Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. This one's just starting to screen for the press, and I'm sure I won't be able to just write about this one right away, but as soon as I can, I'm itching to review this movie. In the meantime, people who went to tonight's screening of the 3 hour 5 minute final cut have been writing in with their reactions. Some love it.. some hate it. Some love one film, and they don't like the other film. It's going to be fun to discuss this one with film fans soon. For now, here are our first two reviews for the movie. First up is Spidermonkey:
Hello everyone. Spidermonkey here. I haven't written in for quite some time, but I've finally got something worth chatting about - GRINDHOUSE. I just got home from what I assume to be the film's first press screening – as far as I could tell, this is the finished, theatrical cut of the picture... so let's dig in. In order to properly examine this film, one needs to understand the context that it is being made in... What has essentially happened here is that Bob, Harvey, and Co. have handed the keys to the kingdom to our heroes Robert and Quentin. So that everybody has a little background, I'm a sometimes-fan of Rodriguez (enjoy the El Mariachi films, dug Sin City, thoroughly enjoyed The Faculty, but I tend to avoid his more child-driven fare) and I'm a huge fan of Tarantino (own all his films, consider Jackie Brown to be a masterpiece, etc.). I'm going to keep this as spoiler-free as possible, because despite my own personal disappointment in this endeavor, I wouldn't want to ruin some of the genuinely cool surprises that these guys have in store for you. So to break it down quickly and efficiently, I'll say right off the bat that one of these two films (and make no mistake, in terms of the AMOUNT of content, you ARE seeing two films for the price of one) is far better than the other, though this is a case where the sum of the parts, sadly, does not add up to much. Let's do this one-by-one: 1. PLANET TERROR - Robert Rodriguez's gore-filled, nausea-inducing, zombie-fest is the first film on the ticket. For this reviewer, it was hugely underwhelming. It's strange to set eyes on something that tries SO DAMN HARD to please its very specific audience, something that works continuously to be so many things for so few people, yet feels like not much of anything... I sympathize ever so slightly with Rodriguez because it's clear the guy wants us to have a LOT of fun with this, and there are moments, very very cool moments, where we do... but on the whole, this felt extremely tedious and slow. Planet Terror is mostly a wall-to-wall action fest, with some bizarre soap opera elements thrown in for good measure. However, despite the high quantity of action, there are only so many times we can watch blood flying out from zombies and humans being mangled before it begins to feel dull and familiar. That being said, KNB deserves high praise for their makeup effects in this segment, because they are truly wonderful and outstanding. Rodriguez also manages to stage some really entertaining action sequences that do feel inventive and fresh. Rose McGowan is exceptionally hot of course, and her character has some surprising depth - Josh Brolin also acquits himself very well in a villainous role unlike any I've seen him do. In the end, however, Planet Terror fails as a cohesive piece, and feels more like an excuse to stage a bunch of gore than a reason to tell a great, entertaining story, whether it is one possessing depth or not. Remember, From Dusk Til Dawn managed to mix tons of gore with fantastic storytelling and a fresh structure... 2. DEATH PROOF - Quentin Tarantino's segment was the far better of the two, in spite of having some major flaws. Rodriguez's film, even with all its noise and over-the-top violence, is much more straightforward and "traditional" in its telling than Death Proof. What Tarantino has done with Death Proof is to take his every whim, his biggest fetishes, and run wild with them. One might ask - how is this different from what Tarantino normally does? There's a MASSIVE difference - in the past, Tarantino has always managed to set up and tell a great STORY and then have his "homages" act as a kind of wonderful icing. In all of his past films, he has never lost sight of the heart of the matter, despite his intense focus on having attention paid to the little "quirks" of his universe. We all know the man can write amazing dialogue, but with Death Proof, it feels as though he literally vomited all over his typewriter. Scenes stretch on into the double digits, with nothing but characters chattering on about inane things. I must admit, I was engaged through every minute with his characters. These people are sharply defined, each distinctly different and capable of saying wonderful things. There is certainly no dearth of verbal gems in his script. However, structurally, and story-wise, Death Proof is a complete mess - sure, this is Tarantino's intention, but in his desire to make something so bizarre, he ends up with a film that fails to engage at its conclusion. Death Proof starts out like something that will wink at us but then produce something substantial, but all it ends up doing is winking. It's easy to make an argument that since what we have here is so clearly a niche piece, an organism that so fully understands what it is and what it has to offer us, that if one doesn't get on board with it, they must not "get it." The issue here is that there's essentially NOTHING TO "GET." That was the point of the original grindhouse films, no? But that's not a valid excuse for what Rodriguez and Tarantino have delivered. This film