Grindhouse

HUGE

Grindhouse is a throwback to the exploitative films of the 70s such as Blacula, IIsa: She-Wolf of the S.S., and Last House on the Left. These films were low budget, and I mean so low budget, the filmmakers could not even hire good actors. What these films relied on were extreme cases of sex, violence, and gore. With Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, they bring back the elements that made grindhouses one of a kind but added a huge budget and an ensemble cast of well-known actors and actresses.

Planet Terror was made by a director who liked the genre and Death Proof was made by a director who loved the genre. Robert Rodriguez took full advantage of the sex and violence but in the end made a big-budgeted spoof of the genre. Quentin Tarantino took the genre seriously and came out with a film these 70s filmmakers would have liked to have made.

Planet Terror is about a virus released onto Texas by a gang of soldiers suffering from a bio-terrorist attack. As the infection spreads and the infected become psychopathic zombies, a group of outsiders and rebels band together to escape from Texas. From the bunch, you have Rose McGowan as Cherry Darling, Bruce Willis as Lt. Muldoon, and Naveen Andrews as the scientist known as Abby. My favorite from the cast is El Wray, who is played by Freddy Rodriguez. El Wray is literally Snake Plissken, the tough loner with a hidden past, and if you don’t believe me, music from
Escape from New York is played as El Wray’s theme. One of my favorite scenes in Planet Terror is when El Wray has to kung-fu his way through zombies to get to the wounded Cherry Darling.

The posters present Rose McGowan as the superhero chick with a machine gun for a leg. I believe this special effect is more complicated than Lt. Dan’s legless body in Forrest Gump. The special effects team for Forrest Gump just had to take away Gary Sinise’s legs. But in Planet Terror, the special effects team had to take away Rose McGowan’s leg, then put in the machine gun, and finally composite the explosions every time she fired.

Director Robert Rodriguez also adds a fake trailer before Planet Terror starts. The fake trailer is Machete, which is also the name of the loner played by Danny Trejo. Machete is a revenge story with a hidden social commentary message. Grindhouse was released in theaters after three important Mexican directors were nominated at the Oscars. Guillermo Del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron, and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu were all nominated for their films, Pan’s Labyrinth, Children of Men, and Babel. Each director had spoken and taken a stand on the illegal immigration debate openly through their films and in interviews. As a Mexican myself, I wanted to know who Robert Rodriguez was siding with in this debate as well because he is also Mexican and from Texas. As Tel Toro, Cuaron, and Inarritu were gaining more press and attention, I wondered where Robert Rodriguez was in this group; especially since Robert Rodriguez had worked before with Guillermo Del Toro in Mimic. This felt like that Simpson's episode where Homer is not accepted into the Homers Club.

Planet Terror DVD

Death Proof DVD

Yes Machete is a spoof on the violent straight-to-video movies you would find on Telemundo but the trailer was a way for Robert Rodriguez to
speak his mind while being entertaining without becoming too preachy. In the fake trailer, the illegal immigrants needed a hero to speak for them, and they find one in Machete. In the end, Machete unites the illegal immigrants to rebel against their opposers.

Death Proof is a slasher movie but instead of a serial killer with a huge knife; he uses cars to kill his victims. Stuntman Mike is the serial killer and the role could only have been played by Kurt Russell. Because Quentin Tarantino is a film fanatic, he knows how to use the remarkable talents of Kurt Russell; like using his imitation of John Wayne (a nod to Big Trouble in Little China). You can see Kurt Russell actually having fun in his role. I bet a lot of people will be dressing up as Stuntman Mike in the upcoming Halloween parades

Quentin Taratino plays a small role in Death Proof, which may annoy some at first if you have seen From Dusk Till Dawn. His acting has gotten better over the years but it is not going to win anyone over. Zoe Bell, who is also in the movie, was the stunt woman for Uma Thurman in the Kill Bill movies. The weakest part for me in Death Proof was Zoe Bell because she was a stunt woman and not an actress. Even though her acting was weak, she did have a likable personality and it was her experience as a stunt woman that was necessary for the climatic car chase. That really is Zoe Bell on the hood of the white Challenger as she is being bumped into by Stuntman Mike driving the black Charger.

The soundtrack for Death Proof may be Quentin Tarantino’s best since Pulp Fiction. The soundtrack is definitely worth buying because of songs by T-Rex, The Coasters, and April March.

When Grindhouse was released, the movie did very poorly in the box office and went away very quickly. I do not believe the running time nor the fact that people were too young to remember grindhouses had an effect on the box office. Having worked at a publicity department before, I can tell you and prove to you why there is no mystery to Gindhouse failing at the box office. Grindhouse opened on Easter holiday weekend, a bad choice made by the marketing department and producer Harvey Weinstein. The likeliest choice for families during Easter holiday weekend to take their kids to the movies was the Will Ferrell and Jon Heder movie, Blades of Glory, not the R-rated Grindhouse. I believe that if Grindhouse was released on another date, it would have done much better at the box office.

