neither of which are of the same laughable, easy-to-dismiss variety as those that riddle “Planet Terror.”
The first flaw involves the dialogue and especially the fact that there is far too much of it. While most Tarantino movies are filled with people talking endlessly about mundane subjects, these are well-drawn characters who we enjoy getting to know through their cadence and pop culture insights. While most QT characters seem like they normally reside in bad movies but got lost in a good one, the girls in “Death Proof” are still in the bad movie. They are flat characters, as they should be, but their endless bickering and chattering leads nowhere, making them out to be empty-headed and obnoxious. Several stories and plot details were entirely unnecessary and even confusing, and we never got to know anything about these women other than the fact that only two or three out of the eight are worth listening to for any period of time. This may be par for the course in a Tarantino grindhouse picture, but it makes for a very slow second half to a double feature that started with a bang. I prefer the keep-the-action-coming attitude of “Planet Terror” and found the first two thirds of “Death Proof” to be tedious and boring.
I am happy to say that his climactic car chase is not boring by any means. His mix of classic cars and innovative suspense (Zoe Bell does the best acting work on top of a car I’ve ever seen) makes for a great ending to “Grindhouse.” However, one leaves the theater wishing that he could have gotten something more from Kurt Russell’s Stuntman Mike character and his death-proof car. Most Tarantino movies are built around his ability to make bad acting seem good and good acting seem classic. Unfortunately, there is nothing to hang onto from “Death Proof” after the credits have rolled other than the perfect title and cool cars.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Cadenza. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.