is one big fucking wink to the audience. In KILL BILL, Tarantino managed to take an entire "cheesy" sub-genre and put a soul into it, elevate it above its traditional trappings. He winked at moments, but gave us something we really hadn't seen before. It is an example of a good filmmaker that took something traditionally described as "bad" and made it into something oh-so-good. Grindhouse is an example of good filmmakers taking bad material and failing to elevate it in any way. Tarantino's dialogue, though wonderful, is simply not enough, and Rodriguez, despite a couple of really "cool" scenes, fails to make much of anything at all. If all we're gonna get is crap that is an homage to crap, what's the point? These directors are too good for the excuse "it IS crap, THAT'S the point!" Do not let them off the hook this easily. We all know they are capable of much more... P.S. - There are "trailers" interspersed throughout Grindhouse. I will only say that Eli Roth's trailer for "THANKSGIVING" was absolutely brilliant, and probably the highlight of the entire film. Sorry to ramble on for so long, but I know there are a lot of folks out there eager to see this thing, and while I'm sure many will disagree with my opinion, it IS a film worth discussing, and I'm sure most of my fellow readers will. Let the arguments fly! Spidermonkey
Wow. It’s funny... I’m not sure what role criticism is going to play in GRINDHOUSE at all. Most of the movies that inspired QT and RR to make this film are the sorts of films that no reviewer ever bothered with. On Sunday, I went down to the New Beverly for the Grindhouse Film Festival that’s still running, and I watched a double feature of BROTHERHOOD OF DEATH and JOHNNY TOUGH, neither one of which I’d ever seen before. And in both cases, I enjoyed them. They were unpretentious and I enjoyed them because they knew what they were and they did what they set out to do with efficiency and heart. Were they great? No. But were they crap worth laughing at? Nope. And QT and RR don’t enjoy these films because they think they are crap to be laughed at, either. They enjoy these films because you find a lot of gems among these forgotten titles, and when you do, you feel really good about having discovered it. So here’s a second review, and again... I’m not sure what sort of insight we’re going to be able to give you regarding this film. I have a feeling it’s one of those that you have to see yourself to be able to really speak about it with any authority. Take it away, Merken:
Saw Grindhouse in Hollywood tonight. I don't do this review thing often, but I've heard this movie may not be locked yet and would like to make a quick couple of observations. I'll try to be vague about plot points , give away no surprises, and try to be constructive in my criticism. Pre-show prejudge... I thought that "planet terror" would be watch able, thought the fake trailer thing was a cool idea, but I was there for Tarantino. I've loved all of his films so far, even if I thought his best work was in his first two films rather than the later work. Surprise! Planet Terror- far and away the superior of the two films. FAR AND AWAY!!! Knew what it wanted to do, and executed! Funny when it needed to be, Loads of violence and sex and my lord is it gory! This is definitely the one of the two that will push the MPAA toward NC17 land. Probably, my favorite thing from Rodriguez to date. The trailers are great, and were a nice breakup between the two movies. My favorite was Machete, which After Sin City 2, this should be the movie Rodriguez should make. "DeathProof" on the other hand, would have been better as a trailer. Quentin, if your reading this. You have to cut down this movie!!! It runs at least 15 minutes too long. The bar scene in the beginning goes on and on and That diner scene with the second group of girls is painful sir! You lost me, and everyone around me. Blinking coughing, shifting in their chairs. I heard one guy actually mutter "cut the fucking scene you pretentious prick!" (Note: I know I was trying to be constructive, but that's what he said and I think it summed up the feeling in the room at that moment) Also, when the tables are turned on Russell's character, am I supposed to lose sympathy for those seeking revenge on him? Tarantino pushes and pushes until I stopped feeling the righteousness of the revenge, and into feeling of pity of Kurt's character. It just seemed to cross that line into sadism for me and no matter how bad Stuntman Mike was, I wanted to see him turn the tables on those tarantino clearly wants me to root for. The script felt like a weak re mix of all his previous work. For the first time the dialogue felt forced. I could see him working. The characters felt recycled, especially Tracie Thoms as Kim, who was clearly doing her best Sam Jackson impression. The movie can be made better by losing some time, mostly in the two scenes mentioned above, but even then there's plenty of room to chop. There's just so much fat on this film. It feels like a first edit to me the way Matrix revolutions felt like a first edit. To be fair there were some nice scenes in "Deathproof" including a good chase that again, goes on a bit too long...but is entertaining and well shot. Tatantino is proving with this and "kill bill" that he can shoot action. I think Grindhouse as a whole is proof of the saying, No good movie is long enough and no bad movie is short enough. Even though Rodriguez has the longer of the two films, its Tarantino that needs to pitch in and cut that running time. The movie runs over 3 hours and you best not lose those trailers!!! They brought down the house!! From the desk of Merken Muffley
