Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. I’m seeing this one again this weekend before I write about it, I decided, and I may even see it again for a third time before it opens. Yet I’ll be the first to acknowledge that it’s not a flawless film. But if it were, would it truly be grindhouse? I think not. What matters is whether or not it’s fun, and I’m guessing people will have a wide range of varied opinions on just how much fun it is. Here’s BoboVision, an occasional contributor, to weigh in with his point-of-view:
Hey Moriarty, Bobo_Vision here. I just caught a screening of 'GrindHouse' in Manhattan tonight, so here's my review. First off, you can't really critique a grindhouse movie because these are movies that are so deliberately bad that they're good, and the people who go to see them know this. So criticizing a grindhouse movie for being a 'B' movie makes one ignorant for stating the obvious. These movies are meant to be fun, and 'Grindhouse' delivers. So instead, I'll simply discuss the film's strengths and weaknesses. The movie opens with the faux trailer for a film called 'Machete', which sets the tone for the rest of the film, and is both hilarious and exhilarating with the shotgun pumping priest played by Cheech and the machete wielding hero, Danny Trejo, and makes you wish that film actually existed. All the trailers in the movie are great, with the exception of Rob Zombie's 'Werewolf Women of the S.S.'. When you watch all the trailers together, you can see that 'Werewolf women' is trying to pull off what the other trailers do, without actually getting there, and instead of being a parody it seems to take itself a bit too seriously. The first feature is Robert Rodriguez's 'Planet Terror'. This movie is basically a satire of grindhouse films and is played for laughs and grandiose hyperbole. Its a zombie movie, but I'm not going to go into plot points, because discussing the plot of a grindhouse movie is like reading a Playboy magazine and then discussing the fashion sense of the models. 'Terror' gives you everything you would expect; buckets of blood, gore, gunfire, explosions, strippers, lesbians, and rapists. Its a fun romp, short on style and substance...but its a grindhouse movie. The second feature is Quentin Tarantino's 'Death Proof'. This movie is not a satire. The opening scene in the bar where a group of girls meet Kurt Russell is fantastic. The characters have depth with very specific likes and dislikes, which works itself into sharp and witty dialogue, like scenes from many Tarantino films. Tarantino has the ability to bring the best out of the iconic actors he chooses to star in his movies, and he does that here with Russell. You feel the rich cinematic history of all his roles, like Snake Plissken, Jack Burton, R.J. Macready, Elvis Presley, Wyatt Earp, and Dexter Reilly, like all these characters bubble to the surface at certain points when he's on screen, as if Tarantino discussed these characters with Russell before shooting these scenes, which may well have been. My only problem with his character is that after he leaves the bar and hits the road, his character becomes 2-dimensional... but its a grindhouse movie. The stunts in this movie are incredible, and though his name is Stuntman Mike, most of the props go to a Kiwi woman on the hood of another car which Russell starts plowing into. I saw an interview with Tarantino where he said the driving scenes are all real time unlike many movies where they speed up the driving stunts to make it seem faster. I was reminded of the movie 'Duel' many times when watching the car chases, and Stuntman Mike's scarred, weathered face is like the old, beaten up truck which tries to run Dennis Weaver off the road. Russell becomes an amalgam of the villainous automobiles in 'Christine', 'The Car', and 'Duel'. The ending was a bit sudden without giving a follow up on the characters after the resolution... but its a grindhouse movie. All in all, its a fun film, go see it on a weekend when the theatres are packed, and you've had your dinner and a couple drinks. But it runs a bit long at about three hours, and this was at a screening which started without the usual trailers. So be prepared for a sore butt and possible deep vein thrombosis. Bobo_Vision
