Bump and Grindhouse

Kid (singing) "I want to eat your brains...and gain all your knowledge."

I've waited all week with baited breath for your review of this movie. I couldn't agree more; Planet Terror was really adreanaline pumping, exitingly hilarious and squirmingly gruesome. I really loved it!

I was really satisfied and could have walked out of the theater right there - and I should have because Death Proof was 'Entertainment Proof.' It was SO BORING!

Put it this way; PLANET TERROR was like having the most incredible anal SEX with all 3 'GIRLS NEXT DOOR' while on ecstacy and DEATH PROOF was like the obligitory cuddling and wretched pillow talk afterwards...while your still all pumped up from all the ecstacy.

At least they should have put Death PRoof first and Planet Terror second. You can't start off with a climax. Trust me, I've tried.

ZOE was on Conan and said she was going 70 MPH while on that hood. That was cool...but that scene is soooo drawn out too.

DEATH PROOF was worthless. The long dialogue when they are sitting at the diner and talking about cars was reminiscant of RESEVOIR DOGS but it was so incredibly lame and boring!

And they never went back to their cheerleader friend. Are we to assume he raped her? Did they have tea and talk about Nascar. What? Give a goddamn morsel you bastard!

I really lost a lot of respect for Tarentino from this experience. This is the best he could do? AND his acting scene in Planet Terror was so FORCED and absurd. It slowed the movie down for me. He's gotten really fat too.

Rodriguez really impressed me and I look forward to his future. Tarantino? Just be Dr. Dre to Rodriguez's Eminem okay?

-K. Digital

Pat I agree completely with your review. I was thrilled by Planet Terror and underwhelmed by Death Proof. Besides zapping the momentum of the first half, Tarantino apparently decided that instead of riffing on exploitation flicks, he would spend most of his movie riffing on himself. The car chase sequences are obviously some of the best ever filmed - but Tarantino's gabfest dialogue, which is usually a delight when used in moderation, felt excessive and at times (GASP) boring. The shout-outs to the Pulp Fiction universe ("Big Kahuna burger," "foot massage") were stale and felt like second-rate Kevin Smith. And Tarantino's on-screen appearances were nothing but distracting. The guy is still a master, but you're right - he didn't quite hit is mark in a genre exercise that should have been a bulls-eye.

Gah! Christ! This is a strange position to be in, because I've never agreed with someone's overall assessment (Cinemagoing experience: A-) and yet have our opinions be completely the fuck opposite.

***FUCKING SPOILERS***

I actually thought Rodriguez had the weaker entry. There were a few moments in his film that gave me that sense that anything could happen when this guy is at the helm, I'm not going to lie. My particular favorite was when the cute kid shot himself in the head. But still, he couldn't help but telegraph it! The rest, to be honest? It didn't feel like he was trying to shock or scare, it felt like he was trying to impress. Look how big the budget is, look at these fucking stunts we can pull off. Admittedly, the stated goal of Grindhouse was to show on the screen what the real grindhouse movies could only show on the poster, and in that Rodriguez passed with flying colors. But still, I wanted a bit more from him. I wanted him to subvert the genre, rather than just update it with modern day special effects.

That's what I got from Tarantino. The guy has made a big deal out of the fact that he was making a slasher film, but the weapon is a car rather than a knife or an axe. Fantastic. Easy concept. As Tarantino himself has said many times, there are few genres in cinema today where the boundaries are as clearly set as the slasher film. These people have to live, these people have to die and this guy has to be responsible for killing all of those other people.

I liked what Tarantino did here. He took his time with the victims. Even if you read about the film beforehand, you could have potentially been fooled into thinking that this group of girls were the badass chicks that you read about, taking down the maniac. When the hit comes, I didn't want them to die. Especially Vanessa Ferlito's character. Come the fuck on. Any guy who says that he wanted her go down is a fucking liar. And she dies the worst of all.

***END SPOILERS***

Maybe it took a longtime horror fan, but I loved Tarantino's take on the genre. Some of the bad people lived, and some of the good people died. And that last shot of Rosario Dawson? The Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill homage?

*Mwah*

Icing. Cake. Mmmm.

Jackson,

I wholeheartedly agree with you about Grindhouse.

Planet Terror was a lot of fun, and worked as a really energetic, gross out homage to zombie movies. Though there was a certain point when Rodriguez seemed to be going for Romero style social commentary, and that didn't work. You know, the scene when Bruce Willis was talking about Bin Laden ... or something? But I loved how over-the-top and lurid it was. (And it's nice to see Michael Biehn getting some work).

