Grindhouse Grind-Down
Sorry about the second review, but I have something to say and Easter got in the way! Movie reviews only, trailer reviews maybe later…
I have been writing about and waiting for the release of Grindhouse for over a year. Richard Rodriguez doing a zombie flick, hell yeah! Great, gory trailers by Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright, and the return of Quentin Tarantino? This is a horror-lover’s dream!!!
The problem with dreams and expectations is that when they are hit in the head with a harsh reality that doesn’t live up to your hopes, disappointment and a margarita are called for.
I grew up watching Grindhouse films. Many childhood Saturday nights were spent with my dad and his friends as they watched these films at the drive-in, drinking beers while us kids played, only occasionally looking at the screen because the swing set at the theater was more interesting. My grandparents lived in a small, desert town in what was then still the middle of nowhere, and these films were what passed as entertainment in Nowhere. Then, when VHS tapes became widely available in the 80’s, these are the films my friends and I sought out, along with the worst of the worst zombie films of the 60’s and 70’s that we could find. The beauty of these films is in the fun. Weak plots, but plenty of tough women to make up for it. Cheap stunts, but for the most part more outrageous and fun than what Hollywood could deliver. And, as a teenager and young adult, there was no shortage of the “hip” factor driving our movie watching decisions; while our peers were watching John Hughes, we were watching Physcomania, while they were watching Halloween XIX, we were devouring anything Sam Raimi could give us. This is a genre of film that is a part of me, even if I downplay my love of the bad so people will still appreciate my love of the greats.
Of course this film is a tribute to the films that I, Tarantino and Rodriguez grew up on. Too bad tributes often times resemble expectations.
The first film, Planet Terror, is almost awesome. I had long wondered why Rodriguez casted Rose McGowan instead of Fairuza Balk, who seemed to me to be better suited to the role, but after seeing the gorgeous Ms. McGowan in this film I can understand, she owns the film. Equal parts cynicism and sentimentality, harsh times and 1940’s classic beauty, and straight out of a Russ Meyers film, she owns this movie. And, all the actors are a treat to watch, with unexpected big-star cameos, B-star cameos, and B-stars of the past cameos, everyone rocks their parts. A great script, a great idea, but the execution is just wrong. More than a tribute, Rodriguez steals from his heros, and almost succeeds until the scene where he moves the camera out of focus, confusing the audience, adding nothing to the story, and killing the great buzz that I had until that point. For four scenes he keeps this up, and in the last scene it is brilliant – straight out of a John Carpenter movie. But, by that point I lost the buzz, and never fully regained it…A shame, because if he hadn’t had killed the momentum here, I would probably would have listed this as one of my favourite zombie films of all time, but now I think it is just O.K.
Robert Rodriguez is predictable. You know in his films there will be great gadgets, and a mysterious stranger with a secret. There will be great gunfights and some explosions, the more improbable his ideas the better, and the more exciting to watch. That is all here. What is missing is his trademark GREAT SOUNDTRACK. When my ex and I split, I let him take what he wanted, and the only things that I ever missed were the Nick Cave CDs and the Grindhouse and Porn music compilation CDs (I still have the blaxploitation ones, thouth!) The music is out there, it is released, so why did he feel the need to rely on tacky electronica music instead of looking to the past and using some of the great existing songs, or using this amazing musical skills to write some new standards. Not until the end of the film do we hear anything that resembles grindhouse music, but once again it was too late to excite me.
Death Proof? Deadly Boring.
My first thought while watching this film? Years ago there was a hit movie, Slacker, that made Richard Linklater a Famous Independent Filmmaker. Personally, I fell asleep watching this movie in the theater. Decided to rent the video a few years later, and fell asleep again. This film is a boring piece of shit, even if many think it is an independent film “classic”. I kept thinking about Slacker during the first part of Planet Terror, another bore of a film. Because, is it that the film was bad, or that any movie shot in Austin, Texas is going to be as sleepy and boring as that city is unless it is March, and SXSW is happening? Tarantino, whose long dialogs about nothing have always been brilliant, has lost his touch. And, it is a shame because his female conversations in Planet Terror are among some of the most true-to-life female conversations I have seen on screen, delivered by the sexiest cast of women I have ever seen assembled in any film, and yet the dialogs are barely interesting – only watchable because you can’t take your eyes off the actresses delivering them. The money shot that is the car-chase-female-beat-down that ends his segment is an exciting watch, but not exciting enough to make me care about anything that had happened until that point. Planet Terror would have been an AMAZING film if it was a short, but as a full-length feature it is a snore. Russ Meyers is shedding a tear somewhere.