What bothers me was Harvey Weinstein’s decision to separate Grindhouse into two individual movies for foreign distribution. Yes he did lose money but I think he lost even more money because of that decision. I was recently in Mexico when Planet Terror was opening in theaters. Because Robert Rodriguez is Mexican, he received more press coverage of course in Mexico than Quentin Tarantino. One movie, instead of two, was given attention to the audience.

During the recent Cannes Film Festival, only Death Proof was presented. Harvey Weinstein thought since Pulp Fiction did well with the French, so will Death Proof. He was not expecting Kurt Russell to support Robert Rodriguez in the interviews to the French. You have to remember that Escape from New York, which starred Kurt Russell in, was the movie that inspired Robert Rodriguez to become a filmmaker. Kurt Russell was seen as the Disney kid back then and John Carpenter fought with the studio so that Kurt Russell could play Snake Pissken. Not only did Kurt Russell show he is a nice guy but that he also supported the John Carpenter kid.

Despite the debacle of bad marketing and poor decisions, Grindhouse is a one of a kind film experience that could have only been done by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. I wonder if the two will collaborate again in the future despite this mess and I hope they do because they bring out a unique kind of film experience for the audiences.

Blood, Bullets, Zombies and Boobs:
Welcome to the GRINDHOUSE

by Christian De Matteo

Super

Grindhouse might very well be the most fun I’ve had in a movie theater in a long, long time. The audience was involved, screaming, laughing, reacting, not disrupting but being part of the movies.

Two movies in the tradition of the late 60s and early 70s, complete with fake trailers for other movies like those of the time, Grindhouse is more fun than a barrel full of zombies and testicles. The experience, because that is what it really is, starts with a preview that I think everyone in the movie wanted at that moment to see more than what we’d signed up for, Machete, starring the scary, awesome tattooed Danny Trejo and then launched into Planet Terror, the ridiculously titled gore-fest from Spy Kids and Sin City director Robert Rodriguez. And what a film this is. Imagine The Faculty (also directed by Rodriguez) hemaraging blood, innards and insanity. For about ten seconds you wonder if you will be able to handle the gore, gore, mind you, knocked down about thirty paces to it’s 70s status as far as technology goes, and then becomes so absurd that it is nothing but beautifully crafted comedy. From the go-go dance that starts it, to the wonderfully utopian epilogue (with more blood) that ends it, the film is a riot. Josh Brolin, one of the stand-outs, is fantastic as a doctor with a severe family issue, as is Michael Parkes, Freddy Rodriguez and, of course, the Crazy Babysitter Twins.

And Rose McGowan is smoking, smoking, hot, even with one leg replaced by heavy artillery.

As a person who’s recently educated themselves completely on the history of Zombie movies and a Shaun of the Dead fan, I can say that, complete with the presences of Tom Savini (Sex Machine in Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn, and the George Romero’s make-up go-to guy), Planet Terror is not only a perfect salute to zombie films but also a great new chapter.

And then we get to more trailers: Werewolf Women of the SS directed by Rob Zombie – which, I must interrupt my review to make a comment about: I made a tactical error and bought a soda for this movie, and, as a result missed this preview because I had to pee terribly and knew I wouldn’t make it through another entire movie – Edgar “Shaun of the Dead” Wright’s great European (as I was… sorry, couldn’t resist) horror trailer “Don’t” and Eli “Hostel” Roth’s excellent “Thanksgiving” trailer, all brilliant, disturbing and hysterical.

Which leads into part two of the Grindhouse double feature, the very different than the first, Death Proof. Talk about a switch. Here we have Tarantino being very dangerous and spending a great deal of his movie on Tarantino dialogue dedicated to, this time around, mostly female conversation. This is very different Tarantino, as always dead-on, but odd because it really is female conversation. And there’s a whole lot of it. Oodles, one might say.

And also one of the greatest car crashes I’ve ever seen from every imaginable angle, including the slow motion destruction, actually erosion, of a woman’s face.

And then more conversation.

And then a huge car chase with a very surprising conclusion.

This is a very cool movie, but a bit odd because of the time dedicated to conversation. I think this movie will prove a favorite Tarantino of mine in time, but after the explosive destruction of Planet Terror was strange. The audience, I also think, was a little confused. And then the car chases and violence would begin. This is Tarantino’s tribute to the ordinary people in extraordinary situation formula, getting us into these women’s lives so that we care about and understand them, and then we meet Stuntman Mike.

Who is Kurt Russell.

Who is awesome.

It’s great seeing Kurt Russell playing a sick puppy, tough guy again, and then the movie takes us where it’s going, using all the time it took to set things up, to surprise the hell out of us at the end.

Death Proof and Planet Terror with great previews proves a truly astounding experience and is amazing. I’m sorry they didn’t do better this weekend and hope people see the movies together in Grindhouse and not separated as their talking about doing now, because this is an experience I’ve really never had in a movie theater before.

Go see Grindhouse now. Make it do better.

Because I desperately want two-fer sequels.