Grindhouse (2007, Rodriguez & Tarantino)
Really there’s no question that Grindhouse is spectacular, so I’ve just been pondering which parts of it were the MOST spectacular. Rodriguez’s segment? Tarantino’s? The voiceover on “Thanksgiving”? Edgar Wright’s goddamned hilarious “Don’t”? Nicholas Cage? Danny Trejo as Machete? Rose McGowan’s machine-gun leg? Tom Savini? Kurt Russell’s crybaby finale? Rosario Dawson’s backseat hotness? The car stunts? Rodriguez’s surface noise and missing reel?
Planet Terror has an incomprehensible plot and is just in it for the fun of blowing things up and inventing unpredictable, shameless plot devices (still can’t believe the nurse’s kid shooting himself). All sorts of back story is either hilariously lost in the missing reel or just never existed, including Freddy Rodriguez’s El Wray character (who, btw, killed Osama Bin Laden). The production quality goes from slick to “dawn of the dead” (the zombies loose in the hospital scene) and back again. Bruce Willis is a… mutant, military something. It’s just a lot of fun.
Death Proof is very carefully plotted, with a “Psycho” plot twist in the middle, very neatly setting up the rest of the movie. Reviewers have noted that Tarantino is presenting the first group of girls (hot radio DJ, three friends and one rival) to be not very likeable, then after they’re dispatched by stuntman Kurt Russell, he introduces the other group (two stunt women, two film-crew friends) as the affable heroes. Makes sense, but I might’ve been phasing out during the long dialogue scenes, still overwhelmed by Planet Terror and the trailers, and missed his intentions there. Either way, the ending is beautiful.
Gotta see again, obviously.
Tags: comedy, Edgar Wright, horror, quentin tarantino, Robert Rodriguez