Second prize (two nights in Philadelphia)
Marisa drove us down to Philly this weekend to see King Tut. Because that was our only real objective, and I went to Philadelphia twice last year, we didn't have much of agenda upon arriving in town Friday night apart from having dinner and seeing Grindhouse, especially cause it was playing a few blocks from our hotel (more on that later). This two-screen theatre, The Roxy, worried me sight unseen on two counts: one, that would be small and crummy; two, that the audience would be correspondingly small and deflated. The second worry was so unfounded that it canceled out the first: indeed, the theatre was small and crummy and they didn't even clean up from the previous show. But our 9:45 showing was sold the f out, every last seat taken, and the crowd was into it. Not Snakes on a Plane into it, but enthusiastic without that weird Times Square enthusiasm where the show is packed and then half the crowd proceeds to text during most of the movie and get up to leave as soon as the movie looks even slightly close to over. A solid crowd at a crummy theatre is reasonably close to the atmosphere the filmmakers are going for here anyway (well, apparently prostitutes and gang fights were the more common aesthetic, but in those cases I'll take the gentrified hipster version and settle for a lot of spilled popcorn).
Apart from sitting in some pretty uncomfortable seats for three-plus hours, I had a pretty great time watching Grindhouse. I'm struck by all of the reviews that rush to compare the two films, Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Tarantino's Death Proof, emphasizing their preference for one or another (usually the Tarantino, but a few brave souls call Tarantino's boring and champion Rodriguez's). The different approaches in the two films are what makes the double-feature idea work so well; it's like reading two completely different ace-level responses to a writing prompt. Rodriguez makes a semi-spoof grindhouse movie by mashing up as many spare parts (and zombies) as possible. I know Rodriguez isn't known as a practicer of coherent, singular visions in his films, but Planet Terror is a far messier than any of his "adult" movies. (Once Upon a Time in Mexico strikes a lot of people that way, but to me it makes a weird, wonderful kind of sense.) A real low-budget B-movie wouldn't bother with so many supporting characters and so many scenes and... well, maybe this much exposition; I'll give him that. As a scattershot bunch of deadpan parody and gory insanity, Planet Terror is great fun and Rose McGowan even gives a real performance in the middle of it. Plus, Freddy Rodriguez (no relation) is far cooler than I would've guessed having seen season one of Six Feet Under (but little else; maybe he gets to stabbin' in later episodes).
Tarantino's Death Proof was announced as a slasher film and while I went into the whole Grindhouse production with a lot of excitement, I felt a little trepidation about Tarantino's sudden interest in making "genre" homages. I mean, I loved all of Kill Bill but to follow it up with a slasher film feels like a major regression from pretty much everything Tarantino has ever done except maybe From Dusk Till Dawn (and even that, too, because that movie was basically a Tarantino crime picture fused with a Rodriguez monster mash) (by the way, in case you didn't know, I love that movie). However: the actual final product of Death Proof is like no actual slasher movie I've ever seen. Tarantino has since described it as a slasher movie where the slasher uses a car instead of a knife, but it's not really like that, either. It's a talky chick-bonding movie with some car-stunt and slasher elements. The fact that it's carefully shot and deliberately paced, not to mention totally enamored of its female characters in a not-always-fetishic way shows Tarantino bringing in a lot more elements from Jackie Brown and Kill Bill than I expected at the outset. I love the way Tarantino takes the basics of an exploitation movie and really can't help but make something unique and personal out of it.
I also love the way Rodriguez lives and breathes on exploitation movies -- even his kids' movies were sort of junior exploitation movies in the way that they'd grab images and ideas and jokes out of what were obviously his own childhood-to-present obsessions (and presumably the obsessions of his own children). Both Grindhouse movies could've been shorter, especially given that they're sold as a package: Rodriguez could've cut some exposition and/or subplots, and Tarantino could trim down some of his dialogue with Tracie Thoms from Rent overdoing it a little. Tarantino's film is more accomplished in a lot of ways, but given the assignment, call it a draw -- I don't feel like I have to pick a side; that's the whole point. Oh, and the four fake trailers are all fantastic and a great bonus reason to seek this out in a theater. Given the mediocre box office performance this weekend, I would not be surprised at all to see this released as two separate bare-bones DVDs before coming out in some kind of deluxe set with longer versions of both movies, extra trailers, whatever. Go out to see Grindhouse -- even, maybe especially, at a tiny-screen two-plex with creaky seats.
