GRINDHOUSE *** (out of ****) 2007 191 min R
PLANET TERROR Starring Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Marley Shelton, Michael Biehn, Jeff Fahey, Josh Brolin, Michael Parks, Naveen Andrews, Stacy Ferguson, and Bruce Willis Directed & written by Robert Rodriguez
		DEATH PROOF Starring Kurt Russell, Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Sydney Tamiaa Poitier, and Tracie Thoms. Directed & written by Quentin Tarantino
				Fake trailers directed & written by Robert Rodriguez, Eli Roth, Edgar Wright, Rob Zombie, and Jeff Rendell
So I’m gonna decide that I like this movie.  It took a couple weeks of thinking and reflection but I’ve decided to recommend “Grindhouse.”  Its biggest drawback, for me, is that it’s a double feature in the style of gun ‘n tits cheapies from the 1960s and ‘70s.  “Planet Terror” is from Robert Rodriguez of “Desperado” and “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” and “Death Proof” is from Quentin Tarantino of “Kill Bill” and “Pulp Fiction.”  It’s one thing to watch a 7.5-hour Hungarian movie in one sitting, because it’s one movie.  But the rhythm and energy of two movies back to back – the emotions lifted and put down twice – somehow that’s more exhausting. And maybe I’m just getting old.  Bloodshed, unless it’s cartoonish, doesn’t make me laugh like it used to.  What used to leave me exhilarated is starting to leave me, well, exhausted. Film Freak Central says (and I paraphrase) that Rodriguez has made the B movie, whereas Tarantino has recalled what it feels like to watch a B movie.  I would amend the second part:  Tarantino has made the treatise on the B movie and, in many ways, the “final word” on the subject.  Or maybe his gift is to create the illusion of having made the “final word” on things.  “Kill Bill” epic feels like the “ultimate” revenge picture, although damned if I could say why.  Although “Planet Terror” is fun, I like Tarantino’s “Death Proof” better, if for no other reason than he is the more idiosyncratic filmmaker “Planet Terror” is fun in a draining, disposable way, combining the B movie of yesteryear with the second-tier effects picture of today.  Rodriguez’s Hi-Def footage is scratched up to look old, while his new-fangled digital FX run unconvincingly amok.  “Planet Terror” is exhausting, as characters race frantically through the blood, bullets, frantic editing, and often messy non-compositions that Rodriguez puts them through.  Is there a less patient director than Rodriguez?  Sometimes the only thing that sets him apart from a “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie is the feeling that you’re at least seeing into someone’s personality and not just witnessing the calculations of a board room. “Planet Terror” borrows its set-up from “28 Days Later…” (or borrows from the same sources as “28 Days Later…”) as a virus looses zombies on a town outside of Austin.  Main locations include a barbecue shack, a military base, and a hospital.   “Planet Terror” also puts to rest the idea that there’s really any difference between Rodriguez’s grown-up films and kids movies.  A band of misfits rescue one another, then runs for a chopper amidst an intense, limited color palate, cracking wise along the way. As the one-legged go-go dancer (zombies eat the other one), Rose McGowan may look great and have marvelous definition throughout her hindquarters, but is kind of a non-entity.  Scenes are stolen by her once-and-future love (Freddy Rodriguez) who gets to say and do some of the goofiest things since “Hot Shots! Part Deux” with an absolutely straight face.  As a half-crazed, thermometer-chewing surgeon, Josh Brolin is like a cross between his father and Nick Nolte.  B movie icons like “Lawnmower Man” Jeff Fahey are seen in action again, and “Aliens” Marine Michael Biehn gets to do what he does best
But no one has more fun than Kurt Russell in “Death Proof,” playing a deranged stuntman stalking beautiful women in his muscle car.  Gears shift for Tarantino’s film, which has the patience to compose shots, set mood, and develop atmosphere.  His kills are fewer than Rodriguez’s but more impressive.  Tarantino has stripped the B movie down to its essentials of women in danger, women killed, women getting revenge.  No, really, “Death Proof” has almost no plot whatsoever to speak of. He pads it out with the rhythms of his idiosyncratic dialogue.  Which, as always, never spell out what the movie is about.  Which, as always, is everyday speech heightened and impossibly informed with too many hours at the video store.  The first dialogue scenes find out female foursome first in a car, then in a restaurant, then at a bar.  They capture the rhythms of old friends hanging out and chatting.  The scenes run entirely too long, but maybe that’s the point.  Get on with it, we urge them, which means, of course, GO GET YOURSELF KILLED. This puts the audience in a weird place – and then Tarantino the virtuoso comes out – and there’s a single note on a contrabass that announces that switch in Kurt Russell, from an aging charmer to a madman. The treatise aspect of “Death Proof” is in highlighting the B movie’s ambiguity.  Is the woman with the gun empowered, or is she no different than a bikini model draped across the hood of a car?  Are we supposed to side with her, or with the killer?  Under the guise of fetishism, Tarantino wallows in the B movie’s uncertain gender politics:  the women basically behave themselves – flirty but not slutty, dressed for summer but not too revealing – but Tarantino’s camera lingers on them dreamily. Speaking of the hood of a car, the stuntwoman in the second half of “Death Proof” assumes various positions on the hood of a moving car.  Practical as they are, they’re also suggestive. But where Tarantino does what he does best (SPOILERS!!!) is when the girls take their revenge on Kurt Russell.  They shoot and wound him in self-defense.  He flees.  If they had killed him with these shots there would be no ambiguity.  But he’s gone, they’re safe, and then they consider.  “Let’s kill him.”  Self-defense becomes revenge.  They chase him down as he’s bleeding.  In a way, he gets what he deserves, a car chase to answer the one he forced on them. But his desperation is more, well, desperate.  And then, when the cars ram each other, he calls out “I’m sorry!  I was only playing around!”  The sincerity of his pleas make us realize that he is sick and, therefore blameless.  Our allegiance switches in mid-scene – we side with him, want him to escape.  In the end, the women beat an injured and diseased man to death.  Is it a happy ending?  (SPOILERS END.) Rodriguez’s DV footage looks good.  I think Tarantino shot the first half of “Death Proof” on 35mm, and the blue-rainy parking lots and neon Shiner Bock signs of Austin look good.  When “Death Proof” moves to California, Tarantino moves from 35mm to DV (I think) and it looks awful.  Correction:  it looks worse than awful, because awful can be good, it looks bland.  Like “Apocalypto” but moreso, a pure white sky bleeds through blurry green leaves.  Everything is flat. Both movies are glitched up with scratches and missing frames.  Rodriguez gets laughs from replacing major character development with “REEL MISSING” and with a love scene so hot it catches the celluloid on fire.  Tarantino calls attention to dialogue when it blips – different angles spliced together as if by accident.  It’s a touch of Guy Maddin, using a different cinematic era and aimed at an audience that’s probably never heard of Guy Maddin.  And the fake trailers, featuring a cast of thousands, are terrific. Finished May 13th, 2007 Copyright © 2007 Friday & Saturday Night                                                                                             Back to home.