Grindhouse
Wow. Insanity alert. I can’t say I was too excited about this movie – more due to the Rodriguez connection than the Tarantino one if anything. My love of Robert Rodriguez has taken a severe nosedive since the last Spy Kids movie – and believe me, at one time, I practically worshipped the guy as a God, I couldn’t have loved him more when I was 17 and wishing for a career in the movies reading his book “Rebel Without a Crew”. When I first started losing the love for his work, I thought it was like an adult/kid thing … but I really didn’t get much out of Sharkboy and Lavagirl or Sin City. Now it seems he’s dragged Tarantino along for the same ride, just when Tarantino didn’t really need it.
Having said that, I’m sure it sounds weird that having read other early reviews of “Grindhouse”, the segment I was most looking forward to was Rodriguez’. I guess that’s because I had a feeling that of all the movies he could make that might bring back that old version of him I was crazy for, an old-fashioned 90-minute low-budget bloodfest (however constructed and ironically expensive) – basically the thing he got his start on – seemed to be it. You could even say it was his last chance to keep me as a fan. Sadly, though “Planet Terror” has more than its share of shocks and highly inappropriate laughs, by around the 60 minute mark, I couldn’t wait for it to end.
So to “Death Proof”. Quite literally, “Grindhouse” improves vastly at the halfway mark, and this is before Tarantino’s work even begins. Truly, the creators of the mock trailers that are interspersed between and before the features – Edgar Wright, Eli Roth, Rob Zombie – deserve equal credit in the proceedings … I’d almost rather see “Don’t”, “Thanksgiving”, “Machete” or “Werewolf Women of the SS” more than “Planet Terror”, lol. But as “Death Proof” began, “A Film By Quentin Tarantino” on the screen … finally I really got excited. But again, sadly, it just isn’t enough.
A lot of people have written about the overlong talk scenes in Tarantino’s segment. I have to agree, they could be trimmed. But for a long while, I allowed Tarantino the indulgence, ‘cos he really knows this cinema. It’s eerie at times how much “Death Proof” looks and sounds like the genuine article. Still, at almost exactly the same time point as in “Planet Terror”, suddenly I just couldn’t wait for it to be over.
Rodriguez and Tarantino have executed an interesting experiment – my recommendation for a double bill would be to couple this with Steven Soderbergh’s equally useless The Good German and its recreation of the classic 40s movie; for a triple, throw in Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot Psycho remake, which I still think is the best of the batch … truly, I think these movies are the company this one belongs in – these guys have really made a couple of pretty rotten, by their standards anyhow, movies. In a way I guess it’s a success – this does approximate what they’re trying to approximate, quite insanely well. But the history of cinema I think will be quite safe without either segment. I personally just really hope these guys stop hanging out together. “Grindhouse” just isn’t cinema … it’s not even entertainment, I don’t buy any arguments in its favour. It’s as must-see as about a hundred seventies exploitation flicks you’ll find scattered across the shelves of an average video store. It’s nothing more than a spectacular recreation of pap. But please, rush production on “Don’t” or “Thanksgiving” at my pleasure.
April 29th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
[...] I guess I’m really writing about this for one reason (two if you count my promise at the beginning of the year to write more about music) – there was a point somewhere around the middle of this album I found myself thinking, “Can I really put this above Rufus Wainwright’s new album in my list of the year so far?” It truly struck me – considering the Wainwright release is definitely not one of his best – as being that good. I wasn’t keen on the first single that came from it, “I Wanna Have Your Babies” – but the first track here absolutely blew me away (“”If it’s weird for girls to give guys flowers / Then maybe that’s a reason too / You’re not climbing up my ivory tower / So I’m coming down for you.” – hmm, wonder why I like that lyric? ), and though the feeling dulls slightly towards the end (mainly due to the seemingly endless stream of “bonus tracks” separated by silence), it barely lets up for a second. Natasha Bedingfield falls for me somewhere between P!nk and Milla Jovovich, but there’s something else about her voice, it’s just so consistently, astonishingly assured, I think with this album she has easily become one of my favourite artists. The answer to my question, can I put it up there? is yes … this is just how I like my music right now, it’s simple as that. While you can take your Grindhouse and 300 in the cinema and give me more serious and considered matter to chew on, when it comes to my tunes, I want Avril Lavigne and Natasha Bedingfield, and I can’t wait for Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s new one too. It’s probably incredibly uncultured and dumb, but I say the same for the Tarantino fanboys, so nerrrrrrrrrrrrr [...]
May 25th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
[...] Grindhouse Robert Rodriguez / Quentin Tarantino / Rob Zombie / Edgar Wright / Eli Roth [...]
June 5th, 2007 at 2:51 am
[...] It’s horrible. It probably should be illegal. It’s the kind of thing that makes me think, “If this kind of thing is making a killing at the mainstream box office, then why are certain other thought-crimes considered so deplorable?” But, I’ve gotta be honest, it’s also possibly the best “real-life” horror movie since Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left. And it blows Quentin’s Death Proof way out of the water as far as I’m concerned. But like I said, I’m not sure I like the fact that it exists in the first place. [...]