I thought Death Proof was great.It seemed that Tarantino was using the exploitation genres of slasher pic and chase movie as jumping off points, but by the end he'd transcended those influences to create a wholly original work. I loved the dialogue and the way the movie made us care about that first group of female characters, really heightening the impact of their deaths. And man, that scene on the road, when they're rocking out to that great song and Tarantino cross cuts to Stuntman Mike heading toward them with his lights off ... so fucking awesome. Also loved the shot during the big chase scene, when the two muscle cars are suddenly on the highway amidst all the safe looking sedans and mini-vans.

Ken,

Funny line about starting with a climax, and I think you're right. Maybe a fourth of the audience I saw it with (and I was in NYC this weekend - film lover central), walked out during Death Proof, and it obviously wasn't because of gore - they had just sat through Planet Terror. While I never wanted to join them, I understood.

I certainly can't write off Tarantino because of one underwhelming movie, but I agree with much of what you said. This was definitely Tarantino jerking off.

Matt,

Totally agree with you, and of all the things I could ever accuse Tarantino of, having to call him boring stings the worst. A lot of Death Proof really was. The Kevin Smith comparison is particularly apt, because for the first time QT wasn't showing us something totally new, instead he was doing a lot of the old "Remember this?" stuff Smith does far too much.

Jackson,

I didn't get that feeling at all from Rodriguez, I thought he was having a lot of fun. What Tarantino did is far more show-offy, and in a much worse way than "check out my budget." QT's was "Check out how awesome my writing is" and...it wasn't. His amazing cockiness is fine and good when he's delivering truly incredible movies, but it's downright painful when he's not coming with it.

As for the girls - both sets - I gave about as much a shit about them as I did with the teens in the Final Destination movies, and at least those movies get to the good stuff fast and hard - which is what a grindhouse movie is supposed to be all about. And what Planet Terror was all about.

Bryan,

The two individual shots you singled out in Death Proof were awesome, and there were many others. But I wonder if the love you and others have for this isn't just blind love for Tarantino. If Death Proof were released into theaters as is by a no-name director (which it wouldn't have been, by the way, because most studios wouldn't indulge something like this by someone without some cred), would you have enjoyed it near as much? I asked myself those questions and realized the answer was a big no.

Man, this is a hard movie to argue about. If your argument is that you didn't give a shit about the characters, or at least, you didn't give a shit about them any more that you would for a Final Destination movie, there's not a lot I can say to that. I can see why the movie didn't work for you.

***AGAIN, SPOILERS***

I don't want to get into a movie dick-measuring contest with you or anyone on the board, but I've seen Final Destination. The first one, and both sequels. And all three Saws and Hostel. And Black Christmas (the current and the original) and all of the Screams and I Know What You Did Last Summers. I fucking love horror movies, and I only mention those because those were the obscenely crappy ones (with the exception of the original Black Christmas, which kind of invented the slasher film).

Generally speaking, even with the good ones, you don't give a crap about the people who are getting killed. In fact, most of them, you kind of root to die. All I'm saying is, Death Proof kept me guessing about who was going to live or die, because I didn't feel like any of them perfectly fit the stereotype of the slut who dies first, or the "good girl" who usually lives, or the smart one who dies randomly in the middle.

I guess the best way I can explain it is this: Children of Men was one of my favorite movies this year, not just because of the great and original action sequences, but because you get the sense that there was a larger world outside of what you were seeing. It never gets addressed (i.e. What the fuck happened with America?) but you don't care because it doesn't matter to the story that they're telling right then. I dug Death Proof for the same reason. Yeah, you don't find out what happens to Jungle Julie's crush, or the other guys at the bar, or the girl they leave with the redneck. It doesn't matter because you were following the story from the point of view of a certain set of characters, and what was happening to them, that was what you saw.

*** END SPOILERS***

But if you didn't care, then yeah, the movie didn't work. I liked the women on screen, thought they'd be fun people to spend an afternoon with, and just didn't want them to get killed off. But if they didn't grab you, yeah, I can see how the movie wouldn't work.

Spoliers, probably.

Well, from this unproduced writer, i thought the only thing wrong with Death Proof was that it took QT about 15 minutes too long to get to the first killing. If he had front-loaded that scene (or, at least, had it show up about 15 or 20 minutes sooner), then he could have more easily built up the tension for the second group of girls.

After Kill Bill, I'll forgive a lot from the lad. And the last 30 minutes of Death Proof really had me holding my breath.

I thought that the characters in DEATH PROOF were not only uninteresting (as in, if I knew them in life I wouldn't care about them), but reprehensibly so. A bunch of boring, overly stereotypical bitchy ignoramus Valley Girls. How...interesting.

That said I thought GRINDHOUSE was solid entertainment, but I definitely think DEATH PROOF shoulda gone first, and I definitely think that the super-pop-culture-infused/self-referential QT-styled dialogue took away from the otherwise tolerable (and even enjoyable) "Grindhousiness" of the thing.