Grindhouse grinds to a halt
When you hear that a movie is being made called Grindhouse, featuring back-to-back movies by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino respectively, and that the duo will be an homage to B-movie classics of the drive-in theater/double-feature era, you get a certain image in your head. I certainly did.
You get to the theater, and Robert Rodriguez's offering is the first of the Grindhouse pair: Planet Terror, a gorey romp through zombie land, with a handful of survivors running and shooting for their lives whilst dodging the zombie hordes and a very dubious military presence. The Guardian from Lady in the Water was here, as well as Bruce Willis, and the enchanting Rose McGowan of Charmed fame and looking very fetching whilst wearing a machine gun for a leg. Amazing! It totally delivered on the image that had built up so far. And, before and in between the pair of movies, there were fake trailers for movies that will never be made, but fit into the horror, monster, thriller, murder movie genre: Machete, which featured Danny Trejo as a Mexican, machete-wielding hitman who has to fight the bad guys who set him up for a double-cross; Don't, which was a series of people dying in a scary house while the narrator slowly but surely traversed through silly dialogue; Werewolf Women of the SS, which has the Nazis trying to create warrior women werewolves, sex, terror and so forth, and Nicholas Cage as "Fu Manchu"; and finally Thanksgiving, which follows a killer creatively decreasing the population of a small suburban town on the eve of the national holiday, usually involving pairs of teens shacking up and one of them losing a head or something.
So, from this build-up I was definitely expecting Tarantino's offering to follow suit with something reminiscent of a horror, suspense, monster, whatever movie. That's what all the signs were pointing to, right?
WROMG!*
*an amalgamation of "wrong" and "OMG"
Tarantino's movie, Deathproof, follows a group of girls as they chat and complain and hit up bars, while being followed by Kurt Russell in his muscle-car. Eventually, Russell makes contact with the girls at their last stop of the evening, and then pretends to give one girl a ride home. However, his car is fortified for stunts and protects the driver, but the passenger seat is unprotected, and Russell's character kill his young escort. He then speeds up to find the car with the other young ladies and crashes into them, killing them. After a stop at the hospital, while Russell recovers from the crash and the local Sheriff tries to decide if the crash was deliberate or not, we follow another bevy of beauties, this time stunt girls from a local movie crew out on the town. We follow them for quite some time, getting a few glimpses of Russell following them. Then, when he moves in for the kill and you think his killing streak will continue, he makes it a joke and lets them live, allowing the girls to follow him, run him down and beat him up. End movie.
What the EFFFFFF!!!!!!
This movie had some semblances of plot, but absolutely no story, and the worst resolution ever. The majority of the movie was Tarantino's signature long-winded (read as 'tiresome') dialogue between girls, some representing the worst stereotypes imaginable. Come on, where was the mock serious story, or the continued killings that seemed to be leading up to? Nowhere, that's where. In my opinion, Tarantino really dropped the ball on this one. It definitely didn't seem to fit with Rodriguez's film, or with any of the mock movie trailers preceding it, and really had nothing in the way of character development or story to make the audience care about it. Rodriguez's Planet Terror, for all its cheesiness, made you care about the characters, want to know more, and got you involved, making you care when they died. Tarantino's movie made you want to kill all of the characters shortly after meeting them, but definitely left no opportunity for such a thing to happen as it should have. Argh. Seriously, why all the build up when nothing was going to happen? Why make it seem like two horror/monster/thrillers were back to back when one has none of those things, and sucks? Granted, the cinematography in Tarantino's was good, but that's about it.
SO, end scene. And end rant. Robert Rodriguez's half of Grindhouse delivered, and was shocking, scary, funny and awesome all at the same time. Tarantino's film was disappointing, leaving you wondering what you just wasted all that time for. Sorry guys, that's how the cookie crumbles. It's a big, three-hour long cookie, too, so that makes Tarantino's film hurt all the more that you wait all that time and get no prize at the bottom of the Crackerjack box when you reach it.
If you're a big Tarantino fan, you might still like the second half of the movie, but it'd still be a stretch in my opinion. Thank god for Rodriguez is all I have to say.