Now, some words about our hotel: it's this weird joint that's supposed to be mainly for businesses, but they do make some rooms available to regular folks who have stayed there before, at pretty low rates for something centrally located and not dive-y. How you get started staying there, I'm not sure -- but somehow, we stayed there for a night last time we went to Philly. It was perfectly fine. Not fancy, but fine. This time we had some problems. When we got there, we were taken a room with two tiny twin beds, because apparently that room was incorrectly marked in their system as a Queen bed. They were very nice and quick about fixing that, but our new room was on the same floor in the lobby. It's hard to describe why this was weird, but trust me when I say that the way the hotel was set up, this felt sort of like we were in staff housing. Especially when the room temperature refused to go above seventy degrees. I'm all about sleeping in coolness and depending on blankets for warmth, but I was pretty cold, and when I turned on the heat, vents turned on but seemed to be blowing cold (or at least cool) air. The thermostat beared this theory out, as the temperature dropped by a few degrees. Its low point was around 65; not unbearable, but a few hairs below what I consider "room temperature." On Saturday we had someone from the hotel come look at it, but he could only do what I did -- that is to say, I was attempting to turn the heat on in the correct way -- and then offer us a room switch. But it was 11:30PM on a Saturday, not that cold, and we just wanted to go to bed, so we didn't bother. By virtue of not trying to turn the heat on again, the room was slightly warmer that night. Also, the toilet was a slow-flusher, the shower was poorly litt, and the coffee machine was in the bathroom (neither of us wanted any coffee anyway, but that was just weird). Club Quarters is on probation.
Saturday was King Tut at the Ben Franklin Institute. Well, not King Tut himself -- his bones don't travel with his entourage on this tour. But it was still pretty cool. I'll leave further Tut discussion to Marisa. She had been anticipating this for months; we're going to have to find her some country's crown jewels to check out to avoid post-Tut depression.
After Tut, we walked down to a bakery in South Philly to get a dessert for Marisa's family's Easter thing. This bakery was a good three miles from Tut and another two miles and change back to the hotel. Lots of walking, but we saw a lot of the city. Then, after dinner at a fancy Mexican place, we decided to take a walk over the bridge into the university territories, and go to another movie when we got there. That was another two miles of walking, only to find out that our movie wasn't actually playing. I had looked up movie times a few days before we left but I guess this theater had a last-minute booking change and our choice was replaced with Grindhouse. So we walked back into the center of the city, got in the car, and drove to the more multiplex-y theater (also in South Philly) to see what we planned to see.
I feel a little silly considering that the movie was The Reaping, but we lacked a real plan B (crash a U-Penn party?), and in our nine miles of walking, we passed a lot of cool stuff to see, but not much to do after dark (Ben Franklin seance?). The Reaping was okay -- it's not nearly as stupid as most movies of its type, and reasonably entertaining. It's slickly made but doesn't have a real style of its own. Still, a better Easter experience than that Passion stuff.
Today was Easter, so stuff was closed; we just grabbed some muffins and drove to Staten Island. Actually, between muffins and Staten we inadvertently saw a great deal of Camden's waterfront property. Last time we drove back from Pennsylvania, we got a brief tour of downtown Newark. I would've taken pictures but if ever I felt there was a slight chance that I could maybe be shot in a moving car in broad daylight on the east coast... well, I wouldn't say that I expected that to happen but there definitely would not have been immediate reprecussions for anyone who decided to do that shooting.
Alas, my spring break has about ten minutes left so I'm going to do some reading before I fall asleep and dream of future trips that will not involve passing through Jersey.
Apart from sitting in some pretty uncomfortable seats for three-plus hours, I had a pretty great time watching Grindhouse. I'm struck by all of the reviews that rush to compare the two films, Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Tarantino's Death Proof, emphasizing their preference for one or another (usually the Tarantino, but a few brave souls call Tarantino's boring and champion Rodriguez's). The different approaches in the two films are what makes the double-feature idea work so well; it's like reading two completely different ace-level responses to a writing prompt. Rodriguez makes a semi-spoof grindhouse movie by mashing up as many spare parts (and zombies) as possible. I know Rodriguez isn't known as a practicer of coherent, singular visions in his films, but Planet Terror is a far messier than any of his "adult" movies. (Once Upon a Time in Mexico strikes a lot of people that way, but to me it makes a weird, wonderful kind of sense.) A real low-budget B-movie wouldn't bother with so many supporting characters and so many scenes and... well, maybe this much exposition; I'll give him that. As a scattershot bunch of deadpan parody and gory insanity, Planet Terror is great fun and Rose McGowan even gives a real performance in the middle of it. Plus, Freddy Rodriguez (no relation) is far cooler than I would've guessed having seen season one of Six Feet Under (but little else; maybe he gets to stabbin' in later episodes).
Tarantino's Death Proof was announced as a slasher film and while I went into the whole Grindhouse production with a lot of excitement, I felt a little trepidation about Tarantino's sudden interest in making "genre" homages. I mean, I loved all of Kill Bill but to follow it up with a slasher film feels like a major regression from pretty much everything Tarantino has ever done except maybe From Dusk Till Dawn (and even that, too, because that movie was basically a Tarantino crime picture fused with a Rodriguez monster mash) (by the way, in case you didn't know, I love that movie). However: the actual final product of Death Proof is like no actual slasher movie I've ever seen. Tarantino has since described it as a slasher movie where the slasher uses a car instead of a knife, but it's not really like that, either. It's a talky chick-bonding movie with some car-stunt and slasher elements. The fact that it's carefully shot and deliberately paced, not to mention totally enamored of its female characters in a not-always-fetishic way shows Tarantino bringing in a lot more elements from Jackie Brown and Kill Bill than I expected at the outset. I love the way Tarantino takes the basics of an exploitation movie and really can't help but make something unique and personal out of it.
