Look, I'm actually old enough to remember these types of films, to remember the theaters and going to them, not to mention having caught these films later along the way in all sorts of ways, film dweeb that I am. Essentially, here's the big problem: while the trailers were comical in tone, they LOOKED and FELT right, at least as far as Grindhouse went. But the minute you see in the opening of PLANET TERROR a credit for Rodriquez's Digital FX studio, my brain instantly thought "For crying out loud, a TRUE Grindhouse filmmaker couldn't have even DREAMED of having the money -- let alone the access -- to digital FX to help his film along. And once you got into the actual movie, sure enough, that was the problem. PLANET TERROR looked far too slick for what a film of that era would have been able to actually ACHIEVE, if they had to make that exact same script given "what" they could afford or had access to at that time.

That was REALLY apparent in Tarantino's half. Give me a break! It doesn't feel like an ultra low budget Grindhouse car film. For crying out loud, by the time you get to the climactic chase, it's fast and sleek and exciting BUT looks like any normal low budget Dimension teen film, where ultimate care and filming tricks and some bucks were pulled out for that portion of the film. The overall production values just "looked" too good.

In the end did I LIKE the movie at all? In parts it was fun. I definitely liked PLANET more than DEATH PROOF (their order really should have been switched so you left the theater on a larger "up" note, just my opinion). And most of all, Tarantino needs to SERIOUSLY stop his personal jerk fest of thinking his psuedo dialoque style of people bantering endlessly on, all the while being OBVIOUSLY "hip" and "witty" by dropping pop culture references, will carry a scene. Sorry, but that diner scene with the second set of women was literally PAINFUL and GROAN INDUCING to sit through since it just... literally... dragged... on... forever. THAT should have been cut drastically and there should have been more Stuntman Mike instead. Frankly, Harry's whole notion that Tarantino's film seques perfectly into an old style female revenge flick is why I think the Tarantino section also fails. It's like he went for two Grindhouse movies in one -- an action car flick AND a female revenge one. The final moment (which I won't spoil) only generated spotted light chuckles at my screening, and by that point most were just happy the thing was over. It was obvious in my screening that people just lost interest in DEATH PROOF about halfway through.

So nice try, nice experiment, but I would only give it 2 1/2 stars at best. Overall, I agree with the major critics. Given the people and talent involved, given the fun of showing some love towards a particular style of filmmaking and the types of films that came out of the Grindhouses, it was a disappointment.

In terms of all that, a big problem for me was that contrary to Harry's assertion that Tarantino's dialogue was sharp, I just thought the whole structure of establishing Set of Girls #2 simply dragged. At my screening, you could look around and literally SEE and HEAR the audience squirming about and whispering -- people clearly lost interest during that whole secondary "establishing" section. For crying out loud, you had to sit through (1) the overly long scene of them babbling in the car about who's doing what, who's fucking who, etc... but then you have to sit through (2) the overly long scene in the diner, where Tarantino once again does too much of his usual self-conscious "Hey, I'll drop witty pop culture references" type of monoloques... which then turns into (3) yet even MORE overly long monologuing at the farm about why they're there, how they'll get the car, who gets to go, etc... followed by (4) MORE overly long monoloques in the car to finally set up the stunt piece. That entire section of the movie just dragged. It just seemed to me that the notion of establishing the plot point that Zoe simply wants to drive a muscle car could have been trimmed a HELLUVA lot. And as I said before, since it DID take so long to establish everything...and were bored by it...by the time the action kicks in, you've sort of mentally back burnered what Mike did earlier in the film. So, yeah, I agree. When the chase is finally on you find yourself actually thinking "What the hell? Kurt was fucking with them... he even stopped and tauntingly thanked them... but he didn't kill anyone. So now Rosario and the other 2 want his blood? Fuck that - die, bitches, die!

And you're right, that created an odd problem. By the end of DEATH PROOF what I WAS hoping for was that we'd get some kind of shock "jump cut" or something, where a car on the road just comes along and kill the girls, just BECAUSE they had become so unsympathetic to me. Not to mention they were unlikeable pretty much all along and just a bunch of shrilly egotistical snots. Seriously, who would want to hang with them? As characters they were unappealing all the way through.

Well, not the cute one left behind. SHE would be worth hitting on!

I just re-read that and it could sound like sarcasm but I am not kidding: I have a serious fixation with the rewind button. Followed by the Slo-mo button. It takes me four hours to watch a two hour movie.˙

All that said, and as much as I disagree that any of this is very Grindhouse at all, Planet Terror is still a really fun time out, and an enjoyable piece of schlock, while Death Proof is, unfortunately, yet more proof that Tarantino's talent these days is far outweighed by his ego, and he no longer knows how to edit things down to distill the best out of himself, but is instead suffering from the delusion that everything he does, and however he does it, is clearly golden. I wanted to love Death Proof, but in the end I didn't even like it. In fact I'd say the film was so unsuccessful, so bloated and smug, that it washed over me with so little effect that I felt almost nothing towards it whatsoever.