So, my expectations? Dashed against the harsh realities of what should have been two amazing movies that had every element to be GREAT, but failed their mark because the execution of both was so bad and at times annoying that stellar effects, casting, laughs and dialogs couldn’t save these films from their directors.
What is it about my generation that we never wanted to be like our Boomer parents, but we resort to the same navel-gazing that they do? And, why do we need to wear our navel-gazing like a badge of coolness? We have sold out, but because many of us who were the cool-kids in the 80s decided to take our fight against society and alternative attitudes into the arts, we somehow think that it is acceptable that we serve our adolescent cultural references back to society, while laughing at the Boomers for doing the same thing and noting that it really isn’t selling out because The Buzzcocks aren’t the same thing as The Beatles, they are cooler, and our generation is cooler. And, Rodriquez and Tarantino walk a fine line in this film between navel-gazing and nails-on-a-chalkboard annoyance by their need to constantly talk about their references in this film while showing them to us, as if bragging that those of us kids who were the geeks way back when were always cooler than everyone else, and now it is the time of the geeks to educate everyone else. Yeah, it was hilarious when in Death Proof Stuntman Mike (a too cool to watch Kurt Russell) talks about his Hollywood past, only to realize that the TV shows of my youth are forgotten by the young, or the jokes about John Hughes films. But, unicorn t-shirts, rainbow necklaces, hippie chic? For some reason these inside type jokes bothered me.
If there is one redeeming factor in all of this backward-gazing, it is that maybe a new generation of kids will wonder who Joe Tex and T. Rex were (Tarantino rocked the music in his portion in a way that he hasn’t done since Reservoir Dogs), and maybe, just maybe, a younger generation of geek kids will search out the films talked about throughout Grindhouse and discover the absolute joy of trash cinema.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Baaaaaa :((
Everyone is criticising tarantino ….
I cant wait to watch my fav director’s Grindhouse. When the hell will it release out here in india ???
But tell me .. is grindhouse better or worse than Dusk to Dawn (hated it) – thought it was RR-QT’s worst !!!
Arghhhhhhhhh ~X( ~X(
You too T! Why Why Why?
I really loved it and its funny because i loved excatly what you hated in the movie. I loved the Background music of Planet of Terror. Was so damn cheesily funny. I have no clue about the references or the tributes, had no expectaion of the movie…and voila…i was beniffited…was money well spent…:”>
About Death Proof… i can vouch that girls do not have that kinda conversations..but…who cares..it had a great entertainment value…i love the way Tanrantino makes you interested in his dialogs when you very much know that it is leading to nowhere…love him for that…
heheh…0-40 in 6 secs and you see the bike…lol!!!!=))=))
@ Kartik – I think Dusk to Dawn was brilliant, I love that film, so I don’t think Grindhouse lives up to that film.
That said, if you are a fan, it is still a must see film. Just leave high expectations at the door, it is a film that could have been great but is merely watchable because both directors bit off more than they could chew…
@ OM – you misread what I wrote, Tarantino came damn close to a real-life girl conversation, closer than I can remember seeing in any recent film (except maybe Omkara – how is that for a strange cross-reference). You haven’t spent enough time in the company of a roomfull of women, when we get together we tend to talk bluer than most men, and can even embarrass an Alpha male. Us sweet little angles who blush when a man speaks the slightest innuendo will talk graphically about sex all night when there is no testosterone present. While the dialog here wasn’t at all graphic, it was very, very true to how we women communicate with each other when alone;) Except, in real life women are more interesting…
Both films are funny in parts, but the humour isn’t consistent. The same holds for the horror. That’s what I didn’t like about either film.
I actually liked it… it was so campy and fun!!I thought it did what it set out to do!
t!, I think you were quite brutal with your review. You have better understanding of exploitation cinema than me, but one thing I have followed with Tarantino movies is that in Plp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, also sometimes in jackie Brown his long dialogues meant nothing, but he did changed his idea of writing long conversations about nothing to about something regarding the story. For instance the Superhero psychology to explain that the bride was born a killer, she just put a bride’s costume to blend in with the rest of the “normal” world. Now this thing fascinates me to my bones. he not just kept his style of long conversations but changed it to match his story. Actually there was the conversation of foot massage between Travolta and jackson that helps u understand why Travolta shit in his pants when Uma Thruman ODs, but still it doesnt help majorly. Because the point is different. Nevertheless, he has become matured and sounds more philosophical so as to answer the questions by his own characters. The conversation between the bride and bill is marvellous. Either if it was “This Moment this is me at my most MASOCHISTIC” before he shoots the bloody bride or “There are consequences t breaking a heart of a murdering bastard” during the last few minutes of Vol 2. tarantino has never swerved away from his style and he never swerved away in Death Proof as well. He did explan Zoe’s unbreakable physique through the conversation between girls (I agree it WAS girly) before the chase with stunt mike. That his one of the techniques of “this-conversation-though-boring-will-help-understand-next-half-an-hr-story” kind.
