Scan and Pan
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Grindhouse
Directors Robert Rodriguez (Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City) and Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill) collaborate to bring the classic experience of a double feature of exploitation films to modern cinemas.
Rodriguez's Planet Terror: In a rural Texan town, go-go dancer Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) quits her job, meets old boyfriend El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), and loses a leg in a zombie attack. Soon, both find themselves caught up in defending the town from a horde of zombies, a plague started after a confrontation between a military officer (Bruce Willis) and a sadistic scientist (Lost's Naveen Andrews) on a nearby military base releases toxic gas into the air. Who will survive? What will become of the planet as the plague of zombies grows?
It's a gloriously over the top horror action film with style to spare. If you love classic zombie movies, you'll love this film with its obvious nods to the films of George A. Romero and Lucio Fulci. It's by turns funny and intense, campy and gory, but more than just being a mere homage, it's a great zombie film in its own right.
Tarantino's Death Proof: Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) is a serial killer whose weapon of choice is his stunt car. Haunting the roads of rural Texas and claiming numerous female victims, he finally meets his match when he tries to kill stuntwomen Kim (Tracie Thoms) and Zoe (played by real-life stuntwoman Zoe Bell).
Tarantino's film starts off slow compared to Rodriguez's, but it builds to a frenetic finish with an amazing extended car chase sequence and along the way you're treated to his knack for writing clever dialogue and creating interesting characters to say it, all set to a cool kaleidoscope of songs. Some reviewers have said that this segment is much weaker than the first one, but I disagree. I think they're equally as good only in very different ways, because they're homages to two very different types of exploitation films.
Rodriguez and Tarantino serve as their own cinematographers, with the former going for a more stylized look, while the latter serves up an authentic 1970s look. It's shot on both digital video and film, but the post-production processing to add dirt and scratches means you can't tell which is which, nor do you need to. Rodriguez also composes his own score, which perfectly captures the pop trash mood.
The cast of both films are clearly having so much fun in their roles that it's impossible not to feel the same sense of fun while watching them work. Besides the actors already mentioned, the films include Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton, Jeff Fahey, Michael Biehn, Stacy Ferguson, Nicky Katt, Tom Savini (best known as the makeup effects artist for numerous horror films, including some of Romero's Living Dead classics), Michael Parks, Tarantino, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd, Sydney Poitier, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. McGowan, Shelton, Parks, and Tarantino also appear in both films, using the logic that exploitation producers often relied on a stable of actors they would appear in all of their films. Shelton and Parks play the same characters in both.
Before each film, we're treated to previews for fake films. The previews are directed by Rodriguez, Rob Zombie (The Devil's Rejects), Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), and Eli Roth (Hostel). They're so good that you'll wish that they were previews for actual movies (although both Rodriguez and Wright have expressed interest in expanding theirs into actual films). The best is Zombie's Werewolf Women of the S.S., which includes a cameo by Nicolas Cage as Fu Manchu!
Some have called Grindhouse an exercise in misogyny, but looking beyond the hot women in revealing clothing one finds that in each film it's the women who are the ultimate heroes and even mete out rough justice to misogynistic men like Stuntman Mike. Rodriguez and Tarantino play with the conventions of exploitation films, and it was often true in those films that once you got beyond the T&A factor the women were bolder and more capable than the women portrayed in mainstream Hollywood films.
Despite being slightly over three hours long, I never once felt bored by Grindhouse and I had one hell of a good time. It's good trashy fun and never pretentious. It not only fully lives up to all the hype, it exceeds it. Highly recommended, especially for fans of the kinds of films it's a homage to.
[4.5 out of 5 stars]
This high octane homage to 1970s exploitation films is pop trash at its finest and one awesome thrill ride from start to finish, complete with hot women, fast cars, explosions, hot women, gunfire, zombies, and, yes, more hot women.
Directors Robert Rodriguez (Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City) and Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill) collaborate to bring the classic experience of a double feature of exploitation films to modern cinemas.
Rodriguez's Planet Terror: In a rural Texan town, go-go dancer Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) quits her job, meets old boyfriend El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), and loses a leg in a zombie attack. Soon, both find themselves caught up in defending the town from a horde of zombies, a plague started after a confrontation between a military officer (Bruce Willis) and a sadistic scientist (Lost's Naveen Andrews) on a nearby military base releases toxic gas into the air. Who will survive? What will become of the planet as the plague of zombies grows?
It's a gloriously over the top horror action film with style to spare. If you love classic zombie movies, you'll love this film with its obvious nods to the films of George A. Romero and Lucio Fulci. It's by turns funny and intense, campy and gory, but more than just being a mere homage, it's a great zombie film in its own right.
Tarantino's Death Proof: Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) is a serial killer whose weapon of choice is his stunt car. Haunting the roads of rural Texas and claiming numerous female victims, he finally meets his match when he tries to kill stuntwomen Kim (Tracie Thoms) and Zoe (played by real-life stuntwoman Zoe Bell).
Tarantino's film starts off slow compared to Rodriguez's, but it builds to a frenetic finish with an amazing extended car chase sequence and along the way you're treated to his knack for writing clever dialogue and creating interesting characters to say it, all set to a cool kaleidoscope of songs. Some reviewers have said that this segment is much weaker than the first one, but I disagree. I think they're equally as good only in very different ways, because they're homages to two very different types of exploitation films.
Rodriguez and Tarantino serve as their own cinematographers, with the former going for a more stylized look, while the latter serves up an authentic 1970s look. It's shot on both digital video and film, but the post-production processing to add dirt and scratches means you can't tell which is which, nor do you need to. Rodriguez also composes his own score, which perfectly captures the pop trash mood.
The cast of both films are clearly having so much fun in their roles that it's impossible not to feel the same sense of fun while watching them work. Besides the actors already mentioned, the films include Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton, Jeff Fahey, Michael Biehn, Stacy Ferguson, Nicky Katt, Tom Savini (best known as the makeup effects artist for numerous horror films, including some of Romero's Living Dead classics), Michael Parks, Tarantino, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd, Sydney Poitier, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. McGowan, Shelton, Parks, and Tarantino also appear in both films, using the logic that exploitation producers often relied on a stable of actors they would appear in all of their films. Shelton and Parks play the same characters in both.
Before each film, we're treated to previews for fake films. The previews are directed by Rodriguez, Rob Zombie (The Devil's Rejects), Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), and Eli Roth (Hostel). They're so good that you'll wish that they were previews for actual movies (although both Rodriguez and Wright have expressed interest in expanding theirs into actual films). The best is Zombie's Werewolf Women of the S.S., which includes a cameo by Nicolas Cage as Fu Manchu!
Some have called Grindhouse an exercise in misogyny, but looking beyond the hot women in revealing clothing one finds that in each film it's the women who are the ultimate heroes and even mete out rough justice to misogynistic men like Stuntman Mike. Rodriguez and Tarantino play with the conventions of exploitation films, and it was often true in those films that once you got beyond the T&A factor the women were bolder and more capable than the women portrayed in mainstream Hollywood films.
Despite being slightly over three hours long, I never once felt bored by Grindhouse and I had one hell of a good time. It's good trashy fun and never pretentious. It not only fully lives up to all the hype, it exceeds it. Highly recommended, especially for fans of the kinds of films it's a homage to.
[4.5 out of 5 stars]
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