Grindhouse (Miramax)
(NOTE: Grindhouse plays Saturday January 31 at Landmark's Ken Cinema. Here is my review from 2007 when the film came out.)
At last summer's Comic-Con, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez brought the house down with a ten-minute teaser of their joint double feature, Grindhouse (opening April 6 throughout San Diego). The double bill of Rodriguez' Planet Terror and Tarantino's Death Proof finally arrives in theaters after a year of intense build up.
Quentin Tarantino sat on the Grindhouse panel at the Comic-Con last July and told the 6400 people that "I'm actually proud that I make movies that adults respond to the way kids respond to [things]." And that's what Grindhouse does -- it delivers a film that fans will line up to see, watch repeatedly on DVD, and scramble to collect all the toys. They'll also memorize favorite lines and compete to prove they know more trivia or get more of the in-jokes and references than anyone else. And that's the way a kid enjoys a movie -- wholeheartedly and with obsessive passion.
john conti
April 09, 2007 at 04:05 PM
Beth, you may find out that there are way fewer cool people like yourself ( who know that whatever QT serves up just has to be delicious.)
There actually may be so few cool people like yourself, who find QT's primal effluvium entertaining, that you may find you are are actually..............gasp.....very , very....uncool.
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boozer
April 10, 2007 at 04:45 AM
Zoe bell was completley awesome! Although I heard she had a missing toe, is it true?
I HATED THIS MOVIE
April 10, 2007 at 05:20 AM
The movie was great UNTIL half way through the second one.
Kurt russels character changed from a flesh wound. He went from sadistic undeatable deathproof driver....to a guy who got killed BY A HAIRDRESSER after ten minutes of crying. WHAT THE HELL?
If he died in some awesome wyay sure....but not beat up by girls while crying...
Worst villian ending ever...EVER!
Beth Accomando
April 10, 2007 at 06:25 AM
Thanks for the comments. I do not know about Bell missing a toe. She did get injured at the end of Kill Bill (broken bones in her back I believe) and required surgery. She was also Lucy Lawless' double in TV's Xena.
As for Kurt--yeah I wish he hadn't turned into a wimp so fast. It was funny but that took the film from being a serious slasher pic to being a send up at the end. But hey that made it a female fantasy revenge in which the guy got to cry like a baby and squirm.
And as for being cool, I embraced film geekdom long ago and have never liked or disliked a film because I thought it would make me "cool." I think Grindhouse is cool (which is very different from thinking that makes me cool) and if no one else felt the same way, it still wouldn't change my mind. I had a blast at the film and I plan to see it again.
Thanks to all for posting. Anyone have a favorite grindhouse movie that they remember seeing in the 70s? Just curious. The worst one I can remember was called Shriek of the Mutilated. I don't even think that qualifies as a Z movie. It had some guy in a shaggy dog suit that was supposed to be a Yet-like monster. Oh it's sooooo bad.
Beth
Payne
April 10, 2007 at 08:06 AM
Rodriguez's Planet Terror is like a roller coaster ride with twist and loops galore!
As for Tarantino's flick, very disappointing. We all know about the great dialouge in his previous films but over doing it in Death Proof had me fighting off the Zzzz's. I missed the revenge part at the end due to this unfortunate incident.
The last time I walked out on a movie was the !st time.
A Tarantino film to be my 2nd? I'm a big fan!
Matt
April 16, 2007 at 04:07 PM
The bit where Kurt Russell turns soft and gets completely owned by the revenge seeking trio is a send up to one movie in particular- Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
shoreke
April 17, 2007 at 02:19 AM
The fatal flaw in Tarantino's logic is that you cannot re-create the past. In order to know it...ya hadda be there. For years, my father tried to explain what it was like in the 60s with anti-war demonstrations, race riots, Beatlemania, Woodstock and the Hippie movement. All those things happened before I was born and I will never know what it was like. Grindhouse belongs to yesteryear.
karl
April 22, 2007 at 12:29 AM
I think it was initially a surprise when stuntman mike turned out to be a sniveling wimp, but i don't think it was out of character.
his death proof car was his tough-as-nails armor. he was invincible. break through the armor and you've broken through his toughness.
maybe not completely realistic for a career stunt-man, but the symbolism is where the two paths meet.
Shaun J. Nigro
May 01, 2007 at 06:36 PM
This was a really good review and you summed up pretty much everything I loved about the movie.