The homages, I think I did feel like sitting thru a smelly ambience and humid seats.
@ Jateen – If I sound brutal, it is only the harsh words of a jilted fan whose expectations were too high….
The highlight of any Tarantino film is the dialog, for all the reasons that you pointed out in your comment. I just don’t feel that the dialogs in this film were very good and lived up to the standards of his past films. His style hasn’t changed, but for some reason I felt that he just missed the mark here…
So, Aqua Teen Hunger Force opens this Friday. I am refusing to get excited about it. Maybe the real issue is that when a fan gets excited and develops expectations, said fan is only creating the conditions for their own dissappointment…
Damn!
Cant wait to see GRINDHOUSE. This painting my house is taking forever. then i have to move all my stuff. Its playing at VISTA on Sunset which is now walking distance from my house. But I havnt gotten time to walk.
DUSK TILL DAWN 1at half is one of the coolest things i have seen on screen. Its pure style. The second half filled with ZOmbies just didnt work for me. Mainly because i’m not a fan of that genre. Infact I don’t like them either. Horror/Serial Killer/Zombie movies bore me.
But I really liked reading your review. It said what the movie made you feel after watching it. With personal references to your own life(excellent). Thats my kinda review!
You go t!
t!
I saw GRINDHOUSE finally. Loved it. esp DEATHPROOF. I was blown by that car chase. Didn’t care much about the Planet of Terror, but had fun during that too. Thinking of writing a article on it. But don’t wanna to spoil the movie for others. This film should be seen without reading too much about it.
What do u say? Should I write it?
Last night I finally saw GRINDHOUSE. I saw it at the VISTA Theater( Old Style) in Silverlake. Which is like the Hipster capital of LA. So the the crowd was exactly the kind of people they made the film for. Once inside the theater I felt like I walked into a bar instead of a movie theater.
Before i say anything about the film I must inform you that I’m not only not a fan of the Grindhouse cinema but I dislike ZOMBIE movies or any kind of Gore films. They are all same to me & I don’t find it funny. But I know what the film was about & was open to experience it for what it is.
PLANET OF TERROR – Robert Rodriguez
This movie was exactly how Grindhouse cinemas must have been. Rodriguez got everything right. The look. The actors. The editing. Framing. It was just like watching a gore movie. And thats why fans like this one much better than the other one. I can see why. I enjoyed the movie for what it was. But I have to admit I wasn’t blown by it. But it was nice to see Naveen Andrews working with some of the best. The best part of the film was Rose McGowan’s leg replacements.
DEATHPROOF- QUENTIN TARANTINO
). I loved the music(of-course!). The girl talk was really true to life. I liked the slow pace of the film. While most people must have been bored with those long conversations, I never wanted them to end. And those hot girls made it easy for the eyes. And the “hero” of the movie is ZOE without doubt. The stunts were real & extremely well done. The energy of the chase was nothing i have ever experienced before. I would pay 10$ just to see that again on screen. I wanna see Planet of Terror again but I can’t sit through the 1st movie again.
Now this is the movie I wanna talk about. Tarantino has been a big influence on me esp. when I was on the process of becoming a cinema freak. His Pulp Fiction was a movie that showed me the infinite possibilities of cinema. So every time a Tarantino movie is released I’m excited. But I’m also nervous that he might disappoint me this time. That he might have lost his edge. So when I love a movie not only its a great experience, but it is also a huge relief that he is still exciting. I must admit he has not disappointed me even once. I really loved Jackie Brown also. That was the only love story he has made so far. And a very interesting one. Some of you will dismiss me as a fanboy. And I understand that:)
I can see that some people might argue that DEATHPROOF is not a Grindhouse movie. That Tarantino is again using that to show off. Who cares. I think he just showed how grind house should be instead of how they are (for me). He was talking to Fiona Apple on ICONOCLAST about how all these Grindhouse posters are so great but when you see the film & most of them are not good at all. And he wanted to make a movie which was actually good. And in my book( as STUNTMAN MIKE would say) he has just done that. I’m a big big fan of “talking about nothing” conversations on cinema. Tarantino is the master of that. And he has not lost it at all. I loved each & every frame of his movie( What a great DP
The trailors were hilarious. I really loved the NAZI SHEWOLF one by Rob Zombie.
All in all I got my money’s worth. I’m glad Tarantino stayed with his style & mixed it to the grindhouse look.
That is brief version of what i wrote.
BTW t! I love slackers. I’m a big fan of Lintekar. He is one of my fav filmmakers of that generation.