Thanks for the great review harry, I loved every second of this film, and listening to one of my best friends bitching about Death Proof on the way out of the theater just made me think, "man, this ain't the place for me".

I'll be seeing Grindhouse at least two more times in theaters...its more than a movie, its an event. And its the kind of event I wish we got every other month. With a little luck, maybe we will someday...

Like so many others here, I have to question when long, self-indulgent dialogue became synonymous with quality filmmaking. How long do they have to talk about the freaking ditch Zoe fell into? As for pacing, starting the movie over again with a new batch of girls was a huge mistake, as evidenced by the audience shifting in their seats and checking their phones for messages. They could have had 3 groups of girls including an origin story for Mike if they had condensed their yammering into about 10 minutes, which still would have been twice as long as needed to establish these very 2-dimensional characters.

Finally, I found the nostrils on the girl in the first half (Vanessa Ferlito) very distracting. Not her fault of course, but not mine either. And if you're going to have a lingering butt shot of someone, maybe make it of someone with a cute butt. I wasn't even sure it was a girl until they panned up.

HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES was made on the cheap for only $7 million, but it made $3.5 million -- half its money back -- on opening weekend alone. It went on to make $17 million, so in the end it made a cool $10 million PROFIT. That's some nice pocket change and a good return on the investment. Hollywood likey.

Meanwhile GRINDHOUSE cost $53 million to make, and despite having more "critic acceptable talent" involved such as Tarantino and Rodriquez it still got bad reviews, and for its opening weekend it came in 4th behind a friggin' Ice Cube movie AND it committed the most cardinal sin of all: it only made $11 million or a measly 1/5 of its money back. Hollywood NOT likey.

Going by traditional box office drop off, that means next weekend GRINDHOUSE will probably only make about 5-6 million, still not even bringing it to 20, which is pretty sad. So for now, the movie's clearly perceived as in the LOSS column. Yes, ultimately GRINDHOUSE will likely break even once you take into account DVD sales and such, but its already looking like this thing is going to limp along badly versus scoring big as a surprise hit like 300 turned out to be.

Just as bad, I sincerely doubt that GRINDHOUSE is going to pull a TITANIC where its box office starts going up based on good word of mouth. For crying out loud, just looking at the talkbacks here on AICN. We're all so-called geeks and should be loving this thing...we're the very audience this thing was made FOR...but even here a helluva lot of people DIDN'T like the movie, or at the very least thought the Tarantino half sucked royal ass. So if even the geeks are clearly split on it being good versus being a shitfest, clearly the studio isn't going to get the positive word of mouth that it wanted, no matter how many columns Harry or Moriarity blather on with makeshift excuses how its "our loss" if we didn't love it or how we must be "sick in the end" or outright "anti-woman" for supporting or liking DEATH PROOF. Truth is, this thing bombed and even Harry and Mori can't spin doctor and polish a box office turd at this point.

Which by the way, much as I usually like Mori's reviews and whatnot, is the most half-assed defense for DEATH PROOF that I've heard in ages. I mean, seriously, give me a fucking break. The idea that just because some people went to a Grindhouse film and expected to see more blood and mayhem and cheap theatrics -- right down to seeing more of the women getting it (which would be the WHOLE POINT of it being a Grindhouse film) -- but THEN turning right around and saying that those who didn't like it because it DIDN'T deliver on that Grindhouse promise are "anti woman" or some other ludicrous charges is just whacked in the head and utter bullshit excuse making. Mori's simply pulling the ol' "Let's turn the mirror on the critics" trick to divert attention from the REAL issue at hand, namely the simple fact that DEATH PROOF was weak and a less than stellar outing -- a point that CLEARLY a lot of geeks around here...as well as major entertainment and film critics...agreed on.

Sorry, but now you've slit GRINDHOUSE's throat even MORE with that argument. Yes, you WOULD have to take into account other things like marketing, and in Hollywood the traditional economic model to account for that is to DOUBLE the budget and THAT'S the amount you need to make to recoup all costs -- such as making the film, striking the prints, distributing it, advertising it, etc.

In which case, fine, HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES cost $7 million to make...so it needed to make $14 million to break even. So since it made SEVENTEEN in the end (and that's theatrically, not factoring in later DVD sales) you'd still be talking a $3 million PROFIT.

Now let's compare that to GRINDHOUSE. Since YOU brought up the whole "ancillary costs" argument, you're actually making the financial outlook for GH even WORSE.

Using the same model, if GH cost $53 million to make, then doubling that figure to likewise account for production, striking the prints, distribution, advertising...in essence all the same things that we factored against HOUSE...now GH would have to make a whopping $106 million to break even.

And again, keep in mind we only counted the THEATRICAL residuals in the HOUSE equation, so to be completely fair we should only do that here for GH as well. Which means it would need to make $106 million in its theatrical run. That's not good news at all for GH since its opening weekend was only 11 or 12...putting it a staggering $94 million IN THE HOLE at this point in time.

Oh, and by the way, spea