The sprit of my youth lives on with a twin kill billing of PLANET TERROR and DEATH PROOF. This is the film I've been waiting for.
Citizen Kane, The Godfather Series and even Early Speilberg can kiss my ass.
GRINDHOUSE creates the atmosphere and spirit of the crummy 42nd Street theaters that I saw most of the AIP, Roger Corman, and later Golan Globus cannon of films. From "ALLIGATOR" to "MOTEL HELL" to "THE EVIL THAT MEN DO"; for better or worse my father had the good sense to have a multiplex babysit me and my brother every now and then when we were younger.
Conversely, my mother generally took me to more standard fare like "Star Wars", Woody Allen films and strangely enough, "ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK" and Chuck Norris in an "EYE FOR AN EYE". So I learned early on what the difference between safe summer blockbuster audiences and ones that can kill you if you laugh at the wrong joke.
The latter always fascinated me, partly because the Black guys in the audience were always talking to the screen. Now if I could only get a few Black dudes to watch "Schindler's List", "The Piano" or "The English Fucking Patient" with me to cackle in the back of the theater just to mess with that audience of unholy pretension.
The Lyric theater is on 42nd street in NYC. I saw a ton of movies there, the last being "SURVIVING THE GAME" with ICE-T. Sure enough as soon as the film started a Black family of 5 or six sat a few rows ahead of me and my buddy Chris. The adult was a Grandmother and the kids seemed to range in age from 10 - 17. Everytime someone got blasted into bits, these kids would laugh like DeNiro in CAPE FEAR; add to this the CONSTRUCTION going on while the movie was playing INSIDE the theater... ....funny stuff.
Well Keegs and Shelley, went with me to this and from frame one I was floored. "PLANET TERROR" - Rodriguez's picture harkens back to the Italian Zombie gore splatter fests (thank you!) where not one ounce of Karo Syrup is wasted. Lucio Fulci (director of ZOMBIE) and Dario Argento are somewhere smiling, as is John Carpenter, who's scores are paid homage to here.
Did I mention the gore? Every character is expendible. When their time's up, it's spectacular. I haven't seen such splatacular head wounds since "MANIAC" and "SCANNERS".
Even goremaster / Special EFX maesteo TOM SAVINI (who's horror make up book BIZZARRO I bought as a kid) is in it for fun. Add to this scratches and audio pops in the film and you genuinely feel like the film's about to snap in the projection booth.
Rose McGowan remided me of Sybill Danning's badass nature with her machine gun leg and kill 'em all attitude. Look for MsDanning in one of the phony trailers by the way. I'm glad to see that they threw her a part in all this.
In "DEATH PROOF" it's nice to see Kurt Russell be a badass again. After shit like "Dreamer", "Poseidon" (which I loooved by the way) it's nice to see MacReady throwing the dynamite back at the audience and screaming "Fuck you too!"
As Keegan mentioned on her blog, Tarantino gets way involved with dialogue with the women in this one. It reminded me of Reservoir Dog's opening in the diner, except with chicks rambling on about girlie shit. I guess that was the set up, because it goes 250 MPH after that. I don't want to give anything away, but not since "RONIN" has there been a car chase that actually had me on the edge of my seat. Also thank you Quentin for mentioning "Vanishing Point!", although my favorite car chase flick is "THE DRIVER"
Kudos to Quentin's DP debut too.
A lot recently's been said that Tarantino's hasn't been making films up to his expections since "PULP FICTION" but not too many directors have complete autonomy to make their own movies with their own signature style. What other director in the last 15 years actually created an adjective to describe their films? I was lukewarm at first to JACKIE BROWN (even being a fan of Pam Grier and the Blacksploitation genre) but after watching it again recently, it really addresses great themes of aging, love, and honor. The same for "KILL BILL" which I think is one of the important films of this decade...also one of the bloodiest...
Did I mention that Citizen Kane can kiss my ass?
and now PHANTASM:
PS - look for "GREAT WHITE" cereal, as an homage to the Enzo G. Castillari fantastic Jaws rip off "GREAT WHITE" which I saw at an advaced screening back in 1982...I put the trailer up on YOUTUBE...
7 comments:
On leaving Jackie Brown I summed up my thoughts with the comment "Well, it's definitely Tarantino's 3rd best film."
I haven't seen Grindhouse yet but I'm amending my JB review to read: "Well, it's definitely his seventh best film."
And yes, I'm counting "From Dusk til Dawn" and "Deathproof" in that list.
Maybe on video.
JD-You said it a lot better than me.
I liked this more than Kill Bill and it's better than DTD.
--k
I know on some blogs I've read, more 'serious' filmphiles have been dissing Tarantino and Rodriguez for doing a such 'self-indulgent' project. I say more power to 'em. I mean, maybe I won't like everything they do, but I have to give them credit for making films that they're passionate about. They're not out to impress or win useless awards...they're just having fun, doing what they love. If only we could all get paid millions for that.
Yeah those are the same jackasses that sit through stuff like "Babel" and get all high and mighty about how films like that will change the course of man.
It's never a two way street: you sit through countless hours watching the "Established Cinema Classics" and have countless debates and conversations on whether "The Magnificent Ambersons" is a valid today. Or if Wes Anderson is the new Altman...but if you mention a movie like CAPTAIN RON or heaven forbid tell these same people that SNAKES ON A PLANE was actually fun, they'll give you snooty, cold stares. (Having done this, in L.A. conversations I find it actually kind of fun, because you find out who actually liked "Roadhouse" and who are nitwits who watch "Schindler's List" every year to make themselves feel more important.
So I say let both these guys make more of the same...They have nothing to prove to those assholes...
They're both film geeks in a candy store and Weinstein's footing the bill.
But if you can see it in the Theater it's really where it should be expeienced.
Because they might split it because apparently Americans are two stupid to realize /remember what a double feature is.
"Because they might split it because apparently Americans are... TWO... stupid to realize /remember what a double feature is."
Point proven, I suppose.
Har har har. Just kiddin' man, I wind up posting stupid typos all the time too. Good stuff though!
See...THIS is why we need our own show on satellite. We could go on for DAYS about this one...the misunderstood genius of Captain Ron and Roadhouse.
i just want to see the chick with the machine gun leg and the car ;)
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