Grindhouse

Grindhouse

Directed: Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, Zoe Bell

Double-feature in the style of the 70’s grindhouse flicks. Planet Terror is about biochemical zombies and Death Proof is a car-chase, slasher film.

I loved this movie so much that I saw it two weekends in a row, opening weekend with Marci and then dragged my parents, Jer, his dad and Marci to see it again. Of course, there wasn’t any arm twisting to get Marci to see it again. We had so much fun that it reminded me that seeing movies in the theaters can be a good time. The theater was huge and packed. Everyone was really into it, including the trailers before the actual movie. After one trailer for the Nic Cage movie, Next, one guy said during the silence at the end of the trailer “I want to see that,” which caused everyone in the theater to laugh. Anyone that sees this movie outside of a theater might not have the same experience. I don’t know if it’ll make the movies any less great, but it just won’t be the same watching something so fun with other people enjoying themselves just as much.

The film starts with the way that I expect the old grindhouse films in the ’70s started. Since I was a kid, I have no idea what these movies were like except from what I read. They were over the top, violent and cheesy. I was ready for it. I have read that some people didn’t “get” the movies or took them at face value, which is too bad. They really missed a fun experience.

The first movie is Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, which was non-stop gory action. The acting was campy, yet fit. I was laughing the entire movie. I loved that random stuff blew up randomly. Zombies were attacking cops and chasing them away from a police station. Then a cop car blows up in the background. Why? Who knows! That happens throughout the entire film. There are some fun cameos in the movie too. There isn’t much to the plot, but that isn’t the point. There are “missing reels” that cause the action to jump from one outrageous scene to another one. It doesn’t matter what you missed or there is no explanation on what happened. You just roll with it. I loved the entire film and couldn’t wait for more.

The one fake trailer before Planet Terror, Machete, was awesome. There were also three more in between the two movies. The one trailer by Rob Zombie was pretty lame with no camp value to save it, but the other two were great: Don’t and Thanksgiving. Don’t was directed by the Shaun of the Dead director, which explains why it’s hilarious. Thanksgiving was directed by Hostel director which explains its extreme tacky grossness. It was my favorite trailer.

The second movie is Quentin Tarantino’s Deathproof, which has a whole lot of dialogue and awesome music. I was reminded again that Tarantino has really good taste in music. We meet a group of girls and they talk forever. In past movies, the conversations were interesting. In this movie, it really isn’t. I was disappointed since I love Tarantino movies. We move onto another group of girls and their conversations are slightly more interesting. Then the car chasing happens and things rapidly improve. When the movie started, I wondered why one of the actresses was starring as herself. It turns out she’s a stuntwoman. She did Uma Thurman’s stunts in Kill Bill. She does her own stunts in the movie. I didn’t learn this until after I watched the movie. While watching it though, I realized she was doing her own stunts and was impressed as hell. The car chase leads to an awesome fight scene, which just makes the whole experience come together. The entire theater cheered when the movie ended.

When I first watched the movie, I thought that Planet Terror was such a rush, that it was a bit of a let down to start watching Deathproof with all the talking slowing everything down. I thought the movies should have been switched, with a slow build up and then non-stop hilarity in Planet Terror. After thinking about it and watching it all again, I decided that watching the movies the way they are set up works perfectly. Sure there is a halting quality to the beginning of Deathproof, but the way it ends is so awesome that there is no other way to end the movie.

Rating: A-

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