I also love the way Rodriguez lives and breathes on exploitation movies -- even his kids' movies were sort of junior exploitation movies in the way that they'd grab images and ideas and jokes out of what were obviously his own childhood-to-present obsessions (and presumably the obsessions of his own children). Both Grindhouse movies could've been shorter, especially given that they're sold as a package: Rodriguez could've cut some exposition and/or subplots, and Tarantino could trim down some of his dialogue with Tracie Thoms from Rent overdoing it a little. Tarantino's film is more accomplished in a lot of ways, but given the assignment, call it a draw -- I don't feel like I have to pick a side; that's the whole point. Oh, and the four fake trailers are all fantastic and a great bonus reason to seek this out in a theater. Given the mediocre box office performance this weekend, I would not be surprised at all to see this released as two separate bare-bones DVDs before coming out in some kind of deluxe set with longer versions of both movies, extra trailers, whatever. Go out to see Grindhouse -- even, maybe especially, at a tiny-screen two-plex with creaky seats.
Now, some words about our hotel: it's this weird joint that's supposed to be mainly for businesses, but they do make some rooms available to regular folks who have stayed there before, at pretty low rates for something centrally located and not dive-y. How you get started staying there, I'm not sure -- but somehow, we stayed there for a night last time we went to Philly. It was perfectly fine. Not fancy, but fine. This time we had some problems. When we got there, we were taken a room with two tiny twin beds, because apparently that room was incorrectly marked in their system as a Queen bed. They were very nice and quick about fixing that, but our new room was on the same floor in the lobby. It's hard to describe why this was weird, but trust me when I say that the way the hotel was set up, this felt sort of like we were in staff housing. Especially when the room temperature refused to go above seventy degrees. I'm all about sleeping in coolness and depending on blankets for warmth, but I was pretty cold, and when I turned on the heat, vents turned on but seemed to be blowing cold (or at least cool) air. The thermostat beared this theory out, as the temperature dropped by a few degrees. Its low point was around 65; not unbearable, but a few hairs below what I consider "room temperature." On Saturday we had someone from the hotel come look at it, but he could only do what I did -- that is to say, I was attempting to turn the heat on in the correct way -- and then offer us a room switch. But it was 11:30PM on a Saturday, not that cold, and we just wanted to go to bed, so we didn't bother. By virtue of not trying to turn the heat on again, the room was slightly warmer that night. Also, the toilet was a slow-flusher, the shower was poorly litt, and the coffee machine was in the bathroom (neither of us wanted any coffee anyway, but that was just weird). Club Quarters is on probation.
Saturday was King Tut at the Ben Franklin Institute. Well, not King Tut himself -- his bones don't travel with his entourage on this tour. But it was still pretty cool. I'll leave further Tut discussion to Marisa. She had been anticipating this for months; we're going to have to find her some country's crown jewels to check out to avoid post-Tut depression.
After Tut, we walked down to a bakery in South Philly to get a dessert for Marisa's family's Easter thing. This bakery was a good three miles from Tut and another two miles and change back to the hotel. Lots of walking, but we saw a lot of the city. Then, after dinner at a fancy Mexican place, we decided to take a walk over the bridge into the university territories, and go to another movie when we got there. That was another two miles of walking, only to find out that our movie wasn't actually playing. I had looked up movie times a few days before we left but I guess this theater had a last-minute booking change and our choice was replaced with Grindhouse. So we walked back into the center of the city, got in the car, and drove to the more multiplex-y theater (also in South Philly) to see what we planned to see.
I feel a little silly considering that the movie was The Reaping, but we lacked a real plan B (crash a U-Penn party?), and in our nine miles of walking, we passed a lot of cool stuff to see, but not much to do after dark (Ben Franklin seance?). The Reaping was okay -- it's not nearly as stupid as most movies of its type, and reasonably entertaining. It's slickly made but doesn't have a real style of its own. Still, a better Easter experience than that Passion stuff.
Today was Easter, so stuff was closed; we just grabbed some muffins and drove to Staten Island. Actually, between muffins and Staten we inadvertently saw a great deal of Camden's waterfront property. Last time we drove back from Pennsylvania, we got a brief tour of downtown Newark. I would've taken pictures but if ever I felt there was a slight chance that I could maybe be shot in a moving car in broad daylight on the east coast... well, I wouldn't say that I expected that to happen but there definitely would not have been immediate reprecussions for anyone who decided to do that shooting.
Alas, my spring break has about ten minutes left so I'm going to do some reading before I fall asleep and dream of future trips that will not involve passing through Jersey.