Grindhouse

This is a strange movie to review. As a whole I can't recommend the film, but one half of it is good enough to see it in the theater.

I think it's a bit of a miracle that this was ever made in the first place. A three hour and ten minute double feature of a genre that most people don't remember or were too young to see in the first place. Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino were basically given carte blanche to do whatever they wanted. I'm not saying that separately either film would have fared better but I would have saved me an hour and a half.

Planet Terror

This is a pus filled gore extravaganza that ultimately leads to nothing. I know that is the point, but if there is no point than why bother? It reminded me of the movies most students make but with a much bigger budget. Anything that looks cool or sounds cool stays in The whole film is basically winking at the audience, letting them know they are in on the joke that its bad but this doesn't make it any more enjoyable. After the 100th zombie gets their limbs blown off in bloody fashion one tends to get bored.

Aesthetically the aged film look is nice and different for a while but becomes a distraction the further the movie progresses. Where as Tarantino (more on him later) employs a seventies film stock look to his half, Rodriguez uses constant hisses and scratches and pops in the film to show its age, The darker scenes are distorted to look like available light was used, these tricks too get old.

Death Proof

Quentin Tarantino's entry is grindhouse via Jean-Luc Godard. It is one half of young girls talking the way girls do (or at least the way girls talk in a Quentin Tarantino movie) and one half white knuckle car chase thriller. The latter being one of the most purely visceral sequences but onto film in a while and easily one of the best car chases in the history of motion pictures. The fact that is was done without CGI is amazing, these are real cars crashing into each other with real people in and on top of them.

The other half is something completely different. It is all dialogue and dialogue only the way Tarantino can write it. The film has a strange structure that shouldn't work but somehow does. It's all build up but once you get to the action it is totally worth it. We are allowed to get to know these characters in a short time. Death Proof also has one of the greatest, unexpected endings of all time.

As with every other film he has ever made, Tarantino once again provides a perfect soundtrack. The music he picks becomes combined with the moments in his movies, here it is no different.

While most of the screen time is given to the women in this film, it is Kurt Russell who really owns the picture. He steps up here with work that is some of the best work of his career, he is hilarious, menacing, charismatic, vile. What could have been a fairly standard role takes on a life of its own. He is really unlike any other killer from previous slasher films.

Like I said, this is a strange movie to review. Honestly the best advice I can give you is to show up about an hour and a half late.