Go outside and enjoy yourselves, my frisky little ponies. The night is young, and Easter is practically upon us. Live your dreams!!!
You get to the theater, and Robert Rodriguez's offering is the first of the Grindhouse pair: Planet Terror, a gorey romp through zombie land, with a handful of survivors running and shooting for their lives whilst dodging the zombie hordes and a very dubious military presence. The Guardian from Lady in the Water was here, as well as Bruce Willis, and the enchanting Rose McGowan of Charmed fame and looking very fetching whilst wearing a machine gun for a leg. Amazing! It totally delivered on the image that had built up so far. And, before and in between the pair of movies, there were fake trailers for movies that will never be made, but fit into the horror, monster, thriller, murder movie genre: Machete, which featured Danny Trejo as a Mexican, machete-wielding hitman who has to fight the bad guys who set him up for a double-cross; Don't, which was a series of people dying in a scary house while the narrator slowly but surely traversed through silly dialogue; Werewolf Women of the SS, which has the Nazis trying to create warrior women werewolves, sex, terror and so forth, and Nicholas Cage as "Fu Manchu"; and finally Thanksgiving, which follows a killer creatively decreasing the population of a small suburban town on the eve of the national holiday, usually involving pairs of teens shacking up and one of them losing a head or something.
So, from this build-up I was definitely expecting Tarantino's offering to follow suit with something reminiscent of a horror, suspense, monster, whatever movie. That's what all the signs were pointing to, right?
WROMG!*
*an amalgamation of "wrong" and "OMG"
Tarantino's movie, Deathproof, follows a group of girls as they chat and complain and hit up bars, while being followed by Kurt Russell in his muscle-car. Eventually, Russell makes contact with the girls at their last stop of the evening, and then pretends to give one girl a ride home. However, his car is fortified for stunts and protects the driver, but the passenger seat is unprotected, and Russell's character kill his young escort. He then speeds up to find the car with the other young ladies and crashes into them, killing them. After a stop at the hospital, while Russell recovers from the crash and the local Sheriff tries to decide if the crash was deliberate or not, we follow another bevy of beauties, this time stunt girls from a local movie crew out on the town. We follow them for quite some time, getting a few glimpses of Russell following them. Then, when he moves in for the kill and you think his killing streak will continue, he makes it a joke and lets them live, allowing the girls to follow him, run him down and beat him up. End movie.
What the EFFFFFF!!!!!!
This movie had some semblances of plot, but absolutely no story, and the worst resolution ever. The majority of the movie was Tarantino's signature long-winded (read as 'tiresome') dialogue between girls, some representing the worst stereotypes imaginable. Come on, where was the mock serious story, or the continued killings that seemed to be leading up to? Nowhere, that's where. In my opinion, Tarantino really dropped the ball on this one. It definitely didn't seem to fit with Rodriguez's film, or with any of the mock movie trailers preceding it, and really had nothing in the way of character development or story to make the audience care about it. Rodriguez's Planet Terror, for all its cheesiness, made you care about the characters, want to know more, and got you involved, making you care when they died. Tarantino's movie made you want to kill all of the characters shortly after meeting them, but definitely left no opportunity for such a thing to happen as it should have. Argh. Seriously, why all the build up when nothing was going to happen? Why make it seem like two horror/monster/thrillers were back to back when one has none of those things, and sucks? Granted, the cinematography in Tarantino's was good, but that's about it.
SO, end scene. And end rant. Robert Rodriguez's half of Grindhouse delivered, and was shocking, scary, funny and awesome all at the same time. Tarantino's film was disappointing, leaving you wondering what you just wasted all that time for. Sorry guys, that's how the cookie crumbles. It's a big, three-hour long cookie, too, so that makes Tarantino's film hurt all the more that you wait all that time and get no prize at the bottom of the Crackerjack box when you reach it.
If you're a big Tarantino fan, you might still like the second half of the movie, but it'd still be a stretch in my opinion. Thank god for Rodriguez is all I have to say.
Go outside and enjoy yourselves, my frisky little ponies. The night is young, and Easter is practically upon us. Live your dreams!!!