Night out, "Hot Fuzz" and "Grindhouse"
Last weekend we saw Hot Fuzz and Grindhouse, both of which were really great. We went to Hot Fuzz on Friday night at a theater right by campus that I hadn't been to yet. It was pretty nice. It was more fun than I expected being out around campus on Friday night. In the couple hours we walked around to get dinner, ice cream, and see the movie, I ran into five of my former students. Two of those encounters happened within a couple minutes of each other while we walked to Charley's for food, which Graham found really surprising. From that point, every time I saw another student Graham gave progressively more irate and disbelieving reactions. He was just jealous that he didn't see anyone he knew. :)
Hot Fuzz was really, really funny. I enjoyed all the build-up to the RBFATE (Really Big Fight At The End) on its own, and then said fight was even better than the rest had been.
We saw Grindhouse the next night. I preferred the zombie half, Planet Terror, to the car half, Death Proof. It was cool to see Michael Biehn in something again. Apparently he's been working pretty steadily, but the last thing he was in that I saw was NBC's hilariously awful 1997 "Asteroid" miniseries, and I didn't even realize until just now that he'd been in that. (I then immediately also realized he was the dude to whom was delivered the line I have in my quotes list, "I'm alright, but Elliot's in the crater!")
At this point I am going to provide some spoilers for Death Proof, so feel free to skip the rest if you care.
A big part of why I preferred Planet Terror is because I felt like the first half of Death Proof was essentially a big waste of time. The only character from that half that I cared about was Rose McGowan's. So, I was invested when she was getting banged around in the car, but that was over quickly, and I didn't really care at all that the other girls all died. Especially since they didn't even suffer, I had no chance to feel bad for them anyway. I think Kurt Russel could have been established as a horrible, horrible person without us spending 45 minutes getting to know those girls and then moving on to a totally disconnected second set. That time would have been better spent on the new girls, all of whom I liked. (It's practically impossible to not like Rosario Dawson, admittedly.)
In the first car chase with the new characters, I found myself very distraught. For no particular reason that I'm aware of, car chases with characters in them often get to me (car chases full of narratively empty vehicles don't), and especially since I *liked* these characters, and the shooting was so close in, and Zoe was in more immediate danger than most people in car chases... I actually had to consciously decide to detach myself because I was getting pretty worked up. I wasn't excited, I was upset. But then they switched over and it was totally fun when they shot Kurt and chased him back down. He was genuinely scared and in pain, and he totally deserved it and I thought it was great. And the abrupt ending with them all jumping up, "yay we killed him!" was awesome. As funny as the followup shot of Rosario smashing in his head was, I think the ending would have been better without it.
So, the two things I didn't like about it were 1) too much time with the girls that all died (Tarantino's fault), and 2) car chases scare me (my fault).
Hot Fuzz was really, really funny. I enjoyed all the build-up to the RBFATE (Really Big Fight At The End) on its own, and then said fight was even better than the rest had been.
We saw Grindhouse the next night. I preferred the zombie half, Planet Terror, to the car half, Death Proof. It was cool to see Michael Biehn in something again. Apparently he's been working pretty steadily, but the last thing he was in that I saw was NBC's hilariously awful 1997 "Asteroid" miniseries, and I didn't even realize until just now that he'd been in that. (I then immediately also realized he was the dude to whom was delivered the line I have in my quotes list, "I'm alright, but Elliot's in the crater!")
At this point I am going to provide some spoilers for Death Proof, so feel free to skip the rest if you care.
A big part of why I preferred Planet Terror is because I felt like the first half of Death Proof was essentially a big waste of time. The only character from that half that I cared about was Rose McGowan's. So, I was invested when she was getting banged around in the car, but that was over quickly, and I didn't really care at all that the other girls all died. Especially since they didn't even suffer, I had no chance to feel bad for them anyway. I think Kurt Russel could have been established as a horrible, horrible person without us spending 45 minutes getting to know those girls and then moving on to a totally disconnected second set. That time would have been better spent on the new girls, all of whom I liked. (It's practically impossible to not like Rosario Dawson, admittedly.)
In the first car chase with the new characters, I found myself very distraught. For no particular reason that I'm aware of, car chases with characters in them often get to me (car chases full of narratively empty vehicles don't), and especially since I *liked* these characters, and the shooting was so close in, and Zoe was in more immediate danger than most people in car chases... I actually had to consciously decide to detach myself because I was getting pretty worked up. I wasn't excited, I was upset. But then they switched over and it was totally fun when they shot Kurt and chased him back down. He was genuinely scared and in pain, and he totally deserved it and I thought it was great. And the abrupt ending with them all jumping up, "yay we killed him!" was awesome. As funny as the followup shot of Rosario smashing in his head was, I think the ending would have been better without it.
So, the two things I didn't like about it were 1) too much time with the girls that all died (Tarantino's fault), and 2) car chases scare me